# How is the Wizard vs Warrior Balance Problem Handled in Fantasy Literature?



## Iota

A lot of people agree that D&D has historically heavily favored spellcasters after about a third of the way thru leveling and the classes were drastically unbalanced at the endgame.  I'm trying to brainstorm an approach to correcting this inbalance in a way that maybe makes more sense than the 4e "make everyone a Vancian caster" approach.  So, I'm thinking of look at fantasy source material: the novels and epic tales that inspired fantasy roleplaying games in the first place.

So, since I don't have the time to read all  the great fantasy literature in one setting, I thought I'd ask everyone here:  

*How have you seen warior characters in fantasy books overcome spellcasters?*

I recently read a Conan story where Conan's encounter with a wizard was a bit anticlimatic - he just threw a dagger at him and killed him in one shot while the wizard was trying to cast a spell.  So, in that case, spellcasting probably took more than the typical "Standard Action" and the wizard had *very* low Hit Points and no protective magic in place (even though he was anticipating the encounter).


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## Stormonu

vulnerability and rarity tends to do it.

The typical wizard is a greybeard whose spent most of his life studying musty old tomes (I don't remember "young" wizards coming along until the introduction of Raistlin, really - I mean, the starting age for a wizard in 1E was about 55 years old).  This, and other factors tend to present wizards as frail.

Also, characters such as Conan may face hundreds of warriors in a given story, but likely only face one wizard in that same story.  Wizards seem to be like ninjas; if you face one, they're a badass - if its a cabal, they die cheap (and are rarely ppowerful).


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## (Psi)SeveredHead

That's a bit of a pet peeve of mine.



Iota said:


> A lot of people agree that D&D has historically heavily favored spellcasters after about a third of the way thru leveling and the classes we drastically unbalanced at the endgame.  I'm trying to brainstorm an approach to correcting this inbalance in a way that maybe makes more sense than the 4e "make everyone a Vancian caster" approach.  So, I'm thinking of look at fantasy source material: the novels and epic tales that inspired fantasy roleplaying games in the first place.
> 
> So, since I don't have the time to read all  the great fantasy literature in one setting, I thought I'd ask everyone here:
> 
> *How have you seen warior characters in fantasy books overcome spellcasters?*
> 
> I recently read a Conan story where Conan's encounter with a wizard was a bit anticlimatic - he just threw a dagger at him and killed him in one shot while the wizard was trying to cast a spell.  So, in that case, spellcasting probably took more than the typical "Standard Action" and the wizard had *very* low Hit Points and no protective magic in place (even though he was anticipating the encounter).




Usually the problem isn't dealt with. Lots of fantasy novels have really bad writing this way.

Wizards usually come in two flavors: very weak, and very strong.

I'll use the Warcraft novel series as an example, but this applies to nearly any fantasy literature you care to read.

Very weak wizards can maybe toss three magic darts a day. For instance, in The Last Guardian, Khadgar could just barely pull that off. When he and "warrior" (assassin) Garona went wandering, she had to do all the work. Khadgar once managed to bluff an orc shaman or warlock with his weak tricks (his opponent was similarly pathetic). I don't even remember how effective his magic dart was, but since he never killed anything with it, I think not. He did manage to kill one opponent... with a sword.

Very strong wizards can cast one powerful spell a day, and their allies get frustrated with their inability to not pull their weight the rest of the day.

In Tides of Darkness, Khadgar summoned a powerful storm when his army was facing an orc army. Sure, it was effective, but when more orcs came, he was "tapped out". (Seriously, using all his mana at once?)

In one of the Warcraft comics, a mage was taking his time casting a spell. When his allies complained, he pointed out (correctly) that it takes a lot of energy to pull lightning out of a cloudless sky. (He did, in fact, kill a lot of enemies.) None of his allies pointed out that he could have cast spells that actually made sense in that situation!

In a recent non-Chosen (thank heavens!) novel I read by Ed Greenwood, the heroes were an adventuring party of five or six. They had a mage who probably only cast four spells over four hundred pages. Making matters worse, I swear the book only took place over two adventuring days, so the mage could only recharge once, and despite casting mid-level spells seemed to have only three or four spell slots.

And in the first book of the Kingless Land series, Greenwood's female mage, while seemingly quite powerful, was found and recruited by the other heroes while low on magic and *never got to recharge*. I think the one time she actually got some rest, she got drunk, laid, or both. Whatever she was doing, it wasn't restful sleep.

This is the author who writes Chosen novels, like Elminster in Myth Drannor, where some of the combat scenes were actually _really_ cool to read, but you knew Elminster would always overpower his opponent. Guess he couldn't adapt to either side of the scale. But then, he's not alone.

In a  non-Greenwood novel I read (I don't even recall if it was FR or Eberron) one of the villains was a wizard, but _not_ a combat mage. Apparently he didn't have the Concentration skill. Fair enough. However, that doesn't excuse not going inside his house before casting Teleport to escape. He tried to cast it twice, and each time took an arrow which spoiled his spellcasting. (The wizard was fairly intelligent; the obvious tactical advantages of cover shouldn't have escaped him.) I could go on. And on. And on. And kind of did, actually.

So in short, even powerful wizards seem to get nerfed in fantasy. The powerful ones just act stupidly. There are very few, if any, moderately-powered wizards.

I wonder how much influence Gandalf has. Even today there are DMs who don't want wizards to cast spells often for fear of being attacked by "dark things". So Gandalf generally use only weak magic, but sometimes could really dish it out. (No, he didn't summon the wave at Rivendell, he just touched it up.) He was more of a ritual-using heroic sage, really.

A counter-example or two, both from anime: Record of Lodoss War, which is actually based on a DnD campaign. The wizard and cleric both cast spells frequently, and neither totally rock their opponents either... and Slayers, where wizards cast *very* powerful spells very frequently. (In fact, other than "boss battles", no battle is any real challenge since Lina's fireballs are strong enough to destroy clock towers.)


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## Sepulchrave II

Usually:

Warrior = Protagonist

Wizard = Plot Device

So balance isn't really an issue. I think D&D stories are more a sub-genre of the game than "fantasy literature" _per se_, so they have their own rules.


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## Mark CMG

In genre fiction most main characters are archetypes and most other characters are plot devices, and plot devices do as they're told by the author.


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## Wereserpent

I have noticed that even in various novels based on DnD settings, magic users tend to either simply not be present as a main character, or only ever cast very weak spells (Level three spells at the highest, this is in 3.X terms).

Even Raistlin did not do much other than ping enemies with magic missiles and cast a fireball or two. He did cast the time travel spell, which is Ninth level, but he does not often use powerful offensive magic. Although, to be fair, Raistlin usually seems to prefer being subtle unless he has no choice.


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## Dannyalcatraz

Ways I've seen:


Powerful magic is slow, requiring some kind of ritual
There is no such thing as combat/offensive magic
Magic requires mana, which is not a resource anyone has personally in any abundance, so it must be gathered to cast a spell, which takes time and effort...and no mana = no spells
Element of surprise
Magic has limited or no effect on certain materials
Certain substances or rituals can make a person temporarily or permanently incapable of casting magic
Powerful magic is exceedingly rare
Spellcasting is not dependable
Offensive/direct magic requires a "truname" or some physical token of the person targeted
Magic only affects inanimate objects directly
Spellcasters must have their concentration or power reserves overtaxed
Spellcasting requires a focus- amulet, orb, wand, staff, totem, etc.- that, if removed from the caster's control, renders them powerless.
And so forth.


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## Mark CMG

Sepulchrave II said:


> Warrior = Protagonist
> 
> Wizard = Plot Device
> 
> 
> .





Ninja'd inside a minute! 


(Damn, "You have given out too much XP in the past 24 hour . . .")


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## Dannyalcatraz

Sepulchrave II said:


> Usually:
> 
> Warrior = Protagonist
> 
> Wizard = Plot Device




One of the best reversals of this is found in Larry Niven's "Magic Goes Away" stories.

(Which, FWIW, is an example of #3.)


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## Mercurius

I was dabbling with a 4E house rule for this but, like most of my house rule ideas, it never got past the idea phase (here's a thread I started on it). 

First, let me get something clear: wizards SHOULD be more powerful, imo. Otherwise, what's the point? But with that power should come some kind of vulnerability or a special quality for non-spellcasters. 

In the thread above I posited that spellcasters should be more powerful, but non-spellcasters should be able to twist the threads of fate in some way. Let's say that one of the costs for being a wizard (arcane) or cleric (divine) is that you essentially swap your fate/luck/karma for power. 

So while I like the fact that all 4E classes have a lot of options I think something has been lost when a high level wizard is no more powerful than a high level fighter or rogue. Or rather, I think the _type _of power they have should be better differentiated so that the net effect isn't essentially the same, as it is in 4E (e.g. all strikers are basically the same, just with different fluff).

In terms of story, I think the difference boils down to the Heroic Act. Spellcasters wield raw power - they cast bolts of lightning or divine strikes from above to devastating effect, or they use their magic to strange and powerful effects or healings. But they don't, or rarely, make a Heroic Act - which is exemplified by Conan tossing that dagger, or Drizzt his scimitar at the ceiling to kill Icingdeath (if I remember correctly). The stuff of legend, in other words.


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## pawsplay

In People of the Black Circle, Conan basically intimidates a 5th level Wizard, who decides he is done being evil and runs off with a woman instead. Then he lucks into a Belt of Spell Resistance, foils one critical spell penetration check, and smacks the wizard down with a couple of sword strokes. 

In the Lankhmar stories, the Grey Mouser is more of a magic-user thief. Given time, he can whip up some decent battlefield control spells and some utility magics, but avoids using magic, since he knows he doesn't have the discipline for it (and thus risks both moral peril and losing control of his poorly orchestrated magics). Elric is immensely powerful, but knows spells almost entirely of a conjuration (summoning) nature. In Dragonslayer, magic can slay a dragon or raise the dead, but is no parlour trick and requires great preparation; even in a lifetime the most powerful mages would be lucky to cast more than about two 9th level spells.


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## Christian

There are certainly some authors who take the wizards seriously. I'm in the midst of re-reading Jordan's _Wheel of Time_ series, and I can't help but notice the even the weaker Aes Sedai (who have all sworn oaths not to use magic as a weapon except in defense of their lives) tend to be pretty much invincible to non-magical characters, unless taken totally by surprise or massively outnumbered.

And even being massively outnumbered doesn't necessarily help against spellcasters who aren't under those restrictions. "Ash'aman: Kill!" (For those who haven't managed to wade that far into this mountain of books, that was the order given by the leader of another group of casters, who obediently responded by basically _disintegrating an army_. )


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## Olgar Shiverstone

Galeros said:


> I have noticed that even in various novels based on DnD settings, magic users tend to either simply not be present as a main character, or only ever cast very weak spells (Level three spells at the highest, this is in 3.X terms).




