Quote Originally Posted by Psyren View Post

So a party that lacks a full caster but still wants to participate if the adventure involves mystery-solving and planehopping = tough cookies, they made their choice;

But a party whose wizard (or worse, anything with fixed spells known) that loaded up on utility spells and therefore is practically down a member when it comes to combat = the DM who doesn't accommodate that choice runs bad campaigns and should feel bad.

Isn't there a bit of a double standard there?
I'm not entirely sure why you and Samurai feel this is a zero-sum game where a Wizard can be either 100% utility or 100% combat with no in-between.

Your average Wizard would have a mix of both. They might prepare Fireball, Haste, and Summon Monster for their combat spells, and Knock, Spider Climb, and Speak With Dead as their utility spells.

If the circumstances where the three utility spells would come up make them completely useless, again, your campaign sucks. There is nothing more frustrating than being in an ancient ruin or whatever, casting Speak With Dead, and watching the GM fumble simple questions like "Who are you?" and "What happened here?" because they didn't actually plan any explanations for those two things AT ALL and have zero improv skills to bull**** an answer. You've gotta at least have one of the two as a GM, and preferably both.

If you're too lazy to accommodate utility spells, at least have the courtesy of being upfront and banning them so I don't spend a 3rd level spell slot for you to say "This guy knows nothing" about literally any question.