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Kris the Grey
Senior Scribe
USA
422 Posts |
 Posted - 15 Feb 2013 : 03:26:32
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Fellow Scribes,
For the past two years I have been running a campaign set in the pre-Spellplague Realms. Although I have played an assortment of editions, I cut my DMing teeth on 2nd Edition. Since I started the campaign in 2010 and I was DMing a new group of people (half of whom had never played D&D), I decided I'd 'get with the times' and play a more modern version of the game. I'll readily confess to not being a fan of 4E, so I decided I'd go with Pathfinder.
Pathfinder is a good system, and I have been consistently impressed with the quality of materials they have put out. However, as my characters have progressed from 1st level to an average of 10th I've noticed that Pathfinder has it's flaws when it comes to simulating play with a Realms feel. Most particularly, I just don't get the same feel from PC and NPC wizards that I recall from years of reading and running the 2E 'classic' Realms.
The classic 2E wizard (of the levels I'm dealing with) would be a terror throwing fireballs or lightning bolts around the battlefield and would rely on defenses like stoneskin or ironguard to keep him (or her) safe. They still be pretty fragile if a warrior got in close, but these combined tactics were their bread and butter. Warriors and rogues alike would fear area of effect spells hurled by wizards and would alter their combat tactics accordingly to avoid being hit by them.
In Pathfinder, the wizards I've been running throw their fireballs or lightning bolts (and other classic damage spells) only to see warriors shrug through them and rogues roll out of their way taking little to no damage. I have to rely on specialization, magical feat chains, exotic rays, and the like in order to do serious damage. What's more, even though warriors now have their power attacks and rogues their sneak attacks (that they can use almost all the time), those wizardly defense spells now blunt very little of that damage.
I get that the editions have their own take on mages and magic. They are different systems with a different focus and a different approach to combat. The Pathfinder approach just doesn't feel 'Realmsy' enough to me. My petty Zhent wizardlings and my haughty Red Wizards have had to toss out their wands, drop their AoE spells, and focus on their five foot steps.
Anyway, I'm kind of far down the pike here, so I can't just convert systems (and Pathfinder really isn't a bad system). So, I've been pondering ways to make Pathfinder a bit more classic Realmsy when it comes to magic. So far, I've considered scaling both AoE damage and defenses like stoneskin in a manner not unlike resist energy scales (d6 damage for casters level 1-5, d8 for 6-10, and d10 for 11 and above for AoEs and DR/10, then DR/20, then DR/30 for stoneskin as a wizard climbs in level).
I figure I am not the only one to face this dilemma, so I thought I'd ask all of you...what have you done with your Pathfinder Realms home rules to give things a bit more of that classic feel?
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Kris the Grey - Member in Good Standing of the Watchful Order of Magists and Protectors, the Arcane Guild of Silverymoon, and the Connecticut Bar Association |
Edited by - Kris the Grey on 15 Feb 2013 03:28:15
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Kentinal
Great Reader
4685 Posts |
Posted - 15 Feb 2013 : 04:06:32
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In part it could be games you played under 2nd, Thief always had back stab that could take out a Wizard even at 10th level with one good hit. Clearly could prevent a spell being completed. The Fighter always had high hit points in order to take some spell damage before closing in to stop a Wizard.
3.x though did have a concern about balance so indeed nerfed the Wizard as to killing spells, they also nerfed other classes in someways in order to have class levels of the same level have the same chance of winning. 3.5 clearly tried to address again balance between classes, Pathfinder (sometimes referred to as 3.75) was their reaction to 4th Edition gaming license, as best I can tell still seeks a balance on all levels of classes. |
"Small beings can have small wisdom," the dragon said. "And small wise beings are better than small fools. Listen: Wisdom is caring for afterwards."
"Caring for afterwards ...? Ker repeated this without understanding.
"After action, afterwards," the dragon said. "Choose the afterwards first, then the action. Fools choose action first."
"Judgement" copyright 2003 by Elizabeth Moon |
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The Arcanamach
Master of Realmslore
1842 Posts |
Posted - 15 Feb 2013 : 06:49:00
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Have to say that I agree with the OP. Even since 2e there has been a move to nerf magic (magic missiles limited to 5 and fireballs limited to 10 dice) and this trend has continued. 3e further nerfed magic and Pathfinder did the same (look at the wall of force, for instance). I think wizards still have the overall advantage but they have to be more careful about spell selection nowadays...which can hamper a players concept for their spellcaster.
