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Wizards (Rant)
13 years ago
General
The more time I spend trying to make a wizard in D&D 3.0, 3.5, or Pathfinder, the more I'm disgusted with the "Memorize spells every morning" requirement.
I cannot recall the last time I read a fantasy book outside of a D&D-verse where any wizard had to take time out of his morning, comb through the spells he'd learned and specifically chosen what spells he'd cast that day, and what spells he would not.
Merlin and Dresden would have not been the same intriguing characters with that limitation.
For those of you not-so-geeky, Wizards in D&D and Pathfinder have an unusual requirement. Regardless of the wide array of spells they learn, they are limited to only a few a day. That in of itself wouldn't be bad--many fictional wizards operate off a level of internal power where they are only capable of so much.
D&D/Pathfinder wizards take it a step further, though, wherein every morning, they must sit down for an hour and decide what spells they will cast that day. They may cast only those spells and only the specific number of each of those spells they decide on at that time. The equivalent for, say a rogue, would be as if they could decide to backstab someone OR pickpocket someone in the course of the day, but not both. (NOTE: Rogues do not have this limitation.)
Wizards, though, have to deal with the fact that if they prepared a spell like Warp Wood for the day, there's a very real likelihood that they'll encounter no wood and find that spell not only wasted, but taking the spot of a useful spell, like fireball. At the same time, filling your spell slots with Fireballs spurr the paranoia of "what if we run into a jammed ironwood door?"
Perhaps it's not just the game function, but the injustice to concept of wizards. Gone is the powerful spellcaster, reciting world-changing spells at the drop of a hat. In its place is a clumsy magician fumbling with index cards, trying desperately not to forget the spells that seem to drop out of his head with every night's sleep.
Or, I suppose there's another interpretation:
"I'm 84 years old, but I can't for the life of me remember how to cast Magic Missile unless I spend an hour re-reading through the one-page instructions on it this morning. I've been casting this spell every day for 60 years, but darn if I can't ever remember it!
If only Alzheimer's wasn't a class feature for wizards!"
I cannot recall the last time I read a fantasy book outside of a D&D-verse where any wizard had to take time out of his morning, comb through the spells he'd learned and specifically chosen what spells he'd cast that day, and what spells he would not.
Merlin and Dresden would have not been the same intriguing characters with that limitation.
For those of you not-so-geeky, Wizards in D&D and Pathfinder have an unusual requirement. Regardless of the wide array of spells they learn, they are limited to only a few a day. That in of itself wouldn't be bad--many fictional wizards operate off a level of internal power where they are only capable of so much.
D&D/Pathfinder wizards take it a step further, though, wherein every morning, they must sit down for an hour and decide what spells they will cast that day. They may cast only those spells and only the specific number of each of those spells they decide on at that time. The equivalent for, say a rogue, would be as if they could decide to backstab someone OR pickpocket someone in the course of the day, but not both. (NOTE: Rogues do not have this limitation.)
Wizards, though, have to deal with the fact that if they prepared a spell like Warp Wood for the day, there's a very real likelihood that they'll encounter no wood and find that spell not only wasted, but taking the spot of a useful spell, like fireball. At the same time, filling your spell slots with Fireballs spurr the paranoia of "what if we run into a jammed ironwood door?"
Perhaps it's not just the game function, but the injustice to concept of wizards. Gone is the powerful spellcaster, reciting world-changing spells at the drop of a hat. In its place is a clumsy magician fumbling with index cards, trying desperately not to forget the spells that seem to drop out of his head with every night's sleep.
Or, I suppose there's another interpretation:
"I'm 84 years old, but I can't for the life of me remember how to cast Magic Missile unless I spend an hour re-reading through the one-page instructions on it this morning. I've been casting this spell every day for 60 years, but darn if I can't ever remember it!
If only Alzheimer's wasn't a class feature for wizards!"
but yeah, I feel ya on that. Of course since 3.0 they have given the "spell mastery" feat that lets you insta-memorize a set of spells without a book. I think there is also a spell or something that lets you swap stuff around... of course who wants to actually TAKE those feats.
Take a look under tabletop for DnD. They weren't up to druids or clerics in 3.5, but they were pretty close.
Compare Meta-magic feats with everyone elses special feats.
Does the fighter loose anything.. ANYTHING at all when he uses Cleave, Great Cleave, or even Improved Cleave?
No.. he can use it or not.. but a Wizard/Sorcerer/Cleric/Druid loose a higher level spell if he wants to max the damage or improve the range.
As for wizards in literature running out of spells, it happened to Gandalf, which is why he carried Glamdrang around,
To be honest, there's a reason I didn't mention Gandalf. I know he's the grandaddy of modern fantasy wizards, but he always struck me as incredibly boring. No flashy magic, just a lot of winking and occassional flashes of light. Give me Harry Dresden (Dresden Files) any day.
