The Wizard Experience

[-XXX-]

I do recall the Implosion meta back when it had the extra +4 to the dc. Those were not good times either, and the nature of the DC system encourages this.

Funny you should mention that just as I was thinking about how they could have easily reverted that "Implosion has +4DC for no reason" thing and nobody would've probably even noticed nowdays.


Jokes aside, let's look back to what's been happening in terms of meta and DC spells: players were unhappy with getting insta-beaten by DC spells so build tweaks, runic materials and new craftables enabling higher saves got introduced. This addressed the "I don't want to get insta-pwned by a DC spell" side of the argument but nobody bothered to acknowledge all the sacrifices and downsides that arcane mages (yes, this concerns sorcerers too) have to embrace in order to gain access to those (now borderline unviable) abilities.

For example:
it makes sense for a mage not to have any AC when they can defeat enemies with a single DC spell.
it also makes sense for a mage to forego any hope of ever making any meaningful melee or ranged attacks when they can defeat enemies with a single DC spell.

Now I'm asking whether these downsides still make sense when the mage suddenly CAN'T defeat enemies with a single DC spell.


The majority of the player base does not view binary DC spell effects as fun and therefore the team made adjustments for these not to proc reliably? That's fine! (we're here to have fun after all)
But in that case (and acknowledging that reworking the entire spell list might probably not be the way to go) I'd say that they also should address aspects of the game designed to offset the power of these binary DC spell effects too - say bye bye to low BAB progression and arcane spell failure - give wizards and sorcerers an alternative means to interact with enemies the way clerics (shamans, druids, favoured souls etc.) can! It does not break the game with those classes and I don't think that it would with arcane spellcasters either*

*also probably disable the div shield/might feats for Sorcs the same way it is with Fav Soul in that case

[Bunnysmack]

I have a list of potential ideas to assist the discrepancy...But this isn't the suggestion box so I'm hesitating to list them here, for fear of annoying the staff.

I will say that looking at divine grace/dark blessing will be a good start. A class dip of three or four levels should not give you +9 or +10 to all saves, which doesn't even count against the +20 bonus saves cap.

This alone is one of the largest contributing problems. Having unassailable saves should be something that requires a STEEP investment, but those two feats are available at shockingly early class levels for bonuses that would make even epic feats feel insecure about.

[-XXX-]

I will say that looking at divine grace/dark blessing will be a good start. A class dip of three or four levels should not give you +9 or +10 to all saves, which doesn't even count against the +20 bonus saves cap.

I wouldn't say that I necessarily agree with that assessment. Thanks to runes it's possible to get up to +10 uni save (or even more if we take the +2 uni amulet/rings into account) and +20 spellcraft from gear. That alone pushes the saves of most builds into the reliable DC spell denial zone. Div grace/dark blessing allow characters to use those runic slots for something else (there's virtually no reason to push any saves above 40), which I'd say is probably fine as most div dips need to juggle between 3 key stats anyway (then again, this also enables the div shield/might nonsense, so there's that...).

[Red_Wharf]

I have a list of potential ideas to assist the discrepancy...But this isn't the suggestion box so I'm hesitating to list them here, for fear of annoying the staff.

I will say that looking at divine grace/dark blessing will be a good start. A class dip of three or four levels should not give you +9 or +10 to all saves, which doesn't even count against the +20 bonus saves cap.

This alone is one of the largest contributing problems. Having unassailable saves should be something that requires a STEEP investment, but those two feats are available at shockingly early class levels for bonuses that would make even epic feats feel insecure about.

I would agree with you (about high saves being so widespread, not about divine grace/dark blessing specifically because even without those two anyone can have high saves anyway) if DC spells weren't so extremely binary, because they are absolutely just "save or literally die" and nothing else, and these do include crowd control spells that don't kill you immediately, like Hold Person or what have you, because failing the DC in one of those also means death (in the next one or two rounds). You have to fight cheese with more cheese.

[Archnon]

I will say that looking at divine grace/dark blessing will be a good start. A class dip of three or four levels should not give you +9 or +10 to all saves, which doesn't even count against the +20 bonus saves cap.

