Underpowered Mundanes or Overpowered Magic - Which is worse?

[Kuroimaken]

LOTR? Wizards on top again.

TO be fair those aren't exactly wizards.

Also to be fair, they have a damned hard time getting anything done.

No wonder! Everybody's blowing them so hard it must be difficult to stand on two feet, let alone direct people to greatness.

[Benly]

LOTR? Wizards on top again.

TO be fair those aren't exactly wizards.

Also to be fair, they have a damned hard time getting anything done.

No wonder! Everybody's blowing them so hard it must be difficult to stand on two feet, let alone direct people to greatness.

Clearly they are the folkloric basis for the category of theoretically-optimal no-fun-to-play wizard who spends all day in his pocket dimension layering Contingencies, frothing in personal paranoia, and casting Contact Other Plane until the GM gives up and tells him what to do rather than going out and adventuring.

[dark_samuari]

LOTR? Wizards on top again.

TO be fair those aren't exactly wizards.

They're the archetypal wizards.

The fact that it was back in the days when class and race were the same thing is beside the point.

Everything about the LOTR Wizards screams divinity, the only comparative aspect towards D&D archetypal wizards is the fact that they are referred to as wizards.

If anything Merlin is more akin to the D&D archetypal wizard, and even he is probably more like a Druid rather than an arcane spell caster.

[Midnight_v]

LOTR? Wizards on top again.

TO be fair those aren't exactly wizards.

Also to be fair, they have a damned hard time getting anything done.

 


No wonder! Everybody's blowing them so hard it must be difficult to stand on two feet, let alone direct people to greatness.

Clearly they are the folkloric basis for the category of theoretically-optimal no-fun-to-play wizard who spends all day in his pocket dimension layering Contingencies, frothing in personal paranoia, and casting Contact Other Plane until the GM gives up and tells him what to do rather than going out and adventuring.

  That makes so much sense, if it was meant as sarcasm it fails. lol 
I mean that really is kinda whats up in many a way.

[Benly]

  That makes so much sense, if it was meant as sarcasm it fails. lol 
I mean that really is kinda whats up in many a way.

I'm only half sarcastic. It makes sense, but bear in mind also that this kind of behavior is why the Istari were considered to have failed at their tasks.

[Mixster]

1-Not D&D wizards. Fireball was actually quite effective back on 1e and 2e (HP was much lower for everything). And if you look at the majority of the book arts, you see the wizards shooting  energy blasts of some kind.

My favorite spell back in 2nd edition was levitation. A 2nd level spell, if the opponent is outside and doesn't save against the spell. He will get lifted until he is up high enough to die from falling damage. Then you seize concentration.
Splat!

It was a second level save or die spell, that didn't work on flying monsters.

Fireball actually wasn't that useful against monsters, since they had lots of HP, it was the players who had scrawny and low HP.

However, get enough fireballs out there and it can still be useful, if you for example made an entire party who used fireball, you could pretty much nuke an entire encounter to death. That was quite fun as well.

In 1st and 2nd edition monsters had low HP too. A Frost Giant had around 40 or something. Fireball averages 35 before counting vulnerability. Boom!

In 3rd on you're absolutely right. But Evocation spells became iconic because they actually fucking worked at one point. Only problem is they don't anymore, but are still talked about as if they do. Which leads to people walking into traps.

Looking over them again, yeah you are right. I now wonder why I never used Fireball in second edition.

Maybe I just thought save or dies were better back then.

I also think there is the common misconception that a wizard is someone who logs around great balls of fire, which might stem from 2nd edition, but could also just stem from movies and such.

A complete game overall should probably fix that as well. But I don't think it matters much.

[Kuroimaken]

My sketch for the samurai is up.

[Amadi]

LOTR? Wizards on top again.

TO be fair those aren't exactly wizards.

Also to be fair, they have a damned hard time getting anything done.

No wonder! Everybody's blowing them so hard it must be difficult to stand on two feet, let alone direct people to greatness.

