Alternate Wizard Project [Archive] - Wizards Community

Alternate Wizard Project [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
thasis
01-06-05, 09:20 PM I have been playing D&D since second edition and into third edition and now into three point five and I am seriosly disapointed with todays wizards. They are extremly weak compared to the other spellcasting class especialy the sorcerer. I want to create a variant wizard but I thought "What would people like more, a varient wizard created by mwa or a varient wizard created by a whole community for the whole community?". Well you can guess what I choose. A project where everybody can help tailor it to everybodys taste. I originaly got the idea from the Alternate Wizards thread so thank TheDarkestOfAngels for inspiration. So who wants to join this project. We're taking as many helpers as possible.

Project Members
1.) Thasis (Leader)
Mirikon
01-06-05, 09:31 PM What? You think the Wizard is weak? Compared to the Sorcerer?

Ok, I'll bite. HOW?
thasis
01-06-05, 09:36 PM Well sorcerers have many more spells per day, whenever I play a sorcerer I tend to know more spells then my wizard character, and they can cast spells they know on the fly. I overall say they're better. Maybe I'm the only one who think that the wizard is underpowered.
mercurywyrm
01-06-05, 09:49 PM In case you have not noticed yet wizards SHOULD have more spells known than a sorcerer AND should have just as many if not more castings if they craft in their off time. Wizards with their bonus feats and spells known (ANY WIZARD spell they want) can be the most amazing item crafters ever (other than artificers in eberron but that is bringing in non-core). Wands ans staffs as well a scrolls (which all wizards have the feat fer for free) can easily make up for the lesser spells per day and spontaneity at higher levels, wizards also get access to higher spell levels sooner and have better skills availible to them and tend to have better skill points due to INT focus. Wizards, if played right, ARE the most powerfull class in D&D with the exception of possibly druid or cleric. Wizards are THE utility caster, if you prep right you can get through anything at higher levels. Sorcerers are nice untill wands and staffs start to be commonplace, then wizards tend to get ahead due to their increased crafting inclination and ability to craft items of spells that the sorcerer doesn't know. Plus, I consider the Knowledge skills to be some of the most powerfull skills in the game because you can't take advantage of monster weaknesses unless your CHARACTER knows them, which requires knowledge checks and they can help you find ways to beat monsters through the DM looking at MM that you didn't know before. One of the reasons bard is so great by the way. If anything the wizard needs to be nerfed.
Zitchas
01-06-05, 10:31 PM I do believe that such a wizard project was just completed, actually. Although it wasn't really stated as such being a "board collective" project, it received well over a hundred posts, almost all of which were taken into acount for the final draft. (initial poster kept updating/editing as required). So I think it counts, if anything does, as being a fairly good wizard to suit almost all tastes. Of course, he hasn't replied to my last few posts, which I would like, but anyway. Even without those it stands as a very good replacement for wizard, (and yes, something of a upgrade, although quite possibly not as much as you'd like, if you think wizards are weak)

http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=172026

Feel free to post, make sugestions, etc.
DM Denubis
01-06-05, 10:50 PM Saying that the Sorcerer is better than the Wizard is like saying a Fighter is better than a Barbarian because it has more feats... You're ignoring other things. Like, a sorcerer's lack of versatility, a Wizard's bonus feats, Wizards getting spells a level earlier... Sorcerers have... Umm... Spontaneous casting...

Spontaneous casting isn't so great when you only know so many spells. Sure, at level twenty, you can cast either A, B, or C level nine spell spontaneously. But a level twenty wizard has twice the amount of level nine spells you have (At least!) and has at least four slots to prepare with.

Also, I'd like to know what Sorcerer you're playing that has more spells known than a Wizard... You know, seeing as how that's nigh-on impossible. I mean, at level twenty you know 43 spells. A Wizard, knows a MINIMUM of 62, and that's with an intelligence of ten. Then there's the fact that Wizards can just walk into a magic shop, buy ten scrolls, and learn ten new spells.

What you give up in blasting power, you gain in versatility. A Wizard is a Swiss Army Knife. You just have to know how to play them. A sorcerer is probably better for beginners, due to less options and not having to prepare spells. But more powerful than the Wizard? Sorry, but no. Both have their strengths, but neither one truly dominates over the other.

Honestly, I don't like how people think that the two classes are alternate versions of the other. Sure, they use the same spell list, but as far as gameplay, you'll never feel the same way playing both of them. I mean, you never run into, "Darn, I wish I had X prepared." if you're playing a Sorcerer, and Wizards rarely have to deal with "I wish I had X feat, so I could craft that!".

