My thoughts about magic.
Posted: Wed Jul 21, 2021 1:22 pm
Hello everybody, I don't know where to put it exactly so I decided to put it here, I'll divide this topic into 2 sections: Magical classes and Magic. Hope you'll enjoy!
Sorcerer, Wizard, Favored Soul and Cleric
So, I have been recently messing with every of above mentioned classes (I'm so sorry shamans and druids!) and I do have a feeling that something is off. And I mean not only the hitting pain of spontaneous classes with prestige ones (Like Sorc/PM or FS/Harper) that are not allowed to take any class that increases CL, simply due to hardcoded troubles with picking spells.
What I mean is this high inconsequence in all those classes. But maybe I will try to break it down class versus class. So here we go:
Sorcerer vs Wizard
In this scenario, thanks to recent addition of skills to the sorcerer and brew potion, there is no big gap between these two, I'd even call it a perfect imbalance. Sorcerer is a nice spammer and dispeller with better flexibility of usage of casting spells while a wizard still has a bit of upper hand over sorc in terms of flexibility of known spells, which is perfect, after all wizards have studied a lot, while sorcerers were discovering their heritage. This concludes with with 58 (sorc) vs 40 (wizard) spell usages with 19 casting stat and 34 vs infinity spells known (without cantrips)
The case is slightly different when it comes to specializations. Specialized wizards, of course giving up a school, have access to often game changing mechanics (like perma-haste on summons or +7 premonition). I'd like to see some dabbling with sorcererous heritages aka. bloodlines. It would be nice to see something that would flavor the origins of sorcerery, perhaps with a special feat near end of pre-epic, perhaps in a cost of stats or known spells.
Multiclassing on the other hand is favorable for sorcerers, as they are known for their love to dip into paladins/bgs to get those sweet saves. Wizard, however, can make usage of prestige classes, that widens the number of specializations even further for them.
Wizard vs Cleric
Here we have a situation where wizard is having omph spells and cleric is more retro-active. Well, not really. With the addition of haste to main cleric's spellbook we can have something more than Trickery/Travel domained clerics that are in meta. Actually I have noticed many clerics that I'd almost take for a wizard. They both have to prepare their spells so they are equal in those terms. However there is a weird gap between ability to cast spells, where wizard can cast 40 (wizard) spells vs 54 spells (cleric) with 19 casting ability. In addition Cleric is bestowed with spells meanwhile wizard has to learn them, which is perfectly fine. Utility-wise a wizard beats cleric really hard with their familiar, cookies of skills and additional feats
However, priest has this upper hand while casting 7-9 spells, which are based on piety. Piety is worse than components in usage, but only when you repeatively cast your spells. In all other scenarios, cleric has ability to regain piety fairly efordlessly by killing stuff, healing with some medical kits, simply putting some gold to altar or heck, just waiting while wizard is forced to either buy or create their components and literally hoard them and not be trigger happy because your component pouches can simply disappear. (I personally cannot imagine myself without at least three pouches and 500 components in my intentory).
As for other non-casting fields of these two, cleric definitely has upper hand, with their 3/4 AB and ability to use heavy armor in combat without burning 4 feats and 3 lvls on it they can take a semi-tank role or just go fully into battle priest. The saves are favorable also for cleric, as they get Fort and Will as their main stats that are further augmented by wisdom and consitution, while reflex can be partially saved by spell resistance, spellcraft and/or freedom of movement. Even path of cleric can be better in fight than wizard when the spells run out, because instead of usage of petty spells they can actually wreck a man with their zen archery.
To sum up, cleric is one-man when it comes to combat where wizard relies more on omph spells and utility.
Cleric vs Favored Soul
These two are actually quite similar, same AB, same skill points... and that's all. We have similar situation like wizard vs. sorcerer. FS has better elemental resistances, which in practice means goodbye to all rainbow dmg from essences, but instead they are unable to use their charisma the way they'd love, which is divine shield/might. Even saves are more favorable for FS as they get full progression on everything, and even if they are not boosted by wisdom, they are by charisma, making them land on safe point against every DC spell almost without an effort.