Clearly they are the folkloric basis for the category of theoretically-optimal no-fun-to-play wizard who spends all day in his pocket dimension layering Contingencies, frothing in personal paranoia, and casting Contact Other Plane until the GM gives up and tells him what to do rather than going out and adventuring.

 I resent your decision to lump these characters under the no-fun tag based simply on personal preference.

I, for one, enjoy being the DM.

[Bloody Initiate]

LOTR? Wizards on top again.

TO be fair those aren't exactly wizards.

They're the archetypal wizards.

The fact that it was back in the days when class and race were the same thing is beside the point.

The LoTR wizards were actually outsiders. They're described as just appearing in the world and meddling in the affairs of men, their powers are never explained, and they first appeared as old men without aging afterward.

While the "class and race" thing makes perfect sense, in 3.5 they could be described pretty adequately as outsiders.

I only mention it because when I think of a 3.5 wizard I DON'T think of LoTR wizards, specifically because they ARE more like outsiders.

[veekie]

LOTR? Wizards on top again.

TO be fair those aren't exactly wizards.

They're the archetypal wizards.

The fact that it was back in the days when class and race were the same thing is beside the point.

The LoTR wizards were actually outsiders. They're described as just appearing in the world and meddling in the affairs of men, their powers are never explained, and they first appeared as old men without aging afterward.

While the "class and race" thing makes perfect sense, in 3.5 they could be described pretty adequately as outsiders.

I only mention it because when I think of a 3.5 wizard I DON'T think of LoTR wizards, specifically because they ARE more like outsiders.

The Maiar were basically Solars weren't they?

[Bloody Initiate]

LOTR? Wizards on top again.

TO be fair those aren't exactly wizards.

They're the archetypal wizards.

The fact that it was back in the days when class and race were the same thing is beside the point.

The LoTR wizards were actually outsiders. They're described as just appearing in the world and meddling in the affairs of men, their powers are never explained, and they first appeared as old men without aging afterward.

While the "class and race" thing makes perfect sense, in 3.5 they could be described pretty adequately as outsiders.

I only mention it because when I think of a 3.5 wizard I DON'T think of LoTR wizards, specifically because they ARE more like outsiders.

The Maiar were basically Solars weren't they?

Something like that, but now I'm pretending to know more than I do. I never read all of Silmarillion, but a refresher course on wikipedia has confirmed that Gandalf and the others were lesser kin of the entities that cared for the world, which sounds like a Solar. Sauron was also a Maiar.

A little bit of a refresher and it's all coming back . Good stories.

[Gods_Trick]

They be Solars PoA'd into something mostly human.  But spellcasting in LotR sucks by D&D standards, even for Solars. I'd say the Wizards were more like an odd Factotum, their knowledge is a big part of their power. Saruman studied the Rings, Gandalf studied ... hobbitology 

Sauron was a Maiar too but never got gimped. So hes a Solar that has Necromancer and Artificer levels.

[Kuroimaken]

They be Solars PoA'd into something mostly human.  But spellcasting in LotR sucks by D&D standards, even for Solars. I'd say the Wizards were more like an odd Factotum, their knowledge is a big part of their power. Saruman studied the Rings, Gandalf studied ... hobbitology 

Sauron was a Maiar too but never got gimped. So hes a Solar that has Necromancer and Artificer levels.

Gandalf stupied Hobbit Pot.

[Sunic_Flames]

The issue is more that, as advertised, you shouldn't HAVE to dip in order to get a reasonably competent melee fighter who's a fighter.  Flavor is mutable, yes, but you shouldn't have to mutate around basic assumptions(that fighters can fight) just to do basic gaming.

Well, and wizards are suposed to blast away with nukes, but if you pick magic missile and fireball instead of the control spells and uber buffs, then good luck beating any CR apropriate ecounter

I wouldn't be so sure on that. At level 7 sudden maximized empowered scorching ray does 48+4d6, so ~62.
This is about 1/2 of a CR 7s hp. So if he can survive an attack and a full attack he should be sitting decent.

Yeah, but then his metamagic is done for the day.

Metamagic CAN work, just not like you demonstrate. Having 1/day use of something that'll drop a creature to half hitpoints is the epitome of unimpressive. A fighter wielding a high-crit weapon will likely turn out more damage than that in one hit multiple times a day.

