Arcane caster balance feedback- wizard cope 2 electric boogaloo

[Quizmar]

It's become clear to me that sorcerer is probably the worst class available, very sad... Like, why does sorcerer just get less feats, and no specialization? It makes no sense to me. I understand that's how it was written in 3.5, but that was 20 years ago. Wizard gets 5 more feats at level 20. Someone explain this to me, make it make sense. I'm coping hard about this

[Iceborn]

It's become clear to me that sorcerer is probably the worst class available, very sad... Like, why does sorcerer just get less feats, and no specialization? It makes no sense to me. I understand that's how it was written in 3.5, but that was 20 years ago. Wizard gets 5 more feats at level 20. Someone explain this to me, make it make sense. I'm coping hard about this

Because one of the main issues of balancing any cha class right now is charisma synergy with Divine Grace/Dark Blessing/Div shield/might, and for some reason that I cannot fathom this synergy hasn't been nerfed to the ground so that they can be balanced on their own.

That synergy lets you, at the modicum price of dropping 3 levels into either pally/blackguard, get your full charisma modifier as universal saves, and access to Divine Shield to get your full charisma modifer as Dodge AC.

For a cha-focused character - let's say they start with a solid 19 (17 base +2 gift), it means that by level 28 they will have a 26 base score, thus a 38 constant cha (sorcerers, like all casters, always stay at their maximum modifier to get the greatest number of spells). This 38 equates a 14 charisma modifier, which means a +14 to all saves, and +14 dodge AC. Along with Haste and Greater Mage Armor, this lets them hit the +20 dodge AC cap during divine shield, which lasts also 14 rounds, with 17 charges per rest (that also regenerate on their own on a 15~ minute period).

So for as long as I've been playing and there's ever been any mention of doing anything for sorcerers, this argument comes up to say "they don't need anything, they can get their full cha mod as AC and saves".
And I hate this with a passion, because if you aren't a sorcadin/blackadin/liberading whatever, you are playing a vastly suboptimal sorcerer, in a class that has no thematic reason whatsoever to be involved with the divine.

To me, the answer is obvious. Power equals investment.
These abilities should be capped respectively to their main source:
These 4 features (yes, including divine might) should be capped with a 1:1 scaling of respective source levels.
3 pally levels = 3 maximum uni saves/AC/Damage bonus.
Effect duration could still use uncapped cha mod.

If there's a greater reason for why these feats shouldn't be capped to the ground, I'm all ears, but to me, it seems that these features shackle the class into a specific buildtype and that they cannot be touched whatsoever until the offending sources of imbalance are fixed.

There's also probably nobody in the current dev team that wants to champion them and focus on any rework, or if they want, they are busy with other projects.

[-XXX-]

And I hate this with a passion, because if you aren't a sorcadin/blackadin/liberading whatever, you are playing a vastly suboptimal sorcerer, in a class that has no thematic reason whatsoever to be involved with the divine.

Same here,
TBH Sorcerer not receiving the Fav Soul treatment baffles me - I don't see any logic or consistency here.

[Quizmar]

So for as long as I've been playing and there's ever been any mention of doing anything for sorcerers, this argument comes up to say "they don't need anything, they can get their full cha mod as AC and saves".
And I hate this with a passion, because if you aren't a sorcadin/blackadin/liberading whatever, you are playing a vastly suboptimal sorcerer, in a class that has no thematic reason whatsoever to be involved with the divine.

Considering the fact that you need 2 feats and 13 stg to get CHA to AC, in an extremely feat starved class makes that much worse. It's literally just worse in almost every way compared to wizard. Not to mention, no UMD as a class skill is insane. Sorcerer has less skills, less feats, more feat taxes, less spells, and lower DCs compared to wizard. For a visual, he's screenshots of the two different class features list:
wizard: https://imgur.com/rByf19l
sorcerer: https://imgur.com/Phf3d9T

Here's how to get sorc on PAR with wizard(sincra pls notice me):
-add CHA to AC and saves at level 20
-add heritage/bloodline similar to wizard spec
-add the same bonus feats as wizard
-add UMD as class skill

[Diegovog]

So for as long as I've been playing and there's ever been any mention of doing anything for sorcerers, this argument comes up to say "they don't need anything, they can get their full cha mod as AC and saves".
And I hate this with a passion, because if you aren't a sorcadin/blackadin/liberading whatever, you are playing a vastly suboptimal sorcerer, in a class that has no thematic reason whatsoever to be involved with the divine.