It all comes down to preference. If you prefer versatility, play the Wizard. If you prefer spontaneous casting, play a sorcerer.

Okay, I'm done now. Carry on.

Just my opinion,
DM Denubis
XunValDorl of HouseKilsek
01-06-05, 10:58 PM :ROFLMFAO:!!!!!!!!!!! Oh my god!!!!! I am not even going to comment on this thread. :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
Zitchas
01-06-05, 11:27 PM And if you want sheer blasting power, you go with War Mage (which, if I recall correctly, is now a base class in the UA). Which seems to draw odd bits here and there from both Wizards and Sorcerers. Better spell vocabulary than Sorcerers, although more restricted, but has to prepare them. Hehe...

But anyway, back on topic. If he wants to lead a co-operative project making a new version of wizard, by all means, let us proceed.

I'll assume that you plan on using the base wizard for refference so we have something to talk about.

For starters, I'm actually quite happy with wizards the way they are provided, however, there's a few changes I'd like to make.

1) Skill points: They're supposed to spend lots of time studying, so why don't they have a few more skill points to spend? Seeing as a lot of their points will be going into knowledge, craft, and proffesion anyway (almost everything else is either already maxed, or cross classed and inefficient). I'd say boost their skills up to 3 or 4.

2) Feats: Seeing as there are so many feats (especially focus, creation, and metamagic) out there, it'd be rather nice if wizards got a few more to spend. Not much more, mind you, they get a goodly amount already. I'm saying an extra, oh, 2, maybe 3 by level 20.

3) Spell progression past level 20: It'd be rather nice if wizards continued to gain spell slots past the mythical level 20. Even if it's only 1 per level. (I seem to be sugesting this all over. Once again, starting at level 20, subtract 20 and add a spell slot of that level. Eg. at level 20, add a lvl 0 slot, at 21 add a level 1, etc. Once you get to level 30, repeat, except subtract 30 instead of 20.) It only adds a total of 10 spell slots per 10 levels, but it's something, and reduces the stagnant feel that epic wizards have if they don't branch into PrCs in epic levels.

4) Alternatives to Familiars: Familiars are a strong bonus to being a wizard, providing many usefull bonuses, etc. But some of us don't, for practical or for roleplaying reasons, want to have one. Thus I'd like an alternative. The Ultimate Wizard thread has an idea for a wizard's staff that sort of replaces the familiar, giving different bonuses, etc, which was a good idea, but a bit too restrictive.

5) Specialization: We should be able to drop Divination as a spell school. Some wizards don't, and never do, learn how to peer into crystal balls to find things. Many of us never care to do so, either. Especially if we've got a good Rogue and/or another caster in the group who likes doing that sort of thing (Divine casters, Bards, Psions, etc)

6) Ummm... Wizard's skill at casting? Assuming Int stays the same and no feats, it's the exact same DC for SR and/or saves to beat for a level 1 wizard casting, say, magic missile at someone as for a level 20 wizard. Really, shouldn't all those levels of skill and experience contribute anything at all to the wizard's abilities to use magic, aside from increasing the damage if they do fail? Or if it's assumed that everyone is going to take Spell Focus and associated feat tree for everything that they actually learn how to do something with, then the number of feats they get should be upped significantly. As in an extra 4-5 feats over 20 lvls. I'm thinking more of something along the lines of that their spell's save/SR DC's should get, oh, +1 per 4 levels. That makes a 20th level caster about +5 in general, on all spells. Which is fair. It's not massively more powerfull, but it is decidedly going to make it harder to resist than the low level caster's.

That's really it. Those are the main things I'd change with Wizards. Considering that I am already happy with them, getting these changes would be in the nature of a bonus. And fundementally, only the Epic spell progression is truly important. It adds more life to the class in epic levels.

But anyway, if you're serious about doing this, then here's my first sugestions. Of course, they can't all be implemented, or at least, not entirely, as all of the above sugestions combined would probably result in an overpowering spell caster. Especially getting an extra 4-5 feats. But lower numbers and smaller increases spread out over things in general would be the best bet.
TheDarkestOfAngels
01-06-05, 11:38 PM I have been playing D&D since second edition and into third edition and now into three point five and I am seriosly disapointed with todays wizards. They are extremly weak compared to the other spellcasting class especialy the sorcerer. I want to create a variant wizard but I thought "What would people like more, a varient wizard created by mwa or a varient wizard created by a whole community for the whole community?". Well you can guess what I choose. A project where everybody can help tailor it to everybodys taste. I originaly got the idea from the Alternate Wizards thread so thank TheDarkestOfAngels for inspiration. So who wants to join this project. We're taking as many helpers as possible.

