Wizards list of "known" is already severely hampered compared to other full prepping spellcasters like Cleric or Druid. It is expected the wizard finds more on their travels. This limit and scribing mechanic is to account for the versatility of the spells available to choose from - so it provides a base line of "free" spells and lets the DM control the rate of the scribe spells so they progress those extra at a suitable pace. That's a suitable pace, not zero pace.
Here is a table showing the spells known (what the caster gets to pick for their daily spells) without factoring scribing. It may be one or two off as I haven't broken down specific by every subclass that might allow an extra one or two. Same for cantrips. I did separate Druid as two subclasses allow more spells as "auto prep".
You can clear see the difference. By disallowing Wizards to scribe you are removing a class feature and severely limiting them compared to other classes, as seen below. Bare in mind that Wizards get less base and subclass features compared to Clerics or Druids. The Cleric has a lot of Wizard spells on their spell list, so the "variety" of the Wizard spell list is not as grand to make up for this limited known spells . This should show just how important scribing actually is for a Wizard and why outright removing this just shows a fundamental lack of understanding the Wizard class, balancing mechanics and is a severe flaw in your DMing, in my opinion.
I'm presenting it as a factor which it definitely is. The wizard has a stronger spell list for the most part (there's actually a lot of crossover with the Cleric list, and many of the domain spells come off the Wizard list and some domains even let you pick your choice of Wizard spells, like the Arcana domain does so the disparity you're going for isn't as strong as you think, bud).
You also factor base class features: of which Wizard gets less and weaker ones. And subclass features of which Wizard gets less and mostly weaker ones.
Their somewhat stronger spell list is already the reason for hampering the wizard by their free-known spells, weaker class and subclass features, but to then also remove the scribing feature on top (which by the way, also removes a subclass feature from most subclasses too, and for Order of Scribe wizard even further hampered!) you are going to an unbalanced extreme.
I'm presenting it as a factor which it definitely is. The wizard has a stronger spell list for the most part (there's actually a lot of crossover with the Cleric list, and many of the domain spells come off the Wizard list and some domains even let you pick your choice of Wizard spells, like the Arcana domain does so the disparity you're going for isn't as strong as you think, bud).
You also factor base class features: of which Wizard gets less and weaker ones. And subclass features of which Wizard gets less and mostly weaker ones.
Their somewhat stronger spell list is already the reason for hampering the wizard by their free-known spells, weaker class and subclass features, but to then also remove the scribing feature on top (which by the way, also removes a subclass feature from most subclasses too, and for Order of Scribe wizard even further hampered!) you are going to an unbalanced extreme.
Let's say we've got two12th level characters; a fighter and a wizard. Let's say that the wizard has only the two spells they gained at each level plus the ones that they started off with.
Let's say that the fighter gets a + 2 flametongue sword. That sword obviously enough increases the fighter's power.
Now we want the wizard and the fighter to have the same amount of power. In your opinion, how many spell levels worth of spells will the wizard need to gain for thewizardandfighter to remain balanced in light of the fighter's recent increase in power due to the +2 flametongue?
You're giving the fighter a bonus entirely for free.
Even if you give the wizard a scroll - they have to still pay to scribe it.
Magic Items already describe their rarity and the magic item distribution guide in the DMG already covers factoring this in (because the designers spent years balancing this for you).
No matter how much you want to compare apples and potatoes - they remain different.
Wizard are meant to scribe spells -- this is why they have the feature. If it was unbalanced for them to do so IT WOULDN'T BE THERE.
You're giving the fighter a bonus entirely for free.
Even if you give the wizard a scroll - they have to still pay to scribe it.
Magic Items already describe their rarity and the magic item distribution guide in the DMG already covers factoring this in (because the designers spent years balancing this for you).
No matter how much you want to compare apples and potatoes - they remain different.
Wizard are meant to scribe spells -- this is why they have the feature. If it was unbalanced for them to do so IT WOULDN'T BE THERE.
The fact this has to be explained is embarassing.
You are making a straw man. I did not say not to give the wizard additional spells.
