The Wizard Experience

[Bunnysmack]

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.

I think it would be nice if a greater percentage of that number were actually useful at level 30. One of the main issues is a lack of spells that are reliable against an opponent that knows what they are doing (there are some, but it's a small enough number that, for the most part, sorcerer spell selection can cover it 8th level spells are a bit difficult to fit in for sorc here though).

Melf's acid arrow, Magic Missile, and negative energy ray are downright pointless for a wizard at level 30, yet three of the main wizard offensive schools for spell focus give these as infini spells. If magic missile was replaced with something like scorching ray, this infinite spell boon actually be useful. I mean, that alone, right there, would greatly help the wizard's PvE issues at epic levels.

On a separate note: The idea of being able to make AoEs that don't hurt friendlies is one that would certainly change the game. Allow for more strategy that involves area denial/control, where currently that bites the Wizard's team as much as the opponents unless the wizard is REALLY well coordinated with their party members (random groups hardly ever are, especially in a crisis).

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

DCs spell discussion feels like a dead horse being beaten.

We have partial save spells for a reason and we prob can use more, but instant win spells should always be easily counterable. In actual group pvp shadow mages casting weird are still wipong out a couple characters in the first round.

Shadowmages now can still cast maxizmised IGMS too; have a broad tool bucket.

This whole "a fighter can fish for 20 fives times" is a ridiculous comparison as no single attack instantly kills and a mage not going for instant wins can actually attempt 4 debilitating aoe saves in a single round via two thunderclaps (hits all three saves but being deafened isnt so bad) while finding what weak saves might vebout there for best follow up tactic (which might not be dc based if everything out there is strong)

In head on pvp yeah sorceror is better but wizard having more spell foci skills helps in the previously mentioned "find the chink kn the armor". Like you can easily afford evo spell foci for hell.ball plus other wanted foci like conj/trans/illusion/necro/etc.

[Bunnysmack]

DCs spell discussion feels like a dead horse being beaten.

We have partial save spells for a reason and we prob can use more, but instant win spells should always be easily counterable. In actual group pvp shadow mages casting weird are still wipong out a couple characters in the first round.

Shadowmages now can still cast maxizmised IGMS too; have a broad tool bucket.

This whole "a fighter can fish for 20 fives times" is a ridiculous comparison as no single attack instantly kills and a mage not going for instant wins can actually attempt 4 debilitating aoe saves in a single round via two thunderclaps (hits all three saves but being deafened isnt so bad) while finding what weak saves might vebout there for best follow up tactic (which might not be dc based if everything out there is strong)

In head on pvp yeah sorceror is better but wizard having more spell foci skills helps in the previously mentioned "find the chink kn the armor". Like you can easily afford evo spell foci for hell.ball plus other wanted foci like conj/trans/illusion/necro/etc.

I agree with most of the points made in this statement but take some issues with the overall conclusions.

A weapon master with a scimitar or falchion has a 10-20 crit range on a X3 multiplier while forcing max rolls on the base weapon dice. Considering that a "flurry" all happens at the same time, and a mage only has d4 hit dice, that "single attack" could very well kill a mage outright, and almost certainly do so with a full round of attacks. Meanwhile, the mage has to HOPE they can land some CC that will buy enough time to stop that from happening (all why enduring attacks of such high damage that they will autofail concentration checks). It's not impossible for the mage to win, but it's a very slanted fight in favor of the attacker. Some other martials, like Barbarian or Ranger, are almost as dangerous to a mage in terms of how quickly their DPS will end a mage's life, and additionally have some built in CC avoiding abilities besides.

I would say instant win spells should be counterable. I argue that "easily counterable" is a stretch in some cases. A CL 30 clarity wand/potion/scroll is still REALLY hard to remove as is, ditto for Death Ward, and both can't be breached. I agree the DC issue is very difficult to balance, however, and slight shifts can make control/kill spells go from "not worth slotting" to "incredibly OP." More spells that can reliably lower target saves would be good, and this time don't make it so the target needs to fail a save for it to do anything (It defeats the purpose, because if a failed save is what's needed either way, then why not just slot a control/kill spell instead?). This means it will take multiple spells in order to reliably land the DC spells that are so feared, and the debuff is easily countered by a simple lesser restoration, so it's not like the addition of these spells would be an unstoppable meta shift.