Hey, even Gandalf was a fifth-level magic-user.


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## Dannyalcatraz

Sounds like you'd seriously need the element of surprise to take down one of those guys.


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## pawsplay

Olgar Shiverstone said:


> Hey, even Gandalf was a fifth-level magic-user.




... who soloed a Balor.


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## Dannyalcatraz

> ... who soloed a Balor.




It had Bird Flu.


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## RangerWickett

Drizzt blinded the dragon with darkness covered arrows. Wulfgar killed it with a hammer to an icicle.


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## Dannyalcatraz

RangerWickett said:


> Drizzt blinded the dragon with darkness covered arrows. Wulfgar killed it with a hammer to an icicle.




"Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra"


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## RangerWickett

By contrast, in Harry Potter everyone can fling spells pretty easily, though most of them aren't as dangerous as a simple gun would be. For those willing to be evil, though, there's apparently no drawback to just flinging death spells willy-nilly.

In Brandon Sanderson's "Mistborn" series, you get magic basically through internal alchemy -- swallow some tin, and you can 'burn' it to get mana to enhance your senses. Different metals provide different powers. All you're limited by is how much metal you're able to get your hands on, and your skill. (Oh, and you have to have the right bloodline to do any of this.)

In a novel I never managed to get published, magic required you to acquire and control magical energy, and it was mentally taxing, but if you had a wild enough power source you could theoretically use magic all day long. It was 'balanced' in that usually manifesting a spell took a few seconds, which would be long enough for a guy to run up to you and chop you in half.


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## Particle_Man

In Jonathan Strange and M. Norrell magic is very powerful but subject to social control.  But that depends on having a society like that (and in a game on having PCs like that).


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## Hussar

Ranger Wickett beat me to it.  Harry Potter is a very good example.  There is no balance.  Warriors (re Muggles) are flat out outclassed by wizards in all possible ways.  Wizards rule the world to the point where the wizards are telling the Prime Minister of England what to do.

A lot of the Urban Fantasy stuff tends to deal with this a bit better than perhaps traditional fantasy.  But, like Harry Potter, many of the Urban Fantasy protagonists are wizards of one sort or another.  

Essentially it's handled in the same way that you have Batman in the Justice League.  Batman's power is unlimited wealth.    For some reason, the guys that can stand toe to toe with Superman just never take the time to squash Bats like a bug.  The advantages of having a writer protecting you.


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## Dannyalcatraz

Another one:  someone's magical talent may or may not be powerful, but it is always _highly_ specialized.


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## Tuft

IMHO, fantasy literature handles it by simply *not* being reduced to merely "killing things and taking their stuff". Combat is used now and then as plot points, but it is rarely the main theme in the stories.

Just watched some of the "Oh my Goddess" anime and read some of the manga. There you have three goddesses (who can summon one just as powerful angel each), and a guy that is good at riding motorbikes and his friends. Now, does anyone else get reminded about a certain overused and rather trite strawman video? How does this story handle it? By not being about fighting. There are fights, true - some plain motorcycle races, some earth-shaking power battles - but when it comes down to it, it's all about moral choices; recognizing the right thing to do, and having the strength of will to do it.   

"Harry Potter" was mentioned. I've not read them all, but to me they are more about learning than fighting. It's about describing the day-to-day life at the magic school, inter-pupil intrigues, and the basic, surprisingly mundane, legwork in discovering this volume's dark secret. 

In the "Belgariad", we have a wizard protagonist with two wizardly advisors, accompanied by a bodyguard party of various archetypes (the Knight, the Viking, the Thief, the Bratty Princess...), traveling across the world in order to fulfill an (unbearably chatty and annoying) prophecy.  It's all about discovery - discovering the world, discovering the history, and the protagonist discovering his powers. When various challenges appear, one person that is amazingly uniquely suited to handle that one steps up and handles it, and it is seldom the protagonist.) And that suitability is just as likely to be because of that character's connections or place in the world, as it is about pure power. 

Another anime/manga combo I've recently watched/read is "To Love-Ru". There you have a cast of half amazing aliens (a genius galactic empire princess who can invent incredible things, an assassin that can turn any part of her body into a weapon T2000 style) and half regular students... and the plot works by concentrating on mundane, everyday challenges (and your regular ecchi moments). You have fight scenes now and then as foils to highlight the various persons, but they are not the main thrust of the story. The "Tenchi Muyo" anime is similar, but has a larger percentage of cosmic-scale battles. 

In the "Dresden Files" book series we have a wizard protagonist who fancies himself a hard-boiled detective. He is surrounded by allies both mundane and fantastic, who usually joins him for his battles. The battles are rather frequent, but still the major plot is about the uncovering of the mystery, not the battles as such. It has had an interesting development - in the beginning the Protagonist was rather condescending and not informing his mundane allies "for their own good", but those very persons have pulled more and more weight as the series has progressed. 

In Glen Cook's "Garret" series we have another hard-boiled detective in a fantasy setting. Here the protagonist is mundane, but has a very peculiar ally - a genius mind-reader telekinetic undead fey elephant man. It handles it by nicking the whole setup from Rex Stout's "Nero Wolfe" mysteries: the legman and the amazing armchair detective. 

In the "Zero no Tsukaima" ("Zero's familiar") anime we have a mundane protagonist dropped into a Harry Potter-like magical school, and bonded to a bumbling mage as the only human familiar in that school's history. It's a world where magic talent is a requirement for being nobility, and basically mages rule the world. The protagonist is given an  instant crash-course in fighting Matrix-style (You know, "wow, I know kung-fu") due to his bond, but he fights mundane style, and does that victoriously du to being both faster and more durable than the mage opponents. A musketeer-style "Queen's Guard" are similarly mundanely bad-ass. But, as in the other examples, the fighting is not the main point; world discovery, evolving inter-person relations, gathering allies, and uncovering conspiracies and mysteries are instead.

I think I can go on and on forever - I love books/anime/manga with fantastical and/or magical protagonists - but I'm afraid I'll turn this into a TL;DR, so I better stop...


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## samursus

For a good representation of 4e magic in fiction check out the IDW D&D comics... this is also how I prefer it.

Being heavily into fantasy lit for around 30 years I have read and enjoyed many of the authors and series you have all mentioned.  Despite the fact that the literature almost always portrays magic/magic users as more powerful than non, you must remember that D&D is a co-operative experience.  

Magic is generally portrayed in lit as all-powerful for 2 reasons. Either to make the protagonist special (Riftwar, Earthsea, Recluce, Thomas Covenant) or provide an epic foil for the protagonist(s) to overcome (LotR, Black Company).

In the first instance, to provide the "fantasy protagonist" experience, everyone would need to be magic-users.  In the second, no one should be (or if they are, balanced in power with the rest of the group).

Reading fantasy literature is a solo experience.  Its passive and can't truly be shared.  Every person reads a book through their own personal filters... and the plots and such are constructed in such a way as to project the reader into the role of the protagonist (generally).

D&D is a (generally) cooperative *game*.  Even with intense RP and a Storytelling/Narrative component, it is still a cooperative process.

I understand some groups say they  like the imbalance, but I suspect, deep down, everyone would like to feel equally as useful to the group.  And thats why I prefer a magic=martial=whatever.  If I wanted to play a magic is all powerful genre, I would either have all PC's be magic, or none of them.

Just my opinion and YMMV etc.


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## pemerton

Hussar said:


> Ranger Wickett beat me to it.  Harry Potter is a very good example.  There is no balance.



I don't know Harry Potter, but the Wizard of Earthsea provides an interesting variant on this.

Earthsea wizards are extremely powerful magical generalists. Sparrohawk, as a newly-minted sorceror, is able to take down multiple young dragons in a very short space of time by binding their wings with his magic (a literary example, by the way, of dragon minions). As well as this pretty good battle magic he can summon the weather, transform into a bird, hold a boat together by magic, suppress the power of evil spirits, etc. At least a mid-to-high level AD&D spell user (but without fireball or disintegrate).

However, for various reasons that are a bit obscure in the original trilogy, but are introduced with a degree of retconning in the very different fourth book (Tehanu?), wizards have a very limited worldly role and hence only exercise limited worldly power.

So a game modelled on Earthsea might work well if something like HeroWars/Quest was used as the system - wizards would be low on relationships, whereas warriors (who in Earthsea would be heroic nobles like the prince in the third book) would have lots of relationships and similar worldly connections on which to draw. Part of a warrior's strength would be his/her embeddedness in the community.

On the other hand, in a game modelled heavily on personal action-adventure heroism (like D&D), and hence in which the community tends to be a backdrop rather than a central feature of the situation, then I don't think Earthsea would work. You'd have to go to something like Conan, using metagame mechanics (in the form of AD&D hit points, or 4e powers, or whatever . . .) to achieve balance.

Which takes me to:



Mercurius said:


> I posited that spellcasters should be more powerful, but non-spellcasters should be able to twist the threads of fate in some way.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> In terms of story, I think the difference boils down to the Heroic Act. Spellcasters wield raw power - they cast bolts of lightning or divine strikes from above to devastating effect, or they use their magic to strange and powerful effects or healings. But they don't, or rarely, make a Heroic Act - which is exemplified by Conan tossing that dagger



Arguably, this _is_ the 4e approach - arcane PCs use powers that are more-or-less simulationist or "fiction first" in interpretation (ie the mechanical features of the power is a model of the ingame command of arcane forces) whereas martial PCs use powers that have a heavy metagame or "rules first" aspect (ie the mechanical features of the power are not just a model of the ingame sword stroke or dagger throw, but also of there occuring a constellation of luck, heroism etc that means taht the sword stroke or dagger throw is a crucially telling one).



Mercurius said:


> all strikers are basically the same, just with different fluff



Not my experience (eg elf ranger plays differently from half elf feylock plays differently from drow sorcerer). YMMV, and apparently does.


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## pemerton

Tuft said:


> IMHO, fantasy literature handles it by simply *not* being reduced to merely "killing things and taking their stuff".



This sums up well my point about Earthsea.


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## Dannyalcatraz

> I understand some groups say they like the imbalance, but I suspect, deep down, everyone would like to feel equally as useful to the group.




1) You really shouldn't project your feelings about the game to others

2) "Usefulness" is subjective.

3) Some people want to play a particular PC concept within a campaign world, whether or not others deem that PC "useful."


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## Dannyalcatraz

Just what I said: unless you surprise such a powerful spellcaster, you are highly unlikely to defeat him.  IOW, you essentially virtually need to defeat him before he realizes he's being attacked to stand a chance of succeeding.