If you are going to keep making strawmen then this conversation is of no interest to me
You're giving the fighter a bonus entirely for free.
Even if you give the wizard a scroll - they have to still pay to scribe it.
Magic Items already describe their rarity and the magic item distribution guide in the DMG already covers factoring this in (because the designers spent years balancing this for you).
No matter how much you want to compare apples and potatoes - they remain different.
Wizard are meant to scribe spells -- this is why they have the feature. If it was unbalanced for them to do so IT WOULDN'T BE THERE.
The fact this has to be explained is embarassing.
You are making a straw man. I did not say not to give the wizard additional spells.
If you are going to keep making strawmen then this conversation is of no interest to me
This conversation has been entirely about your earlier statement of "I'm becoming increasingly pro-restricting the Wizard to two spells per level and not finding new spells in treasure."
This is what I and everyone is arguing against.
The later "soft restriction" of finding spells as part of loot is not being contended - nor is it a restriction, it's the RAW and what you're supposed to do. So obviously we're not concerned with that. It's your statement that you are "pro" on not allowing anything outside the "per level up" freebies.
It is not a strawman to contend with something you have said.
You're giving the fighter a bonus entirely for free.
Even if you give the wizard a scroll - they have to still pay to scribe it.
Magic Items already describe their rarity and the magic item distribution guide in the DMG already covers factoring this in (because the designers spent years balancing this for you).
No matter how much you want to compare apples and potatoes - they remain different.
Wizard are meant to scribe spells -- this is why they have the feature. If it was unbalanced for them to do so IT WOULDN'T BE THERE.
The fact this has to be explained is embarassing.
You are making a straw man. I did not say not to give the wizard additional spells.
If you are going to keep making strawmen then this conversation is of no interest to me
This conversation has been entirely about your earlier statement of "I'm becoming increasingly pro-restricting the Wizard to two spells per level and not finding new spells in treasure."
This is what I and everyone is arguing against.
The later "soft restriction" of finding spells as part of loot is not being contended - nor is it a restriction, it's the RAW and what you're supposed to do. So obviously we're not concerned with that. It's your statement that you are "pro" on not allowing anything outside the "per level up" freebies.
It is not a strawman to contend with something you have said.
As has been pointed out to you repeatedly my earlier statement was
I'm becoming increasingly pro-restricting the Wizard to two spells per level and not finding new spells in treasure. Specifically, I'm for a soft restriction on this. Learning new spells should be as rare as finding new magic items and should count as a magic item in the party share.
You have repeatedly continued to ignore the second and third sentences in that statement. Instead you are deliberately and persistently making strawmen
As for what I am pro or not pro in doing, it's not your ******* table
And I'm still waiting for somebody to explain to me how restricting our wizard to two spells per level gained ends up making them weaker than the fighter
And as has been pointed to you, I am contending with the part where you said you restrict to the free spells and don't allow finding new ones. This is what we are all discussing. We have been clear with that. This isn't a strawman - we are responding specifically to that (as we agree on the rest, as does most people, because it's the RAW and this isn't the Rules forums).
It has jack shit to do with 'your table'. We are not telling you how you must DM. You do you. Play your way. We're providing our reactions and opinions on the matter as a point of personal interest. If you post it, we can discuss it. If you don't want us responding to something you post on a public forum then don't post it. This how public forums work.
And I'm still waiting for somebody to explain to me how restricting our wizard to two spells per level gained ends up making them weaker than the fighter
Who gives a **** about the fighter? Why compare apples to potatoes? That is irrelevant. A spellcaster is compared to other spellcasters.
Yeah, you don't want to unbalance the party by leaving the wizard too weak or making them too strong but, if the wizard is fitting in and everyone's having a good time, there's no problem.
I like the idea of wizards seeking out spells to write up. I think it's fun. I'm a nerd.
And I'm still waiting for somebody to explain to me how restricting our wizard to two spells per level gained ends up making them weaker than the fighter
Who gives a **** about the fighter? Why compare apples to potatoes? That is irrelevant. A spellcaster is compared to other spellcasters.
