Attention Mages - Melee Fighting

[Crunch]

I have used tenser's recently to good effect, but I really don't think that tenser's by itself is that much of a problem.  I think what you are seeing is that around 11th/12th level, a mage/sorceror finally has enough cash to flesh out his/her spell book or in the case of the sorceror finally has enough known spells to come up with some good spell combinations.  Also, the arcane caster's spell duration now covers a full rest period so that a buff/rest/buff cycle becomes much more realistic.

I think that some other tactics, most noteably the darkness/ultravision tactic, are far more unbalancing.

I agree with the assessment that many arcane casters are driven to transformation and hit me and you'll get hurt type tactics (e.g. acid sheeth) by the weakness of the offensive spells.  It takes a huge number of elemental attacks to kill anything and most of the hold or instant death spells will quite frequently be saved against by the target.  I find the lost spells from tenser's to be a major pain in planning my rest periods so that I fully reset my spells, otherwise I don't get them back.  

The other thing about mages is that they remain quite fragile even at mid-levels when not prepared.  Unless you spend some time buffing, you can easily be killed by a single misclick when sneaking around Mistone doing invisible resource gathering.

The most efficient use of a mage seems to be to get together with a bunch of fighters, stoneskin them, flame their weapons, cast other appropriate protections and then haste them and stand back and watch them fight.  It is efficient, but not very rewarding.  It would be nice to see my spells do more damage than a critical hit from the fighters, but it almost never happens.  So, a fireball becomes a convenient way to bring the bad guys into an ambush by the fighters, but doesn't really harm them that much.

My experience at low levels was that I lived by the charity of the fighters who allowed me to party with them.  I could make them invisible in a pinch to recover graves and things like that, but my spells didn't last long enough to have any significant effect.

In closing, I would like to note that many or even most of the front line fighters in the quests I've seen or discussed with others who participated have been druids or clerics.  At the high levels, fighters seem to be the most under-represented class.  Of the fighter types I have seen at high levels, almost all have been either rangers or paladins.

[Ne'er]

Just the opinion of a fighter player here:

Now, about the comments saying that fighters can solo well, I have to agree completely. Jet is now level 13, and the toughest place he can really solo is Haven, and even then he can't get to the bottom, where some classes are capable of fighting alone in numerous areas on Central. Fighters are more stable than mages, and will fight the same in almost any situation since they don't get spells, but they can't heal themselves or become a powerhouse like a mage or cleric can.

And about fighters killing mosters before mages get the chance to use attack spells? There are some monsters fighters will never be able to kill alone. A fighter will need a mage or cleric to kill any epic monster, since a lot of them have a very high DR and some are immune to most physical damage. That's where the mages come in. Buff the fighters, and they can kill high DR monsters, but that still won't help against something immune to physical damage. That's where damage spells come in.

[Weeblie]

Maybe, forcing character's to rest longer (i.e. making no offensive action) to regain spells?

[steverimmer]

Weeblie - 2/5/2006  4:12 PM  Maybe, forcing character's to rest longer (i.e. making no offensive action) to regain spells?

 Thats what I've always belived...once per Layo 24 hour period unless you're at a safe campfire somewhere or in an inn. I think that making spells less effective is not the way to go, it just takes a lot of the joy out of being a wizard. But wizards have only a limited number of spells, so they need to rest. Making rest periods once per layo 24 hours would solve this I think and make wizards use their spells more effectively. I think its about 45 mins real life or something like that.
  Of course this would effect other classes too unless there is a way of seperating spell recovery from hitpoint recovery.

[Rayenoir]

Thunder Pants - 2/4/2006  6:44 PM

still it's a flaming sword they shouldn't have, Tensers isn't supposed to give them any kind of weapon proficiency and as such while i agree they should be allowed to cast it, if they are forced to use their querterstaffs at best it's much more ballanced

Actually, by PnP, it's supposed to grant Simple Weapon Proficiency for the duration, but that's really neither here nor there.

I think if the sword can be yanked out, that would go a fair way toward cutting down the power of the spell.  Though there are some of us who would be *more* powerful if that happened, considering I've taken improved critical greatsword and would love to use mine while tenser'ed.

I don't think that the spell needs cut in power (though making the str and con bonuses from Tenser not stack with Bull's strength and Endurance might help with that a bit).  Speaking as someone who hasn't taken the Eschew feats, it's kind of expensive to use that spell at a cost of a Bull's Strength potion or a scroll every time.

[Harloff]

I think one of the problems is that a responsible mage/sorceror will have to focus on buffs and polymorphs. Many of his spells are simply to dangerous to use in a combat were he risk killing party members with if he uses these spells. Thus logically a mage would focus on spells than can improve himself and his mates, and spells that will damage enemies only.

