The APs are generally designed around tough but not insurmountable odds for non-optimized parties (which I think is the bulk of gaming community). If you start making the published APs challenging for optimized characters the casual play characters are facing TPK after TPK.
+1.
If you're with an organized play campaign for most/all of its lifecycle you can often see its organizers and module writers struggling with this as well. If you're running 100 tables of a mod at a convention you'd really like to push the top 2-3 tables of players, but whenever you do that there are mass casualties. Ultimately most campaigns end up deciding that they'd rather have 80 happy tables and 2-3 bored ones than 2-3 happy tables and 80 dead ones.
(And, ironically, when you actually do push the top-tier groups, most, not all, but most of them complain about it rather than enjoy finally being challenged.)
The situation you describe describes everyone except the martial types. They are the only ones who lack rocket launchers. They cannot play the same game as everyone else by default. The only way to do so is to either optimize so you can, or change the rules so you can.
Yes! Exactly my point. Now, if we could get any of the 10,000 "fighters are fine" people here to agree...
And do you mind explaining that for someone who doesn't keep perfect track of the release order of APs? Give me names, data. Something I can actually work with, not vague claims.
Sure: that'd be every AP except for the three you named, which were the three published in Dungeon and also the first three.
It's not like the information about the release order of the APs isn't available in multiple places on this very website; failing to specify the order doesn't make my claims vague, it makes your response to them lazy.
With the adoption of Pathfinder Core as the assumed standard for future APs I think the APs have definitely gotten more friendly to casual play.
I think that's because the range of play modes from beer & pretzels casual to diamond hard optimization is much narrower in Pathfinder than it was in late 3.x.
The capabilities of a team of non-optimized tier 5 PCs in 3.x were much lower than the Pathfinder core standards and the capabilities of a group of optimized tier 1 PCs in 3.x was much higher than in Pathfinder.
By constricted the range of supported play types Paizo is able to target their APs to a much higher percentage of the total userbase. Yes people at the low end probably die too much and people at the high end are bored and unchallenged but for the group close to the statistical norm the new APs are probably fine with minimal changes due to party size and composition.
From a business perspective that's a pretty good idea.
Yes there are probably still encounters that are too difficult particularly in low level AP parts and there are probably some custom monsters that hit way above their pay scale but I think they've actually reduced the number of insta-death monsters in the Pathfinder products as opposed to the early APs like AoWs.
Yes there are probably still encounters that are too difficult particularly in low level AP parts and there are probably some custom monsters that hit way above their pay scale but I think they've actually reduced the number of insta-death monsters in the Pathfinder products as opposed to the early APs like AoWs.
And, to keep things in perspective, the earliest APs were written for 3.5 in all its wonderful, terrible, broken glory, at a time that as far as I know Pathfinder wasn't even a gleam in Jason Bulmahn's eye.
Later APs were written for 3.5 but post-gleam, and later still APs were written specifically for Pathfinder.
PF put some nerfs into a few spells, and doesn't have the vast swath of non-core spells, but spellcasters really didn't lose a whole lot.
To be fair, "a few spells" = most of the best core spells of 3.5.
But I agree that overall that wizards didn't lose a whole lot -- they saw a lot of spells taken down a notch, but then there's the upgrades to the wizard class itself which counterbalance that pretty well. Sorcerer, IMHO, did suffer a little more in PF core despite bloodlines in all their glory, and cleric and druid do generally seem a little weaker to me in PF Core than in 3.5, even though I know a lot of people looooooove Channel.
The capabilities of a team of non-optimized tier 5 PCs in 3.x were much lower than the Pathfinder core standards and the capabilities of a group of optimized tier 1 PCs in 3.x was much higher than in Pathfinder.
Correction. The capabilities of a group of optimized tier 1 PC's in 3.x was slightly higher than in PF.
PF put some nerfs into a few spells, and doesn't have the vast swath of non-core spells, but spellcasters really didn't lose a whole lot.
I'm including all of the horribly, horribly broken CharOp 3.5 caster builds in this mess (incantrix, planar shepherd, ruby knight vindicators, dweomer keepers, initiates of the sevenfold veil, etc) factor in Spell Compendium and Magic Item Compendium material and I think it's pretty clear that a core only pathfinder game has far, far less exploits available.
Do I think that more spells should've gotten nerfed? Definitely but to date Paizo has managed to avoid most of the Caster +++ power creep.
