There are too many encounters per quest.

This is a problem because spellcasters run out of spells faster than fighters run out of hitpoints. I have observed that an adventuring party with more fighters than spellcasters does much better than an adventuring party with more spellcasters than fighters.

Currently, Escape from the Underdark favors fighters over spellcasters because of the sheer number of encounters per quest. But in the Forgotten Realms, spellcasters dominate Toril.

The reason why fighters stay useful is because not everyone can become a spellcaster. Some of the most faithful men never become clerics, while some of the most intelligent people never become wizards.

Also, fighters are there to help spellcasters conserve their spells. If an adventuring party runs into a group of unskilled bandits, the fighter can take them out without having the wizard waste his Fireball.

The fighter should never be the dominant force in the party. However, he should still play a very important role.

Of course, a fighter still needs a wizard. A fighter cannot bypass a wererat's damage reduction and will eventually die. A wizard can kill a wererat one on one, but he will have to use up all of his magic to do so. A fighter working with a wizard can defeat a wererat by having the wizard cast Magic Weapon on the fighter's weapon.

The problem gets even worse once clerics come into play.

A cleric can fight almost as well as a fighter. In Escape from the Underdark, he can defeat most low-level enemies without using his magic. When he runs into more powerful foes, like wererats, he simply casts Magic Weapon on his spear/mace/morningstar/whatever and pwns the wererats.

A party made up of only clerics can accomplish a lot more than a mixed party of fighters and wizards.

Unfortunately, this is a problem with the game system itself, not just Escape from the Underdark. The cleric is the most powerful class in D&D 3.0 and 3.5.

Which brings me back to my original point. Wizards should be more powerful than fighters.

Here is one possible solution. When an adventuring party enters hostile territory, every hostile creature immediately rushes towards them. This will make area of effect spells more useful, making wizards more useful.

The Underdark tactician knows that if he sends too few troops against a threat, he will end up losing them without accomplishing anything. He also knows that if he sends too many troops, he will suffer more casualties from spells like Fireball, but will have a higher chance of inflicting casualties on the enemy.

Either way, he loses troops, so to cut his losses, he'll most likely go with the latter, which gives him a chance to inflict some damage on the enemy.

This should not happen in every quest or wizards will become too dominant. A little variety will be very nice.

Rogues are weaker than fighters, clerics, or wizards, but they keep these three from losing too many hitpoints unnecessarily. Rogues can scout ahead and tell the party what to expect. Rogues can disarm traps. Rogues can pick locks.

Rogues are currently balanced in Escape from the Underdark.

That's all for now. What do you think?

I appreciate your sharing your opinion, I think all I'll say for now is that the EfU DM Team has been playing NWN for years and years and we know and understand the nature of the game and game-appropriate balance extremely, extremely well. I strongly believe that wizards do not need help in the balance department.

Wizards definitely need no help. They're probably the best PvP class next to Clerics. Then again, just about every class has it's uses and strengths, and I'd prefer to keep it that way rather than beef up one specific class.

Your logic is a little misguided. As Howland and Inq have both said, I think you'll come to realize eventually how amazingly useful a wizard is to have along on a quest.

In PvP they're absurdly powerful when on the offensive, especially with a few feats.

In time you'll come to realize this, I think. Good luck with the server, Argent.

and as for wizards not being any good in combat that is again untrue my dwarf wizard can dish it out and take it in as good as most fighters in close combat.

EfU, if it means anything, is also a low magic server.

Why does Efu need to be like anything else in Toril? I think it's appropriate that in this refuge in the Underdark, it is more advantageous to be able to fight and hide your way to live to the next day. That is one of the strongest moods of this server. This is a low level server, and it is well known that fighters tend to be most effective at low levels and magic users tend to be most effective at high levels. I think the environment dictates raw survival, and to me fighters and rogues embody that. That is the environment...and I think you just need to embrace that. Playing a magic user can be challenging in this world (like I think it should be), and you just need to learn how to conserve your abilities and find effective allies. In a low magic server like this, a higher level mage is very powerful and dangerous and you really need to pay your dues to be one of them. So I say enjoy that challenge.

Argent Gish A party made up of only clerics can accomplish a lot more than a mixed party of fighters and wizards.

Hmm... I'd disagree here. I think the mixed party of fighters and wizards can fare a lot better than the party of pure clerics.

Remember that the clerics are only really effective in a scrap so long as their buffs hold out. On the higher level quests, some beasties dispel buffs and/or the quest is too long for the buffs to realistically hold out. The fighters are still pretty effective after the buffs are gone - the cleric party is quite pansy.

There are two quests out there that exemplify my point - one has loads of 8-legged critters and another is tortuously long. A party purely made up of clerics wouldn't last long in either of them. That's not to mention a few quests where you can pretty much expect your buffs to get dispelled by the critters. If you see a group purely composed of clerics on those quests, your best bet is to hang around the mausoleum with some spare rags, to mock them when they come running out of there naked.

*edit*

Argent Gish Rogues can scout ahead and tell the party what to expect. Rogues can disarm traps. Rogues can pick locks.

Rogues can sneak attack for ungodly amounts of damage against all but undead. Don't forget this - solid rog fire support can be a real tide-turner in a battle.

Don't diss the hin with his sling.

In my opinion, the EfU builders got it down. Many of the quests are excellent and most are well balanced.

And Frors and I have tested the fighter / wizard duo and it works extremely well on EfU.