We have similar situation in terms of magic like wizard vs. sorcerer. They base on the same casting type, that is divine, so they can cast magic even when they are resembling a can. Casting wise, FS does it better. Naturally they don't have ability to be picky as cleric is, but they can cover everything needed. That leaves us with 58 vs 54 spells usages and 43 vs infinity spells known (without cantrips).
They both make great warrior materials, but casting wise, FS is better.
Sorcerer vs Favored soul
Spontaneous caster vs spontaneous caster, so my favourites. They both have the same difficult issue of picking spells, except, one side doesn't. I know that the very essence of sorcerer is having that urge, that uncertainty about your chosen spells. "Confusion or phantasmal on illusionist/enchanter or by chance... wall of fire to crisp my enemies while they are stuck in CCs?" I had no such feeling on FS however. I've counted the choices for spells by number and things that "I'd love to have on that circle" and I came with something like that (without cantrips):
Choices per circle for Sorcerer:
24/30/25/26/21/26/15/19/17
"I want to get on that circle for Sorcerer":
10/14/13/13/16/12/8/10/14
What I can get as Sorcerer:
5/5/4/4/4/3/3/3/3
Choices per circle for Favored Soul:
17/24/26/19/16/13/9/9/6
"I want to get it as FS":
9/15/12/10/7/7/5/5/4
What I can get as FS:
6/6/5/5/5/4/4/4/4
In the end, FS ends up with fewer choices but has more known spells (43) than sorcerer (34) and I wonder why? After all it's sorcerer who has wider choice and should know more than a class that can as well just grab a sword/bow and smack the opponent fairly well. It even came to that degree that whenever I see a sorcerer I have in mind "At 6th circle of spells they have: Mass Haste, IGMS, True Sight, unless they are flamers, they have Knocking Bigby, Chain and IGMS" and what is the worst, I'm correct most of the time.
FS also uses Piety, which was discussed above, is way easier to maintain but can be messy if you cast rapidly.
Statwise, FS if wishing to go into battle may be trickier to get, however casting ones are nearly the same, charisma, constitution and smash some int with str to that.
AB/Saves/AC/Resistances are definitely on FS side as they get 3/4 AB compared to Sorc's 1/2, full save progression and +5 to elemental resistances with ability to free usage of armors and shields.
What is more, FS is even better prepared gear-wise, because their stuff, unlike most of sorcerer's jewelery is craftable and grants stats with reasonable spell slots instead of empty spell slots like 0th ones. But that's also the case with a wizard.
End of (I think) class rant.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Magic, what is wrong with it?.
So, magic. If you have survived to this part, my congratulations, here I'll share some of my thoughts about magic.
As you can know, magic is either loved or hated and it is reasonable, mostly because of save or die mechanics which is extremaly unfun without any effects in the middle. It is like "Hahah! I feel like someone is farting!" even though they barely made a save roll for gust of wind just to fall over on the next cast for 3 rounds. I do have a feeling that something should be changed, like near saving line you have that 5 roll gap where you get secondary effect of spell, but that would require to rewrite every single spell in NWN and there is quite a bunch of them.
Another issue that struck me is amount of spells that available. For arcane people at 7th lvl there is little room than extended mass haste and I'd love to see something unique being put there. Same comes with divine 9th and 8th lvl which are lvls of sadness for me, at 8th is mass heal and 9th gate, implosion, sov.
Infinite magic - version divine, I'd totally see some signature spells for divine casters just as there are for wizards and sorcerers. It would make support priest somewhat more interesting instead of "Oh, I guess I will just summon a creature and put regeneration on it... and stand." Divine casters have bunch of interesting spells, not necessarly super OP, like sound burst or simply cure light wounds so that every priest wouldn't end up with bazzilion of healing kits.
I love sight of signature spells on specialized schools and I'd love to see a signature spells for ESF, but instead of 6th lvl spells, maybe 3th or 4th lvl ones, as the 1-2 spells are quite redundant later in the game.
I'd probably talk about enchantment school but I know that's just a game and not a tabletop, so some things are just impossible.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So, what are your thoughts about classes and magic at Arelith? I'm curious what do you think, maybe I'm wrong somewhere and I'm just trying to overbalance things to one bland mass, let me know. And real congratulations if you have read through it all, I just felt like writing and here I am.
