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10 months ago ::
Aug 25, 2012 - 8:20PM
#71
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Date Joined:
Aug 17, 2007
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A couple of points - the current playtest wizards and fighters are pretty well balanced - against solo encounters the fighter outdamages the wizard and an optimized wizard geared towards only dealing damage does more damage to larger groups. Most wizards in my experience are not only geared out with damage spells so that is most likely not a problem.
The wish spell never seemed unbalanced in my experience. If you used it to mimic a high level spell it is as balanced as those spells. If you used it to do something else the DM was free to twist and bend the effects however they wanted. In fact with that in mind most people I have gamed with over the last 20 or so years have been reluctant to use wishes.
I do think the burning hands spell is a little overpowered for a 1st level spell and should perhaps be 3d4 damage instead of 4d4 but that is fairly minor. The fireball and lightning bolt spells, once the mainstay for most wizards until they reach 11th level or so in my experience are much more moderate and balanced in the current playtest.
In short I do not see the problem yet. I can see some need for minor adjustments, like burning hands above and probably arc lightning (may need to deal slightly more damage to the secondary target), but no major breaking points for the 5 levels we see so far.
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10 months ago ::
Aug 25, 2012 - 8:54PM
#72
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The thing is, Vancian casting has never been too broken at low levels.
And the signs of problems to come are already here.
The rate of spell buildup is going to have to drop off dramatically if Wizards aren't going to reach "a Vancian spell for every round" quite early.
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10 months ago ::
Aug 25, 2012 - 9:24PM
#73
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Why question Gygax's decision to put Wish in the game in the first place? Besides, Wish is available at the highest levels..not at the lowest. At the highest levels, fighters would be blessed by divine powers to become demigods, otherwise they can't become superhuman.
Because I think Gygax wasn't exactly a good game designer? I don't like quite a lot of things that originated from his pen, far as I know. Wish is one of them. I also continue to disagree with your position, mostly because I like my fantasy to not be "I am Wizard, I win!".
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10 months ago ::
Aug 25, 2012 - 9:45PM
#74
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Date Joined:
Sep 17, 2007
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Why question Gygax's decision to put Wish in the game in the first place? Besides, Wish is available at the highest levels..not at the lowest. At the highest levels, fighters would be blessed by divine powers to become demigods, otherwise they can't become superhuman.
So do you think spell disruption should be back in the game as well? As in the wizard's cosmic power melts away for the round from a kobold with a sling and a good initiative roll? Also do you think wizards should be able to pick their own spells instead of having to depend on dm whim for new ones? Unless your answers are yes the first question and no to the second you shouldn't be relying on Gygax for your arguments since you want the brakes he placed on wizards to be removed.
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10 months ago ::
Aug 25, 2012 - 10:08PM
#75
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Date Joined:
May 14, 2012
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Why question Gygax's decision to put Wish in the game in the first place? Besides, Wish is available at the highest levels..not at the lowest. At the highest levels, fighters would be blessed by divine powers to become demigods, otherwise they can't become superhuman.
So do you think spell disruption should be back in the game as well? As in the wizard's cosmic power melts away for the round from a kobold with a sling and a good initiative roll? Also do you think wizards should be able to pick their own spells instead of having to depend on dm whim for new ones? Unless your answers are yes the first question and no to the second you shouldn't be relying on Gygax for your arguments since you want the brakes he placed on wizards to be removed.
I do like the brakes that Gygax placed on wizards as well as all of the spells that were in the First Edition. So yes, spell disruption should be in the game.
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10 months ago ::
Aug 25, 2012 - 10:09PM
#76
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Date Joined:
May 14, 2012
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A couple of points - the current playtest wizards and fighters are pretty well balanced - against solo encounters the fighter outdamages the wizard and an optimized wizard geared towards only dealing damage does more damage to larger groups. Most wizards in my experience are not only geared out with damage spells so that is most likely not a problem.
The wish spell never seemed unbalanced in my experience. If you used it to mimic a high level spell it is as balanced as those spells. If you used it to do something else the DM was free to twist and bend the effects however they wanted. In fact with that in mind most people I have gamed with over the last 20 or so years have been reluctant to use wishes.
I do think the burning hands spell is a little overpowered for a 1st level spell and should perhaps be 3d4 damage instead of 4d4 but that is fairly minor. The fireball and lightning bolt spells, once the mainstay for most wizards until they reach 11th level or so in my experience are much more moderate and balanced in the current playtest.