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## Orius

The thing is that books don't have to worry about the balance problem at all. 

As others have said, magic is a plot device and can be as powerful as the plot dictates. 

Second, a book isn't running a game, so it doesn't need to worry about balance.  It doesn't need to be concerned about how useful the wizard and warrior are to the party respectively.  It doesn't even need to have a party, it can just do the equivalent of solo adventures, since you don't have to have a role for every player at the table.  It doesn't need to balance out combat so the wizard doesn't get one-shotted all the time or be nigh-unstoppable.

The reason that the balance issues exist in D&D and some extent video games is that some of the tropes common to magic in stories doesn't always make for a fun gaming experience.


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## Thanael

Galeros said:


> I have noticed that even in various novels based on DnD settings, magic users tend to either simply not be present as a main character, or only ever cast very weak spells (Level three spells at the highest, this is in 3.X terms).
> 
> Even Raistlin did not do much other than ping enemies with magic missiles and cast a fireball or two. He did cast the time travel spell, which is Ninth level, but he does not often use powerful offensive magic. Although, to be fair, Raistlin usually seems to prefer being subtle unless he has no choice.




Well there are various D&D novels that do it better. Annihilation for example is almost entirely about a wizard duel between two high level drow wizards with no punches pulled.


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## Mishihari Lord

I really like Glen Cook's the _Black Company_ for its take on magic.  Some mages are really strong, frex the Taken are practically demigods.  However they can be taken by surprise like anyone else.  In the first book Croaker and Raven take down a Taken and a near equivalent with surprise and some slightly enchanted arrows.  In _Shadows Linger_ a group of fighters destroy the Limper and his escort just by pulling off a decent ambush.  On the other hand Goblin and One-Eye are very weak magicians, but by using intelligent tactics in conjunction with the fighters they're highly effective.

I think magic _should_ be really strong, otherwise what's the point?  If it's no more effective than mundane tactics, there's no reason to use it.

I also like the Belgariad's limitations.  Sorcery is really strong, but you do get tired eventually, which makes you very vulnerable.  So hiding from that army rather than roasting them is smart because there might be another one on the other side of the hill.  Also, sorcery makes "noise" detectable by other sorcerers, so if your enemies are numerous they can dogpile you if you use too much flashy magic to overcome an obstacle.


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## Jhaelen

Iota said:


> *How have you seen warior characters in fantasy books overcome spellcasters?*



Sure. In  Vanilla Fantasy Literature the imbalance is not a problem but a boon: The Warrior protagonist succeeds against all odds in defeating the almighty Wizard. Usually makes a dramatic and exciting story.

It wouldn't be a problem in rpgs either - if all wizards were npcs 

Of course the imho better solution is to not have almighty wizards in the first place. _OR_ use different tacks to balance them using politics, religion, etc. (aka the Ars Magica approach).


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## Hautamaki

It's very rare that wizards and warriors are 'balanced' in fantasy ime.  Some of the series I've read:

Wheel of Time: Casters completely run this world; non-caster characters are given things to do of course, but in actuality all non-caster characters are completely at the mercy of casters.  One non-caster even gets a 'wish'--he uses it to 'be free of [magic users]' and he gets a medallion which absorbs magic.  He thinks he's safe now and gets a little cocky with magic users in his party; so they use magic to drop turds on his head and tell him next time it could be a boulder or a house.  His medallion is useless after all lol.  A single decent magic user is worth at least 100 good warriors.

Song of Ice and Fire: supremely low-magic world which IMO is one of the main reasons it's considered 'better' than WoT (if the author ever finishes it that is).  To date there is only 2 magic users in the world that we know of (a priest of priestess of a strange foreign god), and one of them has the power to kill literally anyone at any time; the other has the power to resurrect the dead; even beheaded people.  Obviously these are two of the most dangerous and powerful characters, but since their competition are kings, lords, and other individuals with literally thousands under their command, it's about even I guess.

Sword of Truth: Magic owns, period.  Almost every plotline revolves around the power of the few spellcasters of the world.

Malazan Book of the Fallen: Perhaps the closest to being 'balanced' of any of the series, and also perhaps my favourite of the lot.  Magic users are fairly common (maybe 20-30 in an army of 5,000) but most would be considered low-level and are roughly even with a soldier in a fair fight (and considering how common and dangerous crossbows are they'd probably mostly just get shot and killed that way) but even low level magic users are highly valuable because of the greater tactical options they bring to a unit, and also of course because of healing magic.  

High level magic users (an army might have 1 or 2) can take out hundreds or even thousands of enemy troops (at one point a high-magic race takes out a whole empire with basically their magic users only after gaining the power of a dark god) but often times high level magic users from the other side will cancel them out.  On an individual level, very high level warrior-types have massive spell resistance and oftentimes seem to be able to power through or 'make their saves' against high level magic, making them very dangerous even to high level magic users.


The trend I've noticed though in fiction is that even high level fictional casters are not as potentially powerful as 3.x casters.  Fictional magic users may often have very powerful evocation type magic--fireballs, lightning bolts, clouds of acid, earthquake type stuff, etc) but even the most powerful fictional magic users don't usually have the kind of 'game breaking' spells that D&D magic users can get.  Things like wish, polymorph, time travel, resurrection, etc.  Characters that DO have them are generally only, as has been said, plot points.  Usage of that kind of spell is not mundane, but may happen only once in a whole book, and become a central plot point the whole story revolves around.

So in the final analysis, giving PCs access to that kind of magic seems a little 'broken' or at least not fun imo.  Not even the greatest fantasy writers seem to be able to make stories work if magic users are as omnipotent as they can be in D&D, so it seems a little much to expect your average DM to be able to pull it off.


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## (Psi)SeveredHead

Heroes, a counter-example:

In Heroes, many powered characters have aiblities that aren't as powerful as a gun. Mrs. Petrelli's father had a "concussion blast" ability that could knock someone over. He used it to slam someone at range to the ground. His friend then shot and killed the guy.

However, most Heroes characters can just keep using their power with little to no limit. This makes the really powerful ones like Sylar unstoppable. He's not going to stop using telekinesis.

Even powerful ones (not Sylar, but those just below him on the scale) can be taken down by a few normals using either numbers, surprise, tactics or all three. An entire chapter of the show had a bunch of normals doing just that to _capture_ powered people.


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## Erekose

samursus said:


> D&D is a (generally) cooperative *game*.  Even with intense RP and a Storytelling/Narrative component, it is still a cooperative process.
> 
> I understand some groups say they  like the imbalance, but I suspect, deep down, everyone would like to feel equally as useful to the group.  And thats why I prefer a magic=martial=whatever.  If I wanted to play a magic is all powerful genre, I would either have all PC's be magic, or none of them.






Dannyalcatraz said:


> 1) You really shouldn't project your feelings about the game to others
> 
> 2) "Usefulness" is subjective.
> 
> 3) Some people want to play a particular PC concept within a campaign world, whether IR not others deem that PC "useful."




Somewhat weirdly I think I agree with both posts but it is entirely dependent on what the group perceives balance to be.

One of the things that was argued balanced the classes in OD&D/1E was that magic-users were _very_ weak at early levels which balanced their dominance at later levels.

In my experience, it's about ability to do something useful in the gaming session. Players tend to be quite happy to either play or play with a wizard character who dominates when he casts his spells but these are a scarce resource that means that once they've gone they have to play more of a backseat role (at least in combat), which in a sense plays the advisor archetype of a wizard.

Balance over a gaming session (or an "in game" day) is clearly quite different from balance over an encounter (whether combat or not). I think at least some player are happy with the former and have issues with the latter as it gives a "vanilla" feel to classes.


----------



## Zhaleskra

RangerWickett said:


> By contrast, in Harry Potter everyone can fling spells pretty easily, though most of them aren't as dangerous as a simple gun would be. For those willing to be evil, though, there's apparently no drawback to just flinging death spells willy-nilly.




Harry Potter spells, weak as they are, are still overpowered. The only "saves" are counterspelling, getting out of the way, or putting something physical in the path of the spell (Fridge Logic on how physical items can stop a spell when another spell can't). Yes, someone can force you to make a Concentration check too. The downside to the Unforgivable Curses is that you have to really, really, mean them to get them to work properly.

Then there are the various levels of "bad stuff" spells. Curse, of course, being the highest level. Hex is probably the middle, with Jinx being the lowest level of bad stuff.


----------



## Bluenose

Mishihari Lord said:


> I think magic _should_ be really strong, otherwise what's the point? If it's no more effective than mundane tactics, there's no reason to use it.




Swap the words magic and mundane around in that sentence. Does your argument lose it's force? If not, then you're got a perfectly reasonable argument for making magic users and 'mundane' characters balanced in terms of power.



Hautamaki said:


> It's very rare that wizards and warriors are 'balanced' in fantasy ime. The trend I've noticed though in fiction is that even high level fictional casters are not as potentially powerful as 3.x casters. Fictional magic users may often have very powerful evocation type magic--fireballs, lightning bolts, clouds of acid, earthquake type stuff, etc) but even the most powerful fictional magic users don't usually have the kind of 'game breaking' spells that D&D magic users can get. Things like wish, polymorph, time travel, resurrection, etc. Characters that DO have them are generally only, as has been said, plot points. Usage of that kind of spell is not mundane, but may happen only once in a whole book, and become a central plot point the whole story revolves around.
> 
> So in the final analysis, giving PCs access to that kind of magic seems a little 'broken' or at least not fun imo. Not even the greatest fantasy writers seem to be able to make stories work if magic users are as omnipotent as they can be in D&D, so it seems a little much to expect your average DM to be able to pull it off.




Fictional magic users rarely have the versatility of D&D wizards, either. There are a few who can polymorph (Aneirin, arguably a bard, is one), there are others with unusual powers. Generally though these are their personal special magics, and they use those regularly, and they don't have a huge range of other abilities. Specialist Wizards, basically, with a bit of divination and abjuration, plus whatever their particular shtick is. 

One of the common balancing factors in fiction is that often magic users have to be born with the power, and that's rare. Not as common as having a wild psionic talent in AD&D. If it's that rare and unusual, any sort of magic is going to seem powerful, even if it doesn't do much more than a crossbow. Spiderman has some nifty abilities, which make him a superhero, but they're fixed and not really enormously more powerful than things a normal person could do with appropriate equipment.

Another one is cost. If casting powerful magic wrecks your health, then people can't cast it regularly and will be cautious about doing so. Perhaps there are exceptionally expensive components involved or you need a virgin sacrifice, for the most powerful spells. Or a pact involving the sacrifice of your soul. Pay the price, get the powerful magic. You just can't do it too often.