As for the Realmsian 'feel' under 3.5e and Pathfinder you are 100% correct. It's just not the Realms I grew to love under 2e. My response was to largely use the 2e spells with some modification. For instance, forcecage keeps its original duration from 2e and force effects can't be brought down with damage (a concept brought in by Pathfinder). I much prefer magic to be a VERY powerful force in my campaigns...both as a player and as a DM. |
I have a dream that one day, all game worlds will exist as one. |
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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist
USA
11691 Posts |
Posted - 15 Feb 2013 : 17:19:19
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just some ideas here. Red wizards... yeah, they don't have the spell selection, but they can use their circle to make a spell up to 20th lvl. Using heighten this can make some save or die spells, well...... deadly. Are some of the defensive spells a little easier to get around? Yep, stoneskin and ironguard aren't nearly as effective when the fighter is wielding an adamantine weapon or a weapon that's not affected by ironguard (as the case may be). However, simple effects like fly and protection from normal missiles can help SOME. Spells that make you invisible or out of phase in combat also help. The idea is for the wizard to not necessarily go toe-to-toe with the warriors, but rather make themselves harder to reach. If the fighter flies up to reach the wizard.... dispel their flight and watch them drop. Doing this from high up can be devastating. Other ideas, look at the different spell "spell storing/programming" feats like contingent spell, the one for gems, persistent spell, etc....
Are wizards less devastating than 2nd edition? yes.... and they need to be. The amount of stuff I could do with Sleyvas in 2nd edition was too powerful. The amount of stuff a lich-drow could do on the other hand with the same magic became earth shattering as a result, even against archmages. |
Alavairthae, may your skill prevail
Phillip aka Sleyvas |
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Hoondatha
Great Reader
USA
2449 Posts |
Posted - 15 Feb 2013 : 19:52:06
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Wizards are just as powerful in 3e (and Pathfinder) as they were in 2e, they're just powerful in different ways. You are completely correct that 3e nerfed direct damage spells. In almost all cases, doing direct damage as a wizard is not the optimal way of helping the party. There are (very) few exceptions.
Instead, wizards focus more battlefield control, buffing, and save-or spells. Properly prepared, a wizard will wipe the floor with any other class (though a properly-played cleric or druid will give them a run for their money). Learn a variety of spells of different kinds that target different things, then cast them depending on what you're facing.
Don't hit the enemy fighter with a fireball. Hit him with charm person (bad will save), and then have him carve up his buddies. Hit the rogue with sleep (also bad will). Hit everyone with enervation (make it harder for them to resist follow-ups). Use fly and greater invisibility to stay hidden and away. And that's just stuff from the PHB. It gets much, much worse if you add splatbooks.
In case you're curious, here's a link to a guide to being a terrifying mage. A little less blasty than 2e, but still terrifying:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=104002 |
Doggedly converting 3e back to what D&D should be...
Sigh... And now 4e as well. |
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Diffan
Great Reader
USA
4427 Posts |
Posted - 15 Feb 2013 : 19:59:14
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Wizards (and other full-spellcasting classes) don't make for good straight damage classes in 3E/PF games. Their true power lies in effects and spell that by-pass HP altogether. For example, Cloudkill + Hold Person = Death and doesn't even touch their HP directly. Or how about Dominate person or Magic Jar because I like taking over people's willpower and making them commit suicide. Other good ones are Baleful Polymorph (*bampf* your now a snail), enervation, phantasmal killer, and Evard's Black tentacles which are all accessible by Wizard level 10th and require little in the ways of feats or magic items to be useful. Really, a wizard has dozens of "I win encounter" buttons that its a bit ridiculous
Then you get into optimization and it just gets unplayable by 13th level. Time Stop, Gate, Reverse Gravity, Forcecage, Irrestible Dance, Meteor Swarm, Prismatic Sphere.....and that's just the PHB. you start getting to spells from the Spell Compendium and....well.....it's powerful for classes at those levels. Add in Metamagic feats and feats that help bypass Spell Resistance or increase their Saving Throw and its not difficult to understands ones complaints that magic-users are broken at mid- to high- levels in 3e and Pathfinder. |
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Hoondatha
Great Reader
USA
2449 Posts |
Posted - 15 Feb 2013 : 20:03:33
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| Yeah, high level wizards in 2e played rocket launcher tag. High level wizards in 3e play bend reality to my will (also available in 2e flavor!). |
Doggedly converting 3e back to what D&D should be...
