If there is one class in Dungeons & Dragons I continue to flirt with playing it is a Wizard. In all cases, when ‘I would like to play class X’ comes up it’s really I want to play dramatic protagonist X who just happens to be class X. No matter how appealing the story is that the character exists to tell I will probably never select the Wizard class and thus the character will never reach the table.
This is because of a disconnect between what I imagine and the nature of the class in Dungeons & Dragons.
What I imagine
I imagine an egotistical, hot academic who also happens to be able to nuke things with magical fire with a flick of a wand while uttering seductive verbal components? I don’t see wizards as Boomers with an interest in strange headwear. Instead, the wizard I imagine commits gross cultural appropriation of the rogue, throwing aside dowdy academic wear for tight-fitting leathers, spell book shoulder holsters and a wand strapped to her thigh.
An academic scouring the world in a Lara Croft style hunting down rare artefacts to accomplish grand ends that she never considers whether she should just because she can.
Now, you can obviously play this character in Dungeons & Dragons as a lot of it is style, albeit the distribution of stats and the crappy way skills work gets in the way, but the class itself doesn’t half get in the way as well.
The class is annoying
There are numerous reasons why I find the Wizard class intensely annoying which contribute to me never playing it. It’s even reached the point, when the rare chance to play the game comes up, a friend reminds me not to play the class when I am sorely tempted!
Spell memorisation is a total crock of shit. It’s asking you to make some sort of resource management decision with virtually zero information to base the decision on. While I can see the sense in making it some form of strategic planning in a game about overcoming challenges with ‘limited’ resources the fact you have to do it blind totally breaks that idea. As you level up it also becomes more and more annoying. I played a cleric once and spell memorisation made me never want to do it again.
Save or nothing spells are so annoying I would avoid selecting them. First, you just announce you are casting it and you don’t even get to roll the dice. The GM does and depending on the style at the table the dice may even be rolled behind a screen. Second, some of the spells fall into the extremely awesome and situation-changing thing happens or absolutely nothing. I can’t be arsed with that.
You can be a nuclear weapon. This is true of a number of classes but it’s especially true of the Wizard. If the drawn-out and annoying number of encounters per day model of Dungeons & Dragons isn’t being used and you’re having just one significant fight per day the Wizard becomes ridiculously powerful as they can just unload all their most powerful spells. They literally become significantly more powerful the fewer encounters you have in a day. Basically, the equivalence of classes breaks down the fewer encounters you have per day and primary spellcasting classes are the biggest benefactor.
Skills are crap in Dungeons & Dragons. Yeah, you can argue with me all you want but unless you’re one of those classes who gets a lot of skills and has class abilities to make skills reliable most of the time you roll a skill the results are disappointing. The maths around skills and the linear D20 are just annoying and you have zero way to enhance the result based on what you feel is essential to your story. This probably means your character is only going to be a fiendishly intelligent, Reed Richards level academic in your head. You know, despite having an intelligence over 18.
Screw counterspell. Yeah, I get it. I’ve watched the brilliantly done final battle of Critical Role season one and how great counterspell can be in a very positive and exciting way. I get it. I suspect the majority of the time it’s just really annoying and boring. It just feels like a constant and annoying decision to me. Yes, used sparingly it can be cool as a ‘control’ tool in specific moments but used a lot it’d just be really, really, annoying. Also, it strikes me that whatever I can do as a Wizard someone else can do in reverse? I am sure counterspell isn’t half as fun when someone starts to counter your spells.
Legendary resistances. I know why they exist. They do make an enemy more significant. The trouble is the whole game of launching sufficient spells to get the enemy to use the resistance without seeing your best spells just cancelled is also, you guessed it, a crock of shit.
It creates a spell cold war. Since we tend to play in GM heavy groups with people who have experienced both sides of the table I’d be extremely conscious of the fact whole encounters have to be constructed around what spells I might select. Exactly how many high-damage spells have I memorised? How many of those ‘encounter ending on a save’ spells do I have in my character’s head? Do I target the mage like the enemy should (and the players do) but that seems unfair because if I do it doesn’t really take much to take her out? It all feels too much like an arms race to me. I don’t want that to be true.
It’s the clever bastard class. Yes, I’m putting out there. The wizard is designed for a particular type of player who just likes to be a clever bastard. The one who wants to find that way to shortcut that awesome fight with an awesome enemy by pulling off some clutch spell that renders it all moot. Sorry, awesome monster, I know you had things to say and this fight was supposed to be one as much about philosophies and ideas than a physical fight but now you’re a turtle and I feel cool and superior. People who play Wizards want to polymorph Darth Vader before you get into the philosophical debates about destiny and the force.
So, what’s my problem?
I feel the class is designed to be played by a personality type that isn’t me. It always feels like the way the class plays is specifically designed for the type of player who wants to out think the encounter and defeat it in the cleverest way possible to the point that it actually reduces the fun for everyone but themselves.
After all, is polymorphing that white dragon in round two really that much fun for anyone but the wizard?
I’d probably not want to select large sections of the spell list. If it’s a save or nothing spell I’m not interested in it. I’d not be inclined to tool up too much on the spells that end encounters with a single stroke. I’d instead be focusing on ones that kept the agency with me, did lots of damage or enhanced all the players’ fun by changing the tactics in play or buffing people. I want to control or enhance the battlefield, not collapse its reality. Basically, keep the spells that enhance the fun for everyone and drop the ones that reduce the fun for me and/or cut short the fun for everyone else.
I have no idea what impact this has on the spell list.
And, Finally…
There is a reason the class I identify most with in Dungeons & Dragons is the Rogue. They are the closest class to a character that might appear in an action thriller. They are surprisingly competent while not necessarily having super-powered elements like spells. They also get various class abilities that actually make using skills interesting, unlike most of the other classes. If the Rogue is like Captain America in superhero terms, the Wizard is like one of those superheroes where you never truly understand where the limits are. I really don’t like that. They’re a fun sponge.
It’s also occurred to me while writing this, that another reason I focus on the Rogue is it’s the class that minimises my disconnect with Dungeons & Dragons as a game of resource-based challenges while still allowing me to have some cool things to do.
In short, playing a Wizard will never happen.