TOPIC: Wizard MEC, Relic and Legendary

Sliding spells need to be able to crit wiithout the use of a token. That limitation just needs to be removed.

The slide for the spell needs to be considered a skill check with pass/fail results and the SC bonuses from the Relic and Legendary need to include successful spell slides.

All spells need to have skill checks included to make the Relic and Legendary affect all spells equally.

The Legendary should up the free action spells to 2/room at a minimum, the current bump is too weak

Remove the requirement of breaking a wand for Retributive Strike Change it to:
Retributive Strike = Requires both Standard Action and Free Action for the round. Deal 10x your spell damage bonus to all monsters in the room. You are reduced to 1HP


The suggested MEC is terribly weak.

MEC = May cast a 1st or 2nd level spell as a free action without expending 1/room

That boosts the damage from the use a chunk but limits it to 1/room. Probably a happy medium

Jeff,

Do you want the proposed Wizard + Legendary to exceed maximum damage done by the 2 puck Ranger and monk as they exist today, or do you intend on adjusting how 2 puck classes deal damage? If the existing Ranger and Monk mechanics are to remain, do you want us to factor in crits?

Do you want them to risk Burn Out, either by running out of spells, Running out of HP but damaging themselves, or both?

Should we factor in advantages spells have for targeting When making suggestions - ex: spells work the same vs Flying and grounded targets.

I’m not sure we can best help create the appropriate power level items without these answers.

Jeff Martin wrote: I see Wizards as glass cannons. I want them to do the best damage in the game, but I want them to die the most of all the classes because of their weak AC and hp.

Thank you for stating the intent - it should really help.

With great damage comes the big drawback of you will probably die if you aren't careful or lucky.

Or, in Dave's case, if you are lucky

MEC = May cast 1st-2nd level spell as a free action but no another offensive action for combat. May elect to take a second skill test for double skill check damage, but if you get it wrong the wizard takes the damage. (Puts the Mad, back in MEC).

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Jeff Martin wrote: I see Wizards as glass cannons. I want them to do the best damage in the game, but I want them to die the most of all the classes because of their weak AC and hp.

Thank you for stating the intent - it should really help.

With great damage comes the big drawback of you will probably die if you aren't careful or lucky.

Or, in Dave's case, if you are lucky

At least once Dave will use Retributive Strike every round of every combat, just trying to see how many times he can die.

OrionW wrote: MEC = May cast 1st-2nd level spell as a free action but no another offensive action for combat. May elect to take a second skill test for double skill check damage, but if you get it wrong the wizard takes the damage. (Puts the Mad, back in MEC).

Taking this free action would prevent use of a wand, scroll or Retribute Strike during combat. It is not also not define for current combat so it would go across the entire run.

I'll withhold my substantive comments until people who actually main Wizard have thought about how they want this to work, but I do want to thank you Jeff, for being willing to tackle this tough design problem.

I think it'll do a lot of good to address it.

I just imagined that the MEC could be used (as a free action) to do any amount of damage to a monster you choose up to your current hp, but it also reduces your current and maximum hit points by the same amount. If you reduce max hp to 0, you die with no resurrection possible. This caps the max damage you could do with MEC to your starting HP, and likely kills Dave in the first room. Sorry Dave. Fun idea, and truly MAD, but probably not going to make it at this late stage.

Jeff Martin wrote: I see Wizards as glass cannons. I want them to do the best damage in the game, but I want them to die the most of all the classes because of their weak AC and hp. With great damage comes the big drawback of you will probably die if you aren't careful or lucky.

So...give me your thoughts on how we can redo the MEC to coordinate with the Relic and Legendary (and all the crazy Cabal/Spell Storing/ etc. powers out there.

If it helps, I am open to redesigning the Wizards cards next week to increase spell damage there. It would be better to fix the game on the cards rather than with tokens. Let's assume spell damage is roughly doubled moving forward.

To get Wizards to top damage, and to stay there, one of two things needs to happen as I understand it:

1. Either (on averag) Wizards need to gain access to full spell bonus twice a round (or double the entire spell bonus once a round).

This is because melee Rangers and Monks get access to their melee damage bonus twice per round, and as time goes on and more melee boosters come about they get double the effect (if they slide well).

2. Or remove the ability of melee Rangers and Monks to (on average) get access to their melee damage bonus twice per round.

Since in human psychology, losing things is normally much more painful than gaining things is joyful, I'd propose to spare the Ranger's and Monks the pain of losing something they have, and uplevel the Wizard instead.

Ways to get there:

1. Damage spells as a free action available ~every round. (Perhaps limited by number of combat rounds expected).

2. Wands/scrolls/other magic items as a free action AND modified by full spell bonus.

3. An effect that doubles both spell base AND bonus (perhaps this effect requires a FA so you can't cast two spells in that round).

Alternatives:

A huge static bonus like Retributive Strike could push Wizards to the top of the damage rankings, but unless stackable melee stops or has some cap, eventually it will be eclipsed by melee players (Ranger and Monk first, followed by people who can easily get crits like Rogues and Thor's wielders).

BiS Monks under VTD rules expect to do around 100 points of damage a round right now, just sliding (one target). (~45 damage per puck, 10% chance of a miss, 70% chance of hit, 20% chance of a crit).

Perhaps retributive strike should do 3x your spell damage modifier instead so it scales over time?

Fiddy wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Jeff Martin wrote: I see Wizards as glass cannons. I want them to do the best damage in the game, but I want them to die the most of all the classes because of their weak AC and hp.

Thank you for stating the intent - it should really help.

With great damage comes the big drawback of you will probably die if you aren't careful or lucky.

Or, in Dave's case, if you are lucky

At least once Dave will use Retributive Strike every round of every combat, just trying to see how many times he can die.

We need a run of 9 Relic clerics and Dave.

Dave wrote: MEC - Doesn't seem like the right name for the token any more. Basically, telling me I can cast 2 spells in one round and then I'm done for the room. Would never equip this by itself. Do I just twiddle my thumbs for the next 8 minutes?

Presumably you wouldn't use it on round 1. Even so, you only avoid thumb-twiddling if you correctly guess which round will be the last combat round.

Seems like limiting to 1/room but adding the self-damage back in would strike a similar balance without reducing player fun, and also preserve the flavor similarity between MEC and tokendb.com/token/crazed-evokers-amulet/

(aside: Wizard isn't one of my main classes so I'm not likely to end up getting the relic, but I might very well pick up the new UR)

I say just scrap the wizard relic and legendary. We can revisit in another 7 years hahaha