Sorcerer, Wizard, Favored Soul and Cleric
So, I have been recently messing with every of above mentioned classes (I'm so sorry shamans and druids!) and I do have a feeling that something is off. And I mean not only the hitting pain of spontaneous classes with prestige ones (Like Sorc/PM or FS/Harper) that are not allowed to take any class that increases CL, simply due to hardcoded troubles with picking spells.
What I mean is this high inconsequence in all those classes. But maybe I will try to break it down class versus class. So here we go:
Sorcerer vs Wizard
In this scenario, thanks to recent addition of skills to the sorcerer and brew potion, there is no big gap between these two, I'd even call it a perfect imbalance. Sorcerer is a nice spammer and dispeller with better flexibility of usage of casting spells while a wizard still has a bit of upper hand over sorc in terms of flexibility of known spells, which is perfect, after all wizards have studied a lot, while sorcerers were discovering their heritage. This concludes with with 58 (sorc) vs 40 (wizard) spell usages with 19 casting stat and 34 vs infinity spells known (without cantrips)
The case is slightly different when it comes to specializations. Specialized wizards, of course giving up a school, have access to often game changing mechanics (like perma-haste on summons or +7 premonition). I'd like to see some dabbling with sorcererous heritages aka. bloodlines. It would be nice to see something that would flavor the origins of sorcerery, perhaps with a special feat near end of pre-epic, perhaps in a cost of stats or known spells.
Multiclassing on the other hand is favorable for sorcerers, as they are known for their love to dip into paladins/bgs to get those sweet saves. Wizard, however, can make usage of prestige classes, that widens the number of specializations even further for them.
Wizard vs Cleric
Here we have a situation where wizard is having omph spells and cleric is more retro-active. Well, not really. With the addition of haste to main cleric's spellbook we can have something more than Trickery/Travel domained clerics that are in meta. Actually I have noticed many clerics that I'd almost take for a wizard. They both have to prepare their spells so they are equal in those terms. However there is a weird gap between ability to cast spells, where wizard can cast 40 (wizard) spells vs 54 spells (cleric) with 19 casting ability. In addition Cleric is bestowed with spells meanwhile wizard has to learn them, which is perfectly fine. Utility-wise a wizard beats cleric really hard with their familiar, cookies of skills and additional feats
However, priest has this upper hand while casting 7-9 spells, which are based on piety. Piety is worse than components in usage, but only when you repeatively cast your spells. In all other scenarios, cleric has ability to regain piety fairly efordlessly by killing stuff, healing with some medical kits, simply putting some gold to altar or heck, just waiting while wizard is forced to either buy or create their components and literally hoard them and not be trigger happy because your component pouches can simply disappear. (I personally cannot imagine myself without at least three pouches and 500 components in my intentory).
As for other non-casting fields of these two, cleric definitely has upper hand, with their 3/4 AB and ability to use heavy armor in combat without burning 4 feats and 3 lvls on it they can take a semi-tank role or just go fully into battle priest. The saves are favorable also for cleric, as they get Fort and Will as their main stats that are further augmented by wisdom and consitution, while reflex can be partially saved by spell resistance, spellcraft and/or freedom of movement. Even path of cleric can be better in fight than wizard when the spells run out, because instead of usage of petty spells they can actually wreck a man with their zen archery.
To sum up, cleric is one-man when it comes to combat where wizard relies more on omph spells and utility.
Cleric vs Favored Soul
These two are actually quite similar, same AB, same skill points... and that's all. We have similar situation like wizard vs. sorcerer. FS has better elemental resistances, which in practice means goodbye to all rainbow dmg from essences, but instead they are unable to use their charisma the way they'd love, which is divine shield/might. Even saves are more favorable for FS as they get full progression on everything, and even if they are not boosted by wisdom, they are by charisma, making them land on safe point against every DC spell almost without an effort.