I wouldn't say that I necessarily agree with that assessment. Thanks to runes it's possible to get up to +10 uni save (or even more if we take the +2 uni amulet/rings into account) and +20 spellcraft from gear. That alone pushes the saves of most builds into the reliable DC spell denial zone. Div grace/dark blessing allow characters to use those runic slots for something else (there's virtually no reason to push any saves above 40), which I'd say is probably fine as most div dips need to juggle between 3 key stats anyway (then again, this also enables the div shield/might nonsense, so there's that...).

Okay, so, I am on board with the fact that this problem is too complex to really deal with. This is a great example. Here we turn on the topic of saves. I have long been a proponent of scaling dark blessing, mostly to reduce the emphasis on divine dips and create more build diversity. However, the claim here by OP and most of those in support is that wizards need a boost. Here is the problem. We could 1.) Scale dark blessing with level 2.) Eliminate unisaves from the basin .... and successfully nerf saves across the board. However, the end result would not be some great boon for wizards but for all casters! Wizards would not win out here relative to Clerics and Favored Souls, not to mention Warlocks!

The reality is, the game is balanced around saves and tinkering there is too much. Is it a perfect system, no, but it is core to the game and the entire balance system. However, this game is coming up on it's 20th birthday next year. A lot of videogames have come out since then that fit the mold of NWN. Consider looking to those if you loath this system.

Instead of hashing out another conversation around saves and how my wizard should simply be able to push all the buttons and everyone dies, perhaps we can make some suggestions that hit wizards directly (though, i really don't buy this my wizard is underpowered thing, if it can clear pve content solo consistently at all levels, it is not underpowered. Boring != Underpowered).

Some ideas:
- Wizards with specialization can refresh their spell clutch of their specialization 1/day (Helps with wars of attrition)
- Wizard robes that mimic the Warlock robes and refesh spells 1/day (This can be done with an epic feat instead so that people aren't carrying around 5 robes to make it work for them)

More broadly:
- Specific spells that impact players abilities to heal. (On a failed save, player cannot gain health for 3 rounds)
- Heal Potion cooldown times or requiring heal potions to take a full round to drink

people can probably come up with better ideas. but I would discourage this particular conversation from hanging its hat on the problem of save-creep. And frankly, i can attest that I have never had a character where 1 save was not abysmally low and I would enter pvp just praying that the opposing wizard guessed wrong.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

I hate save spells, they're not fun either way. Some better infinicast spells would be better. Either way I am concerned that changes will lead to nerfs to the class that will fundamentally change how it is now in a negative way. Please do not touch wizard. It is not suffering that bad. If people want a pvp win button please play another class.

[-XXX-]

though, i really don't buy this my wizard is underpowered thing, if it can clear pve content solo consistently at all levels, it is not underpowered. Boring != Underpowered

You see, the flaw of that argument is that you can't really judge a build's PvE viability by whether it can or cannot handle what PvE content.
All optimized builds can handle endgame PvE content - the difference is how easily or efficiently they can do it.

A wizard can waste the better part of an hour tediously watching their elemental slowly chew through all those giants at the Aurilite temple and by the time they're finally done their druid buddy has already been through RDI, Mourn and Gnit because they happen to be looking for adamantine.

I hate save spells, they're not fun either way. Some better infinicast spells would be better. Either way I am concerned that changes will lead to nerfs to the class that will fundamentally change how it is now in a negative way. Please do not touch wizard. It is not suffering that bad. If people want a pvp win button please play another class.

I hate to break it to you, but the class is pretty much at the bottom of the food chain as is - I don't think that it can get much worse from there.

[Skibbles]

I'd say that they also should address aspects of the game designed to offset the power of these binary DC spell effects too - say bye bye to low BAB progression and arcane spell failure - give wizards and sorcerers an alternative means to interact with enemies the way clerics (shamans, druids, favoured souls etc.) can!

This is a pretty interesting thought. Can you expand on this? I'd like to see more.

Having unassailable saves should be something that requires a STEEP investment, but those two feats are available at shockingly early class levels for bonuses that would make even epic feats feel insecure about.

The trouble with this returns full circle because it's all interlocked.

Getting absurdly high DC's on one's spells is a matter of course. All casters require no investment beyond a few thousand gold and their first epic focus to reach their DC cap which usually falls around low to mid 40s.

