The Gaming Den

Okay, taking it up from Frank's concept:

FrankTrollman wrote:If I had to do the Wizard from scratch I would straight up drop the whole specialist schools nonsense. The Wizard specialized in Necromancy would just be a Dread Necromancer, full stop. Then I'd give him two sets of spells/day. The first one would cast as a Sorcerer, and would have mostly Divinations in it. They shouldn't be preparing identify or clairvoyance - that shit should just happen. All the basic logistical crap should be on that list too: Secret Page I am looking at you. But the second part is hard. It should be a very large list of spells that make a big difference when you prepare them: Dimension Door, Charm Monster, and Evard's Black Tentacles are obvious inclusions. Next, Wizards should have a set of "at will slots" that they can fill up with bullshit that I don't care if they use at will. A first level Wizard could prepare Burning Hands or Shocking Grasp into that slot and then just spam it to his heart's content. And finally, they'd want some Magical Enhancements to prepare - they would have a level dependent number of slots that they'd fill with buffs, and then they'd have those buffs running on them or the party all the time.

...let's see how it goes.

The Wizard (Revised)

Hit Die: d4; BAB: Poor; Saves: Will Good
Skills: (2+Int Bonus) Concentration, Craft, Decipher Script, Knowledge (any), Profession, Spellcraft.

Class Features
Proficiencies (Level 1): Wizards are proficient with Clubs, Daggers, Light Crossbows, Heavy Crossbows, and Quarterstaff.
Spellcasting (Level 1): The Wizard is an Arcane Spellcaster. At 1st level, a Wizard can cast 1st-level spells, and at each odd-numbered level after that, they gain the ability to cast spells of the next-highest level. The DC of a Wizard's spells is Intelligence-based, but they do not get bonus spell slots for having a high Intelligence. A Wizard can prepare spells following 8 hours of rest, and the preparation itself takes 1 hour.
Spells Known (Level 1): At 1st level a Wizard knows (3+Int Mod) 1st-level spells from the various Wizard spell lists below. Each time a Wizard gains a level, they learn 2 new spells from those lists of any level they can cast. Wizards can also learn spells on their various lists from Scrolls of those spells. These spells are recorded in a spellbook which the Wizard needs in order to prepare spells.
Major Spells (Level 1): At 1st level, and at each level afterwards, a Wizard gains 1 Major slot of the highest spell level they can currently cast. When a Wizard prepares spells, they can prepare Major spells of the appropriate level that they know into these slots. Once a Major spell is cast, the slot it occupied is unavailable until the Wizard prepares spells again.
Utility Spells (Level 1): At 1st level, and at each level afterwards, a Wizard gains 1 Utility slot of the highest spell level they can currently cast. Wizards can cast Utility spells they know without preparing them ahead of time, provided that a Utility slot of appropriate level is available. Used Utility slots become available again when the Wizard prepares spells.
At-Will Spells (Level 1): At 1st level, and at each level afterwards, a Wizard gains 1 At-Will slot of the highest spell level they can currently cast. When a Wizard prepares spells, they can prepare At-Will spells of the appropriate level that they know into these slots. Spells in at-will slots can be cast over and over.
Buff Spells (Level 1): At 1st level, and at each level afterwards, a Wizard gains 1 Buff slot of the highest spell level they can currently cast. When a Wizard prepares spells, they can prepare Buff spells they know of the appropriate level into these Slots. Once a Buff spell is cast, the slot it occupied is unavailable until the Wizard prepares spells again, but the spell's duration is extended until that time as well.

That's pretty much the whole thing, except of course, for the hard part: the actual spell lists. I'm only throwing in a few here and now, but will add more when I have more time. Propose additions! Major spells in particular needs to be a big long list.

Wizard Major Spells:
1st: Color Spray, Grease, Sleep.
2nd: Blindness/Deafness, Glitterdust, Web.
3rd: Deep Slumber, Major Image, Stinking Cloud.

Wizard Utility Spells:
1st: Comprehend Languages, Detect Magic, Identify.
2nd: Detect Thoughts, Locate Object, See Invisibility.
3rd: Arcane Sight, Clairaudience/Clairvoyance, Secret Page.

