Wildmage and Vanilla NWN Specializations

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perseid
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Wildmage and Vanilla NWN Specializations

Post by perseid » Wed Aug 10, 2022 6:39 am

This is very much just a personal opinion but I wanted to make the post to see if anyone else felt similarly. While the restriction against taking wizarding specializations may have once made sense for Wildmages I'm of the opinion that they should be able to take a vanilla nwn (but not Arelithian) specialization given how much more flushed out Arelith's wizard specialists are by comparison to their base game counterparts. Arelith's custom specializations are (varying somewhat by the choice) fairly robust now and Wildmage isn't quite as silly in certain regards as it once was due to alterations to a few of the more overpowered surges that have taken place.

Since some players might not be aware, the context here is that while Arelith has specialist paths for Wizards there are also specialization 'paths' of a sort in the vanilla nwn game that can be selected at character creation.

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Re: Wildmage and Vanilla NWN Specializations

Post by xf1313 » Wed Aug 10, 2022 8:29 am

The complete ban of certain spell school is too much a penalty for wizards, when I played in another server, other ask why going specialist at all.

The little perks in Arelith are nice, but none of them nice enough for me to decide to throw a whole spell school away yet.
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perseid
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Re: Wildmage and Vanilla NWN Specializations

Post by perseid » Wed Aug 10, 2022 8:37 am

xf1313 wrote:
Wed Aug 10, 2022 8:29 am
The complete ban of certain spell school is too much a penalty for wizards, when I played in another server, other ask why going specialist at all.

The little perks in Arelith are nice, but none of them nice enough for me to decide to throw a whole spell school away yet.
This isn't quite what I was discussing though. Arelith's Wizard specializations carry the same ban on spellschools as the vanilla nwn Wizard specializations so that part is the same. But I wouldn't propose that a Wildmage be allowed to receive both the perk of being a Wildmage and the fairly potent perks associated with Arelith's Wizard specialties. The vanilla nwn Wizard specialties, which are mechanically independent from Arelith's Wizard specialities, give the simpler benefit of +1 Spell Slot per level. These additonal slots are potent but considering the effectiveness of some of the Arelith specialties that /are/ able to also to benefit from the vanilla Wizard specialization system I think it would be fine if Wildmages could select one of the vanilla wizard specializations as well.

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Re: Wildmage and Vanilla NWN Specializations

Post by Itikar » Wed Aug 10, 2022 2:02 pm

I assumed that the wild mage ban from specializations was a matter of lore more than balance. However, it seems that the original prestige class in pen and paper did not have such restrictions, so I don't see the problem there.

Wild mage is definitely not in a good spot right now, I am less sure if it is specializations that it needs, but certainly a little help will not hurt it.

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Re: Wildmage and Vanilla NWN Specializations

Post by SilverSnake » Wed Aug 10, 2022 4:40 pm

The way i see it any buff to wild mage is good. Currently its an absolute joke with spells that are savable against even when fated. And we talk of a pure wizard 30 lvl investment with no discipline or defense whatsoever (at least if you want to have perfect fates). IMO it has very little going for it , way less than the various specializations even.

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Re: Wildmage and Vanilla NWN Specializations

Post by Ork » Wed Aug 10, 2022 7:21 pm

This is good. Wild mage needs to stay in the garbage bin for its earlier crimes.

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Re: Wildmage and Vanilla NWN Specializations

Post by ElvenEdibles » Wed Aug 10, 2022 9:41 pm

Ork wrote:
Wed Aug 10, 2022 7:21 pm
This is good. Wild mage needs to stay in the garbage bin for its earlier crimes.
Why not just delete it entirely

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Re: Wildmage and Vanilla NWN Specializations

Post by Hazard » Wed Aug 10, 2022 11:31 pm

Ork wrote:
Wed Aug 10, 2022 7:21 pm
This is good. Wild mage needs to stay in the garbage bin for its earlier crimes.
Ah. The Blizzard approach to balancing.

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Re: Wildmage and Vanilla NWN Specializations

Post by SilverSnake » Sat Aug 13, 2022 10:16 pm

Ork wrote:
Wed Aug 10, 2022 7:21 pm
This is good. Wild mage needs to stay in the garbage bin for its earlier crimes.
Ahh.. flawless and very fun logic especially for those few wild mages left that really enjoy the concept. If only we would apply the same rules to every other class and build.

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Re: Wildmage and Vanilla NWN Specializations

Post by -XXX- » Sat Aug 13, 2022 11:22 pm

SilverSnake wrote:
Sat Aug 13, 2022 10:16 pm
Ork wrote:
Wed Aug 10, 2022 7:21 pm
This is good. Wild mage needs to stay in the garbage bin for its earlier crimes.
Ahh.. flawless and very fun logic especially for those few wild mages left that really enjoy the concept. If only we would apply the same rules to every other class and build.
Doesn't really need to be every other class, just weapon masters.