----------



## dogoftheunderworld

Looking at Greek mythology, most of the heroes were fighters.  They didn't fight magic users per se, but a lot of magical and powerful creatures ... as well as the gods themselves (indirectly at least).  Even though they often had cohorts to help them, it usually came down to the 

1. the hero outlasting (HP/Fort saves) the bad guys
2. the hero winning via brute force/skill (STR, Weapon focus, tactics, etc)
3. Special equipment (shield from the gods, helmet of invisibility, etc)

Similar to how fighters are "balanced" in D&D.  

Even against high level wizards, I can see a fighter using the above to win.  (At least in a novel/fiction were he can always roll a 20 when needed  )


----------



## Umbran

Sepulchrave II said:


> Warrior = Protagonist
> 
> Wizard = Plot Device




Quite.

More specifically, "balance" is more fully "game balance", typically the game-mechanic balance between PCs, so that everyone playing can do cool stuff.  Power imbalance is an issue that often leads to dissatisfied players, as Joe the Powerful does all the cool things, and leaves Squeaky the Sidekick cooling his heels doing nothing important.  Squeaky's player is apt to get bored, and that can be a problem for a game.

In a work of fiction, you don't need to balance among players, because there aren't any players.  You can have massive disparity in character power levels, and not blink an eye in fiction.


----------



## Diamond Cross

Hmmm... we can include a discussion of Doctor Strange. He's the most powerful wizard in the entire Marvel universe and does go up against cosmic entities such as Dormamu and Death and Eternity.

But even he can be taken down by a group of normals. And has been.

But he can cast such spells that can wipe the memory of every single person on the face of this planet.

But he can also be taken down by a group of nromals.

As the plot demands.


----------



## Patryn of Elvenshae

dogoftheunderworld said:


> Looking at Greek mythology, most of the heroes were fighters.




I think you mean "demigods / Chosen of [X]es."

I mean, Hercules and Odysseus and Achilles weren't standard D&D fighters. They were D&D Fighters with Divine Ranks or with special oversight from specific gods / goddesses - or, in other words, they were just as magical as the wizards; they just more martial about it.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Diamond Cross said:


> Hmmm... we can include a discussion of Doctor Strange. He's the most powerful wizard in the entire Marvel universe and does go up against cosmic entities such as Dormamu and Death and Eternity.
> 
> But even he can be taken down by a group of normals. And has been.
> 
> But he can cast such spells that can wipe the memory of every single person on the face of this planet.
> 
> But he can also be taken down by a group of nromals.
> 
> As the plot demands.




Most comic book über mages are like that- capable of casting god-smacking spells, but if distracted, just as vulnerable to a sniper's round or a knife through the ribs as anyone else.

And part of that is that they can only sustain so many magics for so long.  Their spells have durations, and either collapse quickly or degrade over time, so must be "maintained" and "monitored"...and despite their immense power, they simply can't do or remember to do or don't have time to do everything they need to do to remain maximally protected.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

Hussar said:


> Essentially it's handled in the same way that you have Batman in the Justice League.  Batman's power is unlimited wealth.



No, Batman's power is his preparedness.  In M&M terms, Batman with absolutely no gadgets or wealth loses very little in Power Level (the measure of capability in M&M).



> For some reason, the guys that can stand toe to toe with Superman just never take the time to squash Bats like a bug.



To be fair, Darkseid recently killed Batman.  (He got better, but it took a long time.)  In general, villains on the level of Superman don't bother with Batman, either because Batman-as-a-solo keeps himself busy with less cosmically powerful foes and plots or because when Batman is with the League, well, the BBEGs are (understandably so) occupied with the big hitters like Superman, Green Lantern, and Martian Manhunter.  (BTW, I don't read DC team books, so those names are likely out of date for the current roster.  Just examples.)



> The advantages of having a writer protecting you.



This is true, of course, but good writers -- as opposed to hack writers -- work pretty hard at, and do a decent job, explaining things like "How in the world can Superman and Batman be considered peers?  By anybody?"

One of my favorite examples of this was a story in which Superman "offered" to clean up Gotham, since Batman seemed to be incapable of doing so.  The resulting chaos -- which of course Batman anticipated -- was far worse than the Sysiphean status quo Batman maintained, and Superman had to _mea culpa_.  Another example was in the excellent "Hush" arc, when Poison Ivy controlled Superman, and Batman only survived (barely) and broke her hold over him because he had been thinking twenty possibilities ahead.


----------



## Barastrondo

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Most comic book über mages are like that- capable of casting god-smacking spells, but if distracted, just as vulnerable to a sniper's round or a knife through the ribs as anyone else.




Most comic book _characters_ are like that. It's like professional wrestling: a character may be able to outmatch a Herald of Galactus at one point, be beat up by the Kangaroo the next. It all depends on who the writer is trying to establish as a badass: the character, or the guy that the character's going to be beaten by in order to make that guy look good.

Game balance is essentially something that people start looking hard at when one class starts acting like Hulk Hogan and refusing to put any other class over. It's a good time to be a Saveorsuckamaniac when the guy with the spray-on-tan and elaborate mustache starts talking about how his eighteen-foot summoned celestial pythons are gonna run wild on you, brotha. But sometimes that belt's gotta have a decent chance of changing hands in order to keep the audience interested.


----------



## pawsplay

Hussar said:


> Ranger Wickett beat me to it.  Harry Potter is a very good example.  There is no balance.  Warriors (re Muggles) are flat out outclassed by wizards in all possible ways.  Wizards rule the world to the point where the wizards are telling the Prime Minister of England what to do.




Not in all possible ways. Give me an AK-47 and I'll put a startle in a few of those guys as they wave their wands around and furrow their brows. In Harry Potter, spells are _awesome_, but not necessarily easy. Magic is often slow, definitely difficult to repeat.


----------



## pawsplay

Patryn of Elvenshae said:


> I mean, Hercules and Odysseus and Achilles weren't standard D&D fighters.




Achilles, sure. But Hercules was purely a standard D&D fighter, albeit one with tremendous strength. And Odysseus? A bow-specialized fighter. Perseus? Fighter. Ajax? Fighter. Jason? Maybe a fighter-rogue.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> In general, villains on the level of Superman don't bother with Batman, either because Batman-as-a-solo keeps himself busy with less cosmically powerful foes and plots or because when Batman is with the League, well, the BBEGs are (understandably so) occupied with the big hitters like Superman, Green Lantern, and Martian Manhunter.




Yep- just like PCs will pass up targeting minions with full force to concentrate fire on the BBEG- although this occasionally backfires.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> Hercules was purely a standard D&D fighter,




Ummmm...no.  He was a demigod, the son of Zeus and a mortal.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

pawsplay said:


> Not in all possible ways. Give me an AK-47 and I'll put a startle in a few of those guys as they wave their wands around and furrow their brows. In Harry Potter, spells are _awesome_, but not necessarily easy. Magic is often slow, definitely difficult to repeat.




From what I've seen in the trailers, their spells are slow AND require wands.  Your AK-47 should mow down a lot when you empty the first clip on full auto before you even feel a tingle of magic.


----------



## ProfessorCirno

Patryn of Elvenshae said:


> I think you mean "demigods / Chosen of [X]es."
> 
> I mean, Hercules and Odysseus and Achilles weren't standard D&D fighters. They were D&D Fighters with Divine Ranks or with special oversight from specific gods / goddesses - or, in other words, they were just as magical as the wizards; they just more martial about it.




Wizards are no different, though.  Wizards _were_ divine for a very long time (heck, just check out the etymology of the word "magician"), just the same as warriors were.  That's why a magical/mundane divide in of itself is difficult - it's a divide that by and large isn't present throughout much of mythology.  The protagonists are guided by fate and the divine regardless of swinging a sword or being able to talk to animals.

Harry Potter is a fun example, because for all the superpoweredness of magic that's in it, it's not magic that saves the day.  The book is never "and then Harry cast the right spell and that was that, the day was saved."


----------



## Jeff Wilder

ProfessorCirno said:


> Harry Potter is a fun example



Of what?  (Serious question.  I may have missed something.)  All the "PCs" in HP are wizards.

BTW, regarding an earlier comment, magic in HP does require wands (as far as I can tell, even the most skilled magickers need them), but it's not slow.  Even a death curse is simply two words.  Other factors can impact how quickly some wizards or witches cast spells -- or even "if," as doing so silently is semi-advanced -- but those factors aren't inherent in the magic itself.

(Off on a bigger tangent, if I were doing a HP RPG, I'd make "being cool under fire" a _huge_ part of the magic system.  It's definitely something that balances out other factors (like knowledge of spells or depth of emotion).  Of course, I'd make "being cool under fire" a huge part of _any_ RPG that heavily uses tools of instant death, like, say, guns.  Even CP2020's "Cool" attribute was weak sauce.)


----------



## WizarDru

pawsplay said:


> Not in all possible ways. Give me an AK-47 and I'll put a startle in a few of those guys as they wave their wands around and furrow their brows. In Harry Potter, spells are _awesome_, but not necessarily easy. Magic is often slow, definitely difficult to repeat.




Just so.  All humans in the wizarding world can cast magic, but they're still human.  Voldemort is dangerous because he's no longer actually human and has taken years of preparation to make himself that way.  High-level Wizards like Dumbledore have decades of experience and accrued personal protections, but the wizard on the street does not.  Notice how easily characters are stymied by things like werewolves and other magical creatures.  Simple magic is easy in Harry Potter, but powerful magic either requires lots of practice and training, expensive components or lots of time.

It's also worth noting that in the world of Harry Potter, magic items are much more common and depended upon.  Skilled craftsman like Fred and George make all manner of items with only a small amount of capital and plenty of people gain access to powerful magic.  Even the Weasleys, who are a large low income family, manage to possess items like magic death-monitor clocks and send howlers.

Basically, item protection is the best defense in the wizarding world.  Unprepared wizards are incredibly vulnerable, and most offensive magic works more like a gun than anything else.


----------



## TanisFrey

Jeff Wilder said:


> Of what?  (Serious question.  I may have missed something.)  All the "PCs" in HP are wizards.



I guess you do not consider Hagard a PC then.  He is a half-giant who uses a crossbow and/or his own strength in the final battle.  He knows his own magic skills are weak and hampered by using a broken wand, so he uses his heritage, and raw strenght during the fight.


----------



## ProfessorCirno

Jeff Wilder said:


> Of what?  (Serious question.  I may have missed something.)  All the "PCs" in HP are wizards.




...Who more often then not solve their problems not through magic but through cunning, knowledge, bravery, and "love."


----------



## Jeff Wilder

TanisFrey said:


> I guess you do not consider Hagard a PC then.