Wizard At-Will Spells:
1st: Animate Rope, Feather Fall, Magic Missile, Ventriloquism.
2nd: Gust of Wind, Knock, Levitate.
3rd: Daylight, Fireball,

Wizard Buff Spells
1st: Enlarge Person, Expeditious Retreat, Mage Armor.
2nd: Blur, Furry's Ability Score, Spider Climb.
3rd: Fly, Haste, Water Breathing.


Okay, it's my first time, be harsh.

I see too many slots. At level 6 you will have 2/2/2 in Major, Utility, At-will and Buff. Even with Utility being spontaneous, thats still 18 decisions to make every time you wake up compared to 12 with the current system. They also seem to be able to cast 6-8 third level spells as compared to 2 with the current system. Whatever needs doing to the Wizard I don't think a power up is it.

Compare to other Tome classes like the Warlock - at level 6 it has at most expert access to one sphere. This gives it 3 at-will abilities, plus its hellfire blast. This Wizard has 6 at-will abilities plus a load of spells.

Try reducing the number of slots. A new slot progression is needed in my opinion - maybe one per level for utility, 1 per 2 levels for Major and Buff and 1 per 3 for At Will?

I'd call them "lesser arcana", "greater arcana", "wards" (baybe not the best word, but sounds more magical than "enhancement" or "buff"), and "rituals". For whatever reason I get annoyed by over-use of the phrase "at-will".

They should also get a cantrip ability at 1st level that cleans stuff and makes pigeons and funny lights.

As far as weapon proficiency, I don't see an overwealming reason restrict them to light and heavy crossbows rather than just "crossbows". The damage to a game caused by a wizard using a repeating hand crossbow probably won't be too severe.

You could just give out one major arcana per spell level. That might be a little weak, but with auto-heightening it might actually be too good.

Something like this: Which really looks like this: At 4th level, compare 8 spell slots to the 7 (9 if specialist) +4 cantrip slots of a normal wizard.

Now, depending on how things scale, giving 9 at-will slots might be dumb. You could just give out 2, which can be filled from anywhere up to the maximum castable spell level, because nobody is normally going to be using lower-level at will spells. Alternatively, you could give out some scaling (but less than 1/spell level) number of slots, and mandate that no more than one slot can be occupied by a spell of a given level.

And then there's the option of turning formerly greater arcana into lesser arcana. I wouldn't bother, as you're bound to run into problems and ultimately scaling might be easier.

CatharzGodfoot wrote: "wards" (baybe not the best word, but sounds more magical than "enhancement" or "buff"),

"Charms"?

Except that "charms" are enchantment spells, e.g., charm person, and that's going to create a lot of confusion.

Archmage wrote:Except that "charms" are enchantment spells, e.g., charm person, and that's going to create a lot of confusion.

As most magical terms have been co-opted by D&D at some point it may be difficult to find something unique. I mean, a short rundown of applicable terms you could conceptualise as long lasting magic effects might be:

[*]Enchantments
[*]Glamours
[*]Runic / Tattoo magic
[*]Charms / Talismans
[*]Spellbound
[*]Ensorcellment
[*]Alchemy

Most of these have some kind of prior association. Its mainly a case of picking one that doesn't jump out at you as already being something else. I'd say if it was concepted as the buff being tied to an actual physical charm that is given to the recipient that might be different enough to a charm spell that it wouldn't seem too similar.

I am in two minds about this overhaul. On the plus side it gives a Mage something to do in all situations and means they don't have to waste "proper" slots on Arcane Sight. On the negative side, forcing every Wizard to take the same number of buff spells, divinations and fire-and-forget-spells kind of makes all mages somewhat samey. I personally feel that the Wizard class as currently written is too general and would like something that forces some kind of focus on the class.

For example, a Warrior currently chooses some feats that fit the character conception and that combined with their class becomes their Schtick. A barbarian may pick two Axes and Whirlwind attack and be a berserk damage dealer, or a Knight takes a Sword and a Shield and Elusive Target and tanks. A Wizard can wake up one morning and memorise all summon spells to be the Pokemaster, then the next day Gish it up with Wraithstrike and Stoneskin, then the next break out the SoD and battlefield control spells. It gets all the Schticks as it needs them. While thats awesome from a mechanical point of view it makes it hard to justify a more limited character concept. If I want to play an Elemental Fire mage, their is no mechanical justification for me just picking Fire-themed spells. If I am a Necromantic Skeleton Master there is no reason I can't just start spamming Glitterdust and Fly one day.

