I was giving more thought to the long term treasure satisfaction (and survivability) of my party today, and realized that the AP has very little of the prime treasure that keeps wizards going--spellbooks!
OK, sure, in the first two adventures, they potentially face five wizards--Merovinn Bask, Filge, and the Faceless One and his two Acolytes (with similar spellbooks mostly overlapping with their masters). So the lower levels of their spellbooks will be fairly nicely filled out by the time they head off to the Free City.
After that, though, pickings are slim. In HOHR they face Telakin, who (if I understand correctly) has access to the daily prepared spells of the wizard whose brain he consumed, but does not possess said wizard's spellbook. Telakin has a measly scroll of fireball--which almost any fifth level wizard is going to write into his spellbook at the top of his third level spell list. In the arena, they face Khellek, but the rules make it unlikely that they'll get even his scrolls, let alone his spellbook, unless the party saves his bacon against the Ulgurstasta and this NE character somehow finds the gratitude to pay his wizardly counterpart back by sharing some arcane spells with him. Allustan might let a wizard character plagiarize his spell book in gratitude for his rescue from Icosiol's tomb, but that covers nothing above 4th level. After that, the only treasure that can possibly expand a wizard's spell-book is the three mid-level illusion scrolls possessed by Krekie the kenku assassin on Tilagos Island, assuming she doesn't use them. If the your party wizard merely takes the spells he gets for level advancement, he's not going to have access to all that many mid- to high-level spells for the nasty combats in the last four episodes.
Since spellbook plagiarizing takes time, it might be hard to find a realistic way to let the wizard make us of, say Bucknard's traveling spellbook, if they should happen to find that item while exploring the Wormcrawl Fissure--my understanding from the overload is that the party pretty much has to go straight from defeating Dragotha (if that's even possible) through the gate to Alhaster to save the day against Kyuss--perhaps with one night of rest to recover spells and hit points.
So if your party has a wizard, you may want to include as part of Manzorian's gift a few free visits to his library of spellbooks--maybe let them copy 10 or 20 levels of spells of their choice on each R&R visit to Magepoint. (And I'd have the party return to Magepoint after LLR, if possible, and maybe after KotR as well. Otherwise, maybe have them do a side quest against an evil wizard, or let them stumble across a captured spellbook in Lashonna's cache in the Overgod's chamber in Alhaster, or somewhere in KotR or SLS.
Otherwise, figure out a way to slow down the pacing so that the wizard has lots of time to do research!
Hm, this is a good point, but I think you forgot to factor in one thing.
Magepoint.
This is the home of powerful wizards. They are going to have almost any spell that one could ask for.
Hm, this is a good point, but I think you forgot to factor in one thing.
Magepoint.
This is the home of powerful wizards. They are going to have almost any spell that one could ask for.
I did, but I rambled too much before I got to it and lost your attention. I guess the point of the post was to alert DMs that they might want to make Tenser/Manzorian offer access to his considerable collection of spells if their party has a wizard PC.
Plus there are extensive libraries in the Free City, where a polite wizard might be permitted to learn spells or, at the very least, buy scrolls to learn spells from.
I'd like to second this opinion, having played a wizard (diviner) in the Shackled City AP. Having now perused that a bit after the TPK, I agree that some of these adventures are not making substantial room for wizards and their spellbooks. It's all well and good to assay free-time in the Free City or what-not, but for the faster moving party there's very little to salvage from defeated spellcasters in the way of arcane power. Now, with 3e's allowances for sorcerers/warlocks/what-have-yous the idea of spellbooks laying around is less imporatant than in previous editions, but with the wizard (or even wu jen or archivist's) reliance on spell formulae laying around, it seems that there should be a bit more "written in" for wizards to salvage. If a wizard (or other "prepared" spellcaster) is limited to just what is found in 3e adventure/modules, half (if not more) of the "bonus" versatility of the class if lost. To summarize, in the SC AP, my wizard was basically just down to the 2 spells learned at level-up (post-"Flood Season") which made him even less effective than the sorcerer who at leat eventually learned 2 spells at each level. Just something the superb staff at Dungeon should keep in mind for we few "old-schoolers" who like the idea of our characters lugging around reams and tons of spell paraphernalia.
Well, in the worst case scenario, your Wizard can buy scrolls from any shop and copy them into her Spellbook or even pay a random NPC wizard in Greyhawk to access his or her Spellbook.