Sigh... And now 4e as well. |
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Diffan
Great Reader
USA
4427 Posts |
Posted - 15 Feb 2013 : 20:31:55
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quote:
Originally posted by Hoondatha
Yeah, high level wizards in 2e played rocket launcher tag. High level wizards in 3e play bend reality to my will (also available in 2e flavor!).
Agreed. Thank goodness I found out about E6. Wizards fireball is still powerful and their spells are Fantastic but they're not without their limits and Warrior classes are the only ones who get natural multiple attacks. |
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Kris the Grey
Senior Scribe
USA
422 Posts |
Posted - 18 Feb 2013 : 17:27:03
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Thank you to all those replying, but note that I asked not how to be a better 3E/Pathfinder Wizard (I get HOW to do that) but rather how to restore the primacy of direct damage spells using rules tweaks to the 3E/Pathfinder framework. I know I CAN just have mages dominate with 'battlefield control', but I don't like that feel. If I want to 'five foot step' or 'cast defensively' or even just 'black tentacles + fireball = FTW!' things to death I feel I might as well just get out my ruler and play Warhammer 40k. Lol.
I want to tweak direct damage spells in a way that ANY wizard using them gets respect. Sure, specialists can still up their DCs or use metamagic feats to be truly horrifying, but I want ANY wizard to be a good hurler of death again. I'm also not overly worried about the hit warriors and rogues will take from that. IMHO balancing the classes isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Anyone else out there homebrew their 'boom' magics back to full effect? |
Kris the Grey - Member in Good Standing of the Watchful Order of Magists and Protectors, the Arcane Guild of Silverymoon, and the Connecticut Bar Association |
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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist
USA
11691 Posts |
Posted - 18 Feb 2013 : 20:08:57
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quote:
Originally posted by Kris the Grey
Thank you to all those replying, but note that I asked not how to be a better 3E/Pathfinder Wizard (I get HOW to do that) but rather how to restore the primacy of direct damage spells using rules tweaks to the 3E/Pathfinder framework. I know I CAN just have mages dominate with 'battlefield control', but I don't like that feel. If I want to 'five foot step' or 'cast defensively' or even just 'black tentacles + fireball = FTW!' things to death I feel I might as well just get out my ruler and play Warhammer 40k. Lol.
I want to tweak direct damage spells in a way that ANY wizard using them gets respect. Sure, specialists can still up their DCs or use metamagic feats to be truly horrifying, but I want ANY wizard to be a good hurler of death again. I'm also not overly worried about the hit warriors and rogues will take from that. IMHO balancing the classes isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Anyone else out there homebrew their 'boom' magics back to full effect?
Another take on this that you can note is that so many people note how they can just devastate warriors and rogues with spells that focus on the fact that their will saves suck. Yet, protection from evil/good is a low level counter to many such effects. Many fighters and/or rogues may actually pay the money to tote around a potion of this spell for whenever they know they're assaulting a wizard. Similarly, they may seek out items that prevent ability drain. Thus wizards hurling "save or die and/or save or suck" spells against them might find their tactics failing and they have to fall back on that fireball. For countering the evasion of rogues, that becomes trickier and would likely involve combining other magic effects first to make the rogue slower or heavier, so probably not so effective. Of course, the other option is to just simply get your save DC's up high enough that their saves don't matter (say through feats). For instance, if it were a Thayan who was an evoker, he might have spell focus, greater spell focus, tattoo focus, and then maybe there's some feats out there that focus on elemental type damage (haven't even looked, but pretty sure there are). Recommend checking out searing spell from sandstorm as well. |
Alavairthae, may your skill prevail
Phillip aka Sleyvas |
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Kris the Grey
Senior Scribe
USA
422 Posts |
Posted - 19 Feb 2013 : 04:31:41
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@Sleyvas - My potential solution to the rogue dilemma is to institute a watering down of the evasion and improved evasion abilities. You take evasion and treat it almost as if it were uncanny dodge/improved uncanny dodge when it comes to area of effect spells. A rogue loses their evasion ability (or goes from improved evasion to merely evasion) if saving against a fireball (etc) cast by a spellcaster of 4 or more levels higher than them.