The scorching ray can be naturally empowered, the sudden was mainly just for the maximize. I just did the basic optimization on the blasting. It could of bumped the caster level to 11 for another 31 points of damage. So it would be 90ish round 1 and 63 round 2. So 2 rounds to kill the thing instead of 3.

Sorry but that is a horrible example of effective metamagic, I feel like you were being sarcastic and I missed it because sarcasm just doesn't work in text.

EDIT: I'm convinced you were joking. "If he can survive an attack and a full attack" is what tipped me off. Sorry for not reading it right the first time.

Not really joking, but more of a statement that wizards are capable of surviving that sort of thing pretty easily and reliably, unlike some people. *Glares at fighter*

I guess that means you have to optimize somewhere. Whether its throwing out good spells to kill people or using conjurer variant, miss chances and an AC of about 30 at level 7  to live.

Two rounds, vs a routine encounter. Which means win init or die, literally.

1-Not D&D wizards. Fireball was actually quite effective back on 1e and 2e (HP was much lower for everything). And if you look at the majority of the book arts, you see the wizards shooting  energy blasts of some kind.

My favorite spell back in 2nd edition was levitation. A 2nd level spell, if the opponent is outside and doesn't save against the spell. He will get lifted until he is up high enough to die from falling damage. Then you seize concentration.
Splat!

It was a second level save or die spell, that didn't work on flying monsters.

Fireball actually wasn't that useful against monsters, since they had lots of HP, it was the players who had scrawny and low HP.

However, get enough fireballs out there and it can still be useful, if you for example made an entire party who used fireball, you could pretty much nuke an entire encounter to death. That was quite fun as well.

In 1st and 2nd edition monsters had low HP too. A Frost Giant had around 40 or something. Fireball averages 35 before counting vulnerability. Boom!

In 3rd on you're absolutely right. But Evocation spells became iconic because they actually fucking worked at one point. Only problem is they don't anymore, but are still talked about as if they do. Which leads to people walking into traps.

Looking over them again, yeah you are right. I now wonder why I never used Fireball in second edition.

Maybe I just thought save or dies were better back then.

I also think there is the common misconception that a wizard is someone who logs around great balls of fire, which might stem from 2nd edition, but could also just stem from movies and such.

A complete game overall should probably fix that as well. But I don't think it matters much.

Save or dies actually sucked back then. Static saves. No save, just die though? Alive and well. Pre 3rd edition = DNS edition. That's Death, No Save.

[lans]

The issue is more that, as advertised, you shouldn't HAVE to dip in order to get a reasonably competent melee fighter who's a fighter.  Flavor is mutable, yes, but you shouldn't have to mutate around basic assumptions(that fighters can fight) just to do basic gaming.

Well, and wizards are suposed to blast away with nukes, but if you pick magic missile and fireball instead of the control spells and uber buffs, then good luck beating any CR apropriate ecounter

I wouldn't be so sure on that. At level 7 sudden maximized empowered scorching ray does 48+4d6, so ~62.
This is about 1/2 of a CR 7s hp. So if he can survive an attack and a full attack he should be sitting decent.

Yeah, but then his metamagic is done for the day.

Metamagic CAN work, just not like you demonstrate. Having 1/day use of something that'll drop a creature to half hitpoints is the epitome of unimpressive. A fighter wielding a high-crit weapon will likely turn out more damage than that in one hit multiple times a day.

The scorching ray can be naturally empowered, the sudden was mainly just for the maximize. I just did the basic optimization on the blasting. It could of bumped the caster level to 11 for another 31 points of damage. So it would be 90ish round 1 and 63 round 2. So 2 rounds to kill the thing instead of 3.

Sorry but that is a horrible example of effective metamagic, I feel like you were being sarcastic and I missed it because sarcasm just doesn't work in text.

EDIT: I'm convinced you were joking. "If he can survive an attack and a full attack" is what tipped me off. Sorry for not reading it right the first time.