While I'm not quite sure what part I had to play in this, my stance has always been that the sorcerer was equal with the wizard rather than superior in comparison.
Any gripes I've ever given concerning the wizard are actually the same as my gripes against the sorcerer as well. That is, the lack of viable class features. (The cleric also has this problem.) The need to "prestige out" as soon as the prerequisites are met is nearly as much a problem for the wizard and cleric as it is for the sorcerer.
If I were to recommend anything, it would be give the wizard a little more staying power without significantly increasing its reletive power - perhaps by even providing alternate specialized wizards or different things that specialized wizards can do. Szatany's Ultimate Wizard (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=172026), I think, does a good job at this.
Though, I wish he had done something equally generic to the sorcerer rather than go with the inane "bloodline sorcerer" tangent. But that's a gripe for somewhere else.
And don't boost skill points. They don't need it any more than fighters, paladins, sorcerers, or clerics need them.
Zitchas
01-08-05, 04:00 PM To the contrary, wizards should have more skill points. While they aren't the know-everything types that Bards are, they ARE the most purely studious of classes, which is demonstrated by the fact that they have a fairly tiny repetoire of skills (outside of pure knowledge fields, and the lesser used craft and proffesion sets, anyway). For obvious reasons (many players don't like cross classing, as they tend to be simply poor equivalents of others who get those skills natively), having more skill points will tend to result in more... Knowledge, craft, and proffesion skills. Just out of curiousity, how many wizard players actually have skills in proffesion, at any significant amounts (say, half their max)? Also note that all those knowledge skills are... Book learning. It's not practical in general combat, and rarely results in overpowering (when was the last time identifying something caused serious problems?) Likewise, craft and proffesion are pretty quite, none-dramatic skills that shouldn't cause problems. Now, hows does actually making these skills possible choices (by making it so that it's not a "must sacrifice something to get them" option) cause that problems?

Of course, they might decide to cross craft into other things, but whatever. Is that Rogue really going to shoved out of the spot light because the party wizard is (at most) half as good at dealing with traps as he is (and can't deal with the epic ones that are Rogue Only anyway)? No. And it won't make the wizard overpowered, either.

As the only class that is portrayed as a truly bookish class, and the one with the biggest focus on none-adventuring and bookish skills, it fits that they have at least a skill point level on par with other classes (before int. Why must the class in general be penalized by the fact that wizards tend to have high int and thus extra skills?)