For a wizard in the underdark, magic missile will not be your answer to everything you see. After much personal weighting of all the classes on here (20+ different PCs woo!) I have found that the balance is pretty good. This is not to say some classes have inherent strengths for specific things, but that this world will make you compromise your preconceived notions of class roles sometimes (and that rangers and bards will always get the short end of the stick, while clerics remain 3.0 D&D pet projects). I have never seen an effective "spellboat" wizard, just gunning off direct damage spells at everything he sees on here. But I have seen very very effective wizard builds who oftentimes were the reason we survived quests. In EfU you need allies of every class, just last night I was party to some of the best melee warriors in the land and we decimated our chosen quests in hand-to hand combat, but in the end almost netted a loss simply because we could not open a single chest along the way.

Whenever I start to feel that some classes are weaker than others, I think of two of my favorite PCs I have ever encountered on here. One was a mage (who escaped, mind you)

The other was a bard, and arguably the best-played PC I have ever seen. He died the only way he could have died, and it was incredible.

trust me. i took on a lvl 4 gnome wizard when my char was a lvl 6 fighter. the gnome won in the arena. though she took some serious damage my char was a weakling when it came to mind spells. she cast hold person and fireballed me. tryst me when a wizard or sorceror or even a bard for that matter is prepared. prepare to die.

Thomas_Not_very_wise trust me. i took on a lvl 4 gnome wizard when my char was a lvl 6 fighter. .. she cast hold person and fireballed me.

:shock:

You were HELD and FIREBALLED by a L4 wizard?!!?? Is there some secret here, or am I the only one that's under the distinct impression that a L4 wizard should not be casting EITHER of those spells?

Wow, now SOMEONE has a powerbuild like I've never seen...

He means Daze and Combust.

right....oops...i guess i forgot to mention that. well gnomes are powerful chars when rped niicely and she had a lot of wizard upgrades since she beat sugriam and got some awsome boots

Wizards should be more powerful than fighters.

...wwwhhhyyy?

Heya. Still quite busy with school but I was browsing on the forums and even though I no longer play, I figured i'd throw in my 2 cents.

My 2 wizards with occasional exceptions, lead almost EVERY single quest they were ever on. They routinely went on quests started by someone else and deposed them as a leader by the time the group started, or by the time it was over.

You want to call the shots?

I won't say mechanics has nothing to do with it, but the # of encounters has nothing to do with it. If you have a reputation for playing effective wizards, IC/OOC, it is a big help.

The # of encounters has nothing to do with it. If you want to lead a party and call the shots and be respected, you need a few things.

1. Attitude. If you want your mage to lead, he has to be forceful. Clearly everyone else is too damn stupid to wipe their own rears and without your guidance the group is doomed to fail, so of course you should lead. Act as if your in charge, whether you are or not. Most of the time the people who organize quests don't even want to lead.

2. Barking out good orders. More often then not, people will listen to orders which go to their benefit. People rarely actually give out orders in quest groups and if your the one giving them, let alone GOOD ones, they are likely to be obeyed. Do this consistently enough and when your group finds uber loot, they will actually look to you to divide it fairly. Simple, organizational things go a long way. Tell everyone to slow down and the scout to go ahead. Tell the main tank to yell when he wants a fireball. Say when the group should stop to heal. The natural tendency of any group is to just move forward through the quest without stopping. Simple orders of this nature go a long way towards quest success and if your quest succeeds people will be even more likely to listen to your scrawny mage next time.

3. CONTRIBUTE. Do not hide your sorry butt in the back. Yes, you have a pathetically low number of hit points and low AC. If you go invis for the duration of the quest, expect people to think low of you. If you ever met my mages, he routinely called all mages who sit around invis the entire time, cowards. Most people know an invis spell for yourself is a buff not given to a fighter. Do not hoard spells for yourself, some people will seriously resent you if you cast worthless buffs on yourself. The only buff you ever *must* really have on yourself, is protection from elements, except for key situations, almost your entire spellbook should usually be buffs for others(unless you really know what your doing, in which case offensive magic can take its place). In the end, if your a leech on the party, don't expect to be respected and you most defiantly will not be in the lead.

4. Lastly, initiative. If you want to lead a group, start the group yourself. If you want to be in charge, grab command from whoever is.

As for clerics.... a good cleric can literaly steal command of the party on charisma alone. You as a player, not your character, though if you have less then 10 charisma, its not fair to try this. Clearly [Kossuth/Moander/Ilmater] is with you and only with THEIR guidance can you suceed! Having a high AC with imp expertise(a fairly common cleric build) will allow you to literaly run first into even suicidal encounters and shrug it off, and being the man who runs into the fight first gives you some serious clout. I'd go as far as to say it is EASIEST to lead a group with some cleric builds, both RP and mechanics wise.

Just like to add a bit of personal experience I think refutes your theory pretty head-on.

My last character, a fighter with a powerful but somewhat unconventional build, was very dependable on casters to perform as well as some of the other fighters around there. I tried out loads of combinations, but I have to say that the best -party- I ever had was a mixed combination, three fighters, three wizards.

Strife, William Tubrick and Shareef Il-Pashar were the wizards, my character, Vragen and someone else (the sixth member usually rotated) were the frontliners. When you have three level 7+ wizards in your party, it has to be the most destructive thing ever to be seen on EfU. We were capable of buldozing quests easily, quickly and cheaply. I don't remember having to rely on healing at all with that party backing me up.

At the end of the day, though, it comes down to A) Knowing how to play the game (which I, for example, don't very well -- but I don't mean being a master at PVP and such. Just understand what are your limitations and work around them), and B) Trusting the party and knowing whose qualities compliment whose deficiencies. 'Tactics' is more than just a word for that moment when you decide who's 'in front' and who's 'in the back'. Trust, cooperation and, yes, even an amount of OOC synergy between players helps make each and every one of those party members not only significant, but vital to beat the quest.

- Kia