So... you like gimping your prepared casters? a cleric druid or wizard's pwoer comes from his versatility. If you have only ONE spell selection, you're losing so much of your character's potential it makes me want to weep. On archivists and wizards i will often purchase spells that i might never need, just in case, and put them on a predefined spell selection.
For exemple, last game with my archivist, we were running after some thieves, and they had some advance on us, i got the party to stop long enough for me to purchase some scrolls. I bought a longstrider scroll, and a wind at back scroll. We then quickly caught up with said thieves, although they finally eluded us (we'll get them yet).
But now, i have longstrider and wind at back for whenever we need to travel fast, until we get teleport .
And if you don't like the vancian spellcasting that much:
1- why are you commenting here like a WOTC salesman?
2- why are you still playing 3.5?
I think these whole boards are filled with people like phaedrusXY and me, who are mainl drawned by the complexity of it all, and thrive in such complex bookchecking.
Remember, homeworks are there to make you learn, and so is preparing your sheet in advance a lot of my D&D book searching experience is helping me today in my university studies, so it's never a bad thing
Perhaps you misread... everything in my post.
First off, I'm a player in the games I reference, not the GM. So even if I DID want to gimp the spellcasters (which makes no sense, so your accusation confuses the hell out of me) I couldn't.
I already knew that versatility was the advantage of prepared casters, and I have no problem with that. I've just hated D&D's casting system since D&D came out because of that spellbook nonsense. Mechanically speaking, the preparation system is weak, like it or not. Argue all you like, but good luck winning when the people who publish the game changed the system in their latest edition (which suggests the old system sucked for some reason). There are a dozen other ways to create flexibility (Some of which were presented in later books).
When I said
The characters who need a little extra preparation (i.e. prepared casters) tend to focus on powerful and universally effective spell selection as well as making feat and class selection that simplifies the process.
I was referring to the choices my fellow players make not anything forced on them by the GM. Try your hardest to make me a villain, read my posts any way you like, but it won't make them mean what you want them to.
And to answer your questions:
1- why are you commenting here like a WOTC salesman?
2- why are you still playing 3.5?
1. I'm commenting here because I like the site and like you and Phaedrus I'm fascinated by complexity. I just like different aspects of the system than your do, big deal. As for the unusual and out-of-place "WOTC salesman" comparison, fyi I'm an unemployed student and if it sounds to you like I have an agenda maybe you're paranoid. I do have opinions and ideas, just like everyone else, and if I feel like posting them on the internet I'm going to.
The guy who started this thread asked for help and I tried to give it to him while also attempting to explain his group's problems in a comprehensible light (Namely that the vancian system sucks and causes problems BECAUSE it sucks).
2. Because there are other classes and ways to play the game than wizard or cleric? Shocking I know, try not to have a heart attack, but it's true. Btw, I dipped cleric on my latest character.
Also, I hate homework and always will. However that's not up for debate (and it really shouldn't be)