No, Hagrid's not a PC any more than any of the supporting characters are.  The PCs are Ron, Hermione, and Harry.  (Arguably there's always a fourth PC in any given book.  I guess the group keeps losing that player to Real Life.)


----------



## TanisFrey

Jeff Wilder said:


> No, Hagrid's not a PC any more than any of the supporting characters are.  The PCs are Ron, Hermione, and Harry.  (Arguably there's always a fourth PC in any given book.  I guess the group keeps losing that player to Real Life.)



Outside of Ron, Hermione, and Harry; Hagrid and Dumdore are the most active of the "fourth PC" over the entire series.


----------



## Aldarc

Tuft said:


> IMHO, fantasy literature handles it by simply *not* being reduced to merely "killing things and taking their stuff". Combat is used now and then as plot points, but it is rarely the main theme in the stories.
> 
> Just watched some of the "Oh my Goddess" anime and read some of the manga. There you have three goddesses (who can summon one just as powerful angel each), and a guy that is good at riding motorbikes and his friends. Now, does anyone else get reminded about a certain overused and rather trite strawman video? How does this story handle it? By not being about fighting. There are fights, true - some plain motorcycle races, some earth-shaking power battles - but when it comes down to it, it's all about moral choices; recognizing the right thing to do, and having the strength of will to do it.



Keiichi Morisato is _rarely_ an active participant in a fight. (In the one time I recall, he basically had his own angel.) He stands on the sideline or is a victim to the powerful forces around him. The goddesses purposefully restrict the use of their magic. Plus Keiichi has a huge inferiority complex with regards to his usefulness in contrast with the goddesses. Plus the only time that Keiichi gets to put his racing to use are in instances in which racing becomes a plot point. For all other times, there are the goddesses, but even then there are instances in which the goddesses race. But the goddesses are limited by the amount of magic that they can do in a day before becoming fatigued. If Belldandy over-exerts herself using magic, she falls asleep. Oh My Goddess is hardly analogous to either the Angel Summoner/BMX Bandit or Mage/Fighter problem, as D&D and Angel Summoner/BMX Bandit _are_ primarily about fighting and encounters. If they were not about fighting, then that would in no way alleviate the problem, but rather, exacerbate it, for the _fight_er.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

TanisFrey said:


> Outside of Ron, Hermione, and Harry; Hagrid and Dumdore are the most active of the "fourth PC" over the entire series.



Not at all.  Name a few scenes in which Ron, Harry, Hermione and (Hagrid||Dumbledore) both entered and exited the scene as a group.

You won't find many (if any at all).  Hagrid and Dumbledore are _classic_ NPCs.  (Dumbledore even has a little bit of the annoying nature of Elminster going on.)


----------



## Plane Sailing

I find it interesting that much of the time when Conan faces seriously magical opposition, he survives it and conquers by virtue of the magic items he has in that adventure (the phoenix on the sword, the black seers of yimsha) in addition to his guts and strength.

Which is pretty much the way that high level D&D fighters have to overcome such foes too.

D&D is a game where magic items are not just important, they are vital. High level fighter types in games of OD&D, AD&D I used to play would have a variety of magic items which helped them in all manner of situations, and enabled them to play 'jack of all trades' just as much as the wizards. Of course, this was before 3e decided how much magic people 'should' have, and introduced a 'big n' magic items which sucked up the level-appropriate magic, but I digress 

Cheers


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> I find it interesting that much of the time when Conan faces seriously magical opposition, he survives it and conquers by virtue of the magic items he has in that adventure (the phoenix on the sword, the black seers of yimsha) in addition to his guts and strength.
> 
> Which is pretty much the way that high level D&D fighters have to overcome such foes too.




Good point.


----------



## Mouseferatu

Plane Sailing said:


> I find it interesting that much of the time when Conan faces seriously magical opposition, he survives it and conquers by virtue of the magic items he has in that adventure (the phoenix on the sword, the black seers of yimsha) in addition to his guts and strength.
> 
> Which is pretty much the way that high level D&D fighters have to overcome such foes too.




It wouldn't be to everyone's tastes, but you've got me thinking about a D&D edition (or just variant) in which the spellcasting classes' powers/abilities were innately superior to those of the martial classes--but in which the "assumed level" of magic items was explicitly higher for the martial classes, and in which there were far more magic items that could benefit a non-caster than a caster.

IOW, you'd wind up with the same class balance as 4E, but the sources of said power would be very different.

Again, not for everyone--not even necessarily to _my_ tastes, except when I'm in a particular mood--but a potentially interesting variant, I think.

(And I realize that, in older editions, there _were_ more fighter/thief-friendly items than wizard-friendly. But I'm talking about a much greater difference, with a much wider array of item abilities and powers. Enough to account for a substantial portion of class balance between martial and arcane characters on the same XP progression path.)


----------



## ProfessorCirno

Plane Sailing said:


> I find it interesting that much of the time when Conan faces seriously magical opposition, he survives it and conquers by virtue of the magic items he has in that adventure (the phoenix on the sword, the black seers of yimsha) in addition to his guts and strength.
> 
> Which is pretty much the way that high level D&D fighters have to overcome such foes too.
> 
> D&D is a game where magic items are not just important, they are vital. High level fighter types in games of OD&D, AD&D I used to play would have a variety of magic items which helped them in all manner of situations, and enabled them to play 'jack of all trades' just as much as the wizards. Of course, this was before 3e decided how much magic people 'should' have, and introduced a 'big n' magic items which sucked up the level-appropriate magic, but I digress
> 
> Cheers




The problem with this is that the fighter swiftly loses all identity other then "Guy with all the magic items."

3e wasn't the only one to perpetuate this but it was the biggest offender - you hit issues where the higher level the fighter is, the more valuable his magic items are then _the fighter himself_.


----------



## Plane Sailing

True - but that has been D&D since it's earliest days! Always the biggest problem with it since day 1, really.

It was among the reasons why I abandoned D&D for RQ (which on the one hand gives most people low level magic ability but doesn't have any really powerful magic in D&D terms)

Could D&D abandon its reliance on magic items without ceasing to be D&D? I really don't know. It could be that it is too much of the D&D 'vibe', or 'dna'.

For me, D&D is for gung ho, magic items up the wazoo style gaming; for other games which I wanted to be more like most fantasy literature which I've read, I'd choose other systems, to be honest


----------



## ProfessorCirno

Plane Sailing said:


> True - but that has been D&D since it's earliest days! Always the biggest problem with it since day 1, really.
> 
> It was among the reasons why I abandoned D&D for RQ (which on the one hand gives most people low level magic ability but doesn't have any really powerful magic in D&D terms)
> 
> Could D&D abandon its reliance on magic items without ceasing to be D&D? I really don't know. It could be that it is too much of the D&D 'vibe', or 'dna'.
> 
> For me, D&D is for gung ho, magic items up the wazoo style gaming; for other games which I wanted to be more like most fantasy literature which I've read, I'd choose other systems, to be honest




I think it definately can - Dark Sun isn't exactly a magicpalooza, and it's staunchly D&D.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

Back on topic, after I wandered into the woods for a bit, the balance between martial mastery and sorcery is _distinctly and explicitly_ in favor of the former in Zelazny's _Amber_ books.

Even in the second series, whose protagonist is in fact a sorcerer, the emphasis is on how much of a pain in the ass workable, fight-ready sorcery is.  In the first series, the protagonist basically dismisses sorcery -- as a fight-ready tool -- out of hand.  (Of course, that's well before he finds out exactly who and what the BBEG is ... )


----------



## occam

(Psi)SeveredHead said:


> So Gandalf generally use only weak magic, but sometimes could really dish it out. (No, he didn't summon the wave at Rivendell, he just touched it up.) He was more of a ritual-using heroic sage, really.




Huh, I'd never thought about modeling Gandalf that way. In fact, I wonder if a 4e version of LotR would best be done with only martial classes available, and what sets Gandalf apart are his age and connections, and the Ritual Caster feat....


----------



## SSquirrel

I'm surprised I haven't seen a mention of Raymond Feist's Riftwar series.  In those books, magic is far and away the stronger method.  If you're a warrior like say, Tomas, you could stand up to Pug, but not too many below his level.  Then again, pretty much any other warrior is below Tomas's level heh.


----------



## GameDoc

Sometimes the balancing factor for wizards is that they are very powerful against specific types of obstacles or foes (generally magical or supernatural ones), but have no more power over the rest of the universe than any other person. In other words you fight magic with magic and mundane with mundane.

A wizard can bind or banish a ghost or demon that others are powerless against. But he can't do much against a mundane evil warrior with a sword unless he's also a trained warrior himself and has good weapon at hand. If he has any power over mortals or the natural world it's either brief and minor or slow and insidious. Hexes, curses, potions, or hedge magic. And there are protections to be found from these by consulting another mage or sporting a charm or holy symbol.

Likewise, his buddy the fighter migh carve the evil warrior up handily, but against a raging demon, he'd be ineffective. All he can do is get in it's face and try do distract it so the wizard can hit it with magic. Or he needs a wizard to enchant his weapons and armor so he can stand toe to toe with a magical monster.

In D&D terms you might say that a demon or other supernatural creature has damge reduction (or even invulnerability) against normal attakcs, but vulnerability to magical ones. Hit it with an ordiary sword and it has little to no effect. Hit is with a magical sword or a spell of rebuke and it suffers - moreso than a mortal human being would.

I see this as the anser to "Gandalf was a 5th level magic user that soloed a Balor." In the setting, the Balor is particularly vulernable to magic, as was the Nazgul that Gandalf turned back at Pellenor Fields. Those methods were not useful against the orcs of Moria so he had to rely on his sword. 

Also, the more powerful the magic, the more specific it's effects. The Witch King could not be harmed by any man, but the loophole in the magic that protected him made him totally vulnerable against a female warrior. You get that kind of powerful, specific protetion, or you get something minor like a +2 weapon that is more likely to hit and do more damage against just about anything, but isn't going to cleave through a castle gate or hew the peak off a mountaintop.


----------



## ProfessorCirno

occam said:


> Huh, I'd never thought about modeling Gandalf that way. In fact, I wonder if a 4e version of LotR would best be done with only martial classes available, and what sets Gandalf apart are his age and connections, and the Ritual Caster feat....




Quite honestly if you look at mythology, wizards are characterized far more often as sages then they are world shattering WMDs.  The classic wizard is a bard, not a...well, wizard 

Clerics on the other hand, they're the ones that shatter the universe.  Bards and Invokers seems to be the path mythology takes.