In short I do not see the problem yet. I can see some need for minor adjustments, like burning hands above and probably arc lightning (may need to deal slightly more damage to the secondary target), but no major breaking points for the 5 levels we see so far.
I agree with you on this, Ardisiankhaine.
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10 months ago ::
Aug 25, 2012 - 10:16PM
#77
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Date Joined:
Oct 26, 2004
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The problem with casters in 3e came from three big issues.
The full-attack rules gimped a lot of weapon user builds right out of the gate, especially at higher levels where they actually had extra attacks to use.
Spells scaled on a quadratic progression, i.e. many got better as you leveled, and you got more of them (sometimes a lot more).
Finally there was spell bloat. Each book would bring out a dozen or more new spells and that wasn't including the ones aimed at casters which could easily include a hundred or more. This made classes like the cleric, druid, and wizard who had the easiest access to new spells incredibly versatile and potent.
5e already seems to be working on fixing one and two, so that leaves three. See this is the one that caused a lot of the real problems what happened was that there were so many spells with so many effects that no one who wasn't a mage could bring unique contributions to the party, heck a few of the necromancers and constuct creators could actually MAKE better fighters and rogues than the people playing actual fighters and rogues.
So since making new spells still seems like it's gonna be easier than making new feats or themes/specialties/whatever they're gonna call them in november, we have to prepare for the expansion of the spell lists, and the best way to do that is to make the classes actually choose a focus or foci.
Thus the wizard would have a few core spells that deal with enforcing the flavor of the wizard as a magical scholar, and then the class would provide additional spells based on your chosen focus. So you could go fire-wizard all the way and learn every fire spell ever crafted and a few only ever imagined, or you could branch out a lot and be a swiss army wizard with dozens of differnet types of spells but lacking your colleague's endless array of ways to kill people via internal or external combustion.
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10 months ago ::
Aug 25, 2012 - 10:22PM
#78
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Date Joined:
Apr 14, 2004
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I have no problem with Wotc releasing "Tome of broken spells that might just ruin your game" somewhere down the line but it probably shouldn't be in the players handbook.
This.
Count me in as another who thinks this is the way to go.
Some spells which some players will want to have in their games are irretrievably broken for general play.
Add another in for this. Honestly, I'd like to stab the vacian system with a wooden stake like the vile beast it is but sadly it seems we're stuck with it.
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10 months ago ::
Aug 26, 2012 - 12:17PM
#79
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Date Joined:
Aug 28, 2007
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these are characteristic points (as per the point-buy system)
well you have the idea: to compensate for unbalance at high-levels, the fighter has got better stats...
A problem with this idea: My group doesn't use point buy. We roll for stats. So what do you propose then?
the problem with stats roll is when people have bad luck their character would be like bullshit as compared to say a lucky fellow;
idem for hit point rolling
well in fact with only one roll you could end up with either strong or weak characters
(actually I am a bad luck comrade)
back to the topic:
the idea was to deal fighters/rogues and non-spell using characters a trade off, so that your character will have two 18 or the like...
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10 months ago ::
Aug 26, 2012 - 12:26PM
#80
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The wish spell never seemed unbalanced in my experience. If you used it to mimic a high level spell it is as balanced as those spells. If you used it to do something else the DM was free to twist and bend the effects however they wanted. In fact with that in mind most people I have gamed with over the last 20 or so years have been reluctant to use wishes.
This is false. In fact, if Wish was limited exclusively to "Wish for something and let the GM try to **** you out of it", the ability isn't even that bad. What makes Wish/Miracle so potent is that it can be used to spontaneously cast any spell ever by using a higher level spell slot. This is particularly obtrusive in the case of Miracle where you don't even have an experience cost associated with that use.
Seriously the #1 issue with vancian casters is their insane versatility in terms of the various different things their spells can accomplish. Their only real limitation is they can only do so many of these things in a given day. Wish/Miracle are explicit ways to bypass that one limitation and letting them cast spells they didn't prepare. So even when they get caught totally off guard, they can just wish the problem fixed. Wish/Miracle are prime examples of broken spells because they say "Hey you know that limitation you have on your ultimate cosmic power? It doesn't exist anymore", trying to say that that effect is balanced is ignorant in the extreme.
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