We have similar situation in terms of magic like wizard vs. sorcerer. They base on the same casting type, that is divine, so they can cast magic even when they are resembling a can. Casting wise, FS does it better. Naturally they don't have ability to be picky as cleric is, but they can cover everything needed. That leaves us with 58 vs 54 spells usages and 43 vs infinity spells known (without cantrips).
They both make great warrior materials, but casting wise, FS is better.
Sorcerer vs Favored soul
Spontaneous caster vs spontaneous caster, so my favourites. They both have the same difficult issue of picking spells, except, one side doesn't. I know that the very essence of sorcerer is having that urge, that uncertainty about your chosen spells. "Confusion or phantasmal on illusionist/enchanter or by chance... wall of fire to crisp my enemies while they are stuck in CCs?" I had no such feeling on FS however. I've counted the choices for spells by number and things that "I'd love to have on that circle" and I came with something like that (without cantrips):
Choices per circle for Sorcerer:
24/30/25/26/21/26/15/19/17
"I want to get on that circle for Sorcerer":
10/14/13/13/16/12/8/10/14
What I can get as Sorcerer:
5/5/4/4/4/3/3/3/3
Choices per circle for Favored Soul:
17/24/26/19/16/13/9/9/6
"I want to get it as FS":
9/15/12/10/7/7/5/5/4
What I can get as FS:
6/6/5/5/5/4/4/4/4
In the end, FS ends up with fewer choices but has more known spells (43) than sorcerer (34) and I wonder why? After all it's sorcerer who has wider choice and should know more than a class that can as well just grab a sword/bow and smack the opponent fairly well. It even came to that degree that whenever I see a sorcerer I have in mind "At 6th circle of spells they have: Mass Haste, IGMS, True Sight, unless they are flamers, they have Knocking Bigby, Chain and IGMS" and what is the worst, I'm correct most of the time.
FS also uses Piety, which was discussed above, is way easier to maintain but can be messy if you cast rapidly.
Statwise, FS if wishing to go into battle may be trickier to get, however casting ones are nearly the same, charisma, constitution and smash some int with str to that.
AB/Saves/AC/Resistances are definitely on FS side as they get 3/4 AB compared to Sorc's 1/2, full save progression and +5 to elemental resistances with ability to free usage of armors and shields.
What is more, FS is even better prepared gear-wise, because their stuff, unlike most of sorcerer's jewelery is craftable and grants stats with reasonable spell slots instead of empty spell slots like 0th ones. But that's also the case with a wizard.
End of (I think) class rant.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Magic, what is wrong with it?.
So, magic. If you have survived to this part, my congratulations, here I'll share some of my thoughts about magic.
As you can know, magic is either loved or hated and it is reasonable, mostly because of save or die mechanics which is extremaly unfun without any effects in the middle. It is like "Hahah! I feel like someone is farting!" even though they barely made a save roll for gust of wind just to fall over on the next cast for 3 rounds. I do have a feeling that something should be changed, like near saving line you have that 5 roll gap where you get secondary effect of spell, but that would require to rewrite every single spell in NWN and there is quite a bunch of them.
Another issue that struck me is amount of spells that available. For arcane people at 7th lvl there is little room than extended mass haste and I'd love to see something unique being put there. Same comes with divine 9th and 8th lvl which are lvls of sadness for me, at 8th is mass heal and 9th gate, implosion, sov.
Infinite magic - version divine, I'd totally see some signature spells for divine casters just as there are for wizards and sorcerers. It would make support priest somewhat more interesting instead of "Oh, I guess I will just summon a creature and put regeneration on it... and stand." Divine casters have bunch of interesting spells, not necessarly super OP, like sound burst or simply cure light wounds so that every priest wouldn't end up with bazzilion of healing kits.
I love sight of signature spells on specialized schools and I'd love to see a signature spells for ESF, but instead of 6th lvl spells, maybe 3th or 4th lvl ones, as the 1-2 spells are quite redundant later in the game.
I'd probably talk about enchantment school but I know that's just a game and not a tabletop, so some things are just impossible.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So, what are your thoughts about classes and magic at Arelith? I'm curious what do you think, maybe I'm wrong somewhere and I'm just trying to overbalance things to one bland mass, let me know. And real congratulations if you have read through it all, I just felt like writing and here I am.