Keeping Wizard PCs from overshadowing non-Wizard PCs

[Keryth]

My NYC Campaign is beginning to form up. Or at least the concepts are. My group is looking at another 6 months of the Pathfinder Campaign were in nwo, then my Dresden Game rolls in. Anyhow, here's what I'm looking at so far for characters by their High Concepts:
Prophisized "Angel" Daughter of Aphrodite (Yep, she's a halfblood Victoria's Secret Supermodel with a prophecy about her)
Veteran War Wizard Looking for a Cause (Player is angling for a wizard not happy with the Council's choices, looking for something to fight for other than just survival. My game is while the Vampire War is still going on)
Red Court Infected ex-CTU Agent (Sorta Jack Bauer as a Infected. Mercenary for hire now)
Clueless Scion of Tymora ('Luckiest' person on Earth. Drawbacks though. Using powers has a hunger track, where he must take the luck form those around them, ie putting an aspect of bad luck temporarily on someone, not always a PC, for each hunger box)
Only Daughter of the Leananshide (Need I say more?)

My concern is this. How do I keep the Wizard form solving every problem with Thaumaturgy? Need information, summon a demon and bargain for info, or summon a LOA? Looking for someone, tracking spell. etc.

Just looking for some advice here

[JDK002]

Simple answer, clever GMing.  Is the group always looking to the wizard for answers?  Design scenes or entire scenarios where other players assets are forefront.

Wizard relying heavily on summoning up beings for information?  Make the price for answers too steep, or make it very clear that there are consiquences for getting in bed with demons and their ilk by having it come back to bite him in the ass.  Or have a summoning go wrong and the creature gets loose and people get hurt or even die.

Follow what the rule book says.  Magic doesn't make things easier, if anything it makes things more complicated.

[Gilitine_Memitim]

Amen, plus a wizard character will be boring if he doesn't have enough issues on the character sheet to get in trouble himself. And often.

[EdgeOfDreams]

Time, knowledge, and connections are all important resources. You can't do a long ritual if the villain is going to blow up the city in two minutes from now. You can't solve the mystery with divination if you don't know the right questions or the right people to ask. And you can't kill an enemy or track their location with a ritual spell unless you've got his hair or blood or whatever to work with.

[UmbraLux]

My concern is this. How do I keep the Wizard form solving every problem with Thaumaturgy?

Thaumaturgy has two limitations - a requirement for symbolic links and the amount of time it takes.  Symbolic links tend to be the bigger limitation, so don't lessen it or make acquiring links too easy.  You should also have bad guys working through intermediaries at least occasionally.  It makes for layers to work through even if you have symbolic links.

Need information, summon a demon and bargain for info, or summon a LOA? Looking for someone, tracking spell. etc.

When it comes to bargaining, there's a price to pay.  Emphasize it...and make sure there are consequences in game.  Give your name to a demon and he'll sell it to your enemies, give info on a friend and they end up hurt or dead, etc.

Tracking spells are going to be part of the game.  They help more than hurt in my opinion.  That said, they don't work at all without a symbolic link, they take time, usually need to be done on foot, and wards or other spells can interfere with or block the tracking.

[Sanctaphrax]

On another current thread, I posted the following bullet points for keeping wizards in line:

-Limit thaumaturgy somehow. Either use a homebrew fix or just exercise the GM's right to dictate how long a ritual takes. By the RAW a 200 shift ritual doesn't have to take longer than a 10 shift one, but you can and should change that. You don't even have to change the rules, you just have to use GM discretion the way Evil Hat seems to have assumed people would.

-Don't allow social/mental attacks with evocation, which is sort of a houserule and sort of RAW.

-Pretend Orbius does not exist. Just trust me on this one.

-Keep the weaknesses of wizards in mind. They can only cast a limited number of times per scene, they lack Speed and
Toughness, their skills are tied up in magical stuff. So they tend to have trouble in social scenes, very long fight scenes, and very short fight scenes.

-Encourage other players to optimize a bit. Wizards are sort of optimized by default, as long as they stick to one element and keep their casting skills high. Everything in the template is useful and it all fits well together. So to compete, other PCs should also have decent builds.

It sounds like the first bullet is what you're primarily concerned with, which makes sense because it's probably the most important.

In an ideal world, Thaumaturgy would be no better and no worse than solving your problems with other methods. In the world we live in, it's generally better unless the GM is quick with his fiat.

So you'll want to use that fiat to introduce actual time limitations on thaumaturgy. So that

You can't do a long ritual if the villain is going to blow up the city in two minutes from now.

which was clearly the intention and probably only not in the rules because the writers figured people would work it out for themselves.

Also, talk to your player and say you'd like the focus of the game not to be on rituals. This is not a game balance thing, it's just establishing the desired playstyle up front.