It's not like you're stuck with your 2 spell per levels.
For sure it is money that you won't be using on buying equipment, BUT since you're a Wizard you can maybe craft that equipment you want for half the price...
So in the end, if you get your share of the treasure, you can do your own shopping of spells without it affecting too much the value of the equipment you carry.
Bocklin
I was giving more thought to the long term treasure satisfaction (and survivability) of my party today, and realized that the AP has very little of the prime treasure that keeps wizards going--spellbooks! ...
Just wanted to chime in: I agree.
Others' points are true -- anything wizards may want is arguably available within the campaign. But there's a certain satisfaction in finding useful scrolls and spellbooks with the rest of the treasure or in the possession of the (hopefully deceased) bad guys.
Isn't it better to find the Sword of Law in an ancient tomb rather than buy it at market in Greyhawk? It's going to be the same for new spells.
It still a great campaign, though :)
Jack
Isn't it better to find the Sword of Law in an ancient tomb rather than buy it at market in Greyhawk? It's going to be the same for new spells.
True, true...
Bocklin
Creative Director
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Point taken; we'll try to have more wizard villains encountered in Adventure Path 3.
But the problem isn't completely with a lack of wizardly spell books, since as has been mentioned above there are numerous chances for wizard PCs to pick up scrolls in the Free City and other locations. Much of the problem is that the way wizards work in 3.5, they aren't really good choices for extended campaign play. Not only do they depend on the DM for one of their supposed "advantages" (wide range of spells—if the adventure or DM doesn't include spellbooks and scrolls, this advantage is nixed), but all of their class abilities require expenditures of money and XP.
Summoning familiars? Takes time, costs money, and if killed, costs XP.
Bonus Feats? Metamagic's okay, but the other half, Item Creation, all suck money, time, and XP from the wizard.
Spells? A few of these cost money or XP to cast, but the real problem here is that if a wizard is to go beyond what spells he gets for his level, he gets to spend money and time transcribing them into his books. And probably MORE money to buy new spells if his campaign isn't wizard-friendly.
Every other class is pretty much good to go immediately upon leveling up, but the wizard requires enforced down time if he's to take full advantage of his class.
In a one-shot game, where you create a high-level wizard for a game rather than level up from 1st, you're generally more effective since you have much more capability to pick what spells you want. But if you're leveling up a wizard from 1st, you'll likely find yourself broke all the time and annoying the DM and other players with your requests of "I need a month of down time to scribe spells." Sometimes there just isn't time for down time.
And of course, you're saddled with d4 Hit Dice, and the fact that once you run out of spells (which happens fast, since wizards get the fewest spells per day of any spellcasting class) you're basically a commoner with some bonus feats and a pet.
And the final nail in the coffin is, of course, the fact that wizards are the most complex class to build, since you have to add a familiar, a spellbook, and complex skills (wizards increase their Intelligence as they level up, so you have to keep track of when their skill points increase) to the mix when building the stat block. Which makes for longer stat blocks. Many of our writers opt instead to use simpler sorcerers for adventures, since they can be tailored for an encounter more efficiently and, in game play, there's really not much of a difference between what a wizard can do and a sorcerer can do in the 3–5 rounds he's alive.
But anyway... like I said, for AP3 we'll try to fit in more spellbooks.
One thing that the Wizard does have going for him however is Multiclassing, squeezing Sorcerers into a PRC can be like pulling teeth, but being a human and having that extra 5th level feat makes life pretty easy.
Also, the spells themselves are not expensive, isn't the price in the PHB for NPC spell casting services the amount one should pay, i.e. spell level times 10 times caster level, so to add teleport, its 450gp, granted its not free however.
I really think that Wizards in the party need to like the cleric, force the Fighters and the Rogues in the group to cough up some money for scrolls if they want to take advantage of having a brutal power up suite., and if they don't like it??? Well they better start saving for that 42k ring of free action cause when they get grappled by one of those giant-improved grab scions of Kyuss my ass is so out of there, :)
You can create new Seekers.
It's a major organization.
Also the Black Dragon may have taken Allustans spellbooks
and put them in her treasure.
They and other suchlike will reappear with the dragon's lair.
I let casters choose new spells from the extra books like
The Complete Adventurer when they go up.
Like Psions, Wizards learn 2 new spells a level.
Why don't some of the Seekers trade spells for anchient lore?
Evil means you also cheat on the evil guys.