Considering the fact that you need 2 feats and 13 stg to get CHA to AC, in an extremely feat starved class makes that much worse. It's literally just worse in almost every way compared to wizard. Not to mention, no UMD as a class skill is insane. Sorcerer has less skills, less feats, more feat taxes, less spells, and lower DCs compared to wizard. For a visual, he's screenshots of the two different class features list:
wizard: https://imgur.com/rByf19l
sorcerer: https://imgur.com/Phf3d9T

Here's how to get sorc on PAR with wizard(sincra pls notice me):
-add CHA to AC and saves at level 20
-add heritage/bloodline similar to wizard spec
-add the same bonus feats as wizard
-add UMD as class skill

This is spot on on investment. I'd say that the 4 lvls you spend in paladin/BG don't help you at all in CL nor do they have access to tumble. So if you want full tumble ac you have to go down even further in CL, hurting a lot. Considering you can get high AC, dmg on spellswords and dispel much better, why even bother?
Also, CHA bonus to saves was huge a long time ago. Nowadays, you can pretty much add them to gear and with the upcoming dweomer changes, it will be even simpler if you go +1 specific/+1 specific ST. Sure, it's still amazing, won't lie, but it's not vital.

I just disagree on the suggested changes, sorcs and wizards don't have to be -exactly- the same feat-wise. It's fine to be different and have its own playstyle, it should just be fun and decent, that's all.

The number of sorc players is a reflection of its current state. And I have this feeling that most of us sorc players are the ones who sticked around for a while.

[Quizmar]

And I hate this with a passion, because if you aren't a sorcadin/blackadin/liberading whatever, you are playing a vastly suboptimal sorcerer, in a class that has no thematic reason whatsoever to be involved with the divine.

Same here,
TBH Sorcerer not receiving the Fav Soul treatment baffles me - I don't see any logic or consistency here.

Fvs is also a terrible and underserved class, spontaneous casters are horribly neglected. The only thing fvs gets is some energy resistance, which any class can buy for like 100 bags

[Xerah]

Speaking of all this investment stuff, scaling summon stats based on primary casting stat seems like a really good idea. Start it after 20 points. Just epic level scaling isn’t enough (I would suggest going back to allowing buffing of summons but I think it’s a completely undesirable change by the Devs so it’s not worth repeating).

The melee shaman (which I just played to 30 and was an absolute breeze), no path cleric, melee bard etc. gets a huge advantage by getting melee to work with their summons (bard less so but it is “free damage”). These classes wouldn’t get the scaling but the squishier, primary casters types would.

I don’t necessarily agree that summon playstyle should be completely eliminated. While this may have not done this completely, it’s likely pretty close.

I can only speculate that the “EZ” game play style of summons was what lead to the change. These sorts of major game play mechanics changes should 100% include a developer’s commentary on why (simply saying it too good isn’t exactly helpful) so people can understand better. I agree a change was warranted, but let’s understand it better and give us insight into reasons and path forward. Many good ideas out there in the community but it’s hard to frame them into useful directions when we’re in the dark.

[Paint]

I don’t necessarily agree that summon playstyle should be completely eliminated. While this may have not done this completely, it’s likely pretty close.

While I do enjoy weaker summons and casters being more powerful to compensate, the wizard spellbook is vast and has a lot of potential in it. I've always wanted personally to see wizards who hard focus into a specific aspect of magic see dividends and rewards for it, and to this, I think if a summoner wants to summon, they should be given options to specialize in it at the cost of being worse at other aspects of wizardry, and in return, be rewarded with summons that are more powerful than what others can hope to achieve through other means.

Which is obviously why enchantment wizard was one of the best summoners for awhile-.

[Quizmar]

While I do enjoy weaker summons and casters being more powerful to compensate,

they're not more powerful, that's the issue. They got severely nerf'd without being compensated in any way. Sorc/wiz is even more useless and underpowered than they were 2 weeks ago. Wizard only has esf cookies, and sorcerer has.... high bluff...?