There was really too much crap to deal with. Some of the greatest offender, exspecially from faerun magic, are irredeemable :P
What I want to see is one of these "casters are everything and the only thing" people actually post a pathfinder caster and prove that these mythical creatures somehow stop being mortal at level 11.
So far we have claims with no proof -- it's always "well the caster would be flying -- the caster will always have freedom of movement -- invisibility is an auto on spell so I'll never be seen, Displacement/mirror image because nothing can get around it, and I got all these spells that say auto win on them."
Since CoDzilla likes it so much level 11, 25PF point buy, all pathfinder material by piazo allowed 82,000 gp as per standard wealth by level -- feel free to have the base of items free (spellbooks included) -- but be sure to bring your spells memorized list for the prepared casters.
First you admit to being wary of people who think ineffective characters are ineffective, then you admit to being wary of ToB, and now you admit to using critical hit and fumble decks.
Go back and reread what I said. I never said I am wary of people who think ineffective characters are ineffective. I said that I am wary of people who think that only casters are effective and everything else sucks. As for ToB, it added a level of complication that I don't think was necessary. I'm glad you like it. Keep liking it. Just remember that some of us don't need it to play our non-casters well through all levels of play. My group actually wants and enjoys critical hits and fumbles. We have never seen it as an issue. Those with multiple attacks have never seen the issues people think are there. With proper use of these rules, no one is hurt excessively. The casters even get to have some love. In fact, our inquisitor got a critical hit off with his searing light spell dealing 20d6 damage and had a secondary effect along with it. So yeah, I don't like players who assume that class X sucks when they've never played in my games. I think ToB was interesting yet not useful for my games. I also really like Critical Hits and Fumbles. I have since 1st edition and will do so for some time to come.
Not to mention you claim to be fine with low stats, but when someone shows you low stats it's oh no, that's not acceptable.
I see that you have zero intention on understanding anything I say so consider this the last time I respond to you.
What I want to see is one of these "casters are everything and the only thing" people actually post a pathfinder caster and prove that these mythical creatures somehow stop being mortal at level 11.
So far we have claims with no proof -- it's always "well the caster would be flying -- the caster will always have freedom of movement -- invisibility is an auto on spell so I'll never be seen, Displacement/mirror image because nothing can get around it, and I got all these spells that say auto win on them."
Since CoDzilla likes it so much level 11, 25PF point buy, all pathfinder material by piazo allowed 82,000 gp as per standard wealth by level -- feel free to have the base of items free (spellbooks included) -- but be sure to bring your spells memorized list for the prepared casters.
It won't happen. It didn't happen on the WotC boards when it was requested hundreds of times. It won't happen here either. You might get lucky and get a hybrid Pathfinder/3.5 build but even then I wouldn't hold my breath.
It won't happen. It didn't happen on the WotC boards when it was requested hundreds of times. It won't happen here either. You might get lucky and get a hybrid Pathfinder/3.5 build but even then I wouldn't hold my breath.
It used to happen all the time, and epic flamewars resulted.
Personally, I've never seen anyone give up a deeply held belief on a messageboard. The best you can hope for it that you lay out your arguments and people use that information to look more closely at their own games.
People will either accept the evidence or they won't, and I think most gamers have learned to not bait the trolls.
On that note, I'll avoid this thread from now on.
|
It won't happen. It didn't happen on the WotC boards when it was requested hundreds of times. It won't happen here either. You might get lucky and get a hybrid Pathfinder/3.5 build but even then I wouldn't hold my breath.It used to happen all the time, and epic flamewars resulted.
Personally, I've never seen anyone give up a deeply held belief on a messageboard. The best you can hope for it that you lay out your arguments and people use that information to look more closely at their own games.
People will either accept the evidence or they won't, and I think most gamers have learned to not bait the trolls.
On that note, I'll avoid this thread from now on.
All of these threads follow a simple pattern.
Someone stupid enough to take the bait posts a build.
People post some way out there scenario or build, specifically to counter that specific build.
It (the anti your build) generally loses anyways. The anti logic crowd refuses to accept defeat.
Thing is, I'm not stupid. So if you won't believe the obvious on your own, and won't do your investigations to determine it, then I'm not going to waste my time trying to convince you the sky is blue.
See I think the threads go like this.
"Wizards can do everything against everything!"
"Not in every build, what is your build where you can do all of those things at the same time!"
"Posting a build is a trap!"
