This came up in our last gaming session (Pathfinder) with a new player (a guy who only played 4e) joing our crew.
The guy was worried because after one fight (early in the session) the wizard and cleric used up most of their combat spells. Another player said "don't worry, this was propably the only fight of the night". The guy got up and left saying vancian sucked (I guess he was familiar with the forums).
What is up with that? Do we really need mechanics for more than one fight per in game day (and by that I mean in game weeks)?
OP, What your describing is the thing that I don't like vancian. The casters dominated combat and the new player felt left out. Now the player gets to look farward to either never having a chance to shine in combat or shining in a combats that are less dire/heroic because he isnt capable enough mechanical. Having your chance to be awesome detirmined by the casters being out of spells or being in fights deemed not worth a spell sucks.
So I would say yes there does need to be different mechanics, but not because of multiple fights, but because if there aren't multiple fights then only the casters get to enjoy combat.
Imagine a world where the first-time D&D player rolls stats, picks a race, picks a class, picks an alignment, and buys gear to create a character. Imagine if an experienced player, maybe the person helping our theoretical player learn the ropes, could also make a character by rolling ability scores and picking a race, class, feat, skills, class features, spells or powers, and so on. Those two players used different paths to build characters, but the system design allows them to play at the same table. -Mearl
I enjoy a pure Vancian tradition. Give me weapons when I forget my spells and I will kill with Grognard grit. Beats pew pew atwills. That said I did create a 100% atwill tradition based on Presto from the cartoon.
So you like a game where the Wizard gets to decide some things aren't important enough for him to make a serious effort, and the less important people can handle it. Fair enough. I assume you're also fine with the other players sitting back and leaving you to deal with things when they can't be bothered too as well.
How did you reach that conclusion? If they are out of spells they aren't going to sit back and cheerlead. They will fight, bandage, and maybe use cantrips to pretend like they are casting or bombs for AOE. What I'm saying is I'm fine with a spell cast at a lotr or AD&D pace and avoid spam atwills just so a low level mage can adhere to this ocd ideal of doing something magical 24/7
I enjoy a pure Vancian tradition. Give me weapons when I forget my spells and I will kill with Grognard grit. Beats pew pew atwills. That said I did create a 100% atwill tradition based on Presto from the cartoon.
So you like a game where the Wizard gets to decide some things aren't important enough for him to make a serious effort, and the less important people can handle it. Fair enough. I assume you're also fine with the other players sitting back and leaving you to deal with things when they can't be bothered too as well.
How did you reach that conclusion? If they are out of spells they aren't going to sit back and cheerleader. They will fight, bandage, and maybe use cantrips to pretend like they are casting or bombs for AOE. What I'm saying is I'm fine with a spell cast at a lotr or AD&D pace and avoid spam atwills just so a low level mage can adhere to this ocd ideal of doing something magical 24/7
Hmm.. Exactly how often did your wizard pick up his darts, dagger, or staff and wade into combat? Or, if you're a 3e player, his Crossbow (which was itself a concession to the "wizards suck at weapons" crowd from AD&D who complained bitterly that darts and daggers were not good enough fallbacks for when they were out of spells).
I mean, seriously? Did you *ever* do this? and if so, did your wizard survive the experience?
Ok, so here are my experiences in the Vancian systems of D&D... At low levels *everyone* pretty much sucks. The Fighter is combat king since he's got the AC and HPs to actually surivive one or two hits (although, that time I rolled a 2 on my first d10 hit die.. not so much). The Wizard shines once a day, and then he's a commoner with a blunt stick. At first level, that's no big, since no one is much better than a 1st level commoner. Some people like it that way.
I mean, at 1st level everyone's accuracy is pretty bad, and the d20 swinginess means that almost everyone has a similar chance of hitting and missing with their weapons -- even if you're not a "weapons guy".
But by the time you're 6th level, that disparity between THAC0 / BAB for the wizard and fighter is getting larger. And in 3E, chances are good that there are attribute enhancing items that the Fighter and Wizard have invested in to make them better at their specialties.. So the Wizard has +INT, the FIghter +STR and this means that the Wizard is getting comparitively very much worse with his weapons than the fighter. (And then there's the multiple attacks for higher level fighters / BAB classes ).
