Opinion: mage armor or light/medium armor on a sorceror/wizard

[Witty Username]

Human in Half Plate with a flaming sword: Gonna bet you're a caster of some kind because you are specifically not wearing a shield...unless the sword in quest is a two-handed weapon. But I'll assume you'd have mentioned if it was a Greatsword.

You would be correct on caster, it is a long sword (ish, its a long story).
I tend to like opening with an Animate objects or hypnotic pattern depending on how I feel.

Hexblade/swords bard - secondary frontliner

Centaur: Either a Cleric or Paladin, either way not the primary target for this particular round. The next round should give more info based on how they fight

Cleric, homebrew subclass but is essentially a tweeked light cleric. And is the closest character we have to a dedicated blaster.
Answers fireball to every question.

Elephant Man: Possibly a Druid, could be a Barbarian. Avoid targeting for now because either one is exceptionally tanky, and not worth the arrows till they're alone...unless you have Disintegrate or Power Word Kill handy. Done that to a Moon Druid before and had it done to me as a Moon Druid before, extremely effective way to remove them.

Druid - Shepard druid, and I think a cleric dip (doesn't come up often)
Closest we have to a backliner, does support spells and summons

Minotaur: willing to bet this is a Paladin. No need to worry about them just yet

Paladin, although has a sorcerer dip for the shield spell. - primary frontliner

[sithlordnergal]

You would be correct on caster, it is a long sword (ish, its a long story).
I tend to like opening with an Animate objects or hypnotic pattern depending on how I feel.

Hexblade/swords bard - secondary frontliner



Cleric, homebrew subclass but is essentially a tweeked light cleric. And is the closest character we have to a dedicated blaster.
Answers fireball to every question.


Druid - Shepard druid, and I think a cleric dip (doesn't come up often)
Closest we have to a backliner, does support spells and summons



Paladin, although has a sorcerer dip for the shield spell. - primary frontliner

Huh, so I was pretty much correct with my guesses. Way I see it, if I can figure out something like that, the people who live in a world where magic is a normal thing can absolutely figure it out. Especially in a combat situation where its important to know who your primary focus should be.

[Witty Username]

Cept for the arcane caster here has the second best defenses of the party and the most traditional threat is the cleric.

[JellyPooga]

Huh, so I was pretty much correct with my guesses. Way I see it, if I can figure out something like that, the people who live in a world where magic is a normal thing can absolutely figure it out. Especially in a combat situation where its important to know who your primary focus should be.

In a world where a Cleric can be the primary control and blaster with the highest AC, the Rogue has the highest effective HP total/damage sponge whilst wearing little to no armour and the Fighter is ranged DPS that's the highest threat to the NPC leader, "target the spellcaster in robes" doesn't really mean anything and certainly doesn't apply in every situation. I mean, it's all going to depend on the NPC's in question and what their goals/motivations and intelligence are, as well as the specific party. If I was the Wizard player and being targeted just for being the wizard in every fight, I would very much feel persecuted and have legitimate reason for complaint. It's not about "if I can do it, so can they" because not every NPC you, as GM, has your experience or in-game knowledge, let alone metagame knowledge.

A Goblin Warchief might want to target the guy that's currently hacking his way through his horde of minions because if he doesn't, that big scary looking guy with the shiny sword that's twice as long as he is tall might be standing next to him, next. Sod the dude at the back doing the healing, shoot the big one now!

A hungry pack of half-mad, ravenous Ghouls might not be thinking about who's the optimal target, or caring about strategic losses; when their bloodlust is upon them, the nearest target is the only target.

The Lich can see that the Rogue has his phylactery. How!? Why!? Doesn't matter. I can deal with the paltry mage once I have my property back. I shan't risk the thief getting away...Power Word: Kill.

Without the militia, the heroes cannot defend the town from the encroaching horde. Take out the Paladin that's leading the troops and enough of the chaff mooks that follow him and the Outlaw Leader wins the war, even if he loses the battle.

Even setting these kind of situations aside, it depends on appearances; the Arcane Trickster or Light Cleric that casts a Scorching Ray once does not differ from the Wizard that does the same, so how is an enemy to differentiate between them and target appropriately? If you are being fair as GM, you're having to approach each fight individually, with many different factors on play each time. So much so that any general rule such as "target the spellcasters first, then the healers" becomes nonsense. Do you have spotters in every melee watching out for the first time a PC busts out a heal? Commanders giving orders to minions to target specific enemies reactively? If you make your combats living and breathing like this, with vivid characterisation and descriptions that's great, but the way you described it upthread felt a little more like persecuting players that chose one class over another and that, for me, would become frustrating very fast.

[Sindal]

*laughs*

I love how this evolved into a discussion about who would 'logically' be targeted first.

I'm reminded of when I played the original version of this sorcerer, who instead had managed to get a cloak of displacement as his method of self presevation.

The rest of the party was a horny barbarian/cleric (He was a minotaur calm down), an arsonist fireball wizard, gunslinging (fighter I guess) dual pistol fella and 2 artificers who admittedly was still grasping the rules of DND, so 'optimal play' was not going to be happening as much with them as they learnt. But certainly a 'stand further away and shoot' kind of mindset going on.

Being a divine soul and having a more supportive and protective leaning, all of the counterspells and aids in the world couldn't stop people from getting in danger (Especially since counterpsells range actually isn't very generous) so this fella of mine often was atleast 'ajacent' to danger. and with the 'ranged' leaning set up of my party, this fella found himself in the thick of things somewhat often whether he wanted to be or not.

I'll never forget that my Sorceror had to summon the bravery to stand between the party and some monstrocity dragon creature that had shambled out from around the corner, as only me and the barbarian were remotely tanky enough to keep the thing occupied.

For a character like that, 'cutting out the middle man' and taking lightly armored just seemed to make sense, because i would most likely play him the same way, even if he ends up in a party with more melee enthusiastic. And bare in mind I was a sorceror, so having mage armor as a spell was a tax I had to accept for the choice. This way I'd have an extra cure wounds or healing word stored up for an emergency

Why not just play a cleric if thats the kinda gameplay I'm after? Cause I like sorceror and the thematic mix divine soul brings. I LOVE being able to cast haste on that barb and saying "Toro!" (or 'Buckle up and draw!" if cast on the gunslinger). And it's sorta neat that the new potential new rules, power crept as they are, would support that kind of decision making even if 'isn't what sorcerors typically do'

I've been playing melee dudes recently as well. My last 2 have been a barbarian and a monk, so my brain values the hardiness. I'm hoping to play something in the backlines again soon but habits are harder to shake. My brain has been functioning under a 'It is not a possiblity, it is an eventuallyt hat something will test against my AC" kind mindset, and that'll stick to most anything I play now, i think, unless that perrson exclusively avoids danger zones.

But this was fun to read so far. I'm somehow more inspired to play this guy...well, asusming it's at all possible in future, ahha

[Amechra]

Way I see it, if I can figure out something like that, the people who live in a world where magic is a normal thing can absolutely figure it out.

Bear in mind that you literally have access to the objective rules for that world, know almost exactly what magic is capable of, and get to "figure it out" while sitting comfortably in your armchair, with no threat of imminent harm or pain.