Posting a build is posting a character you play, with the limitations you would actually have in a real game, unless your DM lets you cheat by not paying attention to what you actually have cast and memorized at a given time.
CoDzilla changes his alias and name regularly, because if he didn't you could follow the back trail of his posts and find he will say his caster has every feature needed to win whatever argument he is in at the time.
Don't feed the troll. Better yet, if you poke him he'll put you on his ignore list and you won't have to deal with him anymore.
See I think the threads go like this.
"Wizards can do everything against everything!"
"Not in every build, what is your build where you can do all of those things at the same time!"
"Posting a build is a trap!"
Thanks for a showing a perfect example.
Poster A says: "Wizards and other spellcasters are much better than fighting guys."
Poster B says: "You say Wizard's can do everything against everything! Prove it with a build!"
Poster A says: "No, I didn't say that. Why are you stawmanning me? I just said that Wizards and other spellcasters are objectively better."
Poster B says: "Ha! You can't prove that Wizards can do everything against everything and I proved it or else you would have posted a build. If you posted a build I could come up with a situation where it would lose. I declare victory!"
Poster A says: "Well, of course you could, but I'm not arguing that Wizards can do everything because that's obviously not true. I just said that Wizards and spellcasters are better than fighting guys in all ways."
Poster B: "See! He can't even post a build because he knows I could beat his character!"
Poster A: "OK, I'm not following this thread anymore because you are not arguing rationally."
Poster B says: "Haha! He left so I declare victory again!
There seriously is a limited number of times you need to do that before you realize it's a trap. For reference, see in the earlier part of the thread where a post offered three situations and tried to get me to beat them with one Wizard when I was talking about a party of spellcasters. That ended up not being productive.
These threads are useful at all because sometimes you get useful information. For example, there was a guy who said that he had an all martial party go through one of the APs, and that was good information.... of course, then we found that that his "all martial party" was backed up by four spellcasters and the absolute maximum amount of stat points.
be sure to bring your spells memorized list for the prepared casters.
Nice way to stack the deck beforehand -- assuming the wizard has no divination ability, no information at all, and no reasoning ability, and is hence unable to reasonably anticipate anything at all. When I play a wizard, I pick spells prepared based on the situation I'm headed into. If I don't know it, I find out. Remember, at 11th level, legend lore and contact other plane are both available.
If someone does post a build, do you then say, "You're hit with a sphere of annihilation at birth and die," or something equally outre?
A scenario that will result in a lot of dead weak classes and casters performing excellently.
...which is, sadly, apparently exactly what Monte had in mind, when he was developing 3rd edition.
Folks, pointing out caster dominance at higher levels is not in any way casting disparagement on anyone's home game or playstyle -- it's a critique of the written rules. A lot of people have means of sweeping that rules problem under a convenient rug: either by houserule, or screwing casters, or intentionally playing a game in which no one looks too closely. That's all good -- but it doesn't fix the underlying mechanical issues; it just hides them.
Monte as in Cook? As in Ivory Tower Design? This is to be expected.
Precisely. This is an exact quote:
When we designed 3rd Edition D&D, people around Wizards of the Coast joked about the "lessons" we could learn from Magic: The Gathering... Magic also has a concept of "Timmy cards." These are cards that look cool, but aren't actually that great in the game. The purpose of such cards is to reward people for really mastering the game, and making players feel smart when they've figured out that one card is better than the other. While D&D doesn't exactly do that, it is true that certain game choices are deliberately better than others.
So for 3.0, the fighter, barbarian, ranger, monk, and paladin were Timmy cards. Unfortunately, they still are.
Monte as in Cook? As in Ivory Tower Design? This is to be expected.Precisely. This is an exact quote:
When we designed 3rd Edition D&D, people around Wizards of the Coast joked about the "lessons" we could learn from Magic: The Gathering... Magic also has a concept of "Timmy cards." These are cards that look cool, but aren't actually that great in the game. The purpose of such cards is to reward people for really mastering the game, and making players feel smart when they've figured out that one card is better than the other. While D&D doesn't exactly do that, it is true that certain game choices are deliberately better than others.So for 3.0, the fighter, barbarian, ranger, monk, and paladin were Timmy cards. Unfortunately, they still are.
IMHO you draw this conclusion hastly. Did he said that the choice was about a class or another?
Are you sure that the "Timmycard" thing wasn't more about feats, weapons and spell choice in the context of the class? IIRC, he made an example with the feat Thoughness.