So I'm struggling to understand how you could possibly "grognard up" with your weapons into combat and not be .. at best .. a distracting bag of hit points? (beyond about 3rd level anyway) . You won't be "killing it with grognard grit" in any game that I've ever been involved with. Faking a big spell by casting a cantrip? Bandaging? These are not effective contributions.
That's not to say you didn't or can't have fun playing a commoner in a party. But I don't think you can argue you were being very effective when you ran out of spells.
1. Wizards should be firing off spells left and right in combat. 2. Wizards should be the nuke you bring out only when necessary, and conserve his strength so that he's effective for more than one fight.
Your friend likely falls into Group 1.
There's really no resolving it, very few people are ever going to switch groups.
You absolutly can resolve it. Mainly, by having 2 different version of the wizard/spells/slots/whatever. If you do it right, you can have a wizard in between too.
IMO, i'd go with "Putting this spell (schorcing ray) in a higher level slot (level 5) let's you use it as an encuonter power (regain it after 10 minutes)".
F-111 Interdictor Long (200+ squares) distance ally teleporter. With some warlord stuff. Broken in a plot way, not a power way. Thought Switch Higher level build that grants upto 14 attacks on turn 1. If your allies play along, it's broken. Elven Critters Crit op with crit generation. 5 of these will end anything. Broken. King Fisher Does an excellent job at keeping an enemy disabled in a few ways. Strong. Boominator Fun catch-22 booming blade build with either strong or completely broken damage depending on your reading. Very Distracting Warlock Lot's of dazing and major penalties to hit. Overpowered. Pocket Protector Pixie Stealth Knight. Maximizing the defender's aura by being in an ally's/enemy's square. Yakuza NinjIntimiAdin: Perma-stealth Striker that offers a little protection for ally's, and can intimidate bloodied enemies. Very Strong. Chargeburgler with cheese Ranged attacks at the end of a charge along with perma-stealth. Solid, could be overpowered if tweaked. Void Defender Defends giving a penalty to hit anyone but him, then removing himself from play. Can get somewhat broken in epic. Scry and Die Attacking from around corners, while staying hidden. Moderate to broken, depending on the situation. Skimisher Fly in, attack, and fly away. Also prevents enemies from coming close. Moderate to Broken depending on the enemy, but shouldn't make the game un-fun, as the rest of your team is at risk, and you have enough weaknesses. Indestructible Simply won't die, even if you sleep though combat. Sir Robin (Bravely Charge Away) He automatically slows and pushes an enemy (5 squares), while charging away. Hard to rate it's power level, since it's terrain dependent. Death's Gatekeeper A fun twist on a healic, making your party "unkillable". Overpowered to Broken, but shouldn't actually make the game un-fun, just TPK proof. Death's Gatekeeper mk2, (Stealth Edition) Make your party "unkillable", and you hidden, while doing solid damage. Stronger then the above, but also easier for a DM to shut down. Broken, until your DM get's enough of it. Domination and Death Dominate everything then kill them quickly. Only works @ 30, but is broken multiple ways. Battlemind Mc Prone-Daze Protecting your allies by keeping enemies away. Quite powerful. The Retaliator Getting hit deals more damage to the enemy then you receive yourself, and you can take plenty of hits. Heavy item dependency, Broken. Dead Kobold Transit Teleports 98 squares a turn, and can bring someone along for the ride. Not fully built, so i can't judge the power Psilent Guardian Protect your allies, while being invisible. Overpowered, possibly broken Unnamed Avenger|Runepriest/Hammer of Vengance Do lot's of damage while boosting your teams. Strong to slightly overpowered. Charedent BarrageA charging ardent. Fine in a normal team, overpowered if there are 2 together, and easily broken in teams of 5. Super Knight A tough, sticky, high damage knight. Strong. Super Duper Knight Basically the same as super knight, only far more broken. Mora, the unkillable avenger Solid damage, while being neigh indestuctable. Overpowered, but not broken. Swordburst Maximus At-Will Close Burst 3 that slide and prones. Protects allies with off actions. Strong, possibly over powered with the right party.
