| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
the Dazing spell Metamagic is very strong to the point that my group has agreed not to use it. It basically turned every combat into a "Ye who goes first, wins".
Wizards eventually get quite strong, but not to the same degree, and it's more in a narrative fashion (making demiplanes) or being able to prepare for a wide range of circumstances. If you want to make a boring, broken Wizard at high levels, the usual method is specializing in Divination to ensure you always go first.
Arcanists are generally banned in my groups by mutual agreement, along with the Exploiter Wizard archetype that uses their signature class feature. The main nuisance is the ability to swap prepared spells as a full-round action. It's hardly universal, though, and plenty of groups are fine with that sort of thing.
The main metamagic abuse is that there are traits and feats to reduce its cost. The Sacred Geometry feat is banned in a similar category to Leadership because after level eight or so, it's free metamagic on everything without having to even take the metamagic feats. There are also a few weird interactions with obscure metamagics that allow for stuff like cantrip darkness or something like that, but it's not a Locate City bomb.
EDIT: Yeah, Dazing Spell was a bad idea. It makes damaging spells into save-or-lose AoEs on reflex.
Wizards are still exceedingly powerful. It's not as egregious as in 3.5, but Wizards can still dominate the game if you want them to.
Arcanists are highly comparable to Wizards. Their casting style is a hybrid between prepared and spontaneous casting. Personally I find their casting style about equivalent to the Wizard, and which one is better is a matter of preference. They tend to have better class features than the Wizard, but they have the slower spell progression like a Sorcerer. So overall I think they're very similar to Wizards and it's a matter of preference between them. Personally the faster acquisition of new spell levels makes the Wizard preferable for me.
Whoa, reading up on Sacred Geometry, this feat's amazing :O
There are calculators for it so you don't ruin other people's fun by taking too long, only by ignore semblances of balance.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Sacred Geometry is one of those things where the world is a better place if you pretend it doesn't exist.
Wizards generally don't get quite the same level of shenanigans in Pathfinder, but at the same time have most of the same balance issues they've always had. Wizard wasn't amazingly powerful because of Incantatrix metamagic shenanigans. They were amazingly powerful because magic let 'em do everything, and that's still the case. And they still have several options for dumpster diving through their spellbook for the perfect solution, one of them available from level 1 as a baked-in class feature.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
In short? As strong as you want them to be. Studying the Encyclopedia Arcana that is the list of possible Wizard spells will offer some powerful options to keep in your pocket. Looking up killer spell/metamagic combinations can lead you to some overpowering strategies. GMs to this day have to blink back tears at the mention of the words "Persistent Glitterdust."
If you want to see just how deep the rabbit hole goes, there's a pretty good blog that pushes the rules to their limit for comedic purposes. Links to the wizardly articles are in an earlier post of mine.
At any rate, just play what looks fun and know how much is too much for your GM and fellow players. And don't be afraid to throw out those helpful buffs every now and then. People love it when you do that.
I was always a fan of persistent creeping cold as a good middle finger to someone you don't like. :P
Wizards are as broken as the dm allows or failing that as the player wants. They don't dominate combat very hard until double digit levels but they do destroy the world in a narrative sense
Compared to 3.5:
Buffs:
- More HP (d4 -> d6) plus a possible Favored Class Bonus (which works differently now).
- You can now have a racial INT bonus with a core race (Human, Elf, Half-Elf, or Half-Orc).
- Prohibited Schools are now Opposition Schools. Rather than being taken off your spell list entirely, they require two spell slots, and you get a -4 penalty to create magic items with an opposed school's spell as a prerequisite. You can use magic items from opposition schools without penalty.
- School Specialization now gives class features broadly on par with the old Master Specialist prestige class' School Esoterica.
- Concentration has gone from a Constitution-based skill to one based on caster level and INT bonus. IIRC it's about as difficult as it was before, but no longer a skill tax.
- A few game-changing spells have been added. As far as I know there was no equivalent to Aroden's Spellbane, for example.
- XP costs have been replaced with gold costs.
- More feats in general means more room for things like Spell Focus.
Nerfs:
- Some of the worst-offending spells were nerfed or simply not reprinted. For example, many instant-death spells like Finger of Death now deal HP damage on a failed save. Polymorph spells are far more restrictive, for example you add fixed bonuses to your physical stats rather than replacing them with the monster's stats in the bestiary. The Orb spells that allowed Conjuration to blast with force damage into an Antimagic Field have not been reprinted. The list of great and small changes to spells is way too long for me to list.