This is incorrect: A non-spontaneous spell caster may _choose_ to drop prepared spells when he rests but does not have to.
3ed also changed the terminology to more closely match how a lot of players explained it: You now prepare your spells rather than memorize them.
Sauron was the same class of being as Gandalf, but instead of being 'locked down' willingly, he was cast out of the heavens as punishment for evilness, and both kept more of his power and was willing to fold, spindle, and mutilate the rules to acquire more.
Gandalf was also effectively immortal, which gave him plenty of time to study the sword.
In older editions of D&D, it wasn't 'an hour each morning' a wizards studied - it was 15 minutes per spell level. Four 1st level spells? An hour. A 9th level spell? Two hours and change.
An hour a level is a drastic reduction of the time needed.
As to why it's still in there, it's because 'that's how it's always been in D&D!' They tried to change that with 4th Edition, and there were mass complaints.
So it's coming back for 5th Ed, as far as I know.
Anyways, what it seems that you're looking for, at least in D&D 3.5 terms, is a Socercer - you innately learn the magic, so there's no fiddling with spellbooks, at your number of casts resets after a rest. You're just more limited than wizards because, while wizards can learn from scrolls/other spellbooks/etc, you only gain spells on a level up.
Gameplay-wise, if you stick with the memorization, D&D wizards have the ability to scribe scrolls. This allows them to prepare single usages of utility spells, so they can keep their memory full of combat spells and not worry about having this or that ready.
Lore-wise, it's all based on a certain branch of fantasy, and a certain author. I forget what his name was, but in his fantasy you prepared a spell by building a thing in your mind, which was burned up through the casting, and then you had to build it up again. It's really not compatable with other, more popular forms of spell-casting, like magic words spoken to demiurges or angels, or a personal connection to magical energy or mana.
The two alternative magic systems I much prefer are from Palladium's Beyond The Supernatural and Rifts, where the mage has a pool of power points and casting a spell has a point cost. Never forgets the spells but is still limited how and what you can cast in a day.
My personal Favorite is from the Shadowrun RPG (3rd edition). Where basically each spell requires a saving throw when cast, the more powerful the spell the higher the difficulty of the dice roll. A failed roll will give your character the equivalent of subdual/stun damage, exhausting the caster if they're not careful. It's also possible to over-cast more powerful spells than you can handle. Which while giving you a bigger magic bang, but a failed save will then cause physical/hit point damage.
D&D mage can casts all his spells for the day and then he's useless.
Shadowrun mage can cast spells all day 'till he either passes out or dies! That's a hardcore magician.
I'm all for what you suggest but it would require an entire re-write of all spells to be even remotely balanced.
Only major difference in how they're played though is that Sorcerers use Charisma as their primary stat instead of intelligence.
Of the Wizard, Sorcerer, Druid, and Cleric classes, only the Sorcerer does not have to spend 1 hour to regain spells. Similarly, of those classes, only the Sorcerer can cast any spell he knows at any time. All the others must prepare.
The benefits of preparing spells vs spontaneous spells is 1) You know far more spells (Druids and Clerics can choose any spell on their list, while Wizards must find and add more spells to their spellbook but get 2 free each level) 2) You can prepare a spell with metamagic feats, which allows you to plan 3) Casting metamagic takes 1 full round action as a spontaneous caster.
Pathfinder core rulebook does not mention Wizards forgetting spells. Likewise, 3.5 wizards do not forget spells they have not cast. This isn't said anywhere, but neither is that they DO forget their spells. It is the GM's call each time.
Wizards also can specialize. Sorcerers in Pathfinder just have their bloodline, while in 3.5 they get no benefit at all. If you want to play a wizard who can throw out tons of spells per day, you need to specialize in a school of magic and focus on that. In 3.5 it's called Focused Specialist - you get three banned schools but an extra bonus spell per day of your specialized school.
Honestly, why not a system that still keeps prep, but I don't know--allows a full round to flip through your spellbook and cast a spell in there. It would keep you from being absolutely fucked over in a given fight, and still give the spontaneous casters their time to shine.
Because let's be honest--a wizard flipping through a massive book of spells is a LOT more thematically exciting AND appropriate than a wizard sitting on the sides with his thumb up his ass because he prepared ice spells and the party is fighting a frost giant.
But you're facing the same principle as any other class. A fighter vs a high AC or a brainrape monster. A wizard vs poison or a golem. A rogue vs undead. No matter the class (except maybe Cleric) you're going to have weaknesses, and you should help your TEAM overcome the challenge. In some circumstances you will win the combat with a single spell. In others you're completely useless. It's glass cannon and you need to be prepared to be awesome or be useless with lots of space in between.