Another useful idea would be to create more repeatable abilities, outside of the spellbook, that are worth using offensively as backups at level 30. I presume the inifini spells from GSF were made to help with the fact that wizards run out of spells easily and it's 1. Not at all fun to play that, and 2. is a very frustrating result for a class who (more than any other class) has ALL of their bonuses focused toward spellcasting, to the detriment of nearly everything else on their equipment and character sheets. I'm not saying they should have many repeatable/cooldown spells, or the spells should be as strong as anything above 5th level, or that this boon should make them "warlock but better", but just having something worth using at level 30 would be nice. Color spray and Blind/Deaf were a decent start, the other offensive infini-spells...not so much.

All of what I said here should include sorcerers. Outside of Div-dip sorcs (and I just really dislike div dip game balance in general), the class is a bit in need of assistance as well, for similar reasons, even if their style of play differs somewhat.

As a side note: While Great Thunderclap is situationally quite good, the debilitating results are all single-round effects. Considering the limited number of level 7 slots available, it's a mixed bag as to how helpful it will be to spend that slot, and a half-round action (full round if not hasted), in order to MAYBE disable an opponent for one round.

[-XXX-]

Yeah, a melee/ranged build can snuff the mage out just as fast as the mage can kill them with an instant death spell.
At the same time the melee/ranged build has multiple layers of built-in defenses against the mage's attacks while the reverse does not apply.
This dynamic is flawed and skewed. That's why I was saying that if reworking the spells and/or lowering the saves of everyone was not an option, ASF should be removed so that mages could get AC.

[MrSnickers32]

What about adding more caster-related feats (I'm thinking other metamagic, improved familiar, or archmage-esque feats). Then add them to bonus feats for the wizard. I imagine that might shake out more unique builds that are still fun and have variety.

Not necessarily a direct wiz buff... But I'm not sure.if that's where the discussion is now anyhow.

[Scylon]

My personal main issue with wizard is pve sustained damage output. I generally found I just sat back and let my pet do everything. Spells were too precious to waste on trash mobs, making for a bit of lame leveling experience. Buff, summon, get out of the way. This is the same deal as group pve. You are just a mass haste battery.

I think wizards need to be able to learn a couple more infinite higher end damage spells just so they can output more DPS while fighting trash. Nothing crazy, but leveling a warlock feels fun because they have spells I can go nuts with, as I generally get the sense I am doing something while leveling.

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

As a side note: While Great Thunderclap is situationally quite good, the debilitating results are all single-round effects. Considering the limited number of level 7 slots available, it's a mixed bag as to how helpful it will be to spend that slot, and a half-round action (full round if not hasted), in order to MAYBE disable an opponent for one round.

Just wanted to comment here on this particular subject, because thunderclap is one of my favorite spells, but the disables are actually only a very small part of it.

Thunderclap is an absolute must when facing enemies whose saves you don't know if you're trying to effectively work anything other than the standard gamut of buffs and no-save effects in your spell selection. It becomes your fishing spell. With an epic spell focus, the DC can reasonably get up to 37-38. Whether against monsters you've never faced or other players, it's the perfect fishing spell - you learn all three of every target's saves as a result, and if they fail either the knockdown or the stun you have a quick respite of a round to decide on your follow-up spells.

The value of knowing which saves to target if you're running spells with actual save vs. effects absolutely cannot be overstated; a DC mage who lands most of their spells makes a much more enduring and significant impact than one who fails to land every other, third, or even fourth spell.

Obviously, if there's a lot of enemies, you're not going to have time to read the combat log for every weak save- but targets that are stunned have weak will (mind blank will NOT stop this stun), and targets that are prone have weak reflex. You only need to parse the log for targets that neither happen to. Can't imagine my life without this spell.

[-XXX-]

The value of knowing which saves to target if you're running spells with actual save vs. effects absolutely cannot be overstated; a DC mage who lands most of their spells makes a much more enduring and significant impact than one who fails to land every other, third, or even fourth spell.

