So my friends and I are starting up the rise of the runelords adventure path and I already see problems brewing. We all met up last night in order to flesh out everyone's back story and character sheets. After we got all of that settled we decided that it would be beneficial to run a little practice session with the team.
I used the little premade adventure that I got from the beginner box and we ran it, and it was fun. Problem: my friend is playing a wizard and he feels absolutely useless (and was very vocal about it) next to the two handed ranger. I told him that this was gonna happen for the first few levels that he will feel weak but eventually come into his character, which I thought he grasped the concept of because he played a sorc in my last campaign.
Is there any advice that I can get for this situation. I know that's just how the game works that martials overshadow casters for a good while, but I seriously don't want to listen to him whine for the next X sessions about how weak he is.
I understand if there's nothing really substantial that you guys could tell me but I'd appreciate any help in the matter. Thank you
What is his race, ability scores, school specialization, etc.?
Teach him about spell selection and strategic use. Grease is not weak. Truestrike is not weak. Heck the elemental ray powers aren't weak at 1st level.
RotRL has fighting humanoids pretty much exclusively during the the first books (remember that goblins are also humanoids), that means that thedaze cantrip is a very good weapon.
Suggest to him to specialize in spells such as:
daze (for the first three levels, this is king)
sleep
color spray
glitterdust
create pit (especially if there is a ranged character in the group, though just having a martial with a bow makes this useful, and the wizard can acid splash away)
flaming sphere (deal damage as a move action while still being effective by casting other spells!)
pyrotechnics
blindness/deafness (for roguish and castery "boss" targets like the Korean elfman)
If you can change his viewpoint from "damage done and enemies taken out by me personally represent my success" to "the guys the ranger killed who had been blinded, knocked out, or cast into a pit can actually be chalked up to me, but I'm too good of a sport to say this out loud," then he will be cool.
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He sounds like he doesn't think strategically. Point out some of the uses for his spells. If that doesn't work, he either needs to make a martial so he can whine how weak he is compared to the wizard after 4th level, or play a rouge so he can whine how weak he is outside of skill tests.
He sounds like he doesn't think strategically. Point out some of the uses for his spells. If that doesn't work, he either needs to make a martial so he can whine how weak he is compared to the wizard after 4th level, or play a rouge so he can whine how weak he is outside of skill tests.
Was the misspelling there of "rogue" unintentional or ironic?
He sounds like he doesn't think strategically. Point out some of the uses for his spells. If that doesn't work, he either needs to make a martial so he can whine how weak he is compared to the wizard after 4th level, or play a rouge so he can whine how weak he is outside of skill tests.Was the misspelling there of "rogue" unintentional or ironic?
Unintentional. I'm just now putting my RDC (required daily caffeine) into my system. I usually spell it correctly.
He understands the power of the "control" mage. We had a great encounter using grease in our last campaign and he even has it as one of his spells because of it. His chosen school is illusion and two forbidden schools are abjuration and necromancy.
I know that he wants to deal damage (he was stoked to play his cheesy cavalier with a lance last campaign) but its just not going to happen, i m going to talk to him about changing his class to something more instantly gratifying. We do need an arcane caster in the group but I'd rather he have something that he won't moan about in game.
Tell him to come to this board and search "God Wizard".
?
Profit.
I had a player like this in my group. he would complain all the time. Whine about not doing damage, then whine about his skills not being good enough. One time I looked at his sheet after he whined and found he had the best skills out of the whole party. I kicked him out of the group.Now with any luck your player is not as bad as mine was.
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If he wants to blow stuff up and have a better time for the first few levels at the low, low cost of power and flexibility at higher levels, he should consider the Blockbuster Wizard: a blaster wizard that uses the admixture school along with metamagics on a small repertoire of spells to deal impressive damage early on and remain respectable into the higher levels. It's going to feel very sorceror-like because he'll be casting a lot of the same spell, either Burning Hands or Fireball, but with some clever play he will be much more versatile than any sorceror. He's still got a spell book full of the same spells as any God Wizard so he doesn't have to blast stuff if he doesn't want to but when he does want to, he'll be very good at it.
The guide can be found on Broken Zenith's Guide to the Class Guides on the Advice page.
So he wants to be a blaster-caster? or just feels that he runs out of useful spells too quickly?
With his illusion school he can blind a lot of things that the ranger wants to beat up and the ranger would love that. He can also use his illusions to set ambushes, and as a wizard he can be a decent knowledge monkey, so he's not particularly useless.
But if he wants to deal damage... Too bad, wrong school, he's going to need to wait for more spells. At best he can cast defensive illusions and try to attack in some other way. If he has some free time and some money I'd suggest he starts scribing some scrolls for emergency damage.