You really don't want to have a player who thinks he's playing Thaumaturgy: The RPG unless you actually are playing that.

(Which might be cool, actually. I'd be up for a game of Thaumaturgy: The RPG, even if I was not playing a wizard.)

[Richard_Chilton]

Remember that the Wizard has to be able to understand how the magic works - and not the player.  The player can say "I'll need this many steps for the prep work, a link, a magic circle, etc" but the PC has to be able to work the spell in to his understanding of magic.

Richard

[Cyberchihuahua]

My NYC Campaign is beginning to form up. Or at least the concepts are. My group is looking at another 6 months of the Pathfinder Campaign were in nwo, then my Dresden Game rolls in. Anyhow, here's what I'm looking at so far for characters by their High Concepts:
Prophisized "Angel" Daughter of Aphrodite (Yep, she's a halfblood Victoria's Secret Supermodel with a prophecy about her)
Veteran War Wizard Looking for a Cause (Player is angling for a wizard not happy with the Council's choices, looking for something to fight for other than just survival. My game is while the Vampire War is still going on)
Red Court Infected ex-CTU Agent (Sorta Jack Bauer as a Infected. Mercenary for hire now)
Clueless Scion of Tymora ('Luckiest' person on Earth. Drawbacks though. Using powers has a hunger track, where he must take the luck form those around them, ie putting an aspect of bad luck temporarily on someone, not always a PC, for each hunger box)
Only Daughter of the Leananshide (Need I say more?)

My concern is this. How do I keep the Wizard form solving every problem with Thaumaturgy? Need information, summon a demon and bargain for info, or summon a LOA? Looking for someone, tracking spell. etc.

Just looking for some advice here

Noticed this and thought I would mention...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112182/

[KOFFEYKID]

Wizards will excel at any sort of combat with "one big bad dude". They get to unleash their awesome all at one target, repeatedly.

They will fall behind in multicombatant scenarios. When there are say, seven, eight or nine targets pinging at the group he wont necessarily have the resources to take them all down by himself. It becomes very dangerous since he will be exposed to multiple attacks per attack he does. This means he'll have to expend resources on keeping himself alive and fighting the enemies.

This is where non-wizards can really shine. They aren't necessarily limited by a resource mechanic in the same way that a wizard is, so they can rather carelessly attack while the wizard will have to pick and choose his targets. This gives everybody nice spotlight time. (IE: A Bunch of 3 refresh nasties, if you have four players at refresh 10, thats 40 refresh for a nice challenge. 13 Opponents is a nice sized bout.)

When you do have to introduce a "Big Hulking Bad Brute Thing" into the mix, try to give it some "Pee Wee" support. You will want to organize the playing field in such a way that they aren't all in the same zone. (IE: The Ick and some Red Court Infected/Vamps as support.)

Do not be shy about limiting downtime. A wizard will recoup his resources between every scene, so sometimes an extended scene should be called for, a protracted fight makes wizards very very nervous. (IE: Chase scenes, where the group is fleeing something bad.)

You can "pre-challenge" the wizard before a knock down drag out fight as well, and this is a nice way to give the wizard a "moment" while also limiting his impact in the combat encounter. A mystical roadblock that only he can nullify means he will come into the fight a little tired to begin with. (IE: Opening a way into the nevernever before getting to the battlefield.)

Arranging things so that the wizard will have to deal with a threat while the other players deal with the combatants is another great way to make sure that everybody gets to shine. Perhaps the wizard has to perform a ritual "under fire" while the rest of the group defends him. (IE: He has to dismantle a spell in progress while the caster's mooks are opening fire on him and his companions)

Creatures which have an effect on the mental stress track are *absolutely terrifying* opponents for wizards. Suddenly the wizard is Defending himself from physical attack, attacking, and getting mentally attack all at the same time. That's three types of resource drain at once. This can be dangerous though since other character types are usually less robust in the mental defense area.

Environmental Hazards can play a big part in limiting a wizard's effectiveness as well. If your wizard is constantly throwing about fireballs then peppering the scene with highly flammable materials is a great way to discourage him from being brash. It is completely fair that if the wizard Nukes something so hard core that there are 3 or more shifts of fallout that that remaining energy does *something* bad to the scene (like setting the aforementioned flammable objects ablaze).

Purely mundane human opponents can also give a wizard pause. Lawbreaking is a big deal and that will limit his options dramatically. Give those same humans otherworldly support and they can easily become a viable threat even without the lawbreaking limitations. (IE: A Fae sorcerer gave them very effective glamour armor and weapons, or someone like Cowl is doing a Regeneration spell on them like the Ghouls in the Deeps in White Knight).