However, I cannot see any way around the fact that spellcasters in general are more powerfull than combat oriented characters (at high levels at least) especially in a low magic world. To my knowlegde spellslingers have been more powerfull than combat characters in all D&D rules. Perhaps it could be ballanced a little by chossing a bit higher magic level for the world thus giving the combat charecters some of the  spellslsingers abileties, and making all monsters a bit more difficult. But I honestly don't think that there is a way to make spellsslinger dependent on having party members (they always have an extra party member in their spellbook anyway), it will of course always be an advantage to them. Another possibilety could be to force all spellcaster to multiclass and thereby making them less powerfull, this would however make ALOT of characters illigal.

[Nyralotep]

After reading all the posts again I like a combo of sorts.  The graduated rest times that Taln mentioned or a 24 hour game time rest period and a removal of buff spells when a mage casts a transformation spell.  The rest option however has the side effect of possibly affecting quests if the rest period is too long as the party will be without mage spells until the rest period is over.

[Ar7]

A 45 minutes (24 Layo hours) rest period will kill a mage.

Imagine a low level wizard/sorcerer with perhaps 3 fireballs, a Lesser Isaac's Storm, a few Magic Missles and some buffs. His buffs will probably end in 10 or so minutes, depending on a level. But now imagine that you play such a character, that you are with a party and imagine how you spread those couple of spells to 45 minutes. You will stand there like a tree lump flinging an occasional spell that bothers people more than it helps, since all have to stop and clear the way. You can of course get a crossbow and shoot once per round hitting occasionally for those "very important" 4-6 damage.

Now imagine a high level wizard/sorcerer, I play one so I can speak from my own experience. Creatures get really powerful and to make a difference and help the party a wizard/sorcerer needs to cast many spells, often almost his all arsenal during one encounter. I will bring the latest example, we were on a quest with very high level foes, there were many wizards in a party, all nearing epic. With some enemies it took myself, Bil, Brac, Savin to cast Isaacs storms and Bigby's hands in large amounts to make significant damage. If we had a 45 minutes rest period on us, well, we would have been useless.

I still say nerf or even remove Tenser's and increase the power of other spells. It will return arcane casters to what they have been originally meant for.

[Filatus]

Definately don't change the rest timer.

Concerning Tenser, I noticed that it was overpowered yes. Of course I use it though, but I thinbk there are two things that could balance that spell.

1. Making the spell non extendable.
2. Get rid of the extra hitpoints the caster receives when changing.

As for the other polymorph spells. I think the concerns here are more about proper RP than them being overpowering. Can't write a script to force good RP.

[Dorganath]

Twopoints, and an example:
 

Filatus - 2/5/2006 1:02 PM  Can't write a script to force good RP.

 I think this says a lot.
  Also on rest timers....
  The previously mentioned 24 hour period (RL or IG) of either rest or interval of use would apply to certain spells, not necessarily all of them. If extending the rest timer were deemed appropriate (or perhaps a level-based scale as Talan mentioned), it would likely be applied across all classes...or at least all spellcasting classes. Otherwise, something simple like that would seriously unbalance mages in the opposite direction.
  In my PnP days, it took longer to rest/study for higher-level spellcasters (arcane or divine) in order to regain all their spells. If we only had a limited period of time, we had to pick which spells we wanted to study/regain, and higher level spells took longer to study than lower-level ones. This would be difficult to enforce in an encounter-rich online game setting, but a close approximation would be extending the rest timer as a character gains levels.

[Harloff]

After giving it some thought I got an idea:

Introduce more monsters with dispel magic, spell breach, greater dispelling etc. that would ensure that people wouldn't have that great advantage to the monsters buffing before a fight. and thus encourage people to form parties with charecters that are less dependent on buffs...

[EdTheKet]

Harloff - 2/5/2006 9:01 PM After giving it some thought I got an idea: Introduce more monsters with dispel magic, spell breach, greater dispelling etc. that would ensure that people wouldn't have that great advantage to the monsters buffing before a fight. and thus encourage people to form parties with charecters that are less dependent on buffs...

 The problem with that is Bioware's AI I think, even if creatures have them, they don't use them

[Nyralotep]

I can remember a certain guardian of the Mahogany trees on the mountain in Beta 4 that took care of buffs rather nicely.  One or two of that type of thing in a spawn will certainly keep mages from solo'ing.

[Harloff]

EdTheKet - 2/5/2006  9:05 PM    

Harloff - 2/5/2006 9:01 PM After giving it some thought I got an idea: Introduce more monsters with dispel magic, spell breach, greater dispelling etc. that would ensure that people wouldn't have that great advantage to the monsters buffing before a fight. and thus encourage people to form parties with charecters that are less dependent on buffs...

 The problem with that is Bioware's AI I think, even if creatures have them, they don't use them

 Not even if they don't have anything else?