IDK... the thing is that all the instant death spells target the fort save. This practically makes fort the only save that truly matters as the other CC spells that target other types of saves can be instantly remedied with -prays. This by itself would have been bad enough, but abilities like mighty rage skew this dynamic even further.

So in practice it often looks like this:
1) the mage needs to dispel counterplay wards - many of which are not on the breach list, so there's a high variance working against them
2) the mage uses Thunderclap to probe for the weakest save
3) the mage exploits the weakest save by choosing the right DC spell - unless the weak save was fort specifically, only CC spells are left as an option.
4) the DC spell still needs to beat the save = more variance (most optimized builds will still have at least a coin toss chance even with their weakest save)
...
5) the opponent just -prays and wins anyway

[Shadowy Reality]

Entirely agree with the OP on the Wizard chassis being below par in this day and age. I don't have enough experience with Wild Mage to know if it is enough to offset that. From what I read, Wild Mage can be extremely strong if used right but delicate, due to the lack of Discipline. And that your -fate surge can still surge normally and screw your -fate is sad.

There is no easy solution here. Saves are currently bloated but with reason, spells tend to be all or nothing. I honestly believe spells need to slowly be worked to have some effect even when a save is made. It doesn't need to be all 200+ spells at once, one every now and then will slowly make them more useful.

I have said this before and will say it again, Arelith needs to slowly move away from burst and hard disables, they are not fun. There is no fun in rolling a 1 and losing a fight, there is no fun in being crit twice (and in most cases all it takes less than that) and losing a fight.

[SCP-079]

Just a few thoughts.

1) If we go for more AC to make wizards less squishy, personally, I would prefer stronger unbreachable protection spells instead of removing ASF so that they can wear heavy armor.

2) I feel we don't need to re-work the entire spellbook, especially not all at once. Looking at select spells from 6th to 9th would already do a lot.
Personally, I feel any damage reduction spell like Premonition is pointless if +5 weapons are common as they pierce such wards entirely - making it more gradual (like, instead of DR 30/+5, DR 10/+5 + DR 10/+6 + DR 10/+7 + DR 5/- ?) or maybe even adding a DI component based on caster level would add a nice chunk of survivability.
Shapechange feels extremely underwhelming in combat, especially when compared to its PnP version - as a wizard with ESF: Transmutation, I often wish I could actually transform into something truly terrifying that does not just get KDed and attacks twice a round with laughable AB while completely taking away all spellcasting capability. The spell does not even improve beyond duration with caster level, while in the core rules, a higher caster level scales up pretty much every aspect of it.
Save or die spells are fairly lame across the board, dying no matter what in an instant is just boring; adding something nasty but not outright lethal even when making the save to Wail of the Banshee and friends might be a nice middleground (1 round of paralysis? 1 round of blindness, deafness - similar to WoF?) so we don't have to completely rebalance saves (even though I'd love to see div dips limited by class level regarding their CHA save bonuses).
Maze maybe could become saveless, given its very short duration / range and the target not being harmable meanwhile, perhaps half a round of confusion after the spell ends, together with a cooldown to prevent spam.

I'll stop here. But in general, I agree that wizards could use some love.

Edit: Some ways of dealing moderate sustained damage in PVE would be cool, too - Shapechange again feels like a possible solution (especially for Transmuters). Some improved form of ESF-based inficasting might be cool, too. Maximized magic missile for evokers? Adding negative damage to necro's Ray of Enfeeblement (that also causes a corpse explosion / mild avascular mass if the target dies within a round or two after being hit) - or a swarm of vampiric spiders that damages all targets within it (via an aura or just a tweaked Pestilence?) but requires concentration on the caster's side? Something that turns the target into a quickly rotting zombie hostile to all that explodes in a cloud of toxic, nauseating gas after a few rounds? Adding a very short duration dominate to ESF Enchantment (that becomes more likely to work with each successive cast if an attempt fails) - [personal note of frustration: it is often a waste to throw a Dominate spell at a target that gets chopped down by a WM before the spell takes effect, it seems limited to try and snatch minibosses]? A weaker flaming arrow for Conjurers? True Strike for Diviners (that affects multiple targets)? A way to create a short-lasting duplicate of the target that attacks and distracts it for Illusionists (and if destroyed, it explodes in a fountain of rainbows with a chance to briefly stun/confuse)? It always bothered me how martials get infinite attacks while I fairly fast run out of useful things to do.
Balance-wise, I think a good way to look at it is to compare possible DPS to a gonne (which enables anyone to dish out ~100 damage per round, even though at high cost, but without any feat/skill/class investment whatsoever). I feel it would be ok for a glass-cannon-offensive class like wizard to perform similarly without the uneconomic slug ammo management.

