The Gaming Den

What the hell is with Squishy Wizards? Why do people feel that wizards should have a d4 hit die? it's absurd. My friend wrote up a feat with basically a reserve feat like effect at 12th level, which can do 6d4 fire damage when you get the ability in an area.

The only person who gives a shit about 12 damage at 12th level, is a wizard who has no protection, whose average hp (assuming con 10) is 31.

what the fuck?

Squishiness isn't even a balancing factor, anyhow, unless you expect people to be knocked out of combat via hit point loss frequently - as in, more than once per battle.

-Crissa

What the hell is with Squishy Wizards? Why do people feel that wizards should have a d4 hit die?

Because wizards need to be vulnerable to being stabbed in the face. It's the balancing factor for them being able to manipulate reality. Too bad it didn't work out that way in 3e.

I think it got started because wizards are supposed to be academics and not exercise or something.

It didn't work out in 3e because they consciously made design decisions that made wizards' squishiness matter less than in previous editions. In 2e, if a wizard took 1 point of damage during the casting of a spell, the spell was wasted. In 3e, the Concentration skill means that squishiness only comes into play when the wizard runs out of hit points, resulting in the situation Crissa described.

Edit: This was a direct response to PR's post, not Maxus'.

Skill points and hp should be the same across the board. Wizards will--possibly have more of the former and fewer of the latter because of their ability scores, while fighters will probably have the inverse.

But balancing classes based on how easy it is to kill them with hp damage is A) stupid (if you can manipulate reality and you choose to go adventuring, wouldn't the first way you'd manipulate reality is to give yourself more survivability?); and B) meaningless by about level 9 (when the game becomes rocket launcher tag anyway).

Every PC class should just get a flat d8 or d10 hp/level and a flat 6-8 skill points a level. Differentiate them with class features instead of their unspoken ability to have hit the gym or attended community college before the game began.

Better yet, give everyone the same amount of HPs and have them differ in damage reduction or defense rolls or whatever. That way, cure spells work the same for everyone.

Absentminded_Wizard wrote:It didn't work out in 3e because they consciously made design decisions that made wizards' squishiness matter less than in previous editions. In 2e, if a wizard took 1 point of damage during the casting of a spell, the spell was wasted. In 3e, the Concentration skill means that squishiness only comes into play when the wizard runs out of hit points, resulting in the situation Crissa described.

That, and in 2E (and prior?), non-warriors had their HP boost from Con capped at +2 per die, so they always were stuck with low HP. Also, that was assuming you had a 16 Con.

In 3E, a 16 Con already breaks that (+3 HP per die), and it's not that hard to boost your Con further. You're already getting more HP from your Con than from your crappy d4 Hit Die on average at that point.

You all are doing it wrong. See, the problem isn't 'low HD means squishiness' it's 'relying on HP alone means squishiness'.

Case in point: Fighters have a D10 HD, and are one of the easiest classes to make go splat. Why? Because they really don't have anything going for them except HP, so everything either slices straight through, or around it for a super quick death.

That didn't happen in earlier editions, because your physical defense was actually on the RNG (and was fairly good, at that) and your saves were also either the highest of all classes, or very close to it across the board giving you solid magic defense. And things didn't do too much damage for the most part, so even though you only had like 70 HP at level 10, things were lucky to be able to 3 round you if everything they did hit because their attack sequence was like 2d8 1d12 1d12 or something.

A stupid wizard (oxymorons at their finest) would quickly die, because they aren't doing any of the things that get between enemies and their not big enough HP pools. Fighters go splat a lot because they cannot prevent this. So even though Wizards very easily can meet or exceed Fighter HP totals, that is not the real point here.

Yeah, but didn't fighters have better saves back then? I could be wrong, as I don't have my 2E books anymore.

RobbyPants wrote:Yeah, but didn't fighters have better saves back then? I could be wrong, as I don't have my 2E books anymore.

Yes, so wizards are stuck doing lame stuff like turning turnips into purple worms or creating armies of simulacrums. Sob.

Obviously, people(ie, non-denners) would bitch if all classes suddenly got the same die-type, or flat hp (levelXcon mod/level?) or something.

But what if there was a baseline of, say, d8, with a variance of one die up or down? So burly fightan man classes get d10, "squishy" wizards and sneaksy rogues get d6, etc.

Relatedly, what about skill points? Using a baseline of 6, and a 2-point variance up or down?

No, my high save comment was to Roy, but I reread what he wrote and realized he already commented on that.

Prak_Anima wrote:Obviously, people(ie, non-denners) would bitch if all classes suddenly got the same die-type, or flat hp (levelXcon mod/level?) or something.

But what if there was a baseline of, say, d8, with a variance of one die up or down? So burly fightan man classes get d10, "squishy" wizards and sneaksy rogues get d6, etc.

Relatedly, what about skill points? Using a baseline of 6, and a 2-point variance up or down?

Some things I think a modern RP system should not have:

- hit dice to roll hps instead of some kind of fair, flat progression
- con mods to hp, int mods to skillspoints, especially if for some classes, int is used for casting or con is used for attacks, while for others its practically useless except for the side effects.
- situations where dice rolls are hugely different in their importance - rolling stats or hitpoints will have a single roll affect you forever.

Thinking about it, someone should make a Guild Wars PnP RPG. Guild Wars seriously had the best combat system, like...ever. Of course, some things would not be directly transferrable, but still...

Prak_Anima wrote:Obviously, people(ie, non-denners) would bitch if all classes suddenly got the same die-type, or flat hp (levelXcon mod/level?) or something.

But what if there was a baseline of, say, d8, with a variance of one die up or down? So burly fightan man classes get d10, "squishy" wizards and sneaksy rogues get d6, etc.

Relatedly, what about skill points? Using a baseline of 6, and a 2-point variance up or down?

You could, but without a more meaningful defense than HP it's just a smokescreen.

Now adjusting skill points up is going somewhere. Trouble is skills are still narrow as fuck with very few exceptions. You could have 10 skill points a level and still be able to actually DO very little.

Consider, Bluff, Diplomacy, and Intimidate all do the same thing (persuade people to do what you want) but in different ways (one by lying to them, one by making it seem to be in their best interests, one by making it seem to be in their continued well being). But that's 3 different skills. And then you need Sense Motive so every Tom, Dick, and Harry isn't pulling a fast one on you. Four skills, just to 'talk to people and get them to do what you want'.

Or Hide/Move Silently/Listen/Spot just for basic scouting. Etc.

If you don't throw some skills together, 8 points is only actually giving you two things you can do (scout, and talk). Then you remember the level 3 Wizard has Invisibility, Charm Person, and his choice of whatever the fuck else and you are very sad.