Ok, this may have come up before but why doesn't the mage get the option to memorize different Encounter Powers between encounter.
Basically having the same option as the Daily Power but count this towards his encounter power.
So that at 5th level he\she'll have 4 encounter powers lets say- Burning Hands,Icy Terrain, Colour Spray and Fire shroud.
but can only memorize two of them at the start of the day( Burning Hands and Colour Spray for example).
After the first encounter he uses his power Burning Hands then at a short breather re-memorizes Icy Terrain and gets to the next encounter and uses his Icy Terrain then At another breather re-memorizes Burning Hands.
Do people think this is a viable option? I've heard it suggested before but its suggested that it'd make the mage two powerful but it's not like he's getting to use an extra Encounter Power as he still has the same number per encounter.
Let me know what you think the Pro's and Con's are?
|
Ok, this may have come up before but why doesn't the mage get the option to memorize different Encounter Powers between encounter.
I like the model for the Drow racial powers - they can use one or the other in any given encounter.
The pro is flexibility - the con is that it is one more thing to track.
Yeah, I find it very bizarre that encounter spells are left out of the wizard's spell book. And no, I don't think it would be unbalancing at all to use the daily/utility spell mechanic for encounter spells too. That is the wizard's shtick, after all.
TS
|
I'd actually suggest something of a compromise.
Allow them to have 2nd encounter powers they can swap out - but they can only swap out the encounter powers once per day, when they also swap out their daily and/or utility powers.
This gives them some flexibility, but cuts down both on the book keeping between encounters, and the retooling to deal with specific encounters rather than an adventure area.
Bah, just had a great long post explaining this, then the Paizo boards ate it. >_>
Anyway, a quick summary:
1) Power Level
Letting wizards swap encounter powers is more powerful - it means they can much more easily enter every fight ready specifically for the foes ahead. Preparing a day in advance is often a guessing game - preparing in the middle of an enemy lair, in only five minutes, will often let you be much more certain about what you are fighting next.
Despite this, however, I don't think this is an unbalancing amount of extra power for the wizard - versatility is supposed to be one of their strengths, and they are a little behind the power curve in some regards, which this would simply make up for.
2) Complexity
Here is the big issue - more paperwork. Swapping powers once a day in the morning is a relatively small thing. Doing it between every fight is more of a slow-down - both in real time and game time. At the game table, it means the rest of the players need to wait for the wizard to constantly be rememorizing his spells. In character, it means the party may need to take many random five minute rests whenever the wizard sees something to make him change his mind; he sees a waterfall and suddenly wants to grab freezing spells. When they pass that area without incident and see signs they are in the domain of pygmy goblins, he wants to swap to all area effect powers. When they approach a large bridge rumored to be guarded by a powerful troll, he wants to switch to his single-target fire and acid spells.
I think something is easily workable as a house rule or in a home game, as long as one is aware of the...
I agree about the time taken whilst deciding the spells but in comparison to the paperwork in the 3rd ed mage deciding his spells it should be relatively simple but your right that if a mage see's a waterfall he may want to grab a different spell but he's not going to have a huge choice as after 11 level they max out with 4 Encounter spells to select out of 8. The players I have are very advanced players and shouldn't struggle with it. For new players I'd say they keep the mage as per the book.
Thanks for the input I'll take it on board.
Actually - why not just give the wizard slots for all of the powers. Let the wizard prep the at-will, encounter, and daily slots at the start of each day?
I'm intrigued. Can you be a little bit more specific, how would you run the mechanic?
|
|
Actually - why not just give the wizard slots for all of the powers. Let the wizard prep the at-will, encounter, and daily slots at the start of each day?I'm intrigued. Can you be a little bit more specific, how would you run the mechanic?
The idea I had was to simply allow the Wizard to pick his or her powers everyday using the allotment from the experience table. You could use a spellbook to limit the number of choices to two times the number of slots.
For example ... a 10th level wizard gets 2 at-will, 3 encounter, 3 daily, and 3 utility. The spell book could have capacity for 4 daily, 6 encounter, 6 daily, and 6 utility spells. At the start of every day the slots for the powers are filled from the book.
Actually - why not just give the wizard slots for all of the powers. Let the wizard prep the at-will, encounter, and daily slots at the start of each day?I'm intrigued. Can you be a little bit more specific, how would you run the mechanic?The idea I had was to simply allow the Wizard to pick his or her powers everyday using the allotment from the experience table. You could use a spellbook to limit the number of choices to two times the number of slots.
For example ... a 10th level wizard gets 2 at-will, 3 encounter, 3 daily, and 3 utility. The spell book could have capacity for 4 daily, 6 encounter, 6 daily, and 6 utility spells. At the start of every day the slots for the powers are filled from the book.
I like the idea, it'd bring the spellbook back into the character more which was the strongest gripe given so far.
Which I found funny really as the 3.5 Ed Wizard presumably read his book first thing in the morning and that was that but it sounds more like the D&D mage with the spellbook controlling all the his spell through the spellbook.