I guess it could be more productive even from a marketing standpoint. I can sell splatbooks to barbarian players too. :P
IMHO you draw this conclusion hastly. Did he said that the choice was about a class or another? Are you sure that the "Timmycard" thing wasn't more about feats, weapons and spell choice in the context of the class? IIRC, he made an example with the feat Toughness.
You do indeed recall correctly -- he did not specifically mention all melee classes.
However, my conclusion isn't at all hasty. It's been made after years of intensive playing and DMing 3rd edition, after many more years of experience with earlier editions and other games. Toughness in 3.0 was a Timmy card. So was the entire Fighter class (intentionally or not), just on a bigger and more audacious scale.
That is quite sad. It does explain a lot though. But Monte Cook didn't design Pathfinder, did he?
With "backwards compatibility" as the overriding design critereon, yes, he did, indirectly (he's also on the Paizo staff as an advisor for Pathfinder, BTW). Also (and I might be way off base on this) but Jason Bulmahn, while enthusiastic, seems like he might lack Monte's experience with earlier systems -- which could compromise his "3.0 Timmy-detector."
|
Folks, pointing out caster dominance at higher levels is not in any way casting disparagement on anyone's home game or playstyle -- it's a critique of the written rules. A lot of people have means of sweeping that rules problem under a convenient rug: either by houserule, or screwing casters, or intentionally playing a game in which no one looks too closely. That's all good -- but it doesn't fix the underlying mechanical issues; it just hides them.
Ok, lets remove PFRPG from the equation since these problems existed before Paizo decided to continue with the ruleset after Wotc killed off 3.5
Lets go back and look at 3rd core design/d20.
So, whats your fix? Cause I know it isn't at the the den in the various Tomes.
See I know what Roy is trying to do, disparage PFRPG and say that 3.5 was better/PF didn't fix anything, etc, yet by his own narrow vision 3.5 is crap before anyone else even touches it.
And by crap I mean crap play, crap class choices (casters only) and crap game challenges. In other words - the game he plays (3.5) is crap.
So I want to hear your solution Kirth, i've read some of your homerules but I would like to hear your fix for d20, not being snarky.
|
|
One thing we found was increasing casting times to full round actions. That helps.
Houstonderek wants to use 1E spell effects, dangers and all. I am undecided about that. Scry and die IS harder if you have a chance of splattering yourself all over the place as well.
This where I went.
It still preserves power but with some risks. Again risk vs. reward paradigm which was dropped in 3rd edition (mostly).
|
This where I went.
It still preserves power but with some risks. Again risk vs. reward paradigm which was dropped in 3rd edition (mostly).
My indecision comes from my dislike of 'you rolled a 1/00%/didn't check the right pocket with the right tool, so now your character dies and you don't play anymore'. I don't like players having to sit out because the dice say so, which is what I see SoD/teleport error chance/etc causing.
But at the same time, if your spells are powerful, they should have meaningful drawbacks. Which 'you have one less spell slot for the day now' isn't.
Houstonderek wants to use 1E spell effects, dangers and all. I am undecided about that. Scry and die IS harder if you have a chance of splattering yourself all over the place as well.
My experience with 1E... it didn't change much, except the whole campaign just randomly ended sometimes -- which I wouldn't consider an improvement.
I'm sure there are players out there who were afraid enough of 1E/2E teleport gone wrong to avoid using it, but I never encountered any.
(Along similar lines, I once saw a 2E campaign randomly end when a pivotal character with 99% chance to survive resurrection rolled the double-ought. Right about there I decided that was terrible game design, or at least, intended for a type of game that no one I knew was playing.)
With "backwards compatibility" as the overriding design critereon, yes, he did, indirectly (he's also on the Paizo staff as an advisor for Pathfinder, BTW). Also (and I might be way off base on this) but Jason Bulmahn, while enthusiastic, seems like he might lack Monte's experience with earlier systems -- which could compromise his "3.0 Timmy-detector."
In JB's defense, he spent the bulk of the 3.X years running some aspect of Living Greyhawk, and probably DMing / playtesting / module editing / etc. as much 3.X as anyone alive. He also had a lot of experience running the exact same adventures many times for different groups of players, which I think is very informative from a comparitive balance perspective -- including for many different skill and optimization levels of players.