Requiring greater investment to counter this, especially when it means a save increases by 10 (which is 50%!!!), means you're cutting out a host of classes that desperately need this to be relevent. On top of this these classes often have to invest in tons of expensive equipment, gather materials, carry buckets of extra potions and counters, and sometimes have to specifically outfit with hard 5% items to effectively compete.

All this to survive any random caster that needed essentially nothing at all to hit their cap very easily.

It's quite a conumdrum. Even if dark blessing is reduced to something like half CHA, you immediately buff every single caster in the server by a margin possibly enough to turn unassailable saves into unassailable DCs.

Something like this quickly blooms server-wide, and entire factions become made up of one ultra strong casting mechanic. 'Recently' we had EDK palemaster spam where group pvp was like 15 dragons stomping around because why be a fighter when you can just make one. Years ago it was Implosion cleric spam where marauding groups of clerics dropped clusters of DC 47+ Implosions.

We really mess with this stuff at our peril lol

[-XXX-]

I'd say that they also should address aspects of the game designed to offset the power of these binary DC spell effects too - say bye bye to low BAB progression and arcane spell failure - give wizards and sorcerers an alternative means to interact with enemies the way clerics (shamans, druids, favoured souls etc.) can!

This is a pretty interesting thought. Can you expand on this? I'd like to see more.

Well, arcane spellcasters are glasscannons - they are deadly and are made of wet paper. You can't go about poking holes into the "deadly" part without addressing the "wet paper" part.

Looks like they've been balanced around their ability to kill things fast with their spells - to offset this, they have been designed to be very "killable" themselves = low HD + no armor thanks to ASF = low HP + no AC.
At the same time the vancian spell system puts a heavy emphasis on resource management. That seems to be the reason behind their low BAB progression = if the mage mismanages their resources, they end up being helpless both offensively and defensively as a result.

This seems like a fair trade-off for as long as those dreaded DC spells work reliably - but guess what - they have been made not to.
The "no AC and laughable attack potential" downside still remains however... but what for?

the removal of ASF would allow arcanists to use armor. That way they could get some AC so that they don't just evaporate the moment somebody attacks them.

giving them medium BAB progression would give them a way to utilize weapons to some effect. Furthermore, this would open up more multiclassing possibilities, since right now the low BAB progression pretty much guarantees that these classes are unviable as multiclassing options.

clerics, druids, fav souls and shamans all do have spell lists that contain many powerful buff, summon, direct damage and DC spells and STILL they get the medium BAB progression and aren't burdened by ASF. I don't see why wizards and sorcerers should be treated any differently here - the arcane spell list isn't that much better in comparison after all (certainly not once we disqualify all the DC spells from it).

[Skibbles]

Now that you mention it, and I completely forgot about this since it was so long ago, I wonder what would happen now if greensteel armor/shield was returned to its original full removal of arcane spell failure.

Long ago it lead to wizards being pretty tanky, but nowadays that probably isn't the extreme case it once was. It might be worth a return to form just to see where it lands.

[Vangrave]

I'd say that they also should address aspects of the game designed to offset the power of these binary DC spell effects too - say bye bye to low BAB progression and arcane spell failure - give wizards and sorcerers an alternative means to interact with enemies the way clerics (shamans, druids, favoured souls etc.) can!

This is a pretty interesting thought. Can you expand on this? I'd like to see more.

Having unassailable saves should be something that requires a STEEP investment, but those two feats are available at shockingly early class levels for bonuses that would make even epic feats feel insecure about.

The trouble with this returns full circle because it's all interlocked.

Getting absurdly high DC's on one's spells is a matter of course. All casters require no investment beyond a few thousand gold and their first epic focus to reach their DC cap which usually falls around low to mid 40s.

Requiring greater investment to counter this, especially when it means a save increases by 10 (which is 50%!!!), means you're cutting out a host of classes that desperately need this to be relevent. On top of this these classes often have to invest in tons of expensive equipment, gather materials, carry buckets of extra potions and counters, and sometimes have to specifically outfit with hard 5% items to effectively compete.

All this to survive any random caster that needed essentially nothing at all to hit their cap very easily.

It's quite a conumdrum. Even if dark blessing is reduced to something like half CHA, you immediately buff every single caster in the server by a margin possibly enough to turn unassailable saves into unassailable DCs.

