steamboat28's page

I *JUST* found this thread, and I'm stupidly sad that neither of these links work.

And for that matter, does anyone have the stones to dump stat CON?

I almost always dump Con. I play a lot of spellcasters, rogues, and swashbuckling, Dex-based fighters, so it fits in well with the character, and I typically only need it for Fort saves and Concentration checks anyhow.

steamboat28 wrote:

It's far less about what you play and far more about how you play it.

Point taken, it still doesn't mean you wouldn't be more effective with a more rational build. As I said I could see MT for flavor reasons, and by all means if that's what the player wants to play then go for it. However, you are bringing less to the table, on the average, then a straight wizard or cleric build. Furthermore, both Wizard and Cleric offer a number of potential builds to challenge the veteran gamer.

Oh, no doubt. I was just stating that MT is my favorite PrC, and that every time this question comes up in houserules where I play, I voluntarily refuse the two freebie spells per level. I just chimed into this thread to give my reasoning for it.

. . .and gimp yourself in the process wiz3/clr3 is an atrocious multiclass, and although it does improve once you reach MT, you actually have to survive to 7th level to make it there. From that point the build peaks at wiz3/clr3/MT10 and from that point on you're power wanes relative to other classes again. Choosing MT may be credible for roleplay or flavor but never for optimization.

To be honest, in 3.5 I tend to go Wiz/Archivist for the challenge. The lion's share of optimization is the player, not the numbers. You'd be utterly amazed how well I can take that "atrocious multiclass" and out-perform the most seasoned min-maxers. It's far less about what you play and far more about how you play it.

There seems to be near universal consensus that allowing a wizard MT (a gimp build to begin with let's be honest)

I'll gladly give up two spells per level for the capability to cast every spell in the game. In a hearbeat.

First of all, having a public spellbook doesn't require so much money (especially when compared to scroll buying).

Yes, it does. You have to factor in the cost for the spellbook itself, and the cost of scribing all your spells into it. While it's not as bad as buying scrolls, it's still expensive. Especially when you consider this means you'll have to pay twice to record a new spell (once for your private book and once if you want it in the public one), and you may well need more than one public book. Also, you'll have to have volumes of them, as you'll quickly fill them if you're good at finding new spells (which Wizards should be, or Darwinism kicks in). It's not cheap.

That being said, I advocate that every Wizard keep at least three spellbooks: A grimoire at home, trapped and made of high-quality and durability materials; an arcanabula, or travel spellbook, to take with him on his journeys, which carries only necessities and leaves enough blank space for new scrolls and spells found during an adventure; and one you don't mind being captured by your enemies and used against you. This one, naturally, only has the cheap, easy, generic-brand spells.

...and reattach them to the spellbook...

Spellbooks have a fixed number of pages. That sort of implies they aren't re-attachable, or you could just swap them out like in a three-ring binder.

(extremely hard to buy new spells when you spent your last 5 levels adventuring on adventure island and you are the only wizard there)

Then where, pray tell, are you getting them, exactly? If you don't already know them, can't cast them from memory, can't scribe them from a scroll or another spellbook, what does that leave you? Wizards don't get divine inspiration for spells; they either RESEARCH them (as in, "where have I heard tales of a spell that does X?") or CREATE them (as in, "I need a spell I've ever heard of, and I have to craft it from scratch.") There are specific rules for both methods.

Flavor-wise, the intent of those two freebie spells is to indicate all the running-around-like-a-headless-chicken you've done between adventures to increase your own power. Those are hours spent in libraries, conferring with other mages, following leads on spells you don't have handy. There is a LOT more to playing a Wizard than just strolling down to Scroll-Mart and picking up a cart-load of whatever the heck you want. Spells are powerful. VERY powerful. They aren't just the sort of thing you can pick at any 7-11 in your campaign world.

That is, truth be told, why Wizards exist as a playable class at all. A fighter may adventure for glory, a rogue for riches, but a wizard adventures to advance their craft. In those tombs and dungeons are spells you have never even dreamt existed, and you'll never get close to them in your Mage's Tower. That's why you're out there. Once you retrieve them, you can bring them back and sell your services, hoard your knowledge, or share it with others--but you CLAIMED it from the depths of obscurity, and now that power crackles violently in your skilled hands. THAT is what it is to play a Wizard.

Those two freebie spells are the lightweight side-effects of your adventuring nature. The beef of your spellbook is (hopefully) going to come from adventuring, and if it doesn't your campaign has other issues to tend to. If you're in such a magic-limited campaign that you can't find at least two new spells per level, exactly where are those freebie spells coming from? If magic is so rare, or limited, or expensive that dark sites of ancient rites and forgotten lore don't hold spells of your level, where in Oerth are you going to find them on a bookshelf?