Edit: Another way to increase survivability could be to transfer a large chunk of incoming damage to nearby summons (why can't my mummies guard me??)

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

The value of knowing which saves to target if you're running spells with actual save vs. effects absolutely cannot be overstated; a DC mage who lands most of their spells makes a much more enduring and significant impact than one who fails to land every other, third, or even fourth spell.

IDK... the thing is that all the instant death spells target the fort save. This practically makes fort the only save that truly matters as the other CC spells that target other types of saves can be instantly remedied with -prays. This by itself would have been bad enough, but abilities like mighty rage skew this dynamic even further.

So in practice it often looks like this:
1) the mage needs to dispel counterplay wards - many of which are not on the breach list, so there's a high variance working against them
2) the mage uses Thunderclap to probe for the weakest save
3) the mage exploits the weakest save by choosing the right DC spell - unless the weak save was fort specifically, only CC spells are left as an option.
4) the DC spell still needs to beat the save = more variance (most optimized builds will still have at least a coin toss chance even with their weakest save)
...
5) the opponent just -prays and wins anyway

I agree that PvP changes the scenario (-pray), but I also feel that if you're spelling up for PvP in mind with DC spells you should expect pray and take doubles or triples of any hard cc you're planning to apply. We've really digressed (my fault!) but I wanted to point out that there are a few specific options to take advantage of when dealing with pray if you don't want to double-tap the hold/dominate/disable effects.
1: Clenched fist is damage + a fort vs. stun each round. It bypasses mindblank. If they pray out of it, the hand continues to do damage and force another fort vs. stun each round.
2: Mind fog is a fifth level spell slot. If someone or a group is stunned, drop a mind fog around them immediately, and follow up with CC of choice; confusion is great (and hilarious) for larger groups, but phantasmal killer and weird are also a nice non-CC follow-up that now have a chance of working, because they're [mind-affecting] death spells and the enemy takes the fog penalty against them.
3: Forceful hand is a knockdown effect, and to my knowledge cannot be prayed out of if you fail the check.

20's and 1's are equal opportunity; in PvP, saves can be geared reliably to the 35+ range across the board here, and a DC mage is probably going to lose fights against opponents who go that route. But in that case, thunderclap also points out to you the person on the field who just ignored a high DC against all their saves as someone to avoid or single out for no-saves- or run.

[-XXX-]

1: -prays followed by a clarity potion (instant action followed by a 1/2 round action - you'll make it in time before the next spell hits, don't worry)
2: -prays followed by a clarity potion
3: Forceful hand doesn't really work well vs builds with STR (also has a reflex save). Furthermore, while it's true that -prays does not remove the prone effect, it still deals with the daze effect allowing the character to actually stand up after 1 round instead of being forced (pardon the pun) to sit on their butt helplessly for the next 3 turns.

Trying to force multiple failed saves through -prays sounds like a losing proposition. The burst damage meta just does not allow for the tempo required to do that. Ironically, the better alternative to brute forcing CC effect spells might often be simply going all in on one of those dreaded insta-kill spells as that effect can't be casually undone by -prays.

20's and 1's are equal opportunity; in PvP, saves can be geared reliably to the 35+ range across the board here, and a DC mage is probably going to lose fights against opponents who go that route. But in that case, thunderclap also points out to you the person on the field who just ignored a high DC against all their saves as someone to avoid or single out for no-saves- or run.

Okay, just to make sure that I got that right - is it really being suggested here to cast a 7th circle spell only to get an opportunity to sift through the combat log and figure out who to run away from and never engage in PvP ever again?
Because as it stands right now the answer is most likely going to be "anyone who made effort to optimize their gear".