Something like this quickly blooms server-wide, and entire factions become made up of one ultra strong casting mechanic. 'Recently' we had EDK palemaster spam where group pvp was like 15 dragons stomping around because why be a fighter when you can just make one. Years ago it was Implosion cleric spam where marauding groups of clerics dropped clusters of DC 47+ Implosions.

We really mess with this stuff at our peril lol

Average caster isn't going to be having DCs on anything other than Iceberg higher than 40 unless they're a shadow mage. Normal human wiz will be 39 for level 9 spells.

I actually don't think dark blessing etc. is a huge issue given the way gearing works on the server. There are many ways for optimized characters to get huge saves (Divine Champ and barfing gold into the basin come to mind immediately).

Whatever solution shows up, it probably needs to involve Sorcerer/Wizard parity, because given the limited number of actual useful spells, Sorcerer is basically better mechanically than wizard in every way aside from if you want to be crit immune (pale master).

That said, I think there are only two real solutions.

1) Some form of pearls of power like in Pathfinder that restore spell uses...except that this steps on sorcerer toes to some extent.

2) Wholesale changes to or the addition of varied spells that do not rely on DCs for balance.

Of the two, 2 is probably the only realistic option for balance that doesn't create larger issues down the line, but it also requires a lot of manpower, so it's hard to imagine it happening for the spellbooks.

There *is* a third option, giving specialists a bunch of ways to get around limited spells per day and DC issues, seems like it would be a good idea too, though it leaves current generalist wizards a bit SOL and could potentially contribute to other issues facing the server (e.g. the AB buff stacking that Enchanter wizards contribute to)

[-XXX-]

Now that you mention it, and I completely forgot about this since it was so long ago, I wonder what would happen now if greensteel armor/shield was returned to its original full removal of arcane spell failure.

Long ago it lead to wizards being pretty tanky, but nowadays that probably isn't the extreme case it once was. It might be worth a return to form just to see where it lands.

Yes, greensteel armor and shields used to completely negate their ASF. The negative ASF property also used to be a basin option.
This helped div dip sorcerers reach ridiculous AC values back in the day, partially because artefacts also used to be thing at the time.

Greensteel got changed as a part of one of the spellsword updates. I guess that the team took a more conservative approach as the brand new class back then had still been an unknown variable.


TBH, right now I don't see any reason for arcane spellcasters to be constrained to greensteel when divine/nature spellcasters can use any armor and it doesn't look like it's breaking the game in the slightest. I'd be in favor of removing ASF altogether while disabling div shield/might for sorcerers (maybe epic mage armor might require a minor tweak too).

[Eyeliner]

Maybe wizards could supercharge spells by using more spell components to cast them somehow. Obviously it would have to be carefully balanced but (for example) if you could spend 5 component charges to raise DC by 1, 10 to raise by 2, 20 by 3 and 40 by 4?

[-XXX-]

Maybe wizards could supercharge spells by using more spell components to cast them somehow. Obviously it would have to be carefully balanced but (for example) if you could spend 5 component charges to raise DC by 1, 10 to raise by 2, 20 by 3 and 40 by 4?

Somebody ordered a DC 47 WOB?!
Resources are never a good balancing factor for mechanical issues.

[Eyeliner]

Alright, sorry. Just an idea but obviously a terrible one.

[Skibbles]

Average caster isn't going to be having DCs on anything other than Iceberg higher than 40 unless they're a shadow mage. Normal human wiz will be 39 for level 9 spells.

You're right, my bad, I last played an elf wizard with DC 41 and totally forgot the cookie cutter uses base 16+gift human.

Gosh I don't remember spellswords being around all that time ago, and oddly I can't find any reference to greensteel changes in the update thread. I remember looking it up a long time ago to write a tongue-in-cheek book about the 'great greensteel crash' that for some reason I dated to approximately AR 110-120 and it was really hard to find (don't worry I never published it lol). Either way I guess it's just curiousity.

Hexblade special armor comes with the inability to use divine shield so maybe something like that can be tossed onto sorcerers that armor up. Badabing.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

I remember looking it up a long time ago to write a tongue-in-cheek book about the 'great greensteel crash' that for some reason I dated to approximately AR 110-120 and it was really hard to find (don't worry I never published it lol). Either way I guess it's just curiousity.

