Giving Wizards All Wizard Spells Known

[RatElemental]

I'm sure you can protect a wizard for 15 minutes while they prep a spell.

The wizard needs to spend 8 hours resting in order to unallocate their slots if they didn't leave any open, and it takes an hour to prepare a spell on the fly even if they did leave any open.

[Unavenger]

The wizard needs to spend 8 hours resting in order to unallocate their slots if they didn't leave any open, and it takes an hour to prepare a spell on the fly even if they did leave any open.

"After resting, a wizard must study her spellbook to prepare any spells that day. If she wants to prepare all her spells, the process takes 1 hour. Preparing some smaller portion of her daily capacity takes a proportionally smaller amount of time, but always at least 15 minutes, the minimum time required to achieve the proper mental state."

It doesn't take an hour to prep a spell. It takes an hour to prep every spell.

[Crake]

I mean, a wizard with access to restoration and planar binding and a lot of time can always bind a succubus, have her drain him of 2 levels, restore them to get 2 levels of chameleon, and then just use his floating bonus feat to learn every spell 1 spell level lower than his max, then repeat to get his wizard levels back, then repeat it again every two levels when he gets access to another spell level?

Either that or do the chameleon feat leap frog and get access to dual 9ths at level 12 along with access to literally all arcane and divine spells casted spontaneously via versatile spellcaster, but thats neither here nor there

[NigelWalmsley]

The number of times I've seen anyone actually use the partial preparation trick is pretty close to zero. And if this did actually get people to use it more, that's another strike against it, because you're eliminating one of the few advantages classes like the Sorcerer or the Dread Necromancer have over the Wizard -- short-term versatility. All this change does is homogenize casters around the worst of the mechanics any of the major spellcasting classes has. Implementing it makes the game worse in obvious ways.

Right, because a wizard is clearly going to have to look through every D&D book ever to find that one spell that allows you to fly, or that one spell that lets you breathe water, or that strange obscure spell for opening doors. Come off it.

What this change does is give the Wizard access to all the spells. If you're going to argue they won't actually use all the spells, you are arguing this change is pointless. If all the Wizard needs is Fly, Water Breathing, and Knock, they can already get those fairly trivially anyway.

[Unavenger]

What this change does is give the Wizard access to all the spells. If you're going to argue they won't actually use all the spells, you are arguing this change is pointless. If all the Wizard needs is Fly, Water Breathing, and Knock, they can already get those fairly trivially anyway.

I mean, I think there's a gulf between "Using the standard number of spells known a wizard gets" and "Using every spell in every book", is all. The wizard can just write down in shorthand as many spells as they're actually going to use, the same way that a cleric or druid already does and this is fine. It just takes away the thing of being like a cleric or druid, but just significantly more annoying to use.

[NigelWalmsley]

That's exactly how the Wizard works now. Except that there's a check on how many spells you can have (good, makes the class easier to use), and there's a way to get new abilities as loot (good, it gives the class a reason to care about loot). Your proposal is that we should make the Wizard worse. We should not, in fact, do that.

[Quertus]

Or maybe water should be less deadly?
Or you can use some of the worldbuilding tools such as those magical areas of water where people can breath.
Or for removing a curse you could kidnap a npc spellcaster in the dungeon?

I mean, I won't deny that that sounds like some fun water. Now I want to build a "dry fish exhibit" - ie, air that has that same property, to allow aquatic beings to live on dry land.

Still, most air doesn't have that property, just as most water isn't breathable by (most) parties. Off hand, I can't remember a single published module with "breathable water" - but I can remember plenty with the other kind.

It strains credulity when the adventure sure happens to have all the solutions that the party needs. Needing solutions to overcome these challenges is no small part of what makes the scenario realistic (versimilitudinal?) and challenging.

Yes, kidnapping an NPC caster is a very good creative solution to the problem at hand. When the party isn't that creative, or the curse is too great that they don't want to risk confronting such a caster while cursed, the party likely heads back to town.

That's exactly how the Wizard works now. Except that there's a check on how many spells you can have (good, makes the class easier to use), and there's a way to get new abilities as loot (good, it gives the class a reason to care about loot). Your proposal is that we should make the Wizard worse. We should not, in fact, do that.

Having a finite spellbook from a much larger set of choices makes the class easier for some, harder for others.

Now that we have automatic spell acquisition and magic item Walmart, I no longer care about spells found in loot.

[NigelWalmsley]

Having a finite spellbook from a much larger set of choices makes the class easier for some, harder for others.

Any mechanic would make the class easier for some and harder for others. If there are people who would benefit from not having the intermediate step of a spellbook, classes exist for them -- the Cleric, the Warmage, and the Incarnate are all examples to various degrees. Having every class use the same resource management mechanic lessens the game.

[Quertus]

Any mechanic would make the class easier for some and harder for others. If there are people who would benefit from not having the intermediate step of a spellbook, classes exist for them -- the Cleric, the Warmage, and the Incarnate are all examples to various degrees. Having every class use the same resource management mechanic lessens the game.

Any mechanic? I wouldn't go that far. But at least we're in agreement about this mechanic, then.

Your other premise, however, is quite intriguing. Obviously I am in some agreement, given that my biggest complaint about 4e was how samey the characters felt. However, I am also in some disagreement, since I don't think that 3e would be improved by having some classes use BAB, while others use THAC0.