SS stonks ^^^^
sorc/wiz stonks vvvv

[FurnishMyFlatForCheap]

I’m sure this will get so much hate, but I would be remiss if I didn’t give you my two coin.

Summons were clearly too strong. I don’t want to get too far bogged down with summon stuff, I’ve learned to play around conjuration being a banned school on a few wizards (without undead even) It’s quite possible now as it was before. It requires attention and resources, but I think that was the idea.

The changes to arcane flux being more frequent and allowing for special school spells was great.

Yes Wizards are low down on the totem pole of mechanical choice. Though not as far down as many would make it out to be.

Things I would like to see considered are ESF getting an additional +1 or 2 DC to that spell school so +2/+2/+3-4 to reward your investment into said school.

DC’s are pointless!? Generally yes. The repeated spell debuff could be improved to include all spells to something maybe 1st-3rd circle -1 save 4-6 -2 save 7-9 -3 save. The bottom end threshold could lower to 34

I don’t know if this is possible but spell ranges could be looked at. Short range spells it takes like what? 1/3 of a round for someone to close the distance and melee you potentially for an absurd amount of damage.

Spells in general could be looked at. As an example finger of agony it’s like 3d6+4d6+5d6 negative damage fort save for half damage and avoid sicken.

This does such a low amount of damage why does it get an option to save for half, just save for condition. Also it’s negative so it’s either 0 if NEP is up or like 4 damage each round because of essences. There are a lot of examples of things which save for condition and also for damage when just condition is enough.

But! This spell is awful no one would ever use it.

Ok fine it’s an example. The point being the spell book has a lot of examples like this and more choice is almost always better.

Range touch attacks + save for half. We have people with crazy AC to try and touch and our Ab is god awful, now it’s a fort save on top of that and you get in my opinion the coolest spell a wizard has never blowing the dust off the tome it’s written upon.

You could have some sort of Int to Touch attack Ab feat similar to zen archery.

Will people bother? No idea. But it’s an option.

If you’re with me this far, cool. Loremaster.

I really hate Loremaster. Everyone is a loremaster, everyone speaks 12 languages for zero effort. Fighters can teleport and they know when you’re pooping.

Is it mechanically the best choice, Debatable but I sti don’t like loremasters personally they take a lot of the Wizards shine.

You may have noticed I’ve said nothing about sorcerer! Yep never played one, probably won’t. The guy who said the thing about less feats + 14 saves and +14 ac nailed it.

This should have gone up in the other part, but whatever it’s rambling. Specialist spell school spell interactions, I am a fan of these, I enjoy them. I like having to think and go hmmmm and read my spell book and go how does this spell work with this spell. We should have more of them. EVEN if it’s not exactly 3rd E or it’s taking an idea from 5th or whatever. If it’s a cool fun idea this should be a win.

[-XXX-]

It's all about action economy

Your average hasted melee build is going to operate at 5 APR
A hasted spellcaster can cast 2 spells per round

Now, that would suggest an offensive spell should be on par with a flurry of attacks - this is generally only true for the most powerful spells, which thanks to limited supply the mage isn't going to be able to sustain casting twice a round for very long.
No, thanks to arcane flux they are going to spend most of their existence using those actions to cast MaV 35 cantrips, which don't come even close to be on par with a melee build's flurry of attacks - a flurry of attacks is going to do 3x more damage on average and that's before we even account for stuff like critical hits, -twohand, instant attacks or dual wielding.

Arcane flux is great for Spellswords because it gets triggered by something they want to be doing in the first place (I'd say they want to be spending their actions on, but Elemental Strike is an instant attack, so figures).
This absolutely isn't true when it comes to wizards and sorcerers casting their cantrips.

BTW, we have instant attacks - why don't we have instant spells? Why not make cantrips instant use once per round, hm?

[Algol]

Instant cantrips wouldn't affect the balance much since helmet of protection already makes someone immune to cantrips

[cornelius_4]

A rant of d&d, PnP, nwn and Arelith for you.

In the spirit of d&d, going against a powerful wizard should be a little unnerving.

Finger of death kills you and as you are about to roll the dice, you feel how this can highly alter the outcome of the battle.