You can't tease me like this. I need to read this.

[Eters]

First of all, I just wish to clear up a misunderstanding.

Just because we're discussing a class that is mechanically severely behind, doesn't make each one of us a "PvP hungry person seeking to turn the class in the a 1 button nuke." And I believe it's a little disingenuous to paint everyone with such a broad brush. In fact, the wizard in its current form /is/ a 1 button nuke, it's just not that great of a nuke anymore. Evocombo is the way to go, either it succeds and you drop someone or you fail and you get dropped. The discussion approaches, as far as I could see and read, their inability to "be what they're meant to be." Which is a class with versatility and a flexible arsenal of spells.

Either ways, there has been a thought that I've never seen discussed before. People speak of Save or Die as a terrible mechanic, and to an extent? I agree. What about no save? Before you hang me on a cord and end my miserable existence, allow me to elaborate.

There is in NWN, and in Arelith, a spell that does two effects without a save, those effects are game changing and honestly, just one cast of this spell turns the tide of battle entirely. The spell is Word of Faith, which temporarily blinds and instantly destroys every hostile summon that doesn't pass the SR check. Failing the check results in a blindness for the duration of 1 round/2 levels. The most beautiful thing about this spell is that it's entirely party friendly.

That spell is the bread and butter of any aspiring cleric, and a useful tool in the arsenal of every character that expects to run into a summoner of any sorts. Arcanists do have spells that are similar, Incendiary cloud blinds anyone that enters the AoE savelessly, Acid fog slows any that walks into it savelessly, and those things are fine, that said due to the nature of friendly fire, those spells cannot and will not be used in combat most of the time.

Just today, I've seen a series of fights where a wizard teamed up with a melee class, it was arena focused yet, this wizard tried to do its best to fulfill its role as support class, raining AoEs on the arena to do its role of support while the melee applied pressure. What happened on three different occasions is that those CC spells ended up harming his teammate more than the enemy, and that felt like a shame, and possibly one of the many reasons all arcanists stick to a specific list of spells.

A suggestion would be that more arcane spells with AoE effects are made party friendly. Would it be that bad that acid fog only affects enemies ? and that the allies within it do not get slowed for example? Such can be countered with a FoM naturally but still, it offers an advantage to those who are allies to the arcanist. The same for incendiary cloud, what if the allies weren't affected by the blindness and damage? It could turn the spell into a potent opener, giving usefulness to spells that have potential, but remains unused. Sunburst could blind for 1 round on a successful save, and permanently blind of a failed one as it currently is. Horrid wilting could be the same, only affecting enemies, Banishment could no longer affect allied creatures. Otto's irresistible dance, could be an AoE spell rather than single target, etc ...

The true shame is that the arcane spellbook is ripe with impressive looking spells, yet all suffer from the same limitations, many a times does one read the description of a spell and are like "This seems cool, let me try it." and upon trying it go "Ah, right." and it falls into the long list of unused spells, which only serve as "collectibles" for wizards, who now see completing their spellbook as an achievement, rather than a necessity to expand their choices.

And with the recent update which added more spells to the spellbook, everyone expected a shift and diversity in the way wizards build their spellbooks. Yet it remains same old, same old. Should those restrictions be lifted, I believe there is room for some diversity in gameplay, and more flare given to arcanists in general.

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

I popped back in to say, that while I don't feel my experience as a sub-optimal schooled specialist was an under-powered one, I absolutely love the idea of a spell clutch that can refresh school-appropriate spells for specialists - you could even have the level of spells restored scale with the level of the caster, with a level 28 capstone as an alternative to the somewhat standard ranger/other dip.

I won't propose any numbers of how many or what spells to go with that idea, because I'm blatantly biased, and if it was up to me 28+ specialists would refresh an epic -spell from your specialization school, be it console or vanilla.

I promise I'll only double hellball once.

[Farlius]

Sculpt spell feat should be added to automatically do this. Makes all spells party friendly.
Obviously losing evo only limitation as that school is one of the stronger anyway.