I think Frank referenced this in this thread:

Frank Trollman wrote:Adding artificing to 3e is pretty difficult for the same reason that adding psionics is: the major casting classes are all incredibly incestuous and reuse each others' spell effects left right and center. Ad they get extra spells in just about every supplement worthy of the name (of all the "Completes", I think only Warrior managed to forgo the temptation to write a new Wizard spell). The result of this is that if you're playing a Wizard, Cleric, Druid, or even a Bard you have access to over a thousand spells. When you make a new power system, it will necessarily feel paltry and small - even if it gets a third of a large book like Incarnum or Warlock Invocation; frankly even if it gets 2 or three whole books to itself like Psionics.

Magic in 3e, especially preparation magic, is basically too useful to have much of a place left over for other power sources. A Wizard can already do "anything" including read minds and make robots, so what purpose is there in being a Psionic or Clockwork guy instead? This is part of (although by no means the only part) the body of evidence that leads us to discount Fighters and Paladins as guys who can play the same game once the prep casters get access to enough stuff.

But that's a problem of the main casters being too widely defined. And it's a well examined and understood problem. What if instead we were comparing them to the narrow casters like Dread Necromancer, or Warmage; or one of the 4e classes for that matter? Those classes only have like 70 things on their whole list. That's something that you could totally fit complete into one sourcebook, or even the core books if you were so inclined.
...
If I had the manpower to put together a whole new edition of D&D, I would scrap all the basic casters. And I would bring in the specialty casters as the new standard (Dread Necromancer, Beguiler, Summoner, Elementalist, Warmage, Paladin). And that would free up so much space that you would have room for additional specialists like the Artificer, the Telepath, the Totemist, and the Warlock.

Now, I'm not saying I want my Wizards to have some kind of gimped half-ability where they just cast magic missile every round, but even a focussed specialist wizard gets 5 schools of magic, and this is meant to be a limited character concept! This also leads to balance issues - the Wizard is already at the upper limit of the power level, however to make a variant that has less versatility you have to give it more power. So either it has less options than the Wizard but the same power and sucks, or it has less options but more power and breaks the game at whatever it is doing.

What about if mages got access to more schools as they went up levels? Start with, say, 3 and gain one every third level? Maybe the schools just need to go away. Whilst they kind of fit into rough types of effects there is a lot of bleed-over which makes some schools better than others. Possibly splitting them into something more "gamey" might work better from a balance standpoint. If a Mage had to choose between Pokemaster or Battlefield Controller as a character concept would they be worthless?

Just as a caveat, I really like playing focused specialists, and feel that restricting normal 3e wizarding to focused specialists (and true cherry picking to sorcerers) would actually be a good thing.

However, I'm under no illusion that restricting the number of schools a character has access to actually restricts anything, especially if they gain access to more schools as they level (coincidentally, that's also when they start gaining more spells known and actually care about multiple schools). Unlike the other Keith, I have nothing against 'feeling like I'm cheating'.

School of magic doesn't mean anything, either. There's a bit of game mechanics to it: evocation is direct damage, mostly, while Abjuration has most of the defenses, but for some reason Mage Armor is Conjuration. Then there's Necromancy, which does everything, but in a creepy bad-guy way.

As for the problem where all Wizards have exactly the same number of effects in each pile, that can be fixed by having a certain number of free-floating slots that can be put in one or another. Balancing this is tricky, though, since being able to trade at-wills for dailies is inherently unbalanced: if you have one at-will that works, you have a level-appropriate action available, while the major dailies are supposed to let you turn a battle with them, so the optimal solution is to take just enough at-wills that you'll always have one to use when you need one, and dump the rest on dailies.