You're not waking up one morning saying "Gee, I feel smarter somehow...Look! the Spell Fairy came!" You're doing legwork to get these spells into your most powerful weapon--that collection of pages you practically worship. If you can't FIND spells adventuring, where it makes the MOST SENSE for scrolls and ancient spellbooks to be, WHERE are you getting your freebie spells from?

That's why I say the freebies aren't such a make-or-break class feature, and can easily be discarded with MT; you don't have time to do that legwork anymore. Sorcerers are born to their spells, and Clerics receive theirs. As an MT, you're too busy praying and perfecting what you already know, and ADVENTURING to get more and more powerful spells to do research in a Mages' Library, or to have a calm chat with the Archmagus over Tandoorian Kafe.

Are the freebies handy? Yes. They do a GREAT deal to get you through those arduous first few levels as a squishy, squishy spellcaster. But, those are also the spells that you can readily find easily at any Mage's College, or in scrolls or spellbooks from masters and teachers the world over. Wizardry is a STUDY, and takes place just like any other form of book-learning. There may not be a Mage's Guild in your CS, but you had to learn to read this crap somehow, or you'd be playing a sorcerer.

Later in the game, when you're already knowingly sacrificing so much of your study in an effort to branch out to the divine, as an MT they aren't so vital. This is a choice you're making. Those two spells per level that you didn't risk your neck for are another sacrifice you're making for the path your character has chosen to follow. If they can't hack it, they shouldn't be considering walking the MT line.

And honestly, if scrolls and spellbooks are so rare in your campaign setting that you RELY on those two freebie spells per level? There is no reason you should even allow wizards in your game, because there's nowhere else for those spells to come from in a way that a wizard can process them. Allow Sorc's instead. My 2 copper.

What does learning a spell do for a wizard?...Am I missing something obvious, or is this just a case of fluff that doesn't really matter to the mechanics of preparation and casting?

I'm a little late to the party, but the idea behind this sort of thing is that Wizards deal with spells in stages.

First, you "learn" the spell. This is somewhere between learning a new Latin tense and reading a cookbook. Basically you pore over it until you have an "AHA! That's how it works!" moment. This is learning the spell. It's almost purely on a theoretical level, and deals (flavor-wise) with the "physics" of magic, the meat-and-potatoes "science" of the arcane.

Then it gets scribed into your book, where you will later "study" it. When you study it, you're training your mind in the short-term to understand the spell flawlessly, so that when you cast it, everything is as it should be. Like cramming the night before a final, you just need this perfect understanding of the situation for a short time, long enough to "prepare" and then "cast" the spell.

When you "prepare" a spell, you're half-casting it. Basically, you're taking the big portion of the spell (prepwork, magic words, blah blah) that take the longest and you're starting the spell's energy flowing, leaving it hanging without finishing it. It's started it's attached to you, it's taking up a slot, but it's not done yet. Next, you cast it.

Casting is the final step, and works basically finishing what you started. It's "spell completion" at its finest, just without a wand.

In simpler terms, you "learn" a spell like you read a recipe for the first time through before you try it. You "study" it by reading it right before you prepare the dish, you "prepare" it by mixing the ingredients, and you "cast" it by tossing it in the oven.

...If adopting a prestige class infringes on a wizard's ability to research new spells as he levels, then the same logic should be applied to a cleric learning new prayers or a sorcerer learning new spells. It illustrates how very arbitrary and insipid the ruling is.

The issue here is that the Wizard is, and always has been, at a very good advantage when it comes to learning spells. It is the only core class that can learn a limitless number of spells from external sources. All other casters are limited--they CANNOT learn spells in any way other than from their deity/path/personal insight/what-have-you. They are trapped by their spells known.

There is no such problem with a Wizard. A Wizard can study on his own, or he can borrow from other Wizards. A Wizard can claim the magic scrolls left behind by enemies, she could pay a rogue to steal another Wizard's spellbook, she could delve deep into a cavern and study ancient tomes. Theoretically, a first-level Wizard with enough gold could acquire every castable Wizard spell in existence, even if they didn't understand them and couldn't cast them until they leveled up. THIS is why people play Wizards. Their spell repertoire is bottomless so long as extra books are coming out, while every other class is shackled by the numbers given in the "Spells Known" category.

That's why Wizards are treated differently with MT. It literally does not hamper a well-played Wizard at all. It simply forces you to do what you already do: hoard arcane knowledge to advance your own power. If you're relying on the 2 free spells per level to get your spellbook beefed up, you should consider playing a different casting class.