Sorcerer vs Wizard, Fighter vs Pali/Ranger

General questions, debates, and rants about RPGs

Moderator: Moderators

Post Reply
User3
Prince
Posts: 3974
Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am

Sorcerer vs Wizard, Fighter vs Pali/Ranger

Post by User3 »

This thread is all about the general over the specific.

Wizards generally school Sorcerers have a good casting stat that synergizes with everything, and not just because they can specialize and cast as many spells as a Sorc, but that they can learn every specialized effect ever written and each day they can wake up and be an entirely different character. Sure, on a day-to-day basis a Sorcerer is the guy in an emergency, the one who has the six Fireballs today or the six Flys, depending on the circumstances, but its the fact the wizard can be a cold wizard one day and a fire wizard the next, or an illusionist or a necromaner or whatever depending on their inclination when they wake up in the morning.

The only time a Sorcerer really shines is with the "open" effects like illusions/shadow magic or the Conjuring magic or enchantments. With those spells, you never notice that he's only got a few tricks because those tricks are really good.

What if all spells were designed to be open-ended? Or feats?

The signature spells of DnD were made for wizards who could be radically different each day, so overspecializing was never an issue. The Sorcerer, with his limited spell selection, needs to be more robust to get by every day in a DnD world.

Same with the Fighter. Unlike the Paladin who can pop out a +5 holy sword with a single spell, or the ranger who can use his skills in new ways or cast his own spells or trade out his companion for another one a little more pimp, the fighter is stuck weeping silently in a corner as he gets stuck wth Mobility, Dodge, Weapon Focus in one weapon, Greater Weapon Focus in the same weapon, Weapon Specializtion(WSp) in the same weapon, Greater WSp in the same weapon for a total of six feats and a total of +2 to hit, +4 to damage, +1 to Ac vs one dude, and +4 AC on AoOs.

Six feats, all his class features for ten levels, and he's getting stuff not even as good as a Paladin who at 10th level has access to 2nd level spells and can cast Divine Favor for at least a +2 to attack and damage, and has at least 3-4 out of 20 other potential effects available to him each day and he has all his other class features.

They are even-ish on level feats and hit points, and the base saves are better on the paladin chassis than on the fighter without even counting the "I rock in saves" class ability of the pali.

---------------------
So the premise is this: what if the spells as written did more stuff with the same power level, and the fighter feats all looked like Tactical feats.

What if fighter bonus feats just didn't need Prereqs? Would the game be horribly unbalanced if the fighter started at 1st level with Whirlwind attack, or by 10th level he had Whirlwind Attack, Elusive Target, Spring Attack, Improved Two Weapon Fighting, Expert Tactician, Spirited Charge, and Three Mountains as bonus feats, and then normal feat progressions for their level feats?

What if the spell Shatter, instead of being "the spell we only memorized that one time we fought crystal monsters," it instead destroyed floors (dropping dudes into the basement), walls (onto dudes), put people in insta-pits and could be used to make nonmagical dust clouds.

What if Phantasmal Killer could be used as an interrogation tool and could be used to paralyze an enemy for a few rounds?
RandomCasualty
Prince
Posts: 3506
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Sorcerer vs Wizard, Fighter vs Pali/Ranger

Post by RandomCasualty »

Well the problem is that the D&D spell system as written is designed for very specific spells.

Because the whole slot system is designed to restrict what people can do. When the majority of your slots are dedicated to combat spells, then you won't have many divinations, and vice versa.

Also some spells are better effective against certain types and are able to transcend their normal level based power level, because they're so specific. And it creates a specific counter.

Without the specialization, you're forced to make all damage spells look alike, and in general make spells a lot weaker. Because if a spell is balanced to do 1 thing, it can't still be balanced if it does 2 other things. And sooner or later someone is going to want to make specialized spells that do more than the generalized ones, and the game shifts back to specialized stuff.

Tactical feats on the other hand can work, but you want to also be careful with those too, because you dont' want to get too general. The point of a feat is to specialize in something and if feats start granting bonuses with swords, bows and lances all in one feat... that takes away the whole specialization element of feats, and turns them just into broad bonuses, which I don't think you really want. You take mounted combat because you want to be a better cavalier and it should stay that way.

I don't think it's a good idea to get carried away with the tactical feat thing, because it is a lot to keep track of. It's great for PCs, but lots of bookkeeping and memory for NPCs. I really prefer feats like power attack which is one ability that's easy to remember and is very useful. Feats have to be simple because NPCs have them, and keeping track of tons of different little abilities and bonuses is pain in the ass as the DM.

Post Reply