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Re: Wildmage and Vanilla NWN Specializations

Post by Ork » Sun Aug 14, 2022 1:54 am

Haha it was a joke okay! No need to nerf weaponmaster.(know your place mage. mass haste or pk!)

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Re: Wildmage and Vanilla NWN Specializations

Post by xf1313 » Sun Aug 14, 2022 2:00 am

Not the first time I saw such comments, every class that SOMEONE do not play should get nerfed or killed, but the classes SOMEONE is meta at must stay at pedestal. While the discussion is totally irrelevant. That is the damaging mindset — uncaring of other players.

Back to the topic, I played Wild mage myself and just spend some time on wiki to read specialists wizards. Honestly? I have no objection with your suggestions lore-wise, This read even intrigued me into consider playing a specialist wizard. Having them combined can be rather fun. Although, I would have different surge table for different specialist, for example, conj wizard always have surge when he conjured things, illusion wizard having illusion-related problem, Necro need to cope with Necro accidents (sudden burst of negative energy or a undead lord desided to say hi) etc...
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Re: Wildmage and Vanilla NWN Specializations

Post by Ork » Sun Aug 14, 2022 2:10 am

Recognize that I nor any other person posting here has any effect on classes. Get loins twisted all you like, the fact of the matter is that for 3 years wild mages had a delete button. They didn't need the delete button, but they had it. I'm glad it is gone. The subset of Wildmage is outdated to our new hak world so it would be much more elegant to craft them into something special similar to how true flame/frost has become elementalist/hemo.

Attacking a class is not attacking a player, despite what you might believe. Only the most fastidious of mental gymnasts could take my comment as a personal attack.

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Re: Wildmage and Vanilla NWN Specializations

Post by Itikar » Sun Aug 14, 2022 2:25 am

Who lives by the sword dies by the sword.

It really looks like you just got a joke back. :P

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Re: Wildmage and Vanilla NWN Specializations

Post by perseid » Sun Aug 14, 2022 8:58 am

For what it's worth I took Ork's comment as tongue-in-cheek myself. To get things back on track though, would people object if the proposal instead was to just treat wildmage as a specialization for bonus spell purposes? I'm curious to gauge the perceived state of Wildmage here still and I think the specialties are a good starting point since w/ Mass Haste and Protection From Spells no longer tied to Enchantment there's very little non-flavor reason to not at least be an Illusion specialized wizard for the bonus slots. Generic Generalist by contrast I'd argue is a poor yardstick because there's almost no incentive to be one atm.

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Re: Wildmage and Vanilla NWN Specializations

Post by -XXX- » Sun Aug 14, 2022 9:57 am

Ork is right in one thing - the wild mage probably needs to go away.

Not because of its crimes of the past but because of its crimes of the future. The wild mage smothers the design space for all other wizard and sorcerer variants by simply existing.
This very thread is a prime example of this - you can't take the wild mage path on a specialist wizard because of the implied unforseen unwanted interactions (the wizard class in general has been shattered into 10 shades of mediocre between vanilla, wild and specialist wizards, rather than risk having one that's too powerful)

As a result... https://wiki.nwnarelith.com/Character_Builds
There's currently 1 (!) optimal wizard build (that can and is probably better off going the wild mage path) and 0 (!!!) optimal sorcerer builds that would be on par with the other optimal builds.

TBH, I'd like to see -fate removed altogether, wild magic rebalanced, much more random, risky and unpredictable and then allowing all mages to toggle their wild magic use through the IG NPC conversation.

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Re: Wildmage and Vanilla NWN Specializations

Post by perseid » Sun Aug 14, 2022 10:21 am

-XXX- wrote:
Sun Aug 14, 2022 9:57 am
Ork is right in one thing - the wild mage probably needs to go away.

Not because of its crimes of the past but because of its crimes of the future. The wild mage smothers the design space for all other wizard and sorcerer variants by simply existing.
This very thread is a prime example of this - you can't take the wild mage path on a specialist wizard because of the implied unforseen unwanted interactions (the wizard class in general has been shattered into 10 shades of mediocre between vanilla, wild and specialist wizards, rather than risk having one that's too powerful)

As a result... https://wiki.nwnarelith.com/Character_Builds
There's currently 1 (!) optimal wizard build (that can and is probably better off going the wild mage path) and 0 (!!!) optimal sorcerer builds that would be on par with the other optimal builds.