A lot of what was made seems made with impactful dice rolls in mind, to be enjoyed and/or complained about around a table without much rush, as people did.

Base Nwn somewhat has this too, though at a much faster pace than PnP. Arelith went a bit away from it with the enchantment system with high control of gear properties, though is still often there in pve (but also often is not).

The fighter, by contrast, felt like a more steady progress - a hit was good/bad and often happened, but usually wasn't immeadiately gamechanging.

Some of our problems comes from going against the spirit of the original design - but on the other hand, the original design wasn't made with nwn in mind and so some deviation seems natural.

Suppose finger of death had a chance to permanently delete a character, some of the spirit would be restored - knowing this potential would make it unnerving to fight a wizard. It also wouldn't be very fun, but fun to type.

Mordenkainen's disjunction with a chance to destroy a magical item - very unnerving.

For Arelith, a variant of effects on a succesful save sounds promising. If wizards and sorcerers had some guarantee of partial progress for save spells (but not other casters), they might retain some of the original intent while feeling distinct from other spellcasters.

Finger of death: you lived, but your con was reduced by 4 for a while (in addition to the damage it normally does).
Hold monster: you made it, but you must additionally roll for 50% chance of 1 round stun.

As an addition to the current spells, only for wiz/sor, it should be a smaller change than changing save spells for all or changing how much save boost pc's can have.

Also I wish to rant on some silly melee vs arcane things (that might still be where they're supposed to be).
You see our legendary fighter Toby Huskmuscle had exterminated the orc threat from the lands, terrorized every tavern and shown people who could drink the most and single-handedly held the docks against the attack of the fishmen and the mega squid.

But old age was setting in and Toby was starting to consider retiring. Fortunately, Toby was an absolute master of the arcane language - some through training, but mostly he had gained items from his many conquests, that granted mastery of the subject.

So Toby went to the local Arcane University and took up a job, lecturing the towns promising would-be wizards. In fact, he was so good at this, that he was able to make a few corrections when his boisterous nature landed him an argument with the local professor.

He wasn't quite skilled in tutoring or arcane research, so much as he wouldn't like to admit it, the wizards still kind of was able to do some things, he couldn't he supposed. Easily fixed by drinking them under the table though.

Seemingly, whatever went into researching spells was still over his head. He also wasn't really proficient in scribing the scrolls, but fortunately, the actual activation sequence, understanding their effects and recognising them in the heat of battle, was much simpler and this he held mastery of, to the point that even the most bearded wizard had to give it to him.

Unfortunately Toby was not a catious soul and when he eventually decided to dabble in magical research on his own, his foot was turned into a chicken. A troublesome problem that was theorized much upon and eventually solved, though his foot would still sometimes loudly bawk "KykelikyYYYYYYYYY!" at 7 am on the first monday of every month.

[Iceborn]

"I know dragons with feet like rabbit, 'tis true I swear!"

Anyway, instant ranged attacks are a thing that I don't really want to see, even for cantrips and the current arcane headband 'meta', if you would call it that. I already have plenty with regular ranger archers shooting 2 instant shots running non-stop to know that mobility is something precious in the game, and the commitment of spellcasting to have to stand anchor yourself for a moment to cast is good as it is.
Though I wouldn't mind having some instant cast abilities, One contingency spell for example.
I'd also like to see the opposite of mobility; channeled spells that are increasingly more powerful, but forbid you from doing anything other than move at fixed 50% walk speed. Or force you to remain completely still.

And I'd appreciate to modify the spells that we currently have instead of adding more and more. We are starting to look like the CEP.
Much as I like the flavor, I cannot really say I care about new spells added if they just another DC damage spell that will ultimately have as much use as the other 99% damage spells: none, since IGMS is still trustworthy and saveless.

[Quizmar]

the more i think about arelith caster balance the less sense it makes, and the more infuriating it becomes
none of this makes sense, sorc, wiz, fvs, etc are just so bad, it really makes me wonder what the balance team's priorities are. SS clearly gets snowflake treatment

[Quizmar]

im gonna keep bumping this thread
beatings will continue until morale improves

[Xerah]

In that case, I'm going to lock the thread.