Red Wizard - What the hell was WotC smoking????

[Grog]

Seriously. They nerfed Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus but left this in? I was planning an adventure for a 13th-14th level party and was looking at using one of these guys for a villian (after adapting the organization to my campaign world). Boy did I drop that idea fast.

It's insane how powerful these guys are. Look at a 10th level Red Wizard (15th level character). First of all, he's effectively a 20th level caster right off the bat, and he doesn't even have to sacrifice spell slots to increase his caster level like the new Archmage does.

But the real problems start when you look at the Circle Leader ability. If he leads a circle of, say, 9 9th level wizards, each of them can cast a 5th level spell, giving him 45 spell levels in his pool. He can crank his caster level to 25 and still have 40 levels left over to metamagic his spells without increasing their level.

I considered what he could do to the party with that kind of power. First of all, a caster level of 25 means his buffs would be literally untouchable by party dispels, and he could strip away their buffs with ease. He could open the combat by casting a Finger of Death Heightened to 20th level - instant death for one character (even the party barbarian couldn't make a Fort save with a DC in the high 30s-low 40s). Or, if he just wanted to kill the whole party at once, he could cast an Empowered Maximized Cone of Cold, followed up by a Quickened (actually using a 7th level slot for this because at least Red Wizards can't use the Circle ability to Quicken spells) Empowered Maximized Fireball. That's 150 + 12d6 damage to the entire party, and he still has 30 spell levels left in his pool afterward. He could Heighten the spells too, to ensure the PCs would fail their saves, and voila - instant TPK.

Given that there's basically no cost for using the Circle Leader ability, there's no reason that the Red Wizard wouldn't do it every day, so he's always running with that kind of power at his disposal. And as far as I can tell, there's absolutely nothing the party can do to take it away from him - it's not dispellable or anything like that.

I would submit that this guy would cause major problems even for a 20th level party! He makes the 3.0 Archmage look like a Commoner. What was Wotc thinking?

 

[jgsugden]

Given that there's basically no cost for using the Circle Leader ability, there's no reason that the Red Wizard wouldn't do it every day, so he's always running with that kind of power at his disposal. And as far as I can tell, there's absolutely nothing the party can do to take it away from him - it's not dispellable or anything like that.

I would submit that this guy would cause major problems even for a 20th level party! He makes the 3.0 Archmage look like a Commoner. What was Wotc thinking?

Point of order: This guy plus 9 9th level minions. That is a pretty hefty army. EL 15 all by itself. If you add in the 15th level leader, that makes a EL 17. And that is assuming average NPC stats (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 08 with adjustments for gaining levels and magic items). Having 9 9th level minions at your beck and call is a pretty awesome amount of power. Considering this is a FR specific class (even though it is in the DMG), it is unlikely that anyone but a Zulkir is going to be walking around with 9 9th level casters at their beck and call.

And one wail of the banshee will probably take out most, if not all, of those 9th level assistants. Once they are gone, he'll be unable to replenish his power.

This is a strong ability, but it is not as widely abuseable as spell focus, greater spell focus and spell power. Those abilities were being used by virtually every mage to create spells that were out of balance. Removing them was necessary. Leaving in a power that can be abused only under very specific and rare circumstances is by far less disruptive to the game.

 

[Grog]

Point of order: This guy plus 9 9th level minions. That is a pretty hefty army. EL 15 all by itself. If you add in the 15th level leader, that makes a EL 17.

Even if you add in the assistants to the guy's EL, he's still way out of balance. Look at, say, a marilith (I think that's about CR 17, don't have my MM in front of me). There's absolutely no comparassion.

And one wail of the banshee will probably take out most, if not all, of those 9th level assistants. Once they are gone, he'll be unable to replenish his power.

First of all, 14th level characters don't have wail of the banshee. Second, even if they did, it wouldn't matter, because the 9th level assistants won't be part of the battle. It'll just be the leader, with all his Circle powers, vs. the party. There's no way he'd be stupid enough to bring his assistants into the battle, especially given that he can exterminate the party quite easily without them.

This is a strong ability, but it is not as widely abuseable as spell focus, greater spell focus and spell power. Those abilities were being used by virtually every mage to create spells that were out of balance. Removing them was necessary. Leaving in a power that can be abused only under very specific and rare circumstances is by far less disruptive to the game.

Spell Focus did not create spells that were out of balance. You can argue that 3.0 Spell Power did, but Spell Focus was fine. And in any case, the Red Wizard's power absolutely dwarfs that of the 3.0 Archmage.

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

Dont Red Wizards have to give up a LOT of schools? Doesn't this re-balance things (I'm not intimate with the Red Wizard... unless it has 20 CHA).

