None of those includes a grand total of 4 or 5 spells, I wouldn't say every wizard that doesn't have one of 4 or 5 spells is useless.
Now if he had exclusively useless spells thats another matter but hard to confirm since we don't know what spells he did have.
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*There was a kid in PFS who chose the worst spells for his level 1 Wizard. Not having an effective Wizard in the party caused a TPK.How much weight do you expect a lvl 1 wizard to carry? Anything beyond some knowledge rolls is gravy from a lvl 1 wizard.
I have an under-optimized Wizard, but at the start of the 1st level I could Color Spray twice (with arcane bond), possibly ending a fair chunk of encounters in a typical PFS scenario (almost) single-handedly, as well as having Mage Armor for myself, Light to light dark caverns and some more utility stuff. That's not counting additional attacks from hand of the apprentice. For a typical PFS adventure, that's usually enough.
10 rounds of Enlarge Person on the barbarian can be helpful as well.
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I'm curious about what spells the wizard did have.
I remember GMing for a party with a first level wizard in Living Greyhawk. The character was killed outright in the first round of combat. I felt really bad about it, until I looked at everything postmortem.
* There was a party of orcs on the other side of an earthwork. Both parties knew of each other's presence, but neither were attacking each other at first.
* The wizard was the first to charge over the earthwork to attack the orcs.
* He had not yet cast anything to protect himself.
* He was also an elf who had dump-statted Constitution.
Once I saw all that together, I no longer felt bad at one-shotting him.
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I'm curious about what spells the wizard did have.
I remember GMing for a party with a first level wizard in Living Greyhawk. The character was killed outright in the first round of combat. I felt really bad about it, until I looked at everything postmortem.
* There was a party of orcs on the other side of an earthwork. Both parties knew of each other's presence, but neither were attacking each other at first.
* The wizard was the first to charge over the earthwork to attack the orcs.
* He had not yet cast anything to protect himself.
* He was also an elf who had dump-statted Constitution.Once I saw all that together, I no longer felt bad at one-shotting him.
That's just painful to look at.
I don't understand why he charged, I can understanding initiating but not charging.
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Admittedly, now I kind of want to try a PC that dump-stats Constitution and see how far I can take it in PFS.
Just, y'know, without charging orcs.
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I don't understand why he charged, I can understanding initiating but not charging.
For that sweet, sweet +2 attack, of course!
It's not that Kender are bad. The creation of the race came about for imo so very poor reasons imo. The authors of the Dragonlance books disliked having a class that stole items. So they made a race thst stole stuff only to return items when asked. Except in the novels they came across as a race of childish kleptomaniacs.
While also being poorly written both by Weish and Hickman as well as secondary author writing on the Dragonlance universe.
Actually it appears they hated every non-human race but elves. Gnomes and gully dwarves were also made into horrid parodies.
Gully dwarves are... next to offensive.
Draconians were pretty cool. I like minotaurs too but being universally hated with a good reason and being such a racist people they don't fit as PCs. Another race that needs refactoring to work. They are sort of Krynn's Qunari.
The main issue with Dragonlance is that they created interesting plots and factions but most races were flawed and a lot of things needed a lot of work to be playable.
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Gully dwarves are... next to offensive.
Next to offensive?!? No, they live in offensive with a 99 year lease with a option.
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Well, I try to be diplomatic with my statements, so I'll stick to saying that they are «next to» offensive. But I think they are the greatest mistake from the Dragonlance setting. Because not only the concept is offensive but they are portrayed as a joke, what makes them even worse.
Actually it appears they hated every non-human race but elves.
And ogres Irda. So beautiful. Even better than elves. But no one can be better than elves. Except Irda, which are the best.
And when it comes to Dan Parkinson novels, add dwarves to the list. He's just so enamored of dwarves!
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Gully dwarves are... next to offensive.
Draconians were pretty cool. I like minotaurs too but being universally hated with a good reason and being such a racist people they don't fit as PCs. Another race that needs refactoring to work. They are sort of Krynn's Qunari.
The main issue with Dragonlance is that they created interesting plots and factions but most races were flawed and a lot of things needed a lot of work to be playable.