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

1: -prays followed by a clarity potion (instant action followed by a 1/2 round action - you'll make it in time before the next spell hits, don't worry)
2: -prays followed by a clarity potion
3: Forceful hand doesn't really work well vs builds with STR (also has a reflex save). Furthermore, while it's true that -prays does not remove the prone effect, it still deals with the daze effect allowing the character to actually stand up after 1 round instead of being forced (pardon the pun) to sit on their butt helplessly for the next 3 turns.

Trying to force multiple failed saves through -prays sounds like a losing proposition. The burst damage meta just does not allow for the tempo required to do that. Ironically, the better alternative to brute forcing CC effect spells might often be simply going all in on one of those dreaded insta-kill spells as that effect can't be casually undone by -prays.

20's and 1's are equal opportunity; in PvP, saves can be geared reliably to the 35+ range across the board here, and a DC mage is probably going to lose fights against opponents who go that route. But in that case, thunderclap also points out to you the person on the field who just ignored a high DC against all their saves as someone to avoid or single out for no-saves- or run.

Okay, just to make sure that I got that right - is it really being suggested here to cast a 7th circle spell only to get an opportunity to sift through the combat log and figure out who to run away from and never engage in PvP ever again?
Because as it stands right now the answer is most likely going to be "anyone who made effort to optimize their gear".

1: Clarity will stop the mind-fog, but won't/shouldn't stop the clenched fist, as its stun is not a mind-affecting effect, just like clarity/mindblank won't stop a monk stunning fist or assassin DA paralyze.

2: If they pray out of the thunderclap stun which is only one round anyway, that's arguably a tactical improvement for a DC mage, as pray is off the table for all further CC's. If they wait for the mindfog to pray, at this point as a mage you're most likely hasted, and the confusion should be coming right behind it in the same round before they have time to drink a clarity pot (you're already doubling down on the thunderclap stun, so you have no reason to hesitate and every reason to assume the mind fog will work). Edit: I wasn't going to mention the people who failed reflex, because prone can't be prayed out of, but grasping hand or clenched fist are both pretty good finishers against prones.

3: I won't argue this fact, but I will point out that as a DC mage, if you can get someone to pray and still be stuck on the ground for a round, you've basically secured your win, b/c pray is no longer a viable option and you can't use a pot while prone.

I wasn't really suggesting you parse the combat logs for all the people that didn't fail a save- the people that are still moving around unaffected after your thunderclap have kind of highlighted themselves without a need for glancing at the combat log. You really only need to use the combat log to identify weak fort saves, b/c you don't get a blatant visual cue of that save failing. It tells you both who is a prime target for DC spells (and which ones), and who to gtf away from.

My point is not that this is optimal wizard play, because a DC mage is already sub-optimal at best in PvP- merely that you are more likely to succeed at picking spells that work after casting a thunderclap, and there really isn't a more useful piece of information or a faster way to get it once combat starts other than Great Thunderclap if you're going to all-in the concept (which I did).

[-XXX-]

I'm really not going to argue hypothetical specific scenarios regarding the measures of counterplays that a debuffed target that failed a series of 5% fail rate saves has available any further. There should've been none in these cases, which was my point all along.

1: Clarity will stop the mind-fog, but won't/shouldn't stop the clenched fist, as its stun is not a mind-affecting effect, just like clarity/mindblank won't stop a monk stunning fist or assassin DA paralyze.

That's not how stun works, just for clarity's sake

[Party in the forest at midnight]

Why would I ever slot up a bigby's spell (any of them) when something useful could go into the slot instead. Same goes for greater thunder clap. I have never seen anyone cast these spells. None of these spells are good enough to warrant wasting a spell slot on them that could be used on a better spell instead. These spells might sound good on paper but they don't exist in a void. They compete with a lot of other spells, and metamagic to help with spell slot management. There are a lot of other spells I'd experiment with before I turned to bigby's or thunderclap. Even maze gets a lot more conversation about it than bigby's spells or thunderclap, and that's largely from people trying to break the spell or self-yeet.