Hey, why did the assassin take the spellbooks of the guy
the party came to see in Greyhawk?
He may have sold copies to members of the Seekers.
Bonus Feats? Metamagic's okay, but the other half, Item Creation, all suck money, time, and XP from the wizard.
Spells? A few of these cost money or XP to cast, but the real problem here is that if a wizard is to go beyond what spells he gets for his level, he gets to spend money and time transcribing them into his books. And probably MORE money to buy new spells if his campaign isn't wizard-friendly.
True on all points! As my group's wizard-player moves into the upper levels we begin to see serious breakdowns. I've had a few thoughts, I'd like to hear what folks think of these ideas:
The item creation thing comes up frequently, and no one laughs like the wizard laughs when the fighter asks if he would make him a magic sword. Inspired by the Artificer from Eberron, I am considering creating a feat that provides a reduced version of that craft xp reserve (maybe 1/4 as much as the Artificer gets).
The XP and gold costs of certain spells is prohibitive. I suppose I could always slash prices (Everything Must Go! 50% off sale at Crazy Boccob's), but to add a more mystical feel to it I was thinking maybe having certain times or places that have magical signifigance... if one crafts a ring at midnight on the solstice, the XP cost is reduced.
Every other class is pretty much good to go immediately upon leveling up, but the wizard requires enforced down time if he's to take full advantage of his class.
Our last campaign I employed the training to level option, it was a disaster. Still it leaves the wizard in the cold. There have been intersting discussions on these boards about the whole concept of leveling, and one of the more interesting ideas has been that the chracters have already gotten that training, it just "kicks in" when they level. I think this is a very realistic way of approaching things--sure multiclassing can lead to a whole new set of problems, but more or less it works.
Operating under that logic I assume my wizard's apprenticeship involoved scribing all the spells they recieve from class up to 5th level. They're in the book, the mage has studied them dozens of times, maybe even experimented, but doesn't work it all out until later in their carreer. Handling dead NPC wizards is simple enough by saying all they had on them was their traveing spellbook. Or it may be as good to dole out a few spells beyond their level, more to scribe for the wizard to study during the odd times of the day, puzzling over the specifics.
Point taken; we'll try to have more wizard villains encountered in Adventure Path 3.
I don't think the lack of wizard villains is the problem. There are plenty of ways to introduce spells: scroll treasure, spellbooks that bad guys have captured from other wizards, grateful NPCs, wizard guilds with spell libraries, etc.
But the problem isn't completely with a lack of wizardly spell books, since as has been mentioned above there are numerous chances for wizard PCs to pick up scrolls in the Free City and other locations.
There's actually more than this. Somewhere in the mess of information for HoHR and TCG the Wizard's Guild is mentoned. It seems a lot of people have overlooked this. For the small fee of 100 gp a year, you get access to a lot of stuff.
Much of the problem is that the way wizards work in 3.5, they aren't really good choices for extended campaign play. Not only do they depend on the DM for one of their supposed "advantages" (wide range of spells—if the adventure or DM doesn't include spellbooks and scrolls, this advantage is nixed), but all of their class abilities require expenditures of money and XP.
Blaming the DM does nothing to solve the problem. Any campaign can leave any character class in the dust. (Want to play a rogue? Sorry, this is a wilderness adventure. You wish to be a cleric? Sorry, divine magic is mistrusted in my world.) Every character depends on the DM to one extent or another and I really don't think that is a fair way to make a case for the wizard's ineptitude. As for the expenditure of money and xp, that's true of all classes. Fighters and rogues find themselves in melee and the thick of danger most often and, at least in my campaigns, are the ones who die most often (translate: lost xp). Your mileage may vary, but I suspect this is largely true for many groups. Besides that the xp cost isn't a big deal even if wizards were the only ones losing xp because of 3.5's self-correcting XP system. The wizard may lag a bit behind, but rarely more than half a level's worth of xp.
Summoning familiars? Takes time, costs money, and if killed, costs XP.
A mere 100 gp and 24 hours to summon, which the wizard probably does early in his career. Familiars eventually get improved evasion and SR of all things, and on top of that, only a foolish wizard places his familiar intentionally in danger. Not what I would call a huge liability.
Bonus Feats? Metamagic's okay, but the other half, Item Creation, all suck money, time, and XP from the wizard.