If you don't give a **** about the fighter then I don't give a **** about any of your cherry-picking argument. In terms of overall power, a PC is compared to other PCs regardless of the class.
And I'm still waiting for somebody to explain to me how restricting our wizard to two spells per level gained ends up making them weaker than the fighter
Who gives a **** about the fighter? Why compare apples to potatoes? That is irrelevant. A spellcaster is compared to other spellcasters.
If you don't give a **** about the fighter then I don't give a **** about any of your argument. In terms of overall power ,APC is compared to other PC's big regardless of the class.
This just translates to "I don't know how to contend with you so I'm going to pretend you're arguing the wrong thing and then change subject to something I think I can 'win'".
A few more comments from the peanut gallery: 1) cybermind - great tables at the top of page 4, thank you! They show just why scrolls and spellbooks should be available for the wizard to find and scribe so they come close to other casters in spells available to prepare. 2) Wren, trying to compare wizards to fighters is a strawman (that everyone is rightfully ignoring) since they basically have nothing in common. 3) to my mind the real way to work it as a mage is to get the game published spells via scrolls etc and use the 2 free spells for homebrewed new/altered spells. That gives the character their real uniqueness as they now have spells no one else has.
As a party progresses from first to 20th level if the spellcasters are meant to be inherently more powerful then what will happen is that players who are not playing spellcasters will tend to get their characters killed and will change to spellcasters.
You will end up at 20th level with 95% of your players playing spellcasters that's a loss of diversity in the party and more importantly, it's a loss of diversity in the role-playing. That's a bad thing.
And the only argument to do that is so that you get a longer stroke on your ego *********ion
I have no idea what you are trying to say there Wren. Are you trying to say that wizards with lots of spells are more powerful than martial characters (again)? If you think so then how do you feel about clerics? Check cybermind’s table - at L20 the cleric preps 35 spells out of over 200 known, the wizard preps 25 out of only 44 known by the “no scrolls etc “ rule. To simply make him lose to the cleric’s potential versatility he needs to learn between 93 and 160 spells to give them the same variability. That is between 4 and 9 spells from scrolls each level just to pace druids and clerics in breadth of choice. If clerics are balanced against fighters with 35 prepped spells out of 200 known then wizards with 44 known and 25 prepped are way behind - far weaker not stronger.
I'm currently playing a Phadalin paladin called Austin Taye-Chuse. He's nuts. A dragonborn hunting dragons. The party generally get along and we work together. It's nice because it's a role-playing game. yes, we play tactically to beat the opposition but we're not in competition with each other. we work together as a team. Austin would still have roles to play at lev 20 and he'd still be fun.
edit: I've also had a look at some paladin builds and, in the context of a mutually supportive framework, he could be pretty powerful.
Wizards list of "known" is already severely hampered compared to other full prepping spellcasters like Cleric or Druid. It is expected the wizard finds more on their travels. This limit and scribing mechanic is to account for the versatility of the spells available to choose from - so it provides a base line of "free" spells and lets the DM control the rate of the scribe spells so they progress those extra at a suitable pace. That's a suitable pace, not zero pace.
Here is a table showing the spells known (what the caster gets to pick for their daily spells) without factoring scribing. It may be one or two off as I haven't broken down specific by every subclass that might allow an extra one or two. Same for cantrips. I did separate Druid as two subclasses allow more spells as "auto prep".
You can clear see the difference. By disallowing Wizards to scribe you are removing a class feature and severely limiting them compared to other classes, as seen below. Bare in mind that Wizards get less base and subclass features compared to Clerics or Druids. The Cleric has a lot of Wizard spells on their spell list, so the "variety" of the Wizard spell list is not as grand to make up for this limited known spells . This should show just how important scribing actually is for a Wizard and why outright removing this just shows a fundamental lack of understanding the Wizard class, balancing mechanics and is a severe flaw in your DMing, in my opinion.