----------



## WizarDru

SSquirrel said:


> I'm surprised I haven't seen a mention of Raymond Feist's Riftwar series.  In those books, magic is far and away the stronger method.  If you're a warrior like say, Tomas, you could stand up to Pug, but not too many below his level.  Then again, pretty much any other warrior is below Tomas's level heh.




You may not know it but Feist's Riftwar Saga, like Brust's Jhereg series, was actually BASED on their D&D games.  So that's kind of the tail wagging the dog, there.


----------



## (Psi)SeveredHead

Mouseferatu said:


> It wouldn't be to everyone's tastes, but you've got me thinking about a D&D edition (or just variant) in which the spellcasting classes' powers/abilities were innately superior to those of the martial classes--but in which the "assumed level" of magic items was explicitly higher for the martial classes, and in which there were far more magic items that could benefit a non-caster than a caster.




That was called 3.x. Really. Wizards were more powerful, but a fighter's items were more useful. Overall... wizards were still more powerful.

That might work for some people, but I'm not a fan of items. My current campaign is set in Dark Sun. It's inherent bonus-using. The rogue PC has a throwing dart that copies a 3rd-level magic item (one that does ongoing 5 fire damage once per day, anyone know what that's called?) but it's a non-magic poison dart that does ongoing poison damage instead. Oddly, I was actually praised for having that a daily item rather than a make a Nature check item, perhaps due to the lower bookkeeping.



GameDoc said:


> In D&D terms you might say that a demon or other supernatural creature has damge reduction (or even invulnerability) against normal attakcs, but vulnerability to magical ones. Hit it with an ordiary sword and it has little to no effect. Hit is with a magical sword or a spell of rebuke and it suffers - moreso than a mortal human being would.




It was almost the opposite in gameplay. A wizard beats a warrior easily; cast Hold Monster, or Greater Invisibility followed by Lightning Bolt, etc, whereas a demon can probably resist half the wizard's spells. (A warrior might have the right weapon, or can just power through DR; given how weak monster ACs often were, Power Attack was a very powerful feat.)


----------



## Mouseferatu

(Psi)SeveredHead said:


> That was called 3.x. Really. Wizards were more powerful, but a fighter's items were more useful. Overall... wizards were still more powerful.




I'm talking about a level of difference far beyond what 3E had. But I think going into any more detail here would probably qualify as a threadjack.


----------



## Olgar Shiverstone

pawsplay said:


> ... who soloed a Balor.




And died in the process.  So the GM resurrected him and gave him a half-celestial template as a reward.


----------



## (Psi)SeveredHead

Olgar Shiverstone said:


> And died in the process.  So the GM resurrected him and gave him a half-celestial template as a reward.




Being able to match a wingless balor is still pretty impressive.

Gandalf had some sort of template beforehand (something like an aasimar; the power level wasn't at all clear) and then got his half-celestial template. Or something.

Also, didn't he cast a few different spells later on?


----------



## pemerton

Hautamaki said:


> The trend I've noticed though in fiction is that even high level fictional casters are not as potentially powerful as 3.x casters.  Fictional magic users may often have very powerful evocation type magic--fireballs, lightning bolts, clouds of acid, earthquake type stuff, etc) but even the most powerful fictional magic users don't usually have the kind of 'game breaking' spells that D&D magic users can get.  Things like wish, polymorph, time travel, resurrection, etc.





Bluenose said:


> Fictional magic users rarely have the versatility of D&D wizards, either.



Ged in the Earthsea trilogy is pretty versatile and pretty powerful - illusions, mending, weather summoning, battle magic, shapechanging, healing, able to travel to the plane of death, etc.

That said, I think there could be a perfectly viable Earthsea RPG with both wizards and warriors. It just wouldn't use D&D mechanics.


Plane Sailing said:


> I find it interesting that much of the time when Conan faces seriously magical opposition, he survives it and conquers by virtue of the magic items he has in that adventure (the phoenix on the sword, the black seers of yimsha) in addition to his guts and strength.
> 
> Which is pretty much the way that high level D&D fighters have to overcome such foes too.
> 
> D&D is a game where magic items are not just important, they are vital.





Plane Sailing said:


> Could D&D abandon its reliance on magic items without ceasing to be D&D? I really don't know. It could be that it is too much of the D&D 'vibe', or 'dna'.
> 
> For me, D&D is for gung ho, magic items up the wazoo style gaming; for other games which I wanted to be more like most fantasy literature which I've read, I'd choose other systems, to be honest



Good observations. And I tend to agree that D&D is for a certain sort of gung ho fantasy, although items (other than enhancement bonuses, which are just part of the character build) don't yet loom that large in my 4e game.


Mouseferatu said:


> It wouldn't be to everyone's tastes, but you've got me thinking about a D&D edition (or just variant) in which the spellcasting classes' powers/abilities were innately superior to those of the martial classes--but in which the "assumed level" of magic items was explicitly higher for the martial classes, and in which there were far more magic items that could benefit a non-caster than a caster.



In HeroWars/Quest you'd do this by having "fighters" load up on item descriptors while "wizards" load up on sorcerous descriptors.

In D&D you'd do it as you describe, and you'd have to get rid of anti-magic/disjunction as a routine magic-item purging device. And also be very wary of item-stealing events occurring.



ProfessorCirno said:


> The problem with this is that the fighter swiftly loses all identity other then "Guy with all the magic items."



Provided that they are items that the fighter applies _by way of being a fighter_ (weapons, shields, boots of speed etc) then that's not a bug but a feature of the game being envisaged here.


----------



## ProfessorCirno

(Psi)SeveredHead said:


> Being able to match a wingless balor is still pretty impressive.
> 
> Gandalf had some sort of template beforehand (something like an aasimar; the power level wasn't at all clear) and then got his half-celestial template. Or something.
> 
> Also, didn't he cast a few different spells later on?




Gandalf was the archangel Michael


----------



## Votan

I think that a lot of magic in myth and legend had the unfortunate tendency either to corrupt or to go horribly wrong.  Look at what happened when Frodo used the power of the One Ring at the end of the novel Return of the King -- his curse had a very unfortunate effect.  Or consider what happened to Merlin at the beginning of Excalibur.  As a result, the wise wizard thinks very carefully before using magic or is very desperate.


----------



## Dice4Hire

Well, the main thing fantasy literature has is limits and not many mages. If you have 2 of the 7 mages on the continent in your adventuring party, it is a little silly. 

I think mages would be better with limits, something that has been steadily trending down with every edition of D&D. A chance of getting hurt, or the spell failing, or something else would make non-magical choices far more appealing.


----------



## pemerton

Dice4Hire said:


> Well, the main thing fantasy literature has is limits and not many mages. If you have 2 of the 7 mages on the continent in your adventuring party, it is a little silly.



Why? I expect my current 4e game to end up having 5 of the X demigods in the continent in the party, where X is an indeterminate but fairly small number.


----------



## I'm A Banana

Mouseferatu said:
			
		

> It wouldn't be to everyone's tastes, but you've got me thinking about a D&D edition (or just variant) in which the spellcasting classes' powers/abilities were innately superior to those of the martial classes--but in which the "assumed level" of magic items was explicitly higher for the martial classes, and in which there were far more magic items that could benefit a non-caster than a caster.




Why not go the other way with it?

Fighters need to depend on magic swords they find in dungeons.

Wizards need to depend on magic _spells_ they find in dungeons.

No one is going around forging +5 vorpal swords, no one is going around writing down _Wish_ from scratch, characters don't automatically gain diverse powers and abilities as they level up, they need to gain them in dungeons (via treasure).

There's also the other direction: that everyone crafts what they need as they level up. You get _Fireball_, I get _+3 Weapons_ (you don't get them), our priest gets _Cure Light Wounds_, and we don't get any treasure. 

I think the former would be a boatload of fun to play, even though it futzes with story-minded and optimization-minded players. 

The latter would be better for them, but it would limit the random awesome you get.

Perhaps a hybrid, where you get to craft/create/"gain from leveling" some quantity of your abilities, and you HAVE to find the rest....

Fighters find swords (and gain exploits).
Mages find tomes (and devise spells).
Clerics discover relics (and are awarded prayers).
Druids befriend beasts (and practice rituals).
Necromancers devour souls (and develop experiments).

The former is treasure you find, the latter is stuff that you gain automagically with levels, but all character types depend on both ways of gaining power (rather than fighters having it all from random treasure drops, and mages having it all from developing their own spells).


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Another note about magic items: in many legends, the creating of magic items does not require the services of a spellcaster.  You just need to know the right ritual and use the right materials.  Sometimes a magic weapon can be created as simply as by tempering it's blade in the blood of a certain creature, at a certain time.  This means that the potential number of magic items is boosted...


----------



## pawsplay

Dice4Hire said:


> Well, the main thing fantasy literature has is limits and not many mages. If you have 2 of the 7 mages on the continent in your adventuring party, it is a little silly.




Unless you're playing the Belgariad RPG, of course. Or Amber. Or Star Wars (Rebellion era)...


----------



## pawsplay

Plane Sailing said:


> Could D&D abandon its reliance on magic items without ceasing to be D&D? I really don't know. It could be that it is too much of the D&D 'vibe', or 'dna'.




I've played with some pretty stingy DMs. Running away from gargoyles because you can't hurt them feels pretty D&D to me.


----------



## pawsplay

Plane Sailing said:


> I find it interesting that much of the time when Conan faces seriously magical opposition, he survives it and conquers by virtue of the magic items he has in that adventure (the phoenix on the sword, the black seers of yimsha) in addition to his guts and strength.
> 
> Which is pretty much the way that high level D&D fighters have to overcome such foes too.
> 
> D&D is a game where magic items are not just important, they are vital. High level fighter types in games of OD&D, AD&D I used to play would have a variety of magic items which helped them in all manner of situations, and enabled them to play 'jack of all trades' just as much as the wizards. Of course, this was before 3e decided how much magic people 'should' have, and introduced a 'big n' magic items which sucked up the level-appropriate magic, but I digress
> 
> Cheers




Although Conan is quite the badass, his main superpowers seem to be really good saving throws, and a knack for getting his hands on other people's best stuff.


----------



## Fallenibilis

Personally one of my all time favorite adaptions of magic was done in the book, _A Madness of Angels: Or The Resurrection of Matthew Swift_. 

Basically to perform magic runes had to be drawn to be used as a focus (similar to how alchemy is used in FMA) using inks and pigments meaning the amount of power one could evoke was based on time in battle your only gonna be able to get off small glyphs but if you prepare the battle field or are given a long period of time to work on it your powers could be catastrophic. One of the Villains had a cool work around though by tattooing the runes on his body he turned himself into a walking focus for his art. 

I personally thought it was both and adequate way to mitigate power levels, and provide a flavorful way to perform magic.