TBH, I'd like to see -fate removed altogether, wild magic rebalanced, much more random, risky and unpredictable and then allowing all mages to toggle their wild magic use through the IG NPC conversation.
I'm not sure I understand the point being made with the generic build? Most Wildmage surges that were once problematic have a mechanical counter that hard shuts them down barring Ghostform, the Volcano, and Monoliths and even those three have iffy odds (with one only working in certain types of area) unless you go pure which ruins both your Discipline and your ability to build towards corner sneaking. On the other hand, Enchantment and Illusion specialists are both phenomenal while being reliable and Diviner's only loss of significance can be negated with careful familiar selection.

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Re: Wildmage and Vanilla NWN Specializations

Post by -XXX- » Sun Aug 14, 2022 12:17 pm

The idea behind wild magic is getting extra oompth at the cost of randomness that can severly cripple the caster and their allies. Wild magic surges can be hilarious and great fun for as long as the caster doesn't have any control over them.
Wild mages take away this randomness by being able to -fate a desired surge for that one boss fight or PvP encounter.

This might seem niche at first glance, but what it actually does is capping every spell and ability in the arcanist toolkit around the idea of -fated wild magic.


Making wild magic random (as originally intended) would then give arcanists a choice: "do you really want that minor chance of having your fireball erupt into a volcano that also comes with the risk of turning you and your buddies into poultry instead?", rather than "we need to balance fireball around an avascular mass surge".

tl;dr.: wild magic should probably be balanced in a way that it wouldn't make any given mage overpowered. Then we could wave wild mages goodbye while keeping the otherwise cool wild magic concept around. Turn it into a togglable RP toy for everybody rather than having a single path use this mechanic to great effect in PvP - that's all I'm saying.

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Re: Wildmage and Vanilla NWN Specializations

Post by xanrael » Sun Aug 14, 2022 8:54 pm

Personally I've found the Abyssal-pacted warlock to feel more like what I'd expect for wild magic than wild mage mainly due to the constant flow of things (spells/blasts) that can trigger wild surges and it skewing towards positive results with level as opposed to being able to select the exact surge you want 1/rest.

I'm not stating it has to change to that model, just an observation.

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Re: Wildmage and Vanilla NWN Specializations

Post by xf1313 » Mon Aug 15, 2022 12:38 am

Fate is just one-per rest, wild mage hold their breath for every spell cast, and in desperate time, calls for random surges and hope for the best. It is fundamentally different from normal wizard. And make that a switch so everyone can use it feels like a bad idea. People can summon a monolith then enjoy non-risk casting?

The unpredictable nature is why some people want to pick it and some avoid it, trading strength for fun.

Why are you saying this class have to dissappear? What is all that previous crime about and why should current players being punished for something they did not do? If certain mechanics are problematic, fix that. If is it player issue, file a report. It is disheartening to see people posting about whatever class needs to go away because...well I do not know why but certainly those people do not love these classes and do not want others to enjoy it.

Should I also join the club? There are quite a few classes I do not play thou, let’s just remove harpers, zentarims, Assassins, RDD, shifter...the list goes on and I can come up with excuses about how they are not need. For example, a pure fighter can certainly RP a weapon master without being one.

But no, that’s just not a nice thing to do.

True Flame is no more, just before I wanted to have a go at it. The new invokers are amazing but they are not the same.
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Re: Wildmage and Vanilla NWN Specializations

Post by Sytic » Mon Aug 15, 2022 12:53 am

I think people were having mostly a gaff about Wild Mage disappearing. But as someone who plays one? They're way behind the times.

Not Wild Mage, mind you. Wizards.

Bar a few spells, I'd much rather play a Shaman or a Cleric. So many benefits, so many less downsides. If I wanted to play a blaster wizard, Invoker trees (Hemo and Elementalist) are designed to be better. Wizard has a bit of a short end of the caster stick right now, Wild Mage just happening to be the worst option in it aside from maybe Conjuration depending on how you think of it. (I just don't like losing Transmutation. I'm a wimp, sue me. But that perma-haste and SR summons... Don't know. Have to think on that one.)

I play a buff Wizard. Actually, a buff Wild Mage. I focus around aiding my team because using blaster spells completely burns through my spell slots for so very little gain. Wizard is a bit behind the times it seems, and dealing with WMs won't change that.

I would personally, like to see something done with -fate. It's really boring and encourages a cookie cutter 30 WiM build. I'd tie it to caster level with the prerequisite being the Epic Wizard feat (21 levels in Wizard). Maybe it allows you to do certain effects with your Wild Surges. Maybe your effects won't harm people in your party, or just you. Maybe you suffer blowback damage to make effects harder to save against. I would have them modify surges rather than proc a singular surge, 1/rest. Rest is already a significantly harder to deal with mechanic for Wizards (and some other caster classes!) than others, why make the issue worse?

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