While in some cases I think his changes didn't go far enough or gave good things to classes that didn't really need the help, I think you would be hard-pressed to find many people with as rigorous experience with 3.0/3.5 as he had.
be sure to bring your spells memorized list for the prepared casters.Nice way to stack the deck beforehand -- assuming the wizard has no divination ability, no information at all, and no reasoning ability, and is hence unable to reasonably anticipate anything at all. When I play a wizard, I pick spells prepared based on the situation I'm headed into. If I don't know it, I find out.
Certainly, but you shouldn't stack the deck the other way, either (e.g. claiming that a wizard can just plink away at a monster with Magic Missiles when there's no chance in hell that you'd memorize that many Magic Missiles in any reasonable scenario).
That's why I hate these kinds of discussions, because they turn into Cops And Robbers ("I hit you!" "No you didn't!") and they make both sides look bad (even if one or both sides has a good point).
be sure to bring your spells memorized list for the prepared casters.Nice way to stack the deck beforehand -- assuming the wizard has no divination ability, no information at all, and no reasoning ability, and is hence unable to reasonably anticipate anything at all. When I play a wizard, I pick spells prepared based on the situation I'm headed into. If I don't know it, I find out. Remember, at 11th level, legend lore and contact other plane are both available.
If someone does post a build, do you then say, "You're hit with a sphere of annihilation at birth and die," or something equally outre?
Actually, in my experience this is the case. Every divination spell you mention requires the caster to more or less already know what they are looking for. This is a rare event in any game I have ever played in. Also, most divination spells have a very short range compared to what you need.
Legend Lore: requires 1d10 days to reveal information about something you do not already have, and can take 2d6 weeks if you have not personally been to the place or held the object in the past. Then, it only reveals information about things that are considered legendary, and then only the legend which may contain falsehoods.
Contact annother plane: Only answers in single words, has a chance to prevent you from casting for a week, and has a chance for you to get blatant lies as answers.
Lower level divination spells, like Locate Object, Locate Person, and Scry, are all limmited in distance and provide you with relatively little information. If you are within an 1/8 of a mile of the person or object, knowing the dirrection to it is not that big of a deal. Scrying provides you with so little information that it is practically worthless. You know what is 10 ft arround him, but have a chance to be spotted and giving away your presence and the durration is so short that you need to get lucky with it.
Not one of these will help you know what spells to memorize. And if you are using a 5th or 6th level spell to help you learn what to memorize for the day, I don't know what to tell you.
Certainly, but you shouldn't stack the deck the other way, either (e.g. claiming that a wizard can just plink away at a monster with Magic Missiles when there's no chance in hell that you'd memorize that many Magic Missiles in any reasonable scenario).
Not to nitpick too much on what was probably meant to be a general and not specific example, but:
1) Generally, I think it's pretty reasonable to see a decent number of Magic Missiles prepared at higher levels, just because there are only so many 1st level spells that retain practical utility past a certain point. This is a little extra true with some of the "old standbys" of first level like Ray of Enfeeblement getting hit with a stick.
(Granted, my perspective may be slightly warped by a year or two of LG in which there were Dread Wraiths under every rock.)
2) 1st level Pearls of Power are cheap and plentiful. They just about come in boxes of fantasy Cracker Jack.
Nice way to stack the deck beforehand -- assuming the wizard has no divination ability, no information at all, and no reasoning ability, and is hence unable to reasonably anticipate anything at all.Actually, in my experience this is the case.
Even if I were to give you the rest of that about divinations (I don't, but let's pretend... ), you're ignoring the bit about information and reasoning ability.
be sure to bring your spells memorized list for the prepared casters.Nice way to stack the deck beforehand -- assuming the wizard has no divination ability, no information at all, and no reasoning ability, and is hence unable to reasonably anticipate anything at all. When I play a wizard, I pick spells prepared based on the situation I'm headed into. If I don't know it, I find out. Remember, at 11th level, legend lore and contact other plane are both available.
If someone does post a build, do you then say, "You're hit with a sphere of annihilation at birth and die," or something equally outre?
Not at all. I point out the points that it suffers -- like the fact that with 82,000gp and level 11 the best spells you are going to have is level 6 with a DC of 28, you only have 3 of those 6th level spells, and the average creature is going to have a 45% chance of success against those spells.
They state they will use their "I win" spells but I want to know how these spells are supposed to win when they fail almost half the time (if the creature isn't outright immune).
The claims that the wizard won't be attacked because he'll be invisible and flying and have FoM is rediculous at best. A ring of freedom of movement is going to cost 40k, while the ring of invisbility is very expensive too -- add in the cost of a headband of *stat* +6 and you are well over wealth by level.