I've never been a fan of evasion personally. It's patently absurd to think someone can 'dodge' a blast of fire or lightning, especially in tight quarters. Saving for half (or even a quarter) is fine in that one can imagine the benefit of 'duck and cover', but walking utterly unscathed through a 10d6 lightning bolt rocking down a hallway is ridamndiculous. You want that, invest in lightning resistance or immunity, they are easy enough things to get. |
Kris the Grey - Member in Good Standing of the Watchful Order of Magists and Protectors, the Arcane Guild of Silverymoon, and the Connecticut Bar Association |
Edited by - Kris the Grey on 19 Feb 2013 04:35:25 |
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Diffan
Great Reader
USA
4427 Posts |
Posted - 19 Feb 2013 : 05:14:46
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quote:
Originally posted by Kris the Grey
Anyone else out there homebrew their 'boom' magics back to full effect?
Well off the top of my head I have some ideas that would work in creating more potent damage spells....
Removing the caster level cap so your Fireball deals 14d6 fire damage by a 14th level caster.
Taking a page from 4E and adding "Brutal" to your spells. Perhaps by spending a feat you can make all your spells (of a specific description: Fire, Cold, Force, etc) gain Brutal 1. This means that any damage die rolled that is a "1" is rerolled until no "1's" remain. So when you cast Fireball, roll 7d6 and 3 of them are 1's, reroll them until no 1's show. With additional feat, you can increase the Brutal property to a higher value.
Making spells be more realistic. Fireballs burn objects and catch things on fire. Electricity effects more people who are in contact with water OR have a more potent effect when it's cold. A fire spell cast after an acid spell "burns" the acid, causing Caustic Smoke to blind the victim.
Adding effects to spells that make them more deadly. For instance, spells with the Cold descriptor instantly reduce your speed to 0 (freezing you to place) and spells with the Acid descriptor sicken their targets, Fire spells Daze their foes, Electricity spells Stun targets.
Creating a feat that increases the die used when casting damage-dealing spells: 1d6 < 1d8 < 1d10 < 1d12 < 2d8 and so on... |
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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist
USA
11691 Posts |
Posted - 19 Feb 2013 : 14:59:53
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quote:
Originally posted by Kris the Grey
@Sleyvas - My potential solution to the rogue dilemma is to institute a watering down of the evasion and improved evasion abilities. You take evasion and treat it almost as if it were uncanny dodge/improved uncanny dodge when it comes to area of effect spells. A rogue loses their evasion ability (or goes from improved evasion to merely evasion) if saving against a fireball (etc) cast by a spellcaster of 4 or more levels higher than them.
I've never been a fan of evasion personally. It's patently absurd to think someone can 'dodge' a blast of fire or lightning, especially in tight quarters. Saving for half (or even a quarter) is fine in that one can imagine the benefit of 'duck and cover', but walking utterly unscathed through a 10d6 lightning bolt rocking down a hallway is ridamndiculous. You want that, invest in lightning resistance or immunity, they are easy enough things to get.
Yeah, but he wants to work within the rules, and I'm not in favor of nerfing major class abilities in this manner personally. After all, evasion DOES give rogues a good chance against wizard's hurling area effects.... however, those same rogues have multiple other disabilities that can cause them problems. For instance, spells that use poison or death effects or necromantic draining effects are nasty on those rogues.
The requester wanted to have a wizard who is working primarily though with area effects, so there are some options to work against evasion.... i.e. raise your DC's so high that everyone sucks against them, make the evasion person heavy, make the evasion person unable to move, use effects that either reduce reflex save OR ability drain dexterity, etc.... These all require more prep than just showing up and hurling a fireball though, but that's the nature of being a wizard.... being prepared for different possibilities. |
Alavairthae, may your skill prevail
Phillip aka Sleyvas |
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Markustay
Realms Explorer extraordinaire
USA
15724 Posts |
Posted - 19 Feb 2013 : 15:52:23
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@Kris the Grey -
Is it the rules that need fixing, or your own preconceptions of what FR/D&D should be?