Not really joking, but more of a statement that wizards are capable of surviving that sort of thing pretty easily and reliably, unlike some people. *Glares at fighter*

I guess that means you have to optimize somewhere. Whether its throwing out good spells to kill people or using conjurer variant, miss chances and an AC of about 30 at level 7  to live.

Two rounds, vs a routine encounter. Which means win init or die, literally.

Not necessarily, with the AC of 30 and a 50% miss chance they should be taking about 1/4 of the damage from full attacks. There are other spells to disrupt the enemy, like the block spell that create a block infront of the guy charging you, or invisibility to get some distance, or other things.

Plus wizards should be winning initiative more often than not.

[Bloody Initiate]

Plus wizards should be winning initiative more often than not.

Why exactly? The wizard you showed spent all his feats on metamagic not improved initiative, so he's relying on dex and maybe a couple spells like sign or nerveskitter, but the way you've talked about him doing all these things he's pissing away spells per day.

I know the fighter sucks, and I know the wizard is PWN, but a level 7 fighter is better at taking hits than a blasting wizard, which is the wizard you're talking about.

You've spent spells to get your AC to 30 at a level where magic items aren't necessarily that easy to stock up on, you've also bumped your miss chance up, so let's a assume a minimum of 2 spells (Not sure which ones). 2 spells to win initiative more often than not. 2 spells Invisibility and "block" where the enemy targeted you and you wanted to avoid that.

So you've spent SEVEN (two protective buffs, 2 initiative winners, one control spell, improved invisibility, and scorching ray) spells buffing and protecting yourself to do HALF damage to an enemy in an ECL 7 encounter with one of your highest level slots... when you could've just let your fighter (Whose effectiveness is in decline but not obsolete yet) and whoever else you have in your group do most of the lifting?

Your improved invisibility and protective buffs will last a bit longer, but you're out 4 spells that will not help you later in the day.

The wizard IS PWN, but that's not how I'd play one, and I don't even know the spell lists well. With 18-19 intelligence you've spent half your spells for the day on one encounter, maybe you'll get two out of the buffs. You could've dropped a nasty debuff (like glitterdust, blind is a game-winning status condition, especially at that level) and maybe hasted someone and you would've been done with the encounter in the same amount of time for fewer spells.

That is not basic optimization on blasting.

I understand you probably wouldn't play a wizard like that either, but my point is that I think you failed to make your point.

I remember the way I used to test characters I made would be to run them against monsters in the MM privately. So my lvl 7-8ish TWFer could solo a lot of the ECL 7 encounters, and had a hard time with the ECL 8s. Why would you spend so many of your spells when your fighter doesn't suck so badly yet?

[lans]

Its the solo test vs an equal CR encounter, if he was with a party he wouldn't need to have his defenses as high and could let the fighter give and take a few hits before he played dead.

[Sunic_Flames]

So how does this blaster actually have the defenses you claim? Sure, a smart Wizard could do it. The smart ones aren't pewpewpewing, they're casting real spells.

[lans]

So how does this blaster actually have the defenses you claim?

 Sure, a smart Wizard could do it. The smart ones aren't pewpewpewing, they're casting real spells.

I know, I had a sentence mentioning that.

With no defenses a caster could walk backwards spamming ice storm until he did the sudden empowered maximized scorching ray. But that has the problem of only working on things that don't move over 40, maybe 50.

Though that's more battle field control lite.

[Mixster]

Actually IMO, fireball isn't that bad.

Sure it deals less damage than a fighter with a sword, and sure, it doesn't win encounters on it own, but it is good for one thing. Killing opponents that are already caught by your Battlefield Control spells. Yes other things does this better, but not many things a wizard actually picks. Most of the spells a wizard pick that deal directly with enemies need you to see where they are, and doesn't like concealment.
I've actually run into trouble a few times where My solid fog hit my enemies, but since I couldn't see them I couldn't do much to them, except for running away or plastering them with more spells.
Black Tentacles handles the damage which is why it is my favorite spell. But all in all you need some dual threat for when you have locked down your enemies. Cloudkill is also useful if you can get it to not flow away, and your enemies aren't immune to poison or ability damage.