If you're a spellcaster, every spell slot spent on just dealing damage is almost always going to be a waste of time. And with limited resources at that level, you have to wait and pick your spots for big spells, and throw a lot of cantrips in the meantime.
I had to explain this to our wizard recently, because nobody else in the group wanted to play 'we have to rest, I'm out of spells' every encounter.
And yeah, damage-dealing illusionist is just ... huh?
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Evokers a really good control units if you know how to play them, specially once you get dazing spells. At early levels they are good for taking care of swarms of enemies. Later they deal quite a lot damage and control at the same time. But ilussions wont help at all with this concept. Also dead is a great condition
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Dazing is for higher levels, usually. Actually you can use reducers (Magical Linage+Wayang spell hunter) to pull this off at level 6 tought is a little bit too cheese. Pure damage builds also involve combinaning crosblooded sorceror and wizard, which later use dazing spell anyway cause its so good when you get it
Maybe allow him to play another class until you get to higher levels and allow him to bring his Wizard in and have his old character retire, sacrificing themselves to save the rest of the group(or important NPC or new PC[his Wizard or another player if you get one], etc. which may give the new PC a reason to join the group), etc or if he just wants to play a magic user show him the Magus or Bloodrager which can cast but aren't as squishy and can fight if they run out of spells.
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He understands the power of the "control" mage. We had a great encounter using grease in our last campaign and he even has it as one of his spells because of it. His chosen school is illusion and two forbidden schools are abjuration and necromancy.
I know that he wants to deal damage (he was stoked to play his cheesy cavalier with a lance last campaign) but its just not going to happen, i m going to talk to him about changing his class to something more instantly gratifying. We do need an arcane caster in the group but I'd rather he have something that he won't moan about in game.
It sounds like he is just expecting too much. He needs to lower the bar for a little while. You could always get him to lean towards Summoning Earth Elementals(and other cool helpful things). Earth Elementals saved my groups ass several times(and did some fantastical damage) from some nasty potential deaths. Once our Wizard summoned those for the first time, he was ALL about some summoning. Otherwise he was controlling or buffing my Monk with Mage Armor. He was by far the most fragile character, but the highest contributing.
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...scrolls...
I had a player who took a Wizard and for the first two levels of his character, he never once wrote a scroll.
Even though it does cost a bit of coin, the costs are not overwhelming (12.5gp for a 1st level spell). It's quite handy for having access to that one utility spell that you don't want to memorize or an extra few spells to cast during a battle.
He could play one of the hybrid classes or martial types that have some spell capability, or could start out as a martial type and multiclass with wizard in a few levels.
I think he said he was going to utilize scrolls. I might plan some more bursty scrolls here and there so he can kind of get what he wants. But if he keeps complaining ill have to sit him down and have a serious talk with him lol.
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First rise of the runelords goes up to level 17. It is also one of the best APs to be a wizard. Sure the first few levels suck but in this campaign it worth being patient.
Explain that to him and also explain come level 13+ he will be the strongest person in the party and he will overshadow every one else. Being a wizard is about paying your dues but if he can stop complaining and ride it out he will be extremely happy later while all those melee types are wishing they could do more then swing a weapon. 9th level spells will be reached and he will see why the wizard is the strongest class in pathfinder. Not to mention the wizard loot drops are outrageous come book 4+.
the caster in our team has sleep, it is the most usefull spell he ever casts.
at low level crowd control, he has now taken to sleeping the boss and the monk does a coup de grâce, boss down in 1 round
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If he's going illusion - silent image is your friend. It's the most underrated spell in the game.
1st round - put every enemy in a box and/or cage (box if they have range) and have the rest of the group gang up on anyone who passes their will save. If no one breaks free - lift up one box/cage when they're surrounded and the group has readied actions. (and for the nitpicky who want it to be 1 illusion - have all of said boxes/cages connected by a wire) :P
(of note though - gnome sorcerors actually make slightly better illusionists than wizard illusionists do - illusion is all about jacking up the DC and gnomes get a +1 bonus)
He understands the power of the "control" mage.
...
His chosen school is illusion
...
I know that he wants to deal damage ...
These statements just do not go together.
If you want to do damage at low level, do not play a wizard and most certainly not an illusionist.... We do need an arcane caster in the group but I'd rather he have something that he won't moan about in game.
I would rather have a part of fighters than have someone playing a PC they don't like.
With multi-class, UMD, overlap of arcane and divine spells, hybrid classes, etc... you don't really usually need an arcane caster. Yes, they are great, but you can certainly get by without them.