Gully dwarves deeply offend the dwarf lover in me period.
I wish I knew about Draconians and Minotaurs
Reposting from another thread - One of the weakest characters I'd ever seen goes to my very first 3E character (made from playtest materials a month before the game officially came out) - a tiefling bard who multiclassed into cleric and then into a Dragon magazine prestige class called Herald (which had its own spell list and a weird hodge podge of powers, though the unique spells were really strong).
In short, the character was a mess who couldn't do anything well. (Edit: She technically should've been party face, but one of the other players combined being an excellent talker with being an attention hound, and pretty much always butted in and took over whenever a diplomatic thing started. My bard pretty much only got to do diplomacy if that player was the GM that week.)
I had done a much, much better job writing up her paladin cohort (as in, he was actually a bad-ass), and she would've been retired in his favor if the campaign hadn't ended for various reasons.
Nowadays, I look back and I'm floored that I stuck it out with that trainwreck of a character for about 17 levels.
Honorable mentions:
A 3.0 Planescape campaign we'd started at 8th level where a couple of the players wrote up one-trick ponies whose tricks weren't particularly interesting or useful. One of the characters was a shadow dancer; the other was a bard I think. Both were inconsequential. (3.0 bards were mediocre without a prestige class; while the shadow dancer was missing key skills IIRC - like she had untouchable stealth, but she didn't have spot & listen or something terrible - so nothing could find her but she was useless as a scout)
Another character I can think of as super-weak was an arcane trickster who never made it to her prestige class - she was a rogue/sorcerer and the campaign ended at 6th level due to RL issues.
Oh, and someone tried to play the 3.0 or 3.5 Scout class, and Scout wound up just being terrible. The player eventually hit upon a prestige class she liked, and ultimately wound up just ignoring all of her Scout abilities.
I played a Scout in 3.5 and LOVED him! I was also the tank for about 9 levels (we also had an aristocrat/bard with Leadership for a gnome rogue/cleric, and a ranger/wizard/truenamer, so we weren't optimized at all.) before we got an uber-paladin to be the tank and let me skirmish.
I was a triple-switch-hitter (archery, handaxe, or longspear & spiked gauntlet). I had 8+ skill points per level. I could get my skirmish practically every round.
We also loved the gnome rogue/cleric, and that gnome really loved turnips.
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Next to offensive?!? No, they live in offensive with a 99 year lease with a option.Gully dwarves are... next to offensive.
As a new player, what is the deal with Gully Dwarves? In what way were they offensive?
I.. I can't imagine Dwarves being any MORE of a caricature of Scottish people, so it can't be that, right? (Plus, as a Scot, I find those caricatures to be hilarious and sometimes wonderfully/painfully accurate. Dwarven Hatred compared to Glaswegian sectarianism, for instance, or the "Reins of the World" mentality of Victorian Scotland compared to the haughty Dwarven craftsman. Not to say that it can't go too far, of course, because it can, and I confess to finding certain portrayals a little lacking in respect.)
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*There was a kid in PFS who chose the worst spells for his level 1 Wizard. Not having an effective Wizard in the party caused a TPK.How much weight do you expect a lvl 1 wizard to carry? Anything beyond some knowledge rolls is gravy from a lvl 1 wizard.
About 60lb.
I decided to play a Spell Sage in our group's Wrath of the Righteous campaign, and everyone else was eager to play high dex/low strength finesse builds, so he literally ended up being the pack mule for a while.
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The Gully Dwarves were born from the breeding between Gnomes and Dwarves, resulting a «flawed» race.
Their intelligent is dim at best and they are mistreated and hated by other dwarves resulting in them becoming perfect survivors and living in places that nobody wants to live... like sewers. They don't fear doing anything humiliating to survive, like eating garbage, pleading for their lifes, etc.
They are portrayed like very stupid and coward. They cannot count above 2, so they say one when they mean one and two when they mean many.
Why are they offensive? Because of too many reasons. They are portrayed as goofy, silly and dirty, like their low intelligence was something to make fun of. It's like they were pathetic just to make everybody else around look cooler. So many wrong things at that.