My Homebrew: Races | Subclasses | Backgrounds | Spells | Magic Items | Feats
Need help with Homebrew? Check out this FAQ/Guide thread by IamSposta
See My Youtube Videos for Tips & Tricks using D&D Beyond
Spells known, by itself, is not how you measure the strength of a class and it never has been.
Clerics have always had free range of spells but they've always had weaker spells
I'm presenting it as a factor which it definitely is. The wizard has a stronger spell list for the most part (there's actually a lot of crossover with the Cleric list, and many of the domain spells come off the Wizard list and some domains even let you pick your choice of Wizard spells, like the Arcana domain does so the disparity you're going for isn't as strong as you think, bud).
You also factor base class features: of which Wizard gets less and weaker ones. And subclass features of which Wizard gets less and mostly weaker ones.
Their somewhat stronger spell list is already the reason for hampering the wizard by their free-known spells, weaker class and subclass features, but to then also remove the scribing feature on top (which by the way, also removes a subclass feature from most subclasses too, and for Order of Scribe wizard even further hampered!) you are going to an unbalanced extreme.
My Homebrew: Races | Subclasses | Backgrounds | Spells | Magic Items | Feats
Need help with Homebrew? Check out this FAQ/Guide thread by IamSposta
See My Youtube Videos for Tips & Tricks using D&D Beyond
Let's say we've got two12th level characters; a fighter and a wizard. Let's say that the wizard has only the two spells they gained at each level plus the ones that they started off with.
Let's say that the fighter gets a + 2 flametongue sword. That sword obviously enough increases the fighter's power.
Now we want the wizard and the fighter to have the same amount of power. In your opinion, how many spell levels worth of spells will the wizard need to gain for thewizardandfighter to remain balanced in light of the fighter's recent increase in power due to the +2 flametongue?
You get this is a false comparison?
You're giving the fighter a bonus entirely for free.
Even if you give the wizard a scroll - they have to still pay to scribe it.
Magic Items already describe their rarity and the magic item distribution guide in the DMG already covers factoring this in (because the designers spent years balancing this for you).
No matter how much you want to compare apples and potatoes - they remain different.
Wizard are meant to scribe spells -- this is why they have the feature. If it was unbalanced for them to do so IT WOULDN'T BE THERE.
The fact this has to be explained is embarassing.
My Homebrew: Races | Subclasses | Backgrounds | Spells | Magic Items | Feats
Need help with Homebrew? Check out this FAQ/Guide thread by IamSposta
See My Youtube Videos for Tips & Tricks using D&D Beyond
You are making a straw man. I did not say not to give the wizard additional spells.
If you are going to keep making strawmen then this conversation is of no interest to me
This conversation has been entirely about your earlier statement of "I'm becoming increasingly pro-restricting the Wizard to two spells per level and not finding new spells in treasure."
This is what I and everyone is arguing against.
The later "soft restriction" of finding spells as part of loot is not being contended - nor is it a restriction, it's the RAW and what you're supposed to do. So obviously we're not concerned with that. It's your statement that you are "pro" on not allowing anything outside the "per level up" freebies.
It is not a strawman to contend with something you have said.
My Homebrew: Races | Subclasses | Backgrounds | Spells | Magic Items | Feats
Need help with Homebrew? Check out this FAQ/Guide thread by IamSposta
See My Youtube Videos for Tips & Tricks using D&D Beyond
The later "soft restriction" of finding spells as part of loot is not being contended - nor is it a restriction, it's the RAW and what you're supposed to do. So obviously we're not concerned with that. It's your statement that you are "pro" on not allowing anything outside the "per level up" freebies.
As has been pointed out to you repeatedly my earlier statement was
You have repeatedly continued to ignore the second and third sentences in that statement. Instead you are deliberately and persistently making strawmen
As for what I am pro or not pro in doing, it's not your ******* table
And I'm still waiting for somebody to explain to me how restricting our wizard to two spells per level gained ends up making them weaker than the fighter
And as has been pointed to you, I am contending with the part where you said you restrict to the free spells and don't allow finding new ones. This is what we are all discussing. We have been clear with that. This isn't a strawman - we are responding specifically to that (as we agree on the rest, as does most people, because it's the RAW and this isn't the Rules forums).