From what I've read, the 'smart wizard' lasts the longest. The "Hulk Smash!" type wizards have to make clones because they fail miserably (at life, and everything else).
I think the 1e/2e rules focused too much on MU's eventually becoming unstoppable juggernauts, because games rarely ever got high enough for that to matter. Once long-running campaigns became the normal for D&D, 'epic' rules were needed, and the game need more balancing. Back in the day, the only uber-mages around were the bad guys (and NPCs like Mordenkainen), and all of them were extremely rare.
FR made magic too common-place (as least, from our perspective, which is probably inaccurate). Instead of worrying about one level 17 bad guy at the end of a very long campaign, we have large organizations of wizarsd who are 20+ level. Its gets a bit absurd when every wizard can level a town - the world should be a smouldering ruin by now. Thats why (IMHO) the rules have been working towards 'smart mages' - ones that have to think about how they will use their magic. They can't just wade in and start dealing death all over the place now.
If you want an in-game reason for how this has shifted, then how about Mytra's death? In most settings, Darwin's laws apply to it's fullest: Greyhawk doesn't have thousands of level 12 Mages, simply because the few 'bad' level 18+ Mages have gone after all of them. "Survival of the fittest" - to become an archmage in Greyahwk (and elsewhere) you have to have been both brilliant and unbelievably cunning just to have survived to that point. On Toril, we have Mystra (and her Chosen) 'coddling' all those lowbie mages, and protecting them. Its an artificial situation, and what it created was a massive number of "lets hurl fireballs all night long!" style mages who didn't bother to think things through. 'The stupid' were never weaned out of the pack by natural selection.
Thus, by fostering and promoting magic, and having her Chosen protect its users, Mystra 1.0 inadvertently created a pressure-cooker just waiting to explode in her face. Once she died, all hell broke loose, and now folks who 'do magic' have to do so much more carefully. Mystra 2.0 did this to a much lesser extent, but the wheels were already set in motion, and she died as well (at which point we got the much more 'balanced' 4e rules).
To put it simply, Mages now have to tread much more carefully, without the protection of Mystra, her Chosen, and the Weave (and this situation BEGAN during the ToT, which is why the 3e Realms looked like that exploding pressure-cooker). The Wailing Years was actually the world resetting itself back to a more normal balance of magic. |
"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me" --- Dudley Field Malone
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Edited by - Markustay on 19 Feb 2013 15:57:33 |
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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist
USA
11691 Posts |
Posted - 19 Feb 2013 : 19:22:14
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quote:
Originally posted by Diffan
quote:
Originally posted by Kris the Grey
Anyone else out there homebrew their 'boom' magics back to full effect?
Well off the top of my head I have some ideas that would work in creating more potent damage spells....
Removing the caster level cap so your Fireball deals 14d6 fire damage by a 14th level caster.
Taking a page from 4E and adding "Brutal" to your spells. Perhaps by spending a feat you can make all your spells (of a specific description: Fire, Cold, Force, etc) gain Brutal 1. This means that any damage die rolled that is a "1" is rerolled until no "1's" remain. So when you cast Fireball, roll 7d6 and 3 of them are 1's, reroll them until no 1's show. With additional feat, you can increase the Brutal property to a higher value.
Making spells be more realistic. Fireballs burn objects and catch things on fire. Electricity effects more people who are in contact with water OR have a more potent effect when it's cold. A fire spell cast after an acid spell "burns" the acid, causing Caustic Smoke to blind the victim.
Adding effects to spells that make them more deadly. For instance, spells with the Cold descriptor instantly reduce your speed to 0 (freezing you to place) and spells with the Acid descriptor sicken their targets, Fire spells Daze their foes, Electricity spells Stun targets.
Creating a feat that increases the die used when casting damage-dealing spells: 1d6 < 1d8 < 1d10 < 1d12 < 2d8 and so on...