The above 15 point build that CoDzilla offered was one of the dumbest builds I've ever seen offered.
Not because "no one should take a bunch of dump stats" but because of the ones he picked.
He has no Charisma to help with those charisma checks when relying on the enchantment spells, he has no wisdom (and less than no wisdom) which is going to kill his will saves (even with a good save to start with a -2 on top of that hurts a lot). Buying a cloak is going to be hard due to all the other expenses he already has. His CMD is so low at this point that a monster with grab can hold him and still take other actions with a -20 to the check -- the DC on the concentration checks in grapple are not easy (indeed many times not even possible) and you must have what you use in hand at the time the grapple is started -- without that you can't cast.
But somehow he'll have all this, and rods of metamagic, and scrolls of everything under the sun with the right spells picked everytime.
That doesn't happen.
Divinations are great -- if you can target something important. Teleporting away can end combat -- but doesn't get you to your goals. Having SoD spells is wonderful -- if they don't save and are vulnerable.
Clerics are better due to domains but they have their issues too -- namely a lack of teleport and invisibility and some of the "I win" buttons at that level.
********************
In the end my problem is they say "Prove it" and I show builds that have the double digits triple digit HP, AC of 40, and DPR of 100 even though they say it isn't possible (I have more sitting here as well if people want them).
They say that these spells will "win" and that the wizard will not be challenged, and that he'll have plenty of HP and so on -- but they can't prove it.
A cleric? Ok I can see a cleric -- saves over 15 over 100 hp AC of 40 -- DPR ends a little low but not much so it works -- however that's a dwarven cleric with protection domain and pretty specifically built -- even then he's using holy vindicator and spells to keep up.
Not at all. I point out the points that it suffers -- like the fact that with 82,000gp and level 11 the best spells you are going to have is level 6 with a DC of 28, you only have 3 of those 6th level spells, and the average creature is going to have a 45% chance of success against those spells.
What that you would fight at level 11 has +16 in its worst save?
Although, that being said, for the theoretical all-full-caster party, a half and half chance of success for the toughest single creatures you'd face is plenty good -- your chances of making 4 of those saves each round for very long aren't great.
|
|
Precisely. Yes, spellcasters lose to better spellcasters. Otherwise it would be kind of hard for the PCs to get very far, given how many enemies can cast spells. Barring the Idiot Ball, or a LOT of 3.5 non core material they don't lose to anything else though. Even, and especially their supposed counters. Grease stops golems cold for example, regardless of level. And by the time you actually fight any, 1st level spells are things you could forget you even have. Yet despite their relative unimportance, they still constitute a win.
Anti magic fields are only usable by people who are high level casters, themselves and they make themselves a huge target for any Conjuration (Creation) effect or any indirect use of magic. Up to, and including simply having some sort of permanent minion march in there and smash them.
Everything else got nerfed.
Poison? Was never that good to begin with, but got nerfed further.
Ray of Enfeeblement? Went from something that screwed 8 (and 10, and 12, and 18 Str) characters to something to laugh at since it has a save.
Negative levels? Aside from mostly being a spellcaster thing, themselves you don't lose spell slots in PF anymore. I distinctly recall at least 3 separate occasions in 3.5 where 1 or more negative levels caused a caster to lose a key spell, putting them at a massive disadvantage. No more.
I really do have to wonder what James and company were thinking when they wrote this. Either casters were intentionally made even more dominant than they already were, or this was a completely unintentional, yet huge mistake.
Yes, people will flame me for this, even though I'm not insulting them. It's true though.
I'll address both of you at the same time to save posts.
The strength of the Wizard class is that it can do damn near anything.
The weakness of the Wizard class is that even if they do know the right spell, they only know it once.
The reason people ask for a build is because in the game, people actually play characters they have built, and therefore must adapt to whatever situation occurs in game.
If you are going to argue that a Wizard can do A, you will probably be right depending on what build you have (class, school, feats...) and what spells you have memorized. And how much time you have to cast it.
Why we call for builds is the same reason you refuse to post them. Because it would pin you down to an actual character that you would have to deal with no matter what comes. You know, like in a real game.
A perfectly prepared Wizard will will 9 times of of 10. However there is no such thing as a perfectly prepared Wizard.
And even a perfectly prepared Wizard still has 2 low saves and the lowest hit points in the game.