Really, we have four piles of abilities, here:
Fallback abilities: Usable at will. You fall back on these when you don't have anything better to do (your At-wills).
Flavor abilities: Let you do things your supposed to be able to do because your a Wizard. Out of combat utility powers. Use once (your Utilities).
Awesome abilities: Usable to win battles. Use once (your Dailies).
Passive abilities: Usable all the time without doing anything (your Buffs).

If a set-up is balanced by restricting how much of one the wizard has, allowing them to trade to get more of that is going to unbalance them.

Trading away Fallback abilities to Awesome abilities allows you to trade versatility for endurance. Since your endurance generally only needs to last a certain amount of time, being able to last longer directly translates to more power.

Trading Fallback abilities for Flavor abilities gets you more endurance in situations where you have to be wizardly at the expense of versatility. This may be balanced if flavor abilities suck enough; I might seriously choose between being able to cast both Magic Missile and Polar Ray at will, or only one and an additional Comprehend Languages.

Trading away Fallback abilities for Passive powers lets you trade versatility for vertical power. This is bad. Bad bad bad. Don't do it.

Trading away Flavor abilities for anything except Fallback abilities is overpowering.

Trading away Awesomes for Fallback or Flavor abilities will probably never happen; it'll be going the other way. You might concievably want to trade Awesome and Passive abilities, with a limit (since the trade-off here is in vertical power; more passives makes your baseline higher; more awesomes gives you more spikes).

So I can see a situation where you have a certain number of abilities in each category, but you can also make a certain number of trades, moving a slot from At-will to Utility or vice versa, and from Daily to Buff or vice versa.

Core wizard 'rituals'. Spells in square brackets are questions, either because they're bad ass or might fight in another category better. There are plenty of broken or dumb spells still included.

0th: Arcane Mark, Detect Poison, Detect Magic, Read Magic.

1st: Alarm, Comprehend Languages, Erase, [Floating Disc], Identify, Magic Aura, [Unseen Servant].

2nd: Arcane Lock, Continual Flame, Knock, Locate Object, Magic Mouth, Obscure Object, Phantom Trap, Rope Trick, Whispering Wind.

3rd: [Arcane Sight], Clairaudience/Clairvoyance, Gentle Repose, Illusory Script, Secret Page, Sepia Snake Sigil, [Shrink Item], Tiny Hut, Tongues, Water Breathing.

4th: [Animate Dead], Detect Scrying, Fire Trap, Hallucinary Terrain, [Locate Creature], [Minor Creation], Remove Curse, Scrying, Secure Shelter.

5th: Break Enchantment, Contact Other Plane, Dream, [Fabricate], [False Vision], [Lesser Planar Binding], Mage's Private Sanctum, [Major Creation], Mirage Arcana, [Nightmare], [Passwall], Permanency, Secret Chest, Sending, [Symbol of Pain], [Symbol of Sleep].
6th: Analyze Dweomer, [Control Weather], Guards and Wards, Ledgend Lore, [Symbol of Fear], [Symbol of Persuasion].

7th: [Greater Arcane Sight], Greater Scrying, Instant Summons, Mage's Magnificent Mansion, Phase Door, [Simulacrum], [Symbol of Stunning], [Symbol of Weakness], Vision.

8th: Antipathy, Binding, Clone, [Create Greater Undead], Discern Location, Screen, [Symbol of Death], [Symbol of Insanity], Sympathy.

9th: Astral Projection, Freedom, Refuge.

It's a little difficult to say what should be utility as I don't know what you consider fair for an at-will. How about we list all the level one spells and assign them a type, then use that as a basis for the remaining spells?

So, assuming Lesser Arcana = At Will, Major Arcana = Spell, Ward/Charms = Buff, Ritual = Utility

Alarm: Ritual
Endure Elements: Ward
Hold Portal: Ritual
Protection from Chaos/Evil/Good/Law: Ward
Shield: Ward
Grease: Major
Mage Armor: Ward
Mount: Ritual
Obscuring Mist: Ward
Summon Monster I: Major
Unseen Servant: Ritual
Comprehend Languages: Ritual
Detect Secret Doors: Ritual
Detect Undead: Ritual
Identify: Ritual
True Strike: Major
Charm Person: Major
Hypnotism: Major
Sleep: Major
Burning Hands: Lesser
Magic Missile: Lesser
Shocking Grasp: Lesser
Tenser’s Floating Disk: Ritual
Illus Color Spray: Major
Disguise Self: Major
Nystul’s Magic Aura: Ritual
Silent Image: Major
Ventriloquism: Lesser
Cause Fear: Major
Chill Touch: Lesser
Ray of Enfeeblement: Major
Animate Rope: Lesser
Enlarge Person: Ward
Erase: Ritual
Expeditious Retreat: Ritual
Feather Fall: Lesser
Jump: Lesser
Magic Weapon: Ritual
Reduce Person: Major

Is there anything in there that you can see could cause problems?