[Crunch]

Another thing to remember regarding soloing mages here recently is that DT's have been turned off for a while.  I certainly have done a lot more soloing recently as a result and I imagine a lot of others have too.  I have a died a lot of times and learned a lot more about what works and what doesn't against various creatures.  I think if you look back through many of the fast leveling soloing mages of the past you will find that many if not most ended up in DT trouble.  I think the system has generally worked well that way.  I have found that soloing as a mage I go very rapidly from complete controll to death.  Conversely when I play my fighter, I can note that hitpoints are disappearing too fast and often get clear without dying.

Another idea. If at least some of the spawns included a chance of some other monsters (e.g. a 15% chance that forest of mist spawns included spell casting giants) the tailored buffs for each spawn wouldn't be guaranteed to work.  It really isn't that realistic that when buffing up for a fight, we always know whether we will need elemental protection or not.

One final note, the power of a higher level mage is matched by the weakness of a low level mage.  A strong breeze is about all it takes to kill a mage through his first 5 levels. It seems like most of the previous adjustments have weakened the low level mage as much or more than the high level mage.  Please keep this in mind when making your adjustments. I think many players get so frustrated with low level mages that they either quit playing them before they become effective, or compensate by excessive power play when they get to a decent level

[Ar7]

And then the point of buffs would be?

As I see it here, there needs to be a clear goal of what you wish to accomplish. Do you wish to a) Reduce the usage of Tenser's b) Reduce the melee combat that a wizard does overall c) Simply warn the mages to stop exploiting Tenser's d) something else.

Because the way I see it now, what started as a warning statement regarding mostly Tenser's Transformation has now once again turned into a nerf the mages thread.

[Harloff]

I have absolutely nothing against mages, clerics nor any other spellcaster I just gave what I saw as a simple solution to the "problem" soloing mages using tensers. And there can only be two solutions making monster more diffiicult so that mages cannot kill them on their own or reduce the power of mages. The simplest solution would of course be to remove tensers, that would remove all exploits of that spell instantly.

These are only suggestions, I don't know if I like them or not but I just like solving problems. (perhaps that is why i became an engineer...)

[Leanthar]

@Ar7, We have no intentions to 'nerf' mages...but we do need to fix this problem. A mage should not be as good as a fighter in melee combat--simple as that.

[Nyralotep]

I myself don't want to Nerf the mages AR7, I play one myself.  I just would like to have a role in what happens rather than something being put into effect with no input fromm the players.  

I think what you have said is well thought out and practical.  The last thing I want is another nerfing of mages.

The problem is that many players do not read the forums regularly, at least from what I've seen, and those that don't won't see this message and will continue as they did before and force a change.  I'm just looking at things that would hurt the least if a decision is made to enforce a rule.

[Pibemanden]

There is a lot of things in this game that makes mages solo...
First of they're actually brought up to solo, if you're a mage and ask how you can make money you'll be told to go gather resources as soon as you get invisibility. This makes a lot of rather low level mages spend a lot of the time running across large distances to get stuff to sell.
If a character begins doing that the character will miss out a lot of gaining IC-friends to help him out. But as long as he is below level 8-10 it should be a big problem because he can rely on random parties to form to make him able to go the standart places like haven mines, grey peaks, dire woods cave and other places on Mistone where people regulary go either to complete a quest or more likely to gather even more resources.
But as soon as he gets to the right before mid-levels he'll find himself in trouble. He now has to choose wheter he will spend most of his time invisible traveling in great circles around Mistone, Rilara and Dregar to gather even more resources and money. But sometimes the mage doesn't have to travel invisible because he can actually with his buffs handle the spawns at these places, fx. red light caves, varius kobold spawns and other places where the monsters deals 1-8 damage per hit. This enables him to earn even more money for himself and therefore is worth the (Small) risk involved in killing those low level monsters.
But when you remove the token system you also remove any risk the mage is taking soloing. He can try to take out any spawn because if he dies then he will just return to the bind stone, rest, cast bull's and invis and get his grave. He has no reson of fearing death and therefore he goes to solo in places where he is pushing luck...
This of course only applies to the low-mid level mage. Because when you hit the 8-10 levels you wont be leveling so fast without some friends to help you and some regular DM-run quest apperances. So those mages will have to slow down their gathering a little and instead focus a bit more on rp. But when you remove on of the things that threathen the mage's exsistance in this world he doesn't even have to barther to check wether his friends are online or have the time for going somewhere. He just find's his strongest summon and some buffs for himself and his summon and off he goes to counqer the world, or most of the places where he couldn't solo before because he had a chance of dying... Earning much xp and money along the way, and if he gets killed... well the good old bull's+invis still works for him.

Another "problem" with mages is the real powerhouse mage/fighter these characters have all the advantages off both classes and doesn't even suffer if they use the "Exploit"(I think it is at least) of the combo rest-buff-put on armour. If you build a hypothetical 15/5 mage/fighter and use this trick you'll have a party consisting of a level 15 mage and a level 12 fighter(At least in BAB) this is a very powerfull build indeed...

Mages aren't overpowered if they are rp'ed right. But if you don't do that they'll be one of the most powerfull classes in this game world.