You say "suck money, time, and XP" so negatively. Truth is, item creaton CREATES money (or gp value) because you save half the cost of the item you want effectively increasing your total wealth. Besides that you get to make exactly what you want as opposed to crossing your fingers for that staff you've always wanted to be in the dragon's hoard. On top of that, I've not found it uncommon for item creators in the party to charge the other PCs a 25% markup off the creation cost to help them cover the XP expense and the fact that they spent one or more of their feats and spell slots to get the ability to craft that item. Most players think it a perfectly fair exchange and both sides benefit. The player with the +3 greatsword saves 25% off the market price and the wizard gets to trade some xp for gp, which he'll get back eventually anyway with the self-correcting XP system.
Downtime should be a part of any campaign unless you think it's ok for characters to go from level 1 to 20 in the span of 2 weeks; I don't and I don't know any DMs who do. Do you? I've already explained why the XP deficiency (if it can even be called that) is not a problem.
Spells? A few of these cost money or XP to cast, but the real problem here is that if a wizard is to go beyond what spells he gets for his level, he gets to spend money and time transcribing them into his books. And probably MORE money to buy new spells if his campaign isn't wizard-friendly.
You honestly think the wizard is going to be casting stoneskin on your fighter if he isn't willing to cough up the gp to pay for it? You think the party is going to make the wizard pay for every 100 gp pearl he crushes to cast identify? If I were that wizard, I'd stop casting those spells really quickly and see what the party starts saying about paying for their buffs then.
Concerning the time and money it takes to build a wizard's spellbook, investing something into your capability is part of every class. What fighter doesn't try to purchase a cold iron weapon to supplement his primary weapon in case he has to fight demons or fey? And that weapon probably at least needs to be magical at some point, if not holy/axiomatic, etc. And I don't think the time expenditure is as big of a deal as you are making it out to be. It costs 24 hours to scribe one spell. That is not a lot of time. Even if your party doesn't take weeks off at a time, one rest period here and one rest period there is not a lot to ask. If the wizard adds two more spells into his spellbook every level, that's only two days of time per level. I'd hope you aren't leveling up faster than that. If you are you are doing nothing but dungeon-crawling and your campaign is probably facing other problems. The Age of Worms certainly isn't like this. There are loads of opportunities for downtime and ways to allow it are suggested at the beginning of almost every installment.
Every other class is pretty much good to go immediately upon leveling up, but the wizard requires enforced down time if he's to take full advantage of his class.
I strongly disagree. Every time parties get loot they need to spend down-time back in town buying stuff to augment their abilities. While they are off doing this, it's fairly common for the wizard to spend some time scribing new scrolls, among other things. No class is perfectly capable without spending money to enhance their potential unless you are running a very low magic campaign; if that's the case, why do you have wizards running around?
In a one-shot game, where you create a high-level wizard for a game rather than level up from 1st, you're generally more effective since you have much more capability to pick what spells you want. But if you're leveling up a wizard from 1st, you'll likely find yourself broke all the time and annoying the DM and other players with your requests of "I need a month of down time to scribe spells." Sometimes there just isn't time for down time.
I've never heard of a wizard requesting time to scribe 28 new spells into his book. I'm sure it's happened, but I'm equally sure such an occassion is rare.
And of course, you're saddled with d4 Hit Dice, and the fact that once you run out of spells (which happens fast, since wizards get the fewest spells per day of any spellcasting class) you're basically a commoner with some bonus feats and a pet.
Well, that's the cost of casting the most powerful spells in the game. Read the wizard spell list sometime and compare it to the cleric or druid list. Note the fact that wizards get their spell levels one character level earlier than the sorcerer. You'll notice a distinct advantage. Part of playing a wizard is knowing when to fire off spells and when not to. Part of being a good wizard is also to make sure you carry around a few scrolls, a wand or two, and maybe a staff for those rare occassions when you do run out of spells or you find that casting a spell from your spell list simply isn't worth the expenditure.
And the final nail in the coffin is, of course, the fact that wizards are the most complex class to build, since you have to add a familiar, a spellbook, and complex skills (wizards increase their Intelligence as they level up, so you have to keep track of when their skill points increase) to the mix when building the stat block. Which makes for longer stat blocks. Many of our writers opt instead to use simpler sorcerers for adventures, since they can be tailored for an encounter more efficiently and, in game play, there's really not much of a difference between what a wizard can do and a sorcerer can do in the 3–5 rounds he's alive.