[Zan]

Been playing a Shadow Mage (Despite getting advice before taking the class that DC is a bad idea) for a few months now; and there is alot in this post that I agree with, and alot I disagree with.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoy playing a wizard, especially with a bit more practice (I'm used to playing Rangers, or Clerics, so this was a HUGE shift). There are only 2 things from the experience that I think really need a look at:

1. Grind / Attrition in PvE combat. This point has been raised a few times. There were alot of time I felt like a spectator in content. Watching summons to the work (Playing an Illusion Specialist, Shadow Mage). It would be nice if Wizards across the board had a more reliable infi-cast for damage. Yes, you can take GSF: Evo, but that doesnt always make RP sense. Nothing huge, but even just having Negative Energy Ray for GSF Necro rather than Ray of enfeeblement ( a spell I can say I have NEVER used due to the terrible DC on it). Doesn'y need to be rediculous damage, but the same would go for Caster Clerics, or Caster druids. The Cantrips in 5e are a good example. Continuous scaling infini-cast spells so that casters can contribute SOME damage in battle but never going to be anywhere near as useful as using actual spells, or Martial character contribution

2. This one is about the different paths. The extra DC is actually not why I chose to play a Shadow Mage, it was the RP around the shadow weave. Being unaffected by faerzress is something I bring up alot in RP, but it would be nicer to distinguish Shadow Adept more from a regular run of the mill mage; and a wild mage in the same way; so that the 3 wizard paths had separate identities. For example, personally I'd give up the +2 DC on spells in a heartbeat, if I could open a shadow-door anywhere (even lens malfunction areas) and slip into the shadow plane.

[chris a gogo]

To chime in on the bigby's and great thunderclap part.

Bigby's line of spells had the reflex save added to them because they were far to powerful, this was before freedom of movement was available to anyone with a couple of 1000 gold, all the spells now have counters that anyone can use so the extra reflex is now over kill and could be removed making them more useful.

Great Thunderclap.

This is the single best CC spell in the game triple saves and one round stun/kd/deaf.
The trouble is that it is very situational and as it hits everything but the caster you end up taking out your allies/turning summons hostile, as such it is rarely used apart from as a last line of defense for a wizard or an opener on an unbuffed target.
There is also the issue of spell economy you need your level 7 spell slots for more general buffs and taking more than a single great thunderclap on a wizard is highly inadvisable.

Now on an infini caster like a true fire all these spells are great you can spam Great thunderclap and a bigby's spell each round when hasted and create total chaos in any engagement, but on a wizard due to added DC's and low usage viability both spell types are barely used.

[Ninjimmy]

... I mean, I enjoy playing my wizard, but he's also a consummate loser who isn't intended to win in a fight - I took EDK and Hellball and neither hits any where NEAR as hard as a fighter with an adamantine weapon.

I know that a chunk of this is the meta so wizards aren't OP, but the only way I see a Wizard reliably winning a fight against an opponent whose done any sort of prep work these days is to churn out wands and potions then Yoink in an ACTUAL character to fight.

Or be a spell sword, I guess.

[Xarge VI]

One way to improve the #WizardExperience might be to extend the spell component system to include some increasingly rarer and more expensive materials to increase the spell dc/lvl and be consumed upon cast.

For example you could increase the damage output of a scorching ray by consuming alchemistic fire upon cast,
fireball by using a fire agate and boost the damage of firebrand by using a fire opal.

Consuming an Abjurative Focus/Gem of Nullification you could increase the spell level of your Dispels, breaches and disjunctions.

Adamant Ingot and you oomph your Hellball and Greater ruin.

Could even be a combination of different materials that gives the best boost.

Some kind of protection from dispels might also be a good idea- Like a special ability for epic level arcanists that can protect from a disjunction once, but consumes a rogue stone. Could also be a feat they can pick.

I'm thinking some kind of "Arcane Crucible" item that can be crafted that works like a container. You stick the items in and activate the crucible. You get a special "Spell Boost Component" that once used will boost the corresponding spell/s for idk, one hour. But you get no feedback if it works or doesn't other than the readings you usually get when casting (=You still see the increased damage and dcs). There could also be negative impacts to some combinations. Keep those mages experimenting!