A system that allows you to flip through spellbooks defeats the purpose of the whole premise of a wizard. Wizards are NOT on-the-fly classes. Catch a Wizard by surprise and you win. Given time to prepare and you are FUCKED.
It just sounds like you really want to play a Sorcerer with Spell Focus (Evocation). The Wizard class isn't fitting your preferred playstyle. Rather than modify the class to fit your playstyle (Which is actually doable in both 3.5 and Pathfinder but requires obsessive knowledge like I have), find a build that gells well with you.
I argue that wizards SHOULD be an on-the-fly class, because that's what a wizard IS in all relevant fantasy. D&D is operating off a long-dead template, and it's time to shift out of it and join the rest of Fantasy in the spell-slinging action era.
For reference:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.p.....n/VancianMagic
This one of the may reasons I prefer the GURPS system; the default spell rules aren't so restrictive, although it can be easily abused by knowledgeable players. However, with the rules for powers, you can fairly easily design spells that work under a variety of literary references, and even have a 'mixed magical arts' tournament pitting one style against another.
GURPS also makes it easy to make furries as characters, by the way. Just TRY to make a character stranger than some of the siz sample chars. A six-legged battle robot who is a practicing Zen Buddhist, anyone?
I'm pretty sure in 3.5 you don't lose spells when you rest. We certainly haven't been playing it that way, since it means that wizards are essentially helpless if you attack them in the night or early morning.
There really are two main builds that you can do for a wizard in 3.5, one is to go with item crafting specialization and make scrolls, wands, and wondrous items to allow you to cast a huge variety of spells and abilities as necessary if you don't have them prepared. Otherwise, you can get a multitude of metamagic effects that you can put on your spells to make them much more potent and powerful. The reason that the wizard is the class of choice for this is because they get a crafting or metamagic feat for free every 5 levels.
Wizards in 3.5 are generally considered the most powerful core class in the game at high levels. Primarily thanks to those metamagic builds.
And honestly, pre-casting spells honestly sounds like an attempt to justify the system. I can't think of any currently popular magic series where magical characters are bound under that system. And the point's valid, because there's a reason they're all popular series. From Dresden to My Little Ponies--spells are thrown out on the spot, because no one at all wants to watch a character take an 8 hour nap because they didn't prep the "right" spells for the day.
From a discussion with my brother: If someone still has to use their spellbook to cast a magic missile even after using it for sixty years, my guess is that they are using something in the book itself to cast the spell, such as a ruin or glyph. These symbols could be as complicated as something like this:
http://images.wikia.com/megamitense.....ion_circle.jpg
You aren't going to be able to make this glyph from memory without special training to do so. Which is what the magic mastery feat represents. These symbols likely also have to be made using special matierial to avoid burning out the symbol in the casting of the spell, which is why spell books and copying spells are so expensive. You could also prepare the spell on a material that does absorb and use magical effects, but then the spell is lost when cast, ie scrolls.
Consider the system much like gathering together the ingredients to perform a task within a capsule that is your spell. You have to measure the exact amounts of each substance to mix in there, and when you want to release the final effect, you smash the thing on the ground. It takes a lot of time to pull this off, and without special training and practice you can't do it without your measuring equipment. You also can't really take out parts of the ingredients from the capsule on the fly in order to change the effects.
This actually is the case when using spells that have material components.
When preparing spells for the day, a wizard can leave some of these spell slots open. Later during that day, he can repeat the preparation process as often as he likes, time and circumstances permitting. During these extra sessions of preparation, the wizard can fill these unused spell slots. He cannot, however, abandon a previously prepared spell to replace it with another one or fill a slot that is empty because he has cast a spell in the meantime. That sort of preparation requires a mind fresh from rest. Like the first session of the day, this preparation takes at least 15 minutes, and it takes longer if the wizard prepares more than one-quarter of his spells.
How do you know all other wizards aren't prepping at the start of the day? They could be. It could just be unsubscribed :P
I would have to agree with Echoen, though, on pure principle, because if you gave a wizard the ability to be "on the fly" it would quickly turn to "out my ass" of the Wizard vs the GM, where the rest of the cast just sits on the side-lines, all ho-hum and notwithstanding. What you're describing there is powergaming, and people who ask for it are often boring to play with, becuase they can't ever just except that a situation is out of their control. They want to win everything even if the only thing keeping the journey going is the absence of total success.
Furtherance, I think it's totally understandable that a wizard can't cram his brain full of every spell he knows at all times. My two favorite examples of this are Invoker (from Dota) and Pokemon. You can only atrib so many points at any given time, and resetting those points is a practiced skill that you can't just do on the fly.