AR

 

[Numion]

So you dropped the idea of a red wizard opponent because

a) the wizard should then have 10 levels in Red Wizard PrC

and

b) the wizard should then have 9 strong wizards constantly doing his circle magic locked in a closet

Maybe the PrC is too powerful, but you can still use it against the pcs. Just decide that this particular Red Wiz doesn't have a group of circle casters behind his back, nor has he absolutely have to have all ten levels of the class.

 

[Grog]

Maybe the PrC is too powerful, but you can still use it against the pcs. Just decide that this particular Red Wiz doesn't have a group of circle casters behind his back, nor has he absolutely have to have all ten levels of the class.

Well, of course I can power him down myself and/or play him less effectively. That's not the point. The point is that the class, as written, is horribly, horribly broken.

And even a Wiz10/Red Wizard 5 could still get 20+ spell levels in his pool, which would be more than enough to do the Empowered Maximized Cone of Cold / Quickened Empowered Maximized Fireball combo I mentioned before.

 

[Jubilex]

Just decide that this particular Red Wiz doesn't have a group of circle casters behind his back, nor has he absolutely have to have all ten levels of the class.

Yes if you take of its main ability it is less pewerfull for sure...but I think this was Grog's problem no? I agree with Grog it is overpowered.

 

[jgsugden]

Even if you add in the assistants to the guy's EL, he's still way out of balance. Look at, say, a marilith (I think that's about CR 17, don't have my MM in front of me). There's absolutely no comparassion.

First of all, 14th level characters don't have wail of the banshee. Second, even if they did, it wouldn't matter, because the 9th level assistants won't be part of the battle. It'll just be the leader, with all his Circle powers, vs. the party. There's no way he'd be stupid enough to bring his assistants into the battle, especially given that he can exterminate the party quite easily without them.

Spell Focus did not create spells that were out of balance. You can argue that 3.0 Spell Power did, but Spell Focus was fine. And in any case, the Red Wizard's power absolutely dwarfs that of the 3.0 Archmage.

We're talking EL 17. A 14th level party versus EL 17 should be hard pushed.And I think you underestimate the power of a marilith. I've seen a well used 3.5 marilith rip apart a 21st level party by itself. Still, a 14th level PC should have 7th level spells. A nice delayed blast fireball should do the trick against 9th level wizards. 14d6 damage (49 average) versus wizards with hit points in the high 20s?

Second, we're talking the leader here. A leader of a very evil organization. Even if he has a huge advantage, the leader is the last one to actually get into battle. A cleric with an antimagic aura around him would completely destroy this wizard. A single failed save can still kill him.

I'm not going to argue spell power and spell focus with you. I've done the math. Anything beyond 10 + spell level + attribute modifier is going to start to push the envelope of balance. Even spell focus makes spells too powerful to provide balanced play amongst the classes at high levels. If you do the math and study the effectiveness of the classes, you'll agree with me. If you don't, it is pointless to argue.

Yes, this ability can be grossly abused if the DM builds the game in that fashion. This is primarily an NPC class. If the DM wants to kill the PCs, he can just send a great red wyrm against the PCs at 10th level. The DM can *always* kill the PCs. In the hands of a PC, this ability should be far weaker. He needs to have cohorts and followers and he needs to keep them close at hand. It is still possible to get very high caster levels and multiple metamagic feats (empowered, maximized and heightened to 9th level), but only under very limited circumstances and only if the DM allows him to be built up in that manner.

In other words, yes, this is possible to highly abuse in limited circumstances. Those circumstances are so rare, it wasn't worth their time to change it. The reason why the focus/power issues were addressed is because everybody was using them all the time. They were an abuse that was so overused that they had to be removed.

 

[Snipehunt]

Except for the circle ability, the red wizard doesn't look that great to me. It's a good PrC, but pretty well balanced overall.

The only wacky thing is the circle ability, which does make things really unfair. But just because the Red Wizard has an ability, doesn't mean the Red Wizard can or will use it. As Jgsugden pointed out, not every red wizard has a coterie of 9th level red wizard apprentices ready to donate to the wizard's abilities.
Even if the wizard did, it might not have circled that day, or used the power for something else.

The circle thing isn't IMO meant for ordinary encounters. I see it as a way to get a roleplaying smack against the PC's, if needed. A reason not to seriously annoy the Red Wizards, without a really good reason or your own protection. Or if you need to explain a really powerful spell effect. And so on. If a DM used that against me in a normal encounter, I'd cry foul b/c it's not a lot different than an NPC wizard casting gate and taking a PC to the NEP. It's cheesy.

IMO, if the PC's fight a Red Wizard w/ bonuses from the circle ability, you need to up the CR quite a bit. A wiz5/red wiz 10 with circle powers is a significantly different CR than one that doesn't have any circle power for the encounter. It's like throwing a powered-up cleric against the PC's - you have to adjust the CR.

 

[Nifft]

I think it makes for a very cool adventure concept.

Just like you can't kill a Lich directly, you can't take on this wizard directly. You have to kill his apprentices before he's vulnerable.

I like the idea a lot.

-- N