Fallenibilis


----------



## pemerton

Fallenibilis said:


> Basically to perform magic runes had to be drawn to be used as a focus (similar to how alchemy is used in FMA) using inks and pigments
> 
> <snip>
> 
> One of the Villains had a cool work around though by tattooing the runes on his body he turned himself into a walking focus for his art.
> 
> I personally thought it was both and adequate way to mitigate power levels, and provide a flavorful way to perform magic.



Wouldn't it tend just to produce PCs with lots of bodyart?


----------



## Fallenibilis

pemerton said:


> Wouldn't it tend just to produce PCs with lots of bodyart?




Depends if you used the rules for alternate spell books where you can tattoo them on your body your either gonna end up a moderate amount of low level (1-4) spells or very few high level ones (5-9) as you only have 30 "pages" visible, and only another 26 that you can't see without using your familer or a mirror . Thus you only get about 56 pages worth of spells. 

Secondly your gonna have to be pretty sure thats a spell you want to be using alot cause theres no way to write over it. 

Thirdly i would rule that you would have to worry about what happened in the book any thing that messes with the design (in this case it was extra marks and glyphs were added on top of the characters tattoos) such as scars or fading (thus it costs money/time to maintain) would cause it to not work or apply some sort of Arcane Spell Failure.

Fallenibilis


----------



## Votan

pawsplay said:


> Unless you're playing the Belgariad RPG, of course. Or Amber. Or Star Wars (Rebellion era)...




I don't know.  As the expanded universe has continued going, it seems like dozens of powerful Jedi are running around (ranging from Starkiller to Darth Krayt before his fall).  

Amber, on the other hand, is a great example of a setting where the PCs are supernatural but not necessarily spell casters.  Corwin is not a mage (even if Merlin is) but he sure isn't one to dismiss as a consequence.  Nor would you want to dismiss Benedict as being a mere warrior.


----------



## Kingreaper

Mouseferatu said:


> It wouldn't be to everyone's tastes, but you've got me thinking about a D&D edition (or just variant) in which the spellcasting classes' powers/abilities were innately superior to those of the martial classes--but in which the "assumed level" of magic items was explicitly higher for the martial classes, and in which there were far more magic items that could benefit a non-caster than a caster.




A possibility: Magic items just don't work well for casters.

Either:
A) magic items draw on your magic potential, and, well, Conan isn't using his, but that wizard is, so the wizard has none left to power a magic sword
or
B) Magic items disrupt magic spells. If you have a magic sword, you'd better be prepared for that fireball to actually end up coming out of the hilt, instead of where you wanted....


----------



## Zhaleskra

pemerton said:


> Wouldn't it tend just to produce PCs with lots of bodyart?




I think you're thinking of the Patyrn species from the Death Gate Cycle. Sartan too, they both use "Rune" magic in different ways, and it's the Ps that have it all over their bodies.


----------



## Crazy Jerome

Kingreaper said:


> A possibility: Magic items just don't work well for casters.
> 
> Either:
> A) magic items draw on your magic potential, and, well, Conan isn't using his, but that wizard is, so the wizard has none left to power a magic sword
> or
> B) Magic items disrupt magic spells. If you have a magic sword, you'd better be prepared for that fireball to actually end up coming out of the hilt, instead of where you wanted....




Like that one!  How about even stronger?  Magic disrupts magic--gradually.  The more magic in the area, and the closer it is, the less effective it is.  This applies equally to items, spells, innate powers, etc.

You can get some interesting dynamics with this.  For example, your classical Sidhe-type is extremely potent around a bunch of mundane human peasants.  But back at home, another Sidhe can stick a knife in him and kill him easily.  Or on the extreme end, this is why Zeus is more than a little afraid of Hera.


----------



## Crazy Jerome

As far as why not copy literature, there is another drawback besides protagonist script protection and having a group of people involved:  The mechanics for the magic system must be manageable.  

You can do (and authors have) all kinds of fantasy stories with something like "ley lines," where magic is much more powerful on the lines, and has to be stored away from the lines.  Perhaps you even have different kinds of lines.  But in a game system, unless you abstract heavily or put a lot of work into a world-simulation, concrete type system, that gets unwieldy rather rapidly.

If you abstract heavily, you can easily lose the uniqueness of the ley lines--or it is just fluff layered over something that could be readily explained with some other magic power source.  Nothing wrong with that, but if you wanted ley lines to inform magic, you have now lost that aspect.  Likewise, if you go with concrete, you better have a very particular idea in mind and a good handle on it.  If I do Robert Aspirin's myth series ley lines, I'm going to do them differently than Harry Turtledove's "WWII in a magic parallel universe" version.

It is not unlike systems where casting varies on the current zodiac--either you abstract it out to barely matter, or you embrace the details.  You don't want the details, it gets tedius.  You try to compromise in the middle, and the whole thing falls apart.

I *can* have a system that checks strength of nearest ley line, distance to it, and perhaps affinity for that particular ley line.  Whether I want to answer that question consistenly as a DM every time a player wants his PC to cast a spell is another question.


----------



## Dausuul

As a yet unpublished fantasy writer, my main tool for keeping wizards in check relative to warriors is simply to define what the wizard can and cannot do.

For instance, one of my characters is a sorceror who has the power to animate the dead. He can use this power more or less at will, on any corpse within hearing that isn't protected by a divine blessing. The resulting undead last indefinitely and serve without question. He also knows how to summon demons, although this is a long and highly dangerous process taking minutes to hours, and he's got three familiars--minor demons that don't require a summoning ritual and can do a few parlor tricks.

Crazy powerful? Absolutely. Give him a few months and he can raise up an army like the world has never seen. But if you put him face to face with a swordsman, none of it helps him much. He can't throw fireballs or turn invisible or create force fields. One of his familiars can blind a foe for a short time, but that's the only combat magic he's got. His answer to enemy warriors is a big tough snarky bodyguard.

The "Batman wizard" is what leads to invincibility. Get rid of that and everything becomes a lot easier.


----------



## pawsplay

Votan said:


> I don't know.  As the expanded universe has continued going, it seems like dozens of powerful Jedi are running around (ranging from Starkiller to Darth Krayt before his fall).




Which still leaves no more than six or so on any given "world." Dathomir is a different situation; it's also not active during the Rebellion era. During the Rebellion erea, whether you're talking about the EU or not, Jedi are still extremely rare.

Amber, on the other hand, is a great example of a setting where the PCs are supernatural but not necessarily spell casters.  [/quote]

I don't see any meaningful distinction. A magician is somehow who does something supernatural. Whether it requires bat guano or not is a literary choice.


----------



## pawsplay

SSquirrel said:


> I'm surprised I haven't seen a mention of Raymond Feist's Riftwar series.  In those books, magic is far and away the stronger method.  If you're a warrior like say, Tomas, you could stand up to Pug, but not too many below his level.  Then again, pretty much any other warrior is below Tomas's level heh.




That demonstrates one important notion: magicians are rarely mooks. "Being the best swordsman in the realm" and "being a magician" (of any useful ability whatsoever) are in many literary settings equivalent in terms of exceptionality.


----------



## pawsplay

Olgar Shiverstone said:


> And died in the process.  So the GM resurrected him and gave him a half-celestial template as a reward.




Let's see Boromir do _that_.


----------



## Diamond Cross

I know the secret to true balance.

But I can't tell anybody until my parents are dead.


----------



## kenjib

There is no balance problem in fantasy literature because you have to look at how conflict is framed and how narrative is constructed. Ultimately, magic will do whatever the author needs it to do, so the real question is not how power is balanced, but rather what authors have needed magic to do.

The wizard of pre-modern fiction is often an archetype of otherworldly power and knowledge and is usually a religious figure too. His role is a mentor, guide, king-maker, and/or facilitator. The reason for this is that conflict and drama are heightened by human fallibility. When a wizard can solve anything at once then there is no story. Furthermore, when trying to reflect on the human condition, a person who is more human tells us more about ourselves than someone who can do things we could never do does.

So, to address these needs, the wizard is rarely the protagonist. Merlin has power, but only Arthur has the bloodline and destiny to unite the kingdom. The greek gods and their magical agents have power, but ultimately it is the mortals (or superhuman demigods) who reside in the world and are given the ability to shape it (which is a very interesting type of power-reversal), simply because they are defined as the protagonists and the gods are not.

You can also think about it from a Campbellian Hero's Journey direction to help clarify: It is the role of the hero to journey into the otherworld and return with a boon. The wizard plays the role of facilitating the journey or granting the boon because the wizard represents that otherworld's intrusion into the real world, rather than an agent of the real world. By this very role he plays he is excluded from being the hero.

So that has to do with roles, but there is also conflict framing. What is at stake and what are people struggling to overcome? When it comes down to this factor, power does not solve all problems. Frodo must carry the ring because of his humility and the ring's power of temptation. This is something Gandalf simply can not do. Similarly Aragorn is the lost king of Gondor, and not Gandalf. It is a role he can not play. All of his magical power can do nothing to replace those assets that the other characters have. He can only help them to achieve their respective destinies in his role as facilitator.

So, it's not a matter of who has the most power, but rather a matter of character motivation, role, and plot, that defines "balance" in fiction. In fiction what needs to be balanced is not the amount of kick-butt that each character has (which tends to be how people think of balance in D&D), but rather how important they are to the events in the plot and the ways in which each character overcomes his or her own personal challenges.


----------



## Plane Sailing

kenjib said:


> So that has to do with roles, but there is also conflict framing. What is at stake and what are people struggling to overcome? When it comes down to this factor, power does not solve all problems. Frodo must carry the ring because of his humility and the ring's power of temptation. This is something Gandalf simply can not do. Similarly Aragorn is the lost king of Gondor, and not Gandalf. It is a role he can not play. All of his magical power can do nothing to replace those assets that the other characters have. He can only help them to achieve their respective destinies in his role as facilitator.
> 
> So, it's not a matter of who has the most power, but rather a matter of character motivation, role, and plot, that defines "balance" in fiction. In fiction what needs to be balanced is not the amount of kick-butt that each character has (which tends to be how people think of balance in D&D), but rather how important they are to the events in the plot and the ways in which each character overcomes his or her own personal challenges.




Very interesting and important point.

I dare say that for the many people for whom there isn't much of an issue between different classes in D&D, they already use this kind of framing.

In reductionist D&D which is all about a series of combat encounters or noncombat puzzle situations, differences in raw capabilities of classes can become more of an issue, and might be difficult to legislate for in game rules. But in campaigns skillfully run by a good GM, with full player buy-in, 'balance' between classes is not an issue. But you knew that anyway


----------



## JacktheRabbit

SSquirrel said:


> I'm surprised I haven't seen a mention of Raymond Feist's Riftwar series.  In those books, magic is far and away the stronger method.  If you're a warrior like say, Tomas, you could stand up to Pug, but not too many below his level.  Then again, pretty much any other warrior is below Tomas's level heh.