I enjoy a pure Vancian tradition. Give me weapons when I forget my spells and I will kill with Grognard grit. Beats pew pew atwills. That said I did create a 100% atwill tradition based on Presto from the cartoon.
So you like a game where the Wizard gets to decide some things aren't important enough for him to make a serious effort, and the less important people can handle it. Fair enough. I assume you're also fine with the other players sitting back and leaving you to deal with things when they can't be bothered too as well.
How did you reach that conclusion? If they are out of spells they aren't going to sit back and cheerleader. They will fight, bandage, and maybe use cantrips to pretend like they are casting or bombs for AOE. What I'm saying is I'm fine with a spell cast at a lotr or AD&D pace and avoid spam atwills just so a low level mage can adhere to this ocd ideal of doing something magical 24/7
Hmm.. Exactly how often did your wizard pick up his darts, dagger, or staff and wade into combat? Or, if you're a 3e player, his Crossbow (which was itself a concession to the "wizards suck at weapons" crowd from AD&D who complained bitterly that darts and daggers were not good enough fallbacks for when they were out of spells).
I mean, seriously? Did you *ever* do this? and if so, did your wizard survive the experience?
Ok, so here are my experiences in the Vancian systems of D&D... At low levels *everyone* pretty much sucks. The Fighter is combat king since he's got the AC and HPs to actually surivive one or two hits (although, that time I rolled a 2 on my first d10 hit die.. not so much). The Wizard shines once a day, and then he's a commoner with a blunt stick. At first level, that's no big, since no one is much better than a 1st level commoner. Some people like it that way.
I mean, at 1st level everyone's accuracy is pretty bad, and the d20 swinginess means that almost everyone has a similar chance of hitting and missing with their weapons -- even if you're not a "weapons guy".
But by the time you're 6th level, that disparity between THAC0 / BAB for the wizard and fighter is getting larger. And in 3E, chances are good that there are attribute enhancing items that the Fighter and Wizard have invested in to make them better at their specialties.. So the Wizard has +INT, the FIghter +STR and this means that the Wizard is getting comparitively very much worse with his weapons than the fighter. (And then there's the multiple attacks for higher level fighters / BAB classes ).
So I'm struggling to understand how you could possibly "grognard up" with your weapons into combat and not be .. at best .. a distracting bag of hit points? (beyond about 3rd level anyway) . You won't be "killing it with grognard grit" in any game that I've ever been involved with. Faking a big spell by casting a cantrip? Bandaging? These are not effective contributions.
That's not to say you didn't or can't have fun playing a commoner in a party. But I don't think you can argue you were being very effective when you ran out of spells.
I know you asked him..but I'd like to give my impression as when I played early levels with my wizard.
First I had enough int to cast 1'st level spells at least 3 times a day (if not more).
I also used ingame time off to scribe scrolls, was honestly what much of my money share went to early on. My character also had a good amount in the different knowledges and would often provide the party with various important information regarding the situation we were in. Information the party wouldn't have had otherwise, able to point out enemy weakpoints, able to know what exactly that writing on the ancient thingamajig said...and tell the party that it was pointing out a trap.
For actual in combat fun? I had access to a spell called jet of steam (burning hands..but didn't do damage to objects and attacked in a line) which was my main 'damage' spell...I also sometimes had magic missile. But my chars big fun schtick? Rapid Enlarge Person. Rapid so I could cast it in one round..I had enough focus on transmutation I applied rapid for free. And it was ruled I could scribe the spell in that way as well (so I had scrolls of it, bwaa ha ha). So my honest big tactic..that I would usually have memed at least twice a day...was to point to the fighter (or grappler..depending) and go "you, kill them all". And I got to enjoy watching as the fighter got better because of a spell I cast..and they wrecked all sorts of butt due to a spell I cast. I watched as the grappler grappled, overwhelmed, and pinned foes he normally couldn't...because of a spell I cast.