It's like encouraging making fun of less intelligent people or people who didn't have an opportunity and has to do anything to survive. It's sad.
Gully dwarves are something that have fallen into nothingness in my games. I tried to make something not offensive with them but I found it impossible so I decided to remove them completely from the game. Kenders were workable. Gnomes weren't difficult. Gully dwarves were out.
Weird I have never encountered a gully dwarf I have heard the name before but that is about it.
About minotaurs, they are a conquerer race. They are mostly LE and they have a strong sense of honor and value strength and honor above everything. They are not bloodthirsty monsters but a very organized civilisation. But they also think other races are weak and they deserve to be conquered. They are also slavers. They are among the best sailors of the world.
Draconians are one of my favorite races from Dragonlance. They were created as minions to beat without remorse because they were evil but they grew as a race and became really cool. They were created by magic using corrupted eggs of Good Dragons. From each egg hatched a bunch of baby draconians who are like medium to big sized dragonmen. They were used as minions by the evil armies but they were proud as dragons, so a few of them got sick of being treated poorly and ran away to create their own nation. They were all male at first, as the people who created them prevented the female eggs from hatching to control them. They learned that and rescued their females, so even when they were created with magic they are now a regular race. They are very mistrusted but in my game they have begun to spread among other people. They tend towards evil alignment but not all of them are and most only want to be left alone and live happily on their new lands.
About minotaurs, they are a conquerer race. They are mostly LE and they have a strong sense of honor and value strength and honor above everything. They are not bloodthirsty monsters but a very organized civilisation. But they also think other races are weak and they deserve to be conquered. They are also slavers. They are among the best sailors of the world.
In the commentary above about gully dwarves, it'd sort of be like the Pakled from 'Star Trek: Next Generation', 'Corky' from 'Life Goes On', but with microscopically little in the way of social conscience or affirmation... much like Kileanna said, they were the stereotypical satire of unwashed unwise gamer geeks, so it cut kinda close to home for a lot of folks...
Also important to note about Krynn... the world where the deities were *just as bad* as their followers. On the mortal side, there were folks who basically told their gods to 'deliver on demand' or 'face the consequences' and gods on the other side who were 'Okay, HAVE SOME CONSEQUENCES BECAUSE WE'RE ALL IN AGREEMENT YOU'RE A-HOLES!!'
Looking at other 'weak' characters, I made the mistake of pushing a sorcerer I had in a home Rise of the Runelords campaign into Lore Oracle, to 'cash in' on the 'sweet Sidestep Secret'.
It was an unmitigated disaster, as it reduced the character's 'punch' with some spells to laughable levels, and after trying to add Dragon Disciple to the unwieldy mess it began to really have the wheels fall off.
There was a good run of several sessions where I considered quitting the campaign because of how combat inept the character was, but after having a meeting with the GM and the other players, we corrected some things via story development, and made a much stronger character with minimal tweaking...
I never specially disliked Bupu, she is kinda sweet and caring, but that doesn't change that Gully Dwarves are still a quite unfortunate race.
And Raistlin likes her because misery loves company. He feels like he is weak because of his weak ccomplexion. He envies everybody with a stronger physique than he has, and that's everybody. He is a talented wizard but he still has an inferiority complex. He likes Bupu because he feels she is even more disgraced than he is.
What reinforces my idea of Gully Dwarves being there just to make the heroes look greater than they are, the poor wretched things that are pitiable.
Gully dwarves make me feel sad now :(
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Thieves are bad and nasty so they can never be heroes that's a bad message.
Here everyone make fun of this entire race of people with learning difficulties. They make you look more badass.
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Anyone else seeing a problem?
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I am definitely seeing a problem with that, yes. It's... yeah, it's very offensive and I'm quite annoyed that it made it past the drawing board. Kender are... eh, y'know, "innocent thievery" whatever, but Gully Dwarves' existence sends a very bad message.
*Pats the Angry Durgon in a hopefully calming manner.*
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purrrr *grumble grumble* poor dwarves *grumble grumble*
There were still normal dwarves around, to be fair.