Sorry, I won't be able to respond much until like Tuesday, but I have a moment here, so...

Red_Rob wrote:It's a little difficult to say what should be utility as I don't know what you consider fair for an at-will.

An At-Will is a spell where you seriously do not give a care if someone spams it one fantasticatillion times. Magic Missile is a thing which is occasionally worth your action, so it qualifies.

Why should Reduce Person and True Strike be Major? I'd see them more as a Ward and Lesser respectively, though they'd be among the better ones in these categories.

Protestion from [Alignment] might be problematic with an always-on protection from charms and compulsions. Also, Enlarge should probably be bumped up a level in such a setup.

schpeelah wrote:Also, Enlarge should probably be bumped up a level in such a setup.

In retrospect, I think a lot of buffs may want to be bumped up a level for this class.

schpeelah wrote:Why should Reduce Person and True Strike be Major? I'd see them more as a Ward and Lesser respectively, though they'd be among the better ones in these categories.

I suppose True strike could be a Ritual. Reduce person is kind of a Save or Suck against Melee monsters so I was just thinking about people filling up their utility spell slots with additional combat effects - something I was under the impression these were not intended for.

schpeelah wrote:Protestion from [Alignment] might be problematic with an always-on protection from charms and compulsions. Also, Enlarge should probably be bumped up a level in such a setup.

I was worried about the effects of some of the buffs becoming full day duration but Enlarge? Really? It gives you, in total:
[*]+2 str
[*]Weapon size increase - average +1 or 2 damage
[*]10' reach
[*]-1 AC
[*]-1 to hit
[*]-2 Dex

So, your looking at a sum total of +2 to 3 damage and +5' reach for -1 AC and -2 Dex. I'm just not seeing this as a major boost even at low levels. I suppose the reach is nice but is it really something worth a level 2 slot?

Red_Rob wrote:I was worried about the effects of some of the buffs becoming full day duration but Enlarge? Really? It gives you, in total:
[*]+2 str
[*]Weapon size increase - average +1 or 2 damage
[*]10' reach
[*]-1 AC
[*]-1 to hit
[*]-2 Dex

So, your looking at a sum total of +2 to 3 damage and +5' reach for -1 AC and -2 Dex. I'm just not seeing this as a major boost even at low levels. I suppose the reach is nice but is it really something worth a level 2 slot?

Well for starters it gives +4 Str.

So it end results to +1 to hit, +3-7 damage, +5ft reach, +4 to a bunch of checks, and -2 to AC.

Neither of those boosts are unbalanced (relative to the norm) being always on. They're minute/level buffs, which either means that you're on a very short workday (smart), or you run around killing as many things as you can after you cast them. Making the fighter big until you next rest is a very good use of your abilities, but it's nothing new to a wizard.

Note that by the progression I gave makes all buffs effectively 1/2 spell level higher, but that's more to spread things out than to mitigate any unbalancing effects.

Kaelik wrote:Well for starters it gives +4 Str.

So it end results to +1 to hit, +3-7 damage, +5ft reach, +4 to a bunch of checks, and -2 to AC.

Really?

d20SRD wrote:This spell causes instant growth of a humanoid creature, doubling its height and multiplying its weight by 8. This increase changes the creature’s size category to the next larger one. The target gains a +2 size bonus to Strength, a -2 size penalty to Dexterity (to a minimum of 1), and a -1 penalty on attack rolls and AC due to its increased size.

A humanoid creature whose size increases to Large has a space of 10 feet and a natural reach of 10 feet. This spell does not change the target’s speed.

It seems the spell has a specific description that overrules the normal size increase rule to me.