I do agree with you there. But like I said before, I don't see that as a problem. Scrolls are one of the most commonly rolled magical items in the DMG tables. I'd expect that to be used at least as a guideline when designing treasure for any campaign. And as I've mentioned before, there are always wizard's guilds and grateful NPCs the PCs rescue.
But anyway... like I said, for AP3 we'll try to fit in more spellbooks.
I appreciate the offer, but please do realize that isn't the only way.
Personally, I think the biggest stumbling block to item creators (and this is not a uniquely wizardly phenomenon) is probably down-time. If the party item-creator is the main source of magic items for the whole party, that time does start to add up and it isn't always there. But a wizard still has a lot of downtime during travel and rest periods for example that is simply divided into small chunks that in and of themselves don't seem useful. If the idea of wizards using those numerous small chunks of time (which all adds up) to craft appeals to you, or you simply wish to come up with a way to allow crafting in your campaign without forcing downtime on the rest of the party, you may wish to adopt the Craft Points system from Unearthed Arcana. It's become a staple in my campaigns and proves helpful for those unfortunate situations when crafting would be useful but time is lacking (these situations are rare in my campaigns, even the AOW, which has never had a down-time issue despite having a crafter with virtually every item creation feat available to her).
Obviously, the problem is easily correctible in a variety of ways--but requires small modifications to the AAW (Adventure as Written). I just wanted to point that out--for DMs of parties with wizards, and for the Paizo crew, who may be turning this AP into a hardcover and will certainly be publishing an AP3 beginning some time in the next year.
I've been playing a transmuter in a group that has a warmage and several very selfish PCs (i.e., the other arcanist gets all the combat glory, and if you don't keep your eye on them you don't get your share of the loot, never mind that I've saved their bacon a time or two when they had no way to deal with the challenge at hand), so I can see the frustrating side of playing a wizard.
I have a wizard PC in the party I'm DMing AoW for, and have been trying to make sure everyone gets some love--I think it's important to encourage the clerics and wizards in this campaign because I think they're vital to surviving the adventures from SLS on.
Boy James, I'm surprised that there are so many Wizard Fanboy's here and even more surprised that I am one of them, anyways, just to pile on some more:
I think that its true that if the PC wizards stick up for themselves that they don't fall behind too much, Sorcerer's are great, and the ability to use scrolls of spells that they don't know is very usefull, the problem is that they can be expensive, and since they don't know alot of spells they need to buy them, this can really drain them, and at the same time there is not much they can make for themselves because they are limited by the small number of spells they can know.
The Wizard on the other hand can at a pretty small cost and very very low expt output make a scroll of just about anything. With a Handy Haversack and Later two gloves of storing with scrolls of multiple spells and wands being swapped out (although not together, can't put that glove in the Sack talk about fingers in the cookie jar), or with the QuickDraw feat, the Wizard can become a walking dual six gun wielding cowboy of death.
Also plan ahead what happens to the sorcerer when they gotta make a spellcraft check to cast an epic level spell.
I had one specific question for James or Erik, and that is--on rereading the entries on Telakin, the uber-doppelganger, I was a bit unclear. Does he have access to the wizard spells once per day by virtue of having consumed the brain that contained them, or did he gain the ability to cast spells like a wizard, and memorize them from the victim's spellbook? I guess the former is the case, since no spellbook was mentioned with the treasure, but I want to confirm my suspicion.
If it's really a problem, you can correct the modules.
For example there is a chest in Gathering of Winds that
once contained rotted scrolls. Make the scrolls unrotted.
Maybe put in a full Bacob's Blessed Book.
As a magic item it's unrotted.
Some of these places may have spells written on their walls.
Air spells on the walls of the wispering cairn in Airian.
Use comprehend languages and write them in your spellbook.
The Earl of Coalchester may be able to teach any fire spell.
Because he's a magical creature, that's why.
All spells theoretically come from Dragons, Outsiders, and
Elementals.
For making magic items give them XPs for collecting the
materials. It makes that more than just window dressing.
If wizards are the only ones who have professions,
maybe that's because they were originally supposed to
gain experience doing these things well.
I don't see why the Wind Duke *Insert Name* couldn't be buried with his spell book along with his swords and ring. You could make it a wind and law themed spell book, and would add some cool character to your PC wizards spell selection...
Thanks everyone for good suggestions on how to remedy this problem for my campaign!