I've seen a pretty darn successful half-elf (might have been human though) lore warden fighter with pretty high UMD, spellcraft, and knowledge arcana that bought a whole bunch of low level wands for buffing. I don't remember the exact build, but I think he had a couple of skill focus, practical activator, arcane eldritch heritage (for a familiar), and improved familiar (wand monkey). Used the fighter bonus feats for thw combat feats.
By around 9th level he had wands with many of the common 1st and 2nd level buffs that his invisible familiar would use on him (or others) while he was swinging his glaive.
Sometimes the group didn't have any caster at all and still were pretty successful.
If you need an arcane caster and he needs to do damage, consider a magus.
Alternatively, you can tell him about how our (fairly-effective) ninja in RotRL swapped out for a full wizard at 6th level because it became clear that we would need one.
Once he starts crafting, he will own the groups' souls.
Judging by the content of the rest of Rub-eta's posts, I think they were being sarcastic, or at least mistyped and meant "weakest at dealing straight damage". Which... still isn't really the case, but the Wizard gives up more trying to optimize for damage than any other class.
If it were me: "You can retire him at any time and draw up a new character. Or, you could re-spec him to something you think will work better for you, and give that a try. Or, you can stick with it, and see if it pans out -- the wizard supposedly pays off big if you reach higher levels. It's up to you; life's to short to waste precious table time playing a PC you don't like."
In truth, a well-played wizard is plenty effective even at first level. Not everyone is super into system mastery, Pathfinder is crazy inaccessible like that. Even smart, veteran gamers can get lost in the minutia.
Stick to the above script. Those are all appealing options. There's no reason to lock people into characters they don't like.
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"Then either make another character, shut up or leave. I don't have time for this nonsense"
Gruff GM is gruff.
And eventually lonely.
Yeah, it seems a case of expectations not really matching game mechanics. Playing a low-level wizard in a group of melee characters is ALWAYS going to end up feeling like you're just the guy they drag around in order to cast Identify when they find loot. Oh, you can boost party damage nicely, but people never tend to think "man, without those buffs, I would have been toast", rather they think "I'm awesome when I have buffs!"
Tell him to make it to level 5. Pick up Fireball. Then throw a horde of kobolds or goblins at the party. Enough to swamp the melee. make it dire! Fighter's down with constitution poison. Ranger's having a bad day with arrows in both knees. The magus is captures being taken to service the kobold queen or whatever. it's up to you to FWOOSH.
suddenly everyone sees the Wizard save the day with one damn spell. A flick of his fingers and all of the kobolds are turned to ash.
Wizard calmly says "Are we going or what?"
Tell him to make it to level 5. Pick up Fireball. Then throw a horde of kobolds or goblins at the party. Enough to swamp the melee. make it dire! Fighter's down with constitution poison. Ranger's having a bad day with arrows in both knees. The magus is captures being taken to service the kobold queen or whatever. it's up to you to FWOOSH.
suddenly everyone sees the Wizard save the day with one damn spell. A flick of his fingers and all of the kobolds are turned to ash.
Wizard calmly says "Are we going or what?"
While I agree with you in spirit, I feel like the fireball scenario described above is unlikely to be the spell that wows anyone.
Now, glitterdust, that's another story. Have him take that one for a test drive. Plant it as a scroll for treasure and encourage him to learn/prepare it. I guarantee you that within three sessions he will no longer feel useless.
Yeah, it seems a case of expectations not really matching game mechanics. Playing a low-level wizard in a group of melee characters is ALWAYS going to end up feeling like you're just the guy they drag around in order to cast Identify when they find loot. Oh, you can boost party damage nicely, but people never tend to think "man, without those buffs, I would have been toast", rather they think "I'm awesome when I have buffs!"
Tell him to make it to level 5. Pick up Fireball. Then throw a horde of kobolds or goblins at the party. Enough to swamp the melee. make it dire! Fighter's down with constitution poison. Ranger's having a bad day with arrows in both knees. The magus is captures being taken to service the kobold queen or whatever. it's up to you to FWOOSH.
suddenly everyone sees the Wizard save the day with one damn spell. A flick of his fingers and all of the kobolds are turned to ash.
Wizard calmly says "Are we going or what?"
Alternatively, be an encounter ender at level 1 with Grease, Daze, Color Spray, and probably some other spells I'm forgetting because I hate wizards.
He actually has all of those spells. He knows that control is strong yet he's still dissapointed that his occasional crossbow bolt doesn't hurt lol
He actually has all of those spells. He knows that control is strong yet he's still dissapointed that his occasional crossbow bolt doesn't hurt lol
Sounds like he's just straight up playing the wrong class. He doesn't have the proper mindset for a Wizard.