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#1 evokersrule Jun 14, 2008 12:51:31

Maybe I'm just confused here, but I find that arcane casters wind up being utterly pathetic compared to divine ones. I'm not just talking about CoDzilla here, but also the Druid and Favored Soul. I mean, let's look at them: Arcane/Divine d4 Hit Die/d8 Hit Die 1/2 BAB/3/4 BAB One good save/2 good saves No armour proficiencies/Either all, or most armour proficiencies Almost no weapons/Very few, but still more, weapons In theory, this is compensated for by the fact that arcane spellcasting is vastly superior to divine spellcasting. In my experience, this just isn't true. The Cleric gets more spells per day then a wizard even if the wizard specializes, and gets the same number as a sorceror plus of higher level. They know all the spells available to them, whereas wizards know few and sorcerors fewer. They have spontaneous conversion (to cure spells, which are really useful), which wizards don't. They can heal allies, and arcane casters can't. The druid gets fewer spells per day, but makes up for it with loads of class features. All right, so are arcane spells better then divine ones at a given level? Well, sort of. In some cases (3rd-level, for example, where arcane casters get the omnipresent fireball) that's certainly true. However, here are a few things to chew on. 1) Summoning spells. Summon Monster I-IX is on the sorceror/wizard and cleric lists, and Summon Nature's Ally is arguably better (it certainly summons elementals, which are what my players typically use it for, as lower-level creatures). 2) Really high-level spells. At this point, there's really not much to choose between the two. Both get a bevy of instant-death effects. The arcane caster probably gets more (unless the divine caster is a cleric with good domain spells), but not way more. In fact, miracle is far better then wish (can you say 5000 XP (???!!!???) cost?). 3) Just one single spell which is so abusive I wound up banning it in my campaign -- the 6th level cleric spell Harm. Let's look at perhaps the most iconic sorceror/wizard spell, the 6th level disintegrate. -Requires a ranged touch attack to hit -On failed save, does 2d6/level damage (average 7/level) -On successful save, does 5d6 damage (less then a quarter normal damage) versus Harm. -Does not require a ranged touch attack to hit -On failed save, does 10/level damage -On successful save, half damage Harm just seems to be way better. There are a few drawbacks: -Can't affect undead. Come on, you can spontaneously convert it into a Heal, which does! -Can only reduce a target to 1 hp. AAGH! How long a life expectancy does a character at 1hp have in a game at lvl 11+? In fact, its probably worse for a PC to be at 1 health then -1, as most NPCs will ignore a fallen PC while they will just hit a 1hp PC once more (bringing them down well below -10) -Can't affect some random kinds of creatures due to being a negative energy effect. (Not sure which ones. Constructs? Aberrations? Ah well). I just think its a bit silly to be relying on disintegrate for versatility. There may well be ways to improve an arcane caster with material from non-core books. However, in my experience, such books give just as much of a boost to divine casters as to arcane casters. (Whatever WoTC employee thought up those feats that let you convert turn undead into DR5/- deserves to be spit-roasted) I know that the cleric is deliberately overpowered because WoTC wanted people to play as them. However, that's usually not a problem -- DnD is a cooperative game, so it doesn't matter if the cleric is better then the wizard. It does, however, matter when the cleric is better then the wizard at being a wizard. My party's wizard started complaining at about 12th level when she realized how much better Harm was then any spell she had (I owe the rant about it above to her). Here's what I've done to arcane casters: 1) One more spell slot per day of every level spell 2) More spells known -- Wizards know twice as many, and Sorcerors know 50% more. 3) Can cast divine spells (from the cleric or druid lists) as well as arcane spells This may seem excessive, but bearing in mind that my party wizard has died more times then all the other PCs put together (possibly my fault, but I like to play my NPCs realistically and it seems that they'd be more likely to attack the unarmoured wizard who just roasted six of them with a fireball then the fighter who just didn't even manage to kill one of them in one turn, and who'll take about 10 times longer to kill), I think she deserves something in exchange. If that means arcane casters become better casters then divine ones, all I can say is it's about time.