Does this particular proposed change remove desirable variability between classes? Hmmm… I'm biased, as I believe that 3e already removed the good parts of being a Wizard (0 spells known, complete reliance on outside sources for spells, chance to fail to learn a spell even if it's discovered, high value in spell research). Having already lost all that, I'm not seeing what's left in the Wizard's "unique identity" that's worth preserving in this regard.

So, by all means, explain what this adds to the game, that isn't already covered by some other build (psion, STP Erudite sorcerer + rune staves, etc).

[NigelWalmsley]

So, by all means, explain what this adds to the game, that isn't already covered by some other build (psion, STP Erudite sorcerer + rune staves, etc).

Well, it predates all those things. Shouldn't they be the ones that have to be justified?

[rel]

Balance wise it doesn't change much and probably makes playing a wizard easier for a new player.
House rule away.

[Aotrs Commander]

Just out of idle interest... I just had a quick look at my spell lists (which are majority 3.5 (and the majority of that) at the moment), which are in Excel and so easy for a ball-park head count. Cleric spells approx 900, druid spells approx 700... Wizards spells approx 1650. At those sample sizes, I would expect the trends to be pretty much reliable for ball-park figures (I can't imagined that 3.5 source books I don't have or my homebrew spells and the stuff currently being imported from PF would skew the results vastly). So it is then, worth noting that giving wizards access to ALL wizard spells could liekly give them more spells to pick from on a daily basis than the cleric and druid lists combined.

[Powerdork]

I'd like to ask a question about the basic premise, because it matters for some few technical interactions.

Are you A) altering the mechanics of the spellbook such that a wizard's personal spellbook allows them to prepare any spell, B) giving wizards the equivalent of Spell Mastery for every spell of a level they can cast, or C) doing something else?

Are you allowing similar access to all sorcerer/wizard spells as well? (Remember that "wizard spells" are things like Mordenkainen's lucubration.)

[Asmotherion]

One of the things keeping TO tippy-level crazy 20-layers-of-overpreparedness from happening at the table is that the wizard doesn't actually have all the options available to wizards. A wizard with all spells and enough information (which the full list will help with) can defeat pretty much anything except another better prepared wizard.

Eh, scrolls are pretty affordable to buy either way. A Wizard that uses about 1/2 his WBL to purchase scrolls can be safelly assumed to have at least around 50-100 extra spells in their spellbook in excess from spells from leveling up, with a proximate average of 12 spells per spell level, more than enough for extream versatility. Unless the DM chooses to activelly impade T1 casters some way, aquiring spells functions more as an RP element rather than as a limitation.

I'd like to ask a question about the basic premise, because it matters for some few technical interactions.

Are you A) altering the mechanics of the spellbook such that a wizard's personal spellbook allows them to prepare any spell, B) giving wizards the equivalent of Spell Mastery for every spell of a level they can cast, or C) doing something else?

Are you allowing similar access to all sorcerer/wizard spells as well? (Remember that "wizard spells" are things like Mordenkainen's lucubration.)

The way I read it, OP's suggestion is more along the lines of "any Wizard's Spellbook contains the entire Sorcerer/Wizard spell-list; Resolve everything else as normal for the Wizard Class".

[Ramza00]

Is no one going to mention Tome of Ancient Lore? There are two versions, one in Complete Divine, and the most recent in the Magic Item Compendium. Regardless of which version you use, it effectively allows you to learn every arcane spell out there
1) given enough time plus material to add to your spellbook
2) the tome itself
3) 9 HD and
4) taking a feat to use this divine relic, you can take this feat at 9 HD or you can take it earlier if that makes sense for your build.

Now acquiring the divine relic may be hard for you to do, but with two more feats Craft Wondrous Item, and Sanctify Relic you can make your own.

[Thunder999]

Wizards can already achieve this, the main limitation being the time it takes (though that can largely be 'solved' with plane shift, either to just get more hours in each material plane day, or the old "time stop on a timeless plane lasts forever" trick). It's actually not too expensive provided you use blessed books and have a better way to access the spells than buying scrolls (paying 50gp per spell level to another wizard or using Boccob's relic being two simple options).

This would mostly affect lower-op games, where the wizard player may not realise he should be doing this.
It helps the guy who thinks fireball and magic missile are great out by letting him easily swap spells when he inevitably notices that they just aren't working (probably around the time the beatsticks in the party start tripling his damage output and bragging about how awesome they are in the nearest tavern).

[Endarire]

@Metool
Wizards' spells known list doesn't change. How does giving them Spell Mastery for every spell change anything?

[Ramza00]

@Metool
Wizards' spells known list doesn't change. How does giving them Spell Mastery for every spell change anything?

Mixing Pathfinder and 3.5 here but an 8th level Psychic Mage Wizard can easily have 26 INT and thus have 6 / 5 / 4 / 3 spells per day. With Uncanny Forethought he will have 8 Spells per day that he cast spontaneously as a full round action. He knows all the spells he has time to scribe due to Psychic Reformation. His spells known are all the Wizard Spells minus Enchantment and Necromancy, but he also knows all non discipline Psionic / Wilder powers thus he can easily compensate for the things he is lacking via the psionic equivalents and magic items.

This is a Tier 0 build.