Balancing Hero & Wizard Through the Experience System

[larsdangly]

'Branded' weapons is a lot of nonsense in my book; something that finds no justification in the RAW and duplicates, essentially for free, something that is already described and much more costly (flaming weapon enchantments). I wouldn't consider letting someone use a brand as anything other than a light source or improvised weapon (like a torch).

[Steve Plambeck]

Originally Posted by hcobb

The character progression for all characters is to increase DX first.

I'd put it differently, but it is a venerable strategy I often followed. Build a good figure in the first place, and put it's first XP into making it more reliable at what it was already designed to do, or get it into more armor for the same adjDX. Hard to go wrong.

Originally Posted by hcobb

So Molly starts at 6/9/17 hitting on a 12 or less on three dice from one rank back in combat while dodging.

Well, no. Hit or Dodge, not hit and Dodge. Can't do both at once.

Originally Posted by hcobb

She then advances at low XP cost to 6/14/17, and starts casting actual spells in combat.

Increasing DX 5 points through XP costs 1300 XP. You don't start castings spells until you've earned 1300 XP??? A wizard who refuses to cast spells (for a year?) is going to earn negative XP if I'm GM! (To be fair, that only changed with LE ITL. With original ITL it would "only" cost 775 XP to earn the first 5 new attribute points, and just 525 for the first 4. That's still a long time to hide in the back without casting a spell. Who hires such a wizard?)

Originally Posted by hcobb

As the XP costs increase she slowly [emphasis mine] finishes advancing stats at 6/14/20. From this point she only adds Mana, spells and talents. (Hello Dagger Mastery)

If you can earn the 8300 XP to reach 6/14/20 via this strategy, what do you even need the Mana for now? That's a rhetorical question.

[hcobb]

Originally Posted by Steve Plambeck

Well, no. Hit or Dodge, not hit and Dodge. Can't do both at once.

ITL 30: "Like Staff III, except the attack is a free action – the wizard may use the staff’s strike along with any option, including attacking, running away, or using the staff as a physical weapon."

This is why the super defend of Dagger Mastery exists, so that wizards can combine the impossible defense with an attack that ignores all mundane defenses.

Jump her in HTH and she only has adjDX 17 occult strike for 1d+2 that ignores armor and a physical Shrewd blow with her very fine silver dagger staff at adjDX 14 for 2d+5 every round.