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
thasis 01-06-05, 09:20 PM	I have been playing D&D since second edition and into third edition and now into three point five and I am seriosly disapointed with todays wizards. They are extremly weak compared to the other spellcasting class especialy the sorcerer. I want to create a variant wizard but I thought "What would people like more, a varient wizard created by mwa or a varient wizard created by a whole community for the whole community?". Well you can guess what I choose. A project where everybody can help tailor it to everybodys taste. I originaly got the idea from the Alternate Wizards thread so thank TheDarkestOfAngels for inspiration. So who wants to join this project. We're taking as many helpers as possible. Project Members 1.) Thasis (Leader)
Mirikon 01-06-05, 09:31 PM	What? You think the Wizard is weak? Compared to the Sorcerer? Ok, I'll bite. HOW?
thasis 01-06-05, 09:36 PM	Well sorcerers have many more spells per day, whenever I play a sorcerer I tend to know more spells then my wizard character, and they can cast spells they know on the fly. I overall say they're better. Maybe I'm the only one who think that the wizard is underpowered.
mercurywyrm 01-06-05, 09:49 PM	In case you have not noticed yet wizards SHOULD have more spells known than a sorcerer AND should have just as many if not more castings if they craft in their off time. Wizards with their bonus feats and spells known (ANY WIZARD spell they want) can be the most amazing item crafters ever (other than artificers in eberron but that is bringing in non-core). Wands ans staffs as well a scrolls (which all wizards have the feat fer for free) can easily make up for the lesser spells per day and spontaneity at higher levels, wizards also get access to higher spell levels sooner and have better skills availible to them and tend to have better skill points due to INT focus. Wizards, if played right, ARE the most powerfull class in D&D with the exception of possibly druid or cleric. Wizards are THE utility caster, if you prep right you can get through anything at higher levels. Sorcerers are nice untill wands and staffs start to be commonplace, then wizards tend to get ahead due to their increased crafting inclination and ability to craft items of spells that the sorcerer doesn't know. Plus, I consider the Knowledge skills to be some of the most powerfull skills in the game because you can't take advantage of monster weaknesses unless your CHARACTER knows them, which requires knowledge checks and they can help you find ways to beat monsters through the DM looking at MM that you didn't know before. One of the reasons bard is so great by the way. If anything the wizard needs to be nerfed.
Zitchas 01-06-05, 10:31 PM	I do believe that such a wizard project was just completed, actually. Although it wasn't really stated as such being a "board collective" project, it received well over a hundred posts, almost all of which were taken into acount for the final draft. (initial poster kept updating/editing as required). So I think it counts, if anything does, as being a fairly good wizard to suit almost all tastes. Of course, he hasn't replied to my last few posts, which I would like, but anyway. Even without those it stands as a very good replacement for wizard, (and yes, something of a upgrade, although quite possibly not as much as you'd like, if you think wizards are weak) http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=172026 Feel free to post, make sugestions, etc.
DM Denubis 01-06-05, 10:50 PM	Saying that the Sorcerer is better than the Wizard is like saying a Fighter is better than a Barbarian because it has more feats... You're ignoring other things. Like, a sorcerer's lack of versatility, a Wizard's bonus feats, Wizards getting spells a level earlier... Sorcerers have... Umm... Spontaneous casting... Spontaneous casting isn't so great when you only know so many spells. Sure, at level twenty, you can cast either A, B, or C level nine spell spontaneously. But a level twenty wizard has twice the amount of level nine spells you have (At least!) and has at least four slots to prepare with. Also, I'd like to know what Sorcerer you're playing that has more spells known than a Wizard... You know, seeing as how that's nigh-on impossible. I mean, at level twenty you know 43 spells. A Wizard, knows a MINIMUM of 62, and that's with an intelligence of ten. Then there's the fact that Wizards can just walk into a magic shop, buy ten scrolls, and learn ten new spells. What you give up in blasting power, you gain in versatility. A Wizard is a Swiss Army Knife. You just have to know how to play them. A sorcerer is probably better for beginners, due to less options and not having to prepare spells. But more powerful than the Wizard? Sorry, but no. Both have their strengths, but neither one truly dominates over the other. Honestly, I don't like how people think that the two classes are alternate versions of the other. Sure, they use the same spell list, but as far as gameplay, you'll never feel the same way playing both of them. I mean, you never run into, "Darn, I wish I had X prepared." if you're playing a Sorcerer, and Wizards rarely have to deal with "I wish I had X feat, so I could craft that!". It all comes down to preference. If you prefer versatility, play the Wizard. If you prefer spontaneous casting, play a sorcerer. Okay, I'm done now. Carry on. Just my opinion, DM Denubis
XunValDorl of HouseKilsek 01-06-05, 10:58 PM	:ROFLMFAO:!!!!!!!!!!! Oh my god!!!!! I am not even going to comment on this thread. :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
Zitchas 01-06-05, 11:27 PM	And if you want sheer blasting power, you go with War Mage (which, if I recall correctly, is now a base class in the UA). Which seems to draw odd bits here and there from both Wizards and Sorcerers. Better spell vocabulary than Sorcerers, although more restricted, but has to prepare them. Hehe... But anyway, back on topic. If he wants to lead a co-operative project making a new version of wizard, by all means, let us proceed. I'll assume that you plan on using the base wizard for refference so we have something to talk about. For starters, I'm actually quite happy with wizards the way they are provided, however, there's a few changes I'd like to make. 1) Skill points: They're supposed to spend lots of time studying, so why don't they have a few more skill points to spend? Seeing as a lot of their points will be going into knowledge, craft, and proffesion anyway (almost everything else is either already maxed, or cross classed and inefficient). I'd say boost their skills up to 3 or 4. 2) Feats: Seeing as there are so many feats (especially focus, creation, and metamagic) out there, it'd be rather nice if wizards got a few more to spend. Not much more, mind you, they get a goodly amount already. I'm saying an extra, oh, 2, maybe 3 by level 20. 