I've felt that the spell component system as it is stands is little more than a money sink. I'd want wizards and mages to have to go out in the world and experiment with their spells. Of course that sounds like a lot of work for something that may become just a gamified sidenote to a lot of players eventually.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

The problem with tying damage output to wealth is you will give a significant advantage to people who are rich or who have friends that can farm addy all the time. Because it's not just a couple adamantine ingots, it's whoever can hoard the most. Same with rogue stones, those who can hoard the most of them will become dispel immune.

I don't see how this makes spell components less of a gold sink.

[Xarge VI]

To elaborate. I don't think it's a bad thing that spell components are a gold sink. But I think they are largely a gold sink without added benefits and limited value in RP (Beyond making a spell component manufacture operation using captive gnomes as labor) as they are just a necessity.

I get it though. It'll be easy for some factions to give their mages a hundred addy ingots each, but I don't think those mages are able to carry many of these ingots and they definitely shouldn't be powers that you can activate as long as you have those resources in the inventory, rather once per rest.

Mostly I'm advocating for using rarer resources in the mix for some obscure combinations to give benefits. Locations of cosmic convergence/planar radiation could be added to the mix too, to make it really arcane.

[-XXX-]

Sounds like a lot of powercreep only to get back to the starting point.

[Eters]

Arcanists are already the only caster class that needs to burn crafting points, time and gems to be able to function on higher spells, It would honestly not be, in my opinion, a good idea to further tie arcane to coin and consumables.

Right now spell components offer no real roleplay, like once in a blue moon you'll say to someone "Yeah I'm going to make spell components" then cry yourself to sleep, otherwise it's a solitary experience that feels punitive at worst and a hassle at best, but it's not so big of a deal that I would advocate for its removal as it's now implemented in the depths of an arcanist's life, which can be resumed in three things : "Enforced addiction to booze, constant survival on lesser restoration/ endless slavery of spell components creation." and that is fine in a way, you learn to live with it.

And yes, I do enjoy my wizard very much, the roleplay the class provides is nice, and being a nerd who hugs scrolls and ancient dusty tomes when they crawl in bed is exactly what I was looking to RP when I made a wizard, there is nothing to be said about the RP, it's good, the roleplay was never the subject of the debate.

The issue is their standing in the meta, they can't support, and they can't pressure kill, they can sorta do something in between, where you CC and pray you don't CC your allies, or fail miserably all together due to the saves/spellcraft creep, you make use of your more powerful CC's at the expense of your allies (killing, Kding, entangling, blinding and slowing them down in the process alongside the enemy). Which means all you can do is dispel, which as stated before, a sorcerer does better because they've more spell slots, because "Big number of spells" is exactly what a sorcerer is.

Wizard speaks "control and precision" to me, a scholar that spends 23 out of their 24 hours studying and perfecting their craft through a constant, unrelenting hunger for knowledge. Yet playing a wizard I never felt in control of anything, not the battlefield, let alone my own spells. Which is honestly why I hope wizards can earn at least, the ability to make full usage of their CCs without having to worry about their allies.

An example on how to implement this would be something like : All AOE become party unfriendly.

A wizard with SF Evocation : AoE spells from 1-3 become self/party friendly
A wizard with GSF Evocation : AoE Spells from 4-6 become self/party friendly
A wizard with ESF Evocation : AoE Spells from 7-Epic become self/party friendly

This means an evoker wizard can go all out on their spells, from thunderclaps and ice storms to icebergs, a wizard with ESF would be the paragon of control over that spell school and that would show in how spells from that school behave. In contrast a wizard without evocation focus can certainly still make use of those spells, at their own risks and perils.

[-XXX-]

Ideally the above but with a toggle. You do not necessarily want to have all AoEs party friendly all the time (NE bursting your own undoods comes to mind as an immediate example)

[Griefmaker]

Ideally the above but with a toggle. You do not necessarily want to have all AoEs party friendly all the time (NE bursting your own undoods comes to mind as an immediate example)

This would be great. Something like the -warlock or -stream command to toggle it on and off.