And sometimes I'd see the sitation wasn't right for enlarging...such as when we were fighting giant ants in an ant tunnel...at that point my wizard made a name for himself...as I ran infront of the party, and took a sweet jet of steam, that brought all of the enemy ants down a ton of hitpoints. Most of the party thought that was kind of ballzy for my wizard to do that...but on my side..well I just trusted the party to do what they did..which was to run in and kill the ants in a single round..again because of a spell I cast.
And if a spell wasn't the right answer? I had a trusty one handed crossbow I could pull out, and ping off a few shots. Mind you that was rarely the right answer...and mostly I'd only pull it out when it was obvious the party could win without my characters spell use..so I'd save the spell for a later battle.
As we leveled up my char only got more fun...as the amount of times I could buff a day went up. Also I got the item creation skills...so I would often make items to give to others...and I'd carry most of my own wealth in pearls of power (a small amount of liquid held on hand for important use...but I crafted at the cost npcs would buy from us at..so if a town was big enough I could trade pearls of power like I could money..yay dual use). Meanwhile I'd continue buffing my allies..applying the right spell to turn the tide of battle
Saddly the game ended to give 4e a chance..before my character came into his true power...taking a prestige class that would let me store spells in a special 'weave' and I could swift action to dump all stored spells onto specially marked allies. And i could also cast single target buff spells onto all allies also so marked (either by dumping from the weave, or casting directly)
I also had a higher level druid..but with the group I played with there was a common theme. Sure you could have a spell to take out enemies...and hope to get around resitances and/or SR...but you were actually much better off to either use spells without a save, or with partial save (druids with entangle..wall of thorns, etc). And otherwise buff the non-casters, as the combined power generally multiplied not added when uses in such a way..and you got much more milage out of your spellslots that way. And could easily turn the tide of battle with a well placed buff/control spell..than you would if you did a direct attack..or save/die spell.
Hmm.. Exactly how often did your wizard pick up his darts, dagger, or staff and wade into combat? Or, if you're a 3e player, his Crossbow (which was itself a concession to the "wizards suck at weapons" crowd from AD&D who complained bitterly that darts and daggers were not good enough fallbacks for when they were out of spells).
I mean, seriously? Did you *ever* do this? and if so, did your wizard survive the experience?
Ok, so here are my experiences in the Vancian systems of D&D... At low levels *everyone* pretty much sucks. The Fighter is combat king since he's got the AC and HPs to actually surivive one or two hits (although, that time I rolled a 2 on my first d10 hit die.. not so much). The Wizard shines once a day, and then he's a commoner with a blunt stick. At first level, that's no big, since no one is much better than a 1st level commoner. Some people like it that way.
I mean, at 1st level everyone's accuracy is pretty bad, and the d20 swinginess means that almost everyone has a similar chance of hitting and missing with their weapons -- even if you're not a "weapons guy".
But by the time you're 6th level, that disparity between THAC0 / BAB for the wizard and fighter is getting larger. And in 3E, chances are good that there are attribute enhancing items that the Fighter and Wizard have invested in to make them better at their specialties.. So the Wizard has +INT, the FIghter +STR and this means that the Wizard is getting comparitively very much worse with his weapons than the fighter. (And then there's the multiple attacks for higher level fighters / BAB classes ).
So I'm struggling to understand how you could possibly "grognard up" with your weapons into combat and not be .. at best .. a distracting bag of hit points? (beyond about 3rd level anyway) . You won't be "killing it with grognard grit" in any game that I've ever been involved with. Faking a big spell by casting a cantrip? Bandaging? These are not effective contributions.
That's not to say you didn't or can't have fun playing a commoner in a party. But I don't think you can argue you were being very effective when you ran out of spells.
The wizard could rack kills with darts in AD&D. You could throw or blow three around and dip them in poison. I’m for the liberal use of poison. Losing the ability to shoot multiple arrows and throw multiple darts a round hurt the wizard more than any class. It was more difficult to disprupt their spells so they had to be dumb down. This was their opertunity to attack more than once a round so their role as a spell disrupter was lost.