There are already some feats to somewhat do some of this. The fiery spell feat from sandstorm is one. The one thing from pathfinder that I "without a doubt" think they got right was increasing the rate at which you get feats to allow for just a little bit more "flexibility" since you can choose extra feats (because although they have the feat..... no mage can really afford it). Another option would be to have feats (greater) and feats (lesser), and maybe you get a lot of lesser feats to "clarify" some specialness about your character. Of course, doing so forces a redesign of everything (monsters, NPC's, players, prestige class prerequisites, etc.....). It also makes the system more complex... but lets face it some feats suck, but if you could take it as a "lesser feat" you wouldn't mind. |
Alavairthae, may your skill prevail
Phillip aka Sleyvas |
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Diffan
Great Reader
USA
4427 Posts |
Posted - 19 Feb 2013 : 20:39:42
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quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas
quote:
Originally posted by Diffan
quote:
Originally posted by Kris the Grey
Anyone else out there homebrew their 'boom' magics back to full effect?
Well off the top of my head I have some ideas that would work in creating more potent damage spells....
Removing the caster level cap so your Fireball deals 14d6 fire damage by a 14th level caster.
Taking a page from 4E and adding "Brutal" to your spells. Perhaps by spending a feat you can make all your spells (of a specific description: Fire, Cold, Force, etc) gain Brutal 1. This means that any damage die rolled that is a "1" is rerolled until no "1's" remain. So when you cast Fireball, roll 7d6 and 3 of them are 1's, reroll them until no 1's show. With additional feat, you can increase the Brutal property to a higher value.
Making spells be more realistic. Fireballs burn objects and catch things on fire. Electricity effects more people who are in contact with water OR have a more potent effect when it's cold. A fire spell cast after an acid spell "burns" the acid, causing Caustic Smoke to blind the victim.
Adding effects to spells that make them more deadly. For instance, spells with the Cold descriptor instantly reduce your speed to 0 (freezing you to place) and spells with the Acid descriptor sicken their targets, Fire spells Daze their foes, Electricity spells Stun targets.
Creating a feat that increases the die used when casting damage-dealing spells: 1d6 < 1d8 < 1d10 < 1d12 < 2d8 and so on...
There are already some feats to somewhat do some of this. The fiery spell feat from sandstorm is one. The one thing from pathfinder that I "without a doubt" think they got right was increasing the rate at which you get feats to allow for just a little bit more "flexibility" since you can choose extra feats (because although they have the feat..... no mage can really afford it). Another option would be to have feats (greater) and feats (lesser), and maybe you get a lot of lesser feats to "clarify" some specialness about your character. Of course, doing so forces a redesign of everything (monsters, NPC's, players, prestige class prerequisites, etc.....). It also makes the system more complex... but lets face it some feats suck, but if you could take it as a "lesser feat" you wouldn't mind.
True, I really enjoy getting more feats such as Pathfinder did (every odd level) and 4E (ever even level) rather than the sparce amount in v3.5 (ever 1st, 3rd and every 3 levels afterward). As for my suggestions, yes one of them is a feat (Energy Gestalt, Complete Mage) and as for the other points, I think they could be made into feats or subsumed into existing feats.
For example, taking the Practiced Spellcaster feat (Complete Arcane, Complete Divine) incrases your Caster Level to equal your HD (but no greater than +4) and is primarily used to bridge the gap when a Wizard multilclasses into something else. You could use this feat to allow a Wizard to by-pass level caps on spells as well.
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Erik Scott de Bie
Forgotten Realms Author
USA
4598 Posts |
Posted - 20 Feb 2013 : 04:56:46
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The warmage from Complete Arcane was more of an accomplished blaster wizard, more similar to what the blaster wizard used to be in 2e. Warmage's edge makes a difference, and though you're giving up some utility, you could multiclass into the standard 3.5 wizard to get your toolbox feel back.
Just a thought!
Cheers |
Erik Scott de Bie
'Tis easier to destroy than to create.