A suggestion would be that more arcane spells with AoE effects are made party friendly. Would it be that bad that acid fog only affects enemies ? and that the allies within it do not get slowed for example? Such can be countered with a FoM naturally but still, it offers an advantage to those who are allies to the arcanist. The same for incendiary cloud, what if the allies weren't affected by the blindness and damage? It could turn the spell into a potent opener, giving usefulness to spells that have potential, but remains unused. Sunburst could blind for 1 round on a successful save, and permanently blind of a failed one as it currently is. Horrid wilting could be the same, only affecting enemies, Banishment could no longer affect allied creatures. Otto's irresistible dance, could be an AoE spell rather than single target, etc ...

Small note: I know this is an edit of every spell a wizard can access.

[-XXX-]

Friendly fire : while I agree that removing friendly fire from offensive AoE spells would have been a great boon, I don't believe that it'd have actually addressed their fundamental flaws:
- their use during PvE would still represent an inefficient use of resources.
- they'd still represent a likely dud in PvP thanks to the DC attached to them.



Saveless spells : I wouldn't have probably used WoF as a template spell leading to fun and interactive gameplay, but OK
There already are spells that confer a saveless debilitating effect (and I think that they are great for PvP):

grease
darkness
balagarn's iron horn (in a way)
negative energy burst
incendiary cloud
(I may be forgetting something else here)

Any saveless CC effect is pretty much off the table as the mage could simply keep reapplying it until their target's dead. Saveless death effects are self-explanatory. There might be a design space for a saveless slow effect and a saveless DEX drain (STR drain already exists and targetting any one of the other 4 stats with a saveless drain might've been too powerful). Draining AC/AB seems situational and borderline useless for arcanists unless they can perform in melee combat in any capacity.
Other than that, I can't think of any other debilitating effect that could be used for saveless spells ATM.

[ltlukoziuz]

This might a bit of a dumb question - but why must all spells revolve around DC/noDC? What about touch attacks? Current HP pool spells ala Power Words (even going opposite - spell only working if person has this much percentage or more)? Skills as resistances (if engine allows that)? If everyone agrees that you can't balance having or not having DCs and how big they are - why not use any alternate means of making the spell valid or invalid?

[Skibbles]

This might a bit of a dumb question - but why must all spells revolve around DC/noDC? What about touch attacks? Current HP pool spells ala Power Words (even going opposite - spell only working if person has this much percentage or more)? Skills as resistances (if engine allows that)? If everyone agrees that you can't balance having or not having DCs and how big they are - why not use any alternate means of making the spell valid or invalid?

I think it's just because many of us don't know what's actually possible to do so we just pull from what we see in game. We know spells like WoF don't have a save, so we know that's possible, and we know some spells are a little of both like some fog spells, but I'm not sure if anyone here has ever coded NWN mechanics before (I certainly haven't!).

Given what Action Replay was able to do with sailing, though, leaves me a little hopeful for something really wild to come around someday.

However you have some interesting ideas here. I'm not sure what you mean by skills as resistences - something like Spellcraft? Or do you mean like making a tumble check versus grease, concentration vs mind fog, and stuff like that? That could be very interesting!

Touch attacks are probably not something that will sell well - it requires a mage, who wants nothing to do with melee range, to use their awful BAB, possibly failing concentration when they are smacked, to try and touch someone. Unless you meant ranged touch attack which is easier unless it's a DEX. It could work if some things are moved around to make it more viable as a strategy.

[xanrael]

I've scripted spell stuff for NWN (not for Arelith specifically) and you could change things up and go off different values, you can see it for some spells already like the Bigby's or Tentacle line. Think the big issue is you'd need to touch the code for every spell manually and rebalance every spell, for example you wouldn't treat Crushing Despair and Dominate Person as the same despite them both requiring Will saves in the current iteration.

Even if a serious effort was taken to it you'd probably have a year+ of rebalancing which would lead to gear changes and be disruptive to everyone whether they participate in PvP or PvE, after all mobs use spells too and that would be something else that would need to be modified. It's something that would be a very good idea for a new server offering a new experience, but potentially too disruptive for a well established server.

[-XXX-]

Yeah, there's like 220 distinct spells in the wizard's spellbook alone.
Tweaking them one at a time sounds like a nightmare ...and that's before taking into account other factors like metamagic.