Actually it appears they hated every non-human race but elves. Gnomes and gully dwarves were also made into horrid parodies.
Except Flint Fireforge, who had a Constitution of 18 (in 1st or 2nd Edition!), got sea sick AND was "allergic" to horses.
AND died of a heart attack.Except Flint Fireforge, who had a Constitution of 18 (in 1st or 2nd Edition!), got sea sick AND was "allergic" to horses.There were still normal dwarves around, to be fair.
Actually it appears they hated every non-human race but elves. Gnomes and gully dwarves were also made into horrid parodies.
I know, right??? He got tons of exercise. He walked everywhere, cause he was allergic to boats and got horsesickness.
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I know, right??? He got tons of exercise. He walked everywhere, cause he was allergic to boats and got horsesickness.
Not to mention the alleged long-time travelling companion and 'exemplar' deity basically said 'Well, too bad, bro, sucks to be you, can't help or nuthin cause REASONS!'
Actually about the Test of High Sorcery it was clarified later that you could still be a Generalist or cast spells from other schools.
But you had 3 prohibited schools! (2 if you were a Diviner) Three!
I just loved so much adapting everything to Pathfinder and getting rid of the awful mechanics...
I came up with a 5e conversion of the Wizards of High Sorcery.
It uses skill checks in place of tracking the moons of magic, and gives the wizards some metamagic options like sorcerers.
I was too lazy to reconvert most things. I preserved the flavor I liked, added a lot of things from Pathfinder, got rid of most of the specific rules as they seemed unnecessary, and developed the world so it wasn't such an outdated setting.
Because all the problems that have been mentioned on this thread were real and they needed to be worked.
Now I feel really comfortable with what I have. Though the stories we have going on are mostly our own rather than the main plots on Dragonlance. We have played so much there that it's more our own setting than basic Dragonlance. When I start talking about the problems with the setting is when I really realize how many things we have changed.
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I admit, I'm fond of the idea that Gnomes, like Dwarves are extremely interested in building things, but whereas Dwarves are hidebound traditionalists Gnomes are avant-garde experimentalists. I kind of like this conception of gnomes more than "wacky trickster gnomes" personally.
It's just that when you take them from "I am doing this because I have really no respect for orthodoxy, and the resulting data will be valuable" to "I am hitting the button because button" as comic relief or nominally friendly obstacles, you're doing a disservice to the race.
In the setting I run (which probably owes more to Krynn than anywhere else), Dwarves are craftsmen nonpareil, and they're who you'd go to if you want (at great expense) the best version of something that already exists: an axe, a table, a shield, etc. but Gnomes are who you'd go to if you need something built for a specific purpose or to solve a problem and there's not decades or centuries worth of prior examples to draw from. I just prefer gnomes as professorial types rather than clowns. The difference between Dwarves is that Dwarves will say "we know this works, and has worked for centuries, so we won't deviate from it much" whereas Gnomes will say "we know what doing that does, but we don't know what doing this does, so let's find out, shall we?"
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I only ever read one of the Modules, but it said "If the PCs go off the map, a bunch of red dragons capture them and imprison them at Pax Tharkas." CHOO CHOO!!!!!! CHUGGA-CHUGGA CHUGGA-CHUGGA CHOO CHOO!!!!!
Kileanna, it sounds you've removed the MAJOR railroading weakness of the original DL modules. :-D
I only ever read one of the Modules, but it said "If the PCs go off the map, a bunch of red dragons capture them and imprison them at Pax Tharkas." CHOO CHOO!!!!!! CHUGGA-CHUGGA CHUGGA-CHUGGA CHOO CHOO!!!!!
I feel like this is sort of an inherent problem with modules though, most of them just don't bother to comment on what to do if players refuse to cooperate with the story. Like Reign of Winter literally puts a Geas on the PCs to complete the story. Strange Aeons threatens certain death from eldritch horrors if you elect to leave the Asylum, etc.
I feel like a lot of GMs running Skull & Shackles would conjure up a conveniently placed blockade if the PCs just decide to take their plunder and sail for Tien Xia to begin new lives. More power to you if you're willing to roll with stuff like that, but not every GM is.