The Crossbow was a silly concession. It’s a relatively easy weapon to use. It should have been a rudimentary weapon from the beginning. In combination with 0 level spells, extra slots, and the ability to take an early level in a martial class it was ok. Neither option is significantly weaker than the current atwill spam however they gave the class some personality. I would compare it to Christopher Nolan’s take on Batman. Without casting time, spell failure, spell flux there is an implication of sacrifice. That sacrifice is part of a tradition that can cast fewer spells flawlessly. It’s a gritty relation. Once a day the 1st level wizard can significantly alter reality and do so flawlessly. Maybe a few times a day they can slightly alter reality. Beyond that they are a poor man’s rogue. How poor of a man depends on what rules you use. Take the most effective from previous aditions and it trumps atwill damage cantrips ie more than a commoner.
Hmm.. Exactly how often did your wizard pick up his darts, dagger, or staff and wade into combat? Or, if you're a 3e player, his Crossbow (which was itself a concession to the "wizards suck at weapons" crowd from AD&D who complained bitterly that darts and daggers were not good enough fallbacks for when they were out of spells).
I mean, seriously? Did you *ever* do this? and if so, did your wizard survive the experience?
Ooh, storytime. I'll just stick with three for now, because they are the most memorable ones at the moment.
1) I'm currently playing a paladin in a Pathfinder adventure path. We're sent in to clear out a monastery full of unknown monsters, and the first encounter is kicking our butts (incidentally, the reason I will always hate the disadvantage mechanic - the enemies are trivial little imps, with an aura of unluck that makes everyone else roll 2d20 and take the lowest); that encounter went on for three hours, during which time the wizard burned all of her spells to minimal effect (they have SR 5, but you have to roll twice for it). After that, we had four more encounters before resting - the last one was the highest CR, and interrupted the party trying to sleep. There have been zero complaints from the wizard player.
2) I was also recently running a 4E game. During a fight with a large dragon, the wizard PC was unfortunate enough as to get caught within its reach (as the tank was busy taking a dirt nap). Since the dragon could attack at 10 feet, and there were very few party members left standing, he had to decide between provoking an opportunity attack (either from a ranged attack, or from moving out of reach in order to make a ranged attack), or making a melee attack with his staff. He took the bash option, eventually bringing the dragon down with his third swing (as it tried to flee).
3) Some years ago, I was playing in a 3.5 game full of power-gamers. There was a full-on CoD-zilla and a half-ogre who was somehow size Huge. I was the newcomer to the game, so in the interest of saving time, I just made my Healer (class) character take the Vow of Poverty (which turned out to be a huge mistake, since everyone else had an old 3.0 Armor of Speed that gave an extra standard action every round). During one encounter around level 12 or so, we were fighting a huge color-changing reality-altering aberration, which dropped the ogre with ... I think it might have been charisma damage ... before it ate the Cleric and ran away. Deprived of any allies upon whom to spend my healing spells, I used my sling to take a shot at the horror before it could get away... which caused it to explode upon being reduced to zero damage, thus rescuing the paralyzed-but-not-quite-dead Cleric and saving the day.
Maybe I would... I don't know, I've just never had an experience even close to this. I've been plenty annoyed, but as I said before I've only played with close friends. When we have an issue it's typically resolved relatively quick. I guess if it was strangers, maybe so. I've played lots of pick-up games in warhammer, and dealt with some pretty funky stuff. Never had to bust out on that either.
Ah, if internal conflict resolution is swift and mature then the stewing and snarking part is pretty much moot. Oh if only poly-layer skin were a common trait in the hobby.
I have an answer for you, it may even be the truth.
You absolutly can resolve it. Mainly, by having 2 different version of the wizard/spells/slots/whatever. If you do it right, you can have a wizard in between too.
A great theory, but the hobby has way too many players with paper-thin immersion-sense and the complete inability to cope with cognitive dissonance.