3) Spell progression past level 20: It'd be rather nice if wizards continued to gain spell slots past the mythical level 20. Even if it's only 1 per level. (I seem to be sugesting this all over. Once again, starting at level 20, subtract 20 and add a spell slot of that level. Eg. at level 20, add a lvl 0 slot, at 21 add a level 1, etc. Once you get to level 30, repeat, except subtract 30 instead of 20.) It only adds a total of 10 spell slots per 10 levels, but it's something, and reduces the stagnant feel that epic wizards have if they don't branch into PrCs in epic levels. 4) Alternatives to Familiars: Familiars are a strong bonus to being a wizard, providing many usefull bonuses, etc. But some of us don't, for practical or for roleplaying reasons, want to have one. Thus I'd like an alternative. The Ultimate Wizard thread has an idea for a wizard's staff that sort of replaces the familiar, giving different bonuses, etc, which was a good idea, but a bit too restrictive. 5) Specialization: We should be able to drop Divination as a spell school. Some wizards don't, and never do, learn how to peer into crystal balls to find things. Many of us never care to do so, either. Especially if we've got a good Rogue and/or another caster in the group who likes doing that sort of thing (Divine casters, Bards, Psions, etc) 6) Ummm... Wizard's skill at casting? Assuming Int stays the same and no feats, it's the exact same DC for SR and/or saves to beat for a level 1 wizard casting, say, magic missile at someone as for a level 20 wizard. Really, shouldn't all those levels of skill and experience contribute anything at all to the wizard's abilities to use magic, aside from increasing the damage if they do fail? Or if it's assumed that everyone is going to take Spell Focus and associated feat tree for everything that they actually learn how to do something with, then the number of feats they get should be upped significantly. As in an extra 4-5 feats over 20 lvls. I'm thinking more of something along the lines of that their spell's save/SR DC's should get, oh, +1 per 4 levels. That makes a 20th level caster about +5 in general, on all spells. Which is fair. It's not massively more powerfull, but it is decidedly going to make it harder to resist than the low level caster's. That's really it. Those are the main things I'd change with Wizards. Considering that I am already happy with them, getting these changes would be in the nature of a bonus. And fundementally, only the Epic spell progression is truly important. It adds more life to the class in epic levels. But anyway, if you're serious about doing this, then here's my first sugestions. Of course, they can't all be implemented, or at least, not entirely, as all of the above sugestions combined would probably result in an overpowering spell caster. Especially getting an extra 4-5 feats. But lower numbers and smaller increases spread out over things in general would be the best bet.
TheDarkestOfAngels 01-06-05, 11:38 PM	I have been playing D&D since second edition and into third edition and now into three point five and I am seriosly disapointed with todays wizards. They are extremly weak compared to the other spellcasting class especialy the sorcerer. I want to create a variant wizard but I thought "What would people like more, a varient wizard created by mwa or a varient wizard created by a whole community for the whole community?". Well you can guess what I choose. A project where everybody can help tailor it to everybodys taste. I originaly got the idea from the Alternate Wizards thread so thank TheDarkestOfAngels for inspiration. So who wants to join this project. We're taking as many helpers as possible. While I'm not quite sure what part I had to play in this, my stance has always been that the sorcerer was equal with the wizard rather than superior in comparison. Any gripes I've ever given concerning the wizard are actually the same as my gripes against the sorcerer as well. That is, the lack of viable class features. (The cleric also has this problem.) The need to "prestige out" as soon as the prerequisites are met is nearly as much a problem for the wizard and cleric as it is for the sorcerer. If I were to recommend anything, it would be give the wizard a little more staying power without significantly increasing its reletive power - perhaps by even providing alternate specialized wizards or different things that specialized wizards can do. Szatany's Ultimate Wizard (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=172026), I think, does a good job at this. Though, I wish he had done something equally generic to the sorcerer rather than go with the inane "bloodline sorcerer" tangent. But that's a gripe for somewhere else. And don't boost skill points. They don't need it any more than fighters, paladins, sorcerers, or clerics need them.
Zitchas 01-08-05, 04:00 PM	To the contrary, wizards should have more skill points. While they aren't the know-everything types that Bards are, they ARE the most purely studious of classes, which is demonstrated by the fact that they have a fairly tiny repetoire of skills (outside of pure knowledge fields, and the lesser used craft and proffesion sets, anyway). For obvious reasons (many players don't like cross classing, as they tend to be simply poor equivalents of others who get those skills natively), having more skill points will tend to result in more... Knowledge, craft, and proffesion skills. Just out of curiousity, how many wizard players actually have skills in proffesion, at any significant amounts (say, half their max)? Also note that all those knowledge skills are... Book learning. It's not practical in general combat, and rarely results in overpowering (when was the last time identifying something caused serious problems?) Likewise, craft and proffesion are pretty quite, none-dramatic skills that shouldn't cause problems. Now, hows does actually making these skills possible choices (by making it so that it's not a "must sacrifice something to get them" option) cause that problems? Of course, they might decide to cross craft into other things, but whatever. Is that Rogue really going to shoved out of the spot light because the party wizard is (at most) half as good at dealing with traps as he is (and can't deal with the epic ones that are Rogue Only anyway)? No. And it won't make the wizard overpowered, either. As the only class that is portrayed as a truly bookish class, and the one with the biggest focus on none-adventuring and bookish skills, it fits that they have at least a skill point level on par with other classes (before int. Why must the class in general be penalized by the fact that wizards tend to have high int and thus extra skills?)