It has jack shit to do with 'your table'. We are not telling you how you must DM. You do you. Play your way. We're providing our reactions and opinions on the matter as a point of personal interest. If you post it, we can discuss it. If you don't want us responding to something you post on a public forum then don't post it. This how public forums work.
My Homebrew: Races | Subclasses | Backgrounds | Spells | Magic Items | Feats
Need help with Homebrew? Check out this FAQ/Guide thread by IamSposta
See My Youtube Videos for Tips & Tricks using D&D Beyond
Who gives a **** about the fighter? Why compare apples to potatoes? That is irrelevant. A spellcaster is compared to other spellcasters.
My Homebrew: Races | Subclasses | Backgrounds | Spells | Magic Items | Feats
Need help with Homebrew? Check out this FAQ/Guide thread by IamSposta
See My Youtube Videos for Tips & Tricks using D&D Beyond
How many spells should a wizard be able to learn?
An amount that makes for fun gaming.
Yeah, you don't want to unbalance the party by leaving the wizard too weak or making them too strong but, if the wizard is fitting in and everyone's having a good time, there's no problem.
I like the idea of wizards seeking out spells to write up. I think it's fun. I'm a nerd.
Poor fighters. :D
If you don't give a **** about the fighter then I don't give a **** about any of your cherry-picking argument. In terms of overall power, a PC is compared to other PCs regardless of the class.
This just translates to "I don't know how to contend with you so I'm going to pretend you're arguing the wrong thing and then change subject to something I think I can 'win'".
My Homebrew: Races | Subclasses | Backgrounds | Spells | Magic Items | Feats
Need help with Homebrew? Check out this FAQ/Guide thread by IamSposta
See My Youtube Videos for Tips & Tricks using D&D Beyond
Guys, let's cool it down all round. I don't think the developing heated debate rightly fits in with an OP Joeyfromschool with his dinosaur avatar.
A few more comments from the peanut gallery:
1) cybermind - great tables at the top of page 4, thank you! They show just why scrolls and spellbooks should be available for the wizard to find and scribe so they come close to other casters in spells available to prepare.
2) Wren, trying to compare wizards to fighters is a strawman (that everyone is rightfully ignoring) since they basically have nothing in common.
3) to my mind the real way to work it as a mage is to get the game published spells via scrolls etc and use the 2 free spells for homebrewed new/altered spells. That gives the character their real uniqueness as they now have spells no one else has.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
As a party progresses from first to 20th level if the spellcasters are meant to be inherently more powerful then what will happen is that players who are not playing spellcasters will tend to get their characters killed and will change to spellcasters.
You will end up at 20th level with 95% of your players playing spellcasters that's a loss of diversity in the party and more importantly, it's a loss of diversity in the role-playing. That's a bad thing.
And the only argument to do that is so that you get a longer stroke on your ego *********ion
I have no idea what you are trying to say there Wren. Are you trying to say that wizards with lots of spells are more powerful than martial characters (again)? If you think so then how do you feel about clerics? Check cybermind’s table - at L20 the cleric preps 35 spells out of over 200 known, the wizard preps 25 out of only 44 known by the “no scrolls etc “ rule. To simply make him lose to the cleric’s potential versatility he needs to learn between 93 and 160 spells to give them the same variability. That is between 4 and 9 spells from scrolls each level just to pace druids and clerics in breadth of choice. If clerics are balanced against fighters with 35 prepped spells out of 200 known then wizards with 44 known and 25 prepped are way behind - far weaker not stronger.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
I'm currently playing a Phadalin paladin called Austin Taye-Chuse. He's nuts. A dragonborn hunting dragons. The party generally get along and we work together. It's nice because it's a role-playing game. yes, we play tactically to beat the opposition but we're not in competition with each other.
we work together as a team. Austin would still have roles to play at lev 20 and he'd still be fun.
edit: I've also had a look at some paladin builds and, in the context of a mutually supportive framework, he could be pretty powerful.