Author of a number of Realms novels (GHOSTWALKER, DEPTHS OF MADNESS, and the SHADOWBANE series), contributor to the NEVERWINTER CAMPAIGN GUIDE and SHADOWFELL: GLOOMWROUGHT AND BEYOND, Twitch DM of the Dungeon Scrawlers, currently playing "The Westgate Irregulars" |
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Kris the Grey
Senior Scribe
USA
422 Posts |
Posted - 22 Feb 2013 : 00:24:37
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@Diffan - I like the suggestions my Mullish friend. Still a bit too reliant on feats for my ideal tastes, but I guess that can't be helped in a system distinguishable from 2E primarily by the introduction of...feats. Lol. I think I'll explore some of your ideas as part of my revamp.
@Sleyvas - I'm not opposed to some rules tinkering as long as it accomplishes my overall goal. Oh, and Pathfinder has a 'lesser feats/greater feats' system of sorts, they call lesser feats "traits" and they are balanced to have the same impact as one half of a normal feat. You can take a feat 'extra traits' to get yourself two of them.
@Erik - Thanks for the suggestion. I'll look at warmage, but I suspect I'll just do a general rules tweak instead of mix classing. I might really have to look at the 5E stuff and see where they have been going with it. It had a real 1E/2E feel as of last GenCon, but I hear it's drifting away from that.
Anyway, while I'm happy to hear additional suggestions from any Pathfinder DMs out there, I'd say what I have so far is a decent start. Thanks to all of you fellow scribes (and DMs) for the suggestions.
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Kris the Grey - Member in Good Standing of the Watchful Order of Magists and Protectors, the Arcane Guild of Silverymoon, and the Connecticut Bar Association |
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Diffan
Great Reader
USA
4427 Posts |
Posted - 22 Feb 2013 : 14:39:31
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quote:
Originally posted by Erik Scott de Bie
The warmage from Complete Arcane was more of an accomplished blaster wizard, more similar to what the blaster wizard used to be in 2e. Warmage's edge makes a difference, and though you're giving up some utility, you could multiclass into the standard 3.5 wizard to get your toolbox feel back.
This was one of my first arcanist classes of v3.5 and I still have fond memories of playing it, despite it not getting steller reviews. And like you said, there are many ways of branching out to obtain some versatility and I wouldn't even go so far as to Multiclass. For starters, one simply could take the Arcane Disciple feat (Complete Arcane) and gain domain spells of their Chosen deity. Sure, you have to have a favored patron, your alignment must match it, and you need to use your Wisdom-score to cast the spells but really, even a Wis 13 or 14 nets you 1st thru 4th level spells which is pretty solid.
Then there is the Eclectic Learning alternate class feature (Player's Handbook 2) that replaces Advanced Learning, which allows you to take spells from the Wizard/Sorcere spell list so long as it's 1 level lower than the highest level you can cast. This was the way I was able to get a Warmage into the Archmage Prestige Class and a great way to add good spells (Mirror Image, Greater Invisibility) to your spell list.
And you can always ask your DM to see if Extra Spell feat (Complete Arcane)can be used to take spells from the Sor/Wiz spell list. Personally speaking, I think it's a fair trade; a Feat for 1 spell of 1 lower than the highest level you can cast.
@ Kris the Grey: Most of my suggestions have been ideas implemented via feats but don't let that stop you from adding them in as a matter of fact elements of the game. If you think that all spells should deal d8's instead of d6's, that's your choice and the same goes for breaching the level cap on spells or making specific Schools of magic more potent. Using feats is just the simplist way of putting them into the game. |
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Kris the Grey
Senior Scribe
USA
422 Posts |
Posted - 22 Feb 2013 : 18:39:50
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| @Markustay - Oh, I see I forgot to address your post above. I thought that it was a very clever 'canon based' analysis of the changes in Mages (and magic) across the editions. I personally prefer the 'death dealing glass canon' wizard of 2E to the present 3E/4E/Pathfinder variety, but I very much appreciate the logic behind your canon themed explanation of the changes. Here's hoping 5E takes us back towards 1E/2E themed wizards. Few powerful wizards and many fragile ones worked just fine in my book. |
Kris the Grey - Member in Good Standing of the Watchful Order of Magists and Protectors, the Arcane Guild of Silverymoon, and the Connecticut Bar Association |
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Making 3E (& 3.5 & Pathfinder) Wizardry Realmsy