Nakor, just about the coolest character in Feists books explains once why wizards do not dominate everyone else.

Wizard casts spell.
Second wizard counterspells first wizard.
Third wizard counterspells second wizards counterspell.

Fighter walks up and chops first wizard (or second or third) wizard in half with sword.


----------



## Crazy Jerome

Plane Sailing said:


> Very interesting and important point.
> 
> I dare say that for the many people for whom there isn't much of an issue between different classes in D&D, they already use this kind of framing.
> 
> In reductionist D&D which is all about a series of combat encounters or noncombat puzzle situations, differences in raw capabilities of classes can become more of an issue, and might be difficult to legislate for in game rules. But in campaigns skillfully run by a good GM, with full player buy-in, 'balance' between classes is not an issue. But you knew that anyway




Fair enough, but with the caveat that "can" and "want to" are two different things:

1. I *can* skillfully run a D&D game, complete with player buy-in, even to the extent of adjusting on the fly, as necessary, to accommodate whatever goals we have.

2. Sometimes I *want* to merely run something wide open without worrying about that part, and the players feel the same way. We all just want to cut loose, fully, and know that it will come out alright.

And of course, if something is available and easy to use, criteria between can and want may move a bit. I *can* run a decent game with a faded-print, smudged, bastardized clone version of the Red and Blue Boxes, in a back-room, noisy game store room. Doesn't mean that such a game won't get pushed aside for better alternatives.


----------



## Crazy Jerome

kenjib said:


> So, it's not a matter of who has the most power, but rather a matter of character motivation, role, and plot, that defines "balance" in fiction. In fiction what needs to be balanced is not the amount of kick-butt that each character has (which tends to be how people think of balance in D&D), but rather how important they are to the events in the plot and the ways in which each character overcomes his or her own personal challenges.




OK, grant all that in fiction, if only for the sake of argument.  Are you then advocating that the answer is to have narrative style balance mechanics in games?  Or are you saying that, absent such narrative mechanics, each game can be written, drifted, tweaked, managed, house-rules or seat of the pants run so as to achieve this more useful balance?  Or something else?

Because I've got to think that identifying equal amounts of kick-butt as the motivation in D&D balance is getting the cause and effect and correlations subtley wrong.  In my group, when we play heroic fantasy, everyone at the table wants to be doing something.  That means if we play a game that is about butt kicking, then they want butt kicking balance.  If the game is about trade and intrigue, they want balance in that.  If it is about overcoming personal challenges, we aren't playing D&D, because there are better games for that.


----------



## JacktheRabbit

pawsplay said:


> Although Conan is quite the badass, his main superpowers seem to be really good saving throws, and a knack for getting his hands on other people's best stuff.





I think Conan's main superpower is a supply of hitpoints far in excess of anyone he faces.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

DocMoriartty said:


> I think Conan's main superpower is a supply of hitpoints far in excess of anyone he faces.



Wait, I thought that was John McClane.

Wait, I thought it was _healing surges_.

Wait, I have to blow my nose.

Wait, I'm good with the "hit points" idea.


Jeff

P.S.  2d6 works much better than 1d12 for what Gygax originally intended.


----------



## kenjib

I think mostly what I'm saying is that fiction operates on a very different dynamic that doesn't really apply to D&D from a strict rules perspective - in what I consider to be good writing magic serves the narrative, rather than being a tool for resolution, or else it becomes deus ex machina and the struggles of the protagonist lose meaning. This form of serving the narrative then changes the nature of challenges. For example, if a hero can zap a lock with magic, then the lock of the prison is no longer an obstacle - instead the narrative changes to a story about sneaking out. Of course if the hero can just teleport out then there really is no obstacle at all, so then the event needs to serve some other purpose. Does he overhear something? Meet a new ally?

So along the lines of the Chekhov's gun principle (Chekhov's gun - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) - every scene should serve a purpose. Why is the character there doing what he is doing and how does it further the plot? Magic can dramatically re-frame this question.

The more I think of it, however, this line of thinking might be very useful for understanding what's going on though - For example, this is part of why magic using characters can run rampant in older D&D editions. They can reframe the challenges and encounters to a large extent with narrative changing abilities like scrying, teleportation, and raising the dead, while the non-magic users can't.

In fiction, while magic capable characters get these meta-narrative shaping traits, the non-magic characters are often given all of the coolest traits that define the conflict (like heir to a lost throne, for example). This keeps them relevant and goes along with my point earlier that often protagonists are mundane while the facilitators are magical.

In D&D there is no such compensation. Of course you can always make it work that way if you want, ala what Plane Sailing suggests - but that requires a set of skills and motivations that aren't really in the books, and operate outside of the system. Narrative style mechanics could capture this kind of player balance, but then I suspect that you're looking at a type of game that D&D is not trying to be (even if you can make it work). For example, there are many games where you can have more plot-oriented stats such as "incorruptible," "heir to a lost throne," or "soul-bound to a fallen angel," instead of ability stats. In those kind of games, balance between players operates in very different ways (with their own sets of problems as well).

4th edition D&D helped to address this problem by simply toning down or removing the meta-narrative controlling powers from magic characters. I think that really watered down a lot of the open and creative feel to the game though. I wonder if there is a different way to address this by giving a very different sort of narrative controlling power to non-magic characters.

EDIT: Of course then you're really messing with the core "story" of D&D, which at heart has always been about kicking down the door, kicking the monsters in the junk, and taking their stuff.

EDIT: A quick idea I just had: Protagonists define the conflict, while magic reframes it.


----------



## JacktheRabbit

Jeff Wilder said:


> Wait, I thought that was John McClane.
> 
> Wait, I thought it was _healing surges_.
> 
> Wait, I have to blow my nose.
> 
> Wait, I'm good with the "hit points" idea.
> 
> 
> Jeff
> 
> P.S.  2d6 works much better than 1d12 for what Gygax originally intended.




In most Conan stories by the end Conan is looking a lot like John McClane at the end of Die Hard.


----------



## Crazy Jerome

kenjib said:


> 4th edition D&D helped to address this problem by simply toning down or removing the meta-narrative controlling powers from magic characters. I think that really watered down a lot of the open and creative feel to the game though. I wonder if there is a different way to address this by giving a very different sort of narrative controlling power to non-magic characters.
> 
> EDIT: Of course then you're really messing with the core "story" of D&D, which at heart has always been about kicking down the door, kicking the monsters in the junk, and taking their stuff.
> 
> EDIT: A quick idea I just had: Protagonists define the conflict, while magic reframes it.




Riffing off of that while thinking out loud: Graft an almost purely narrative, metagaming, defining/framing system on top of what 4E already has. Fluff of this system is variable--sometimes magic, sometimes not. Call it "Framing" for lack of a better word. It has an almost entirely separate rewards cycle from the rest of 4E. Something like, when you "experience" a narrative issue, your options and power over the narrative grow.

The tie to the world/story/simulation is that much of the picks are very powerful but obviously situationally limited. "Heir to the throne" lets you do some appropriate stuff. "7th son of a Wizard" lets you do some other equally appropriate stuff. As you grow in your narrative control, through play, the appropriate stuff naturally becomes more powerful and useful. It is not unlike 4E rituals, except heavily slanted towards the metagame. If an ability is too game changing even for ritual, then it becomes a possible Framing ability.


----------



## kenjib

For some reason that actually kind of reminds me of the domain/kingdom/stronghold running rules that have popped up in various editions, but with a very different focus and goal.


----------



## Mishihari Lord

Mishihari Lord said:
			
		

> Originally Posted by Mishihari Lord View Post
> I think magic should be really strong, otherwise what's the point? If it's no more effective than mundane tactics, there's no reason to use it.






Bluenose said:


> Swap the words magic and mundane around in that sentence. Does your argument lose it's force? If not, then you're got a perfectly reasonable argument for making magic users and 'mundane' characters balanced in terms of power.




That argument does lose its force if you turn it around.  The point of magic is that it makes possible things that are impossible by mundane means.  If you balance magic use by making exactly it exactly the same as accomplishing the same thing through mundane means it becomes pointless, and worse, boring.  A good magic system lets you do impossible things but also puts limits on it so that its not the solution to every problem (which would also be boring)


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## Dannyalcatraz

The problem with Chekhov's Gun is that if your players are too attuned to that style of storytelling, you may wind up with a Chelsie the Cow situation:



> Chelsie the Magic Cow, once owned by El Ravager and subsequently eaten by Li'l Knobby Foot. Originally she was an ordinary cow, grazing by the side of the road as mere flavor text. El Ravager insisted on investigating, and B.A.'s attempts dissuade them were met with more fervour and suspicion ("there must be something really special about that cow that he's trying to keep us away from it"). When Teflon Billy used Detect Magic on the cow, B.A. sarcastically declared that it radiated a blinding magical aura. El Ravager laid claim to the cow, named her Chelsie, and over the course of several adventures sought to determine her supposed magic abilities; sadly, he never succeeded. Poor Chelsie met her end as a meal and warm clothing for Li'l Knobby Foot when he fled for his life from the Untouchable Trio (see above). There is a similar story regarding Knuckles and a mule, though that was a case of deliberate trickery on the GM's part; B.A. convinced Bob (Knuckles' player) that "Little Mike" was actually a dwarven warhorse. Mike was also stolen by Knobby Foot, but was kept on as the former hireling's steed when Knobby Foot joined the Barringer rebellion (see below). (Oddly enough, when KenzerCo published the actual rulebooks for HackMaster, the dwarven warhorse showed up on the equipment lists of the Player's Guide, along with a plethora of other items mentioned in the comic. However, it contains no references to magic cows, so Chelsie's special abilities remain a mystery.)


----------



## Thunderfoot

I'm going to take hit on this, but...this goes back to what I've said a million times before - balance is BS!.  Balance is neither a good thing nor a requirement for D&D.  4e's everyone is the same is a sticking point for me.  3e was bad enough.  (I've played both, ran campaigns in both and am not disparaging any edition, per se)  

This idea that a wizard is the most powerful thing at higher levels is what is supposed to happen.  But since DMs try not to kill PCs anymore, the idea that you actually have to make it to higher levels get lost in the sauce.  

Sure a 7th level caster could do some pretty cool stuff, but they had to get there first and a kobold with a lucky crit could end the career of a wizard as easily as a lowly snake and a failed poison save.   Does nobody remember the phrase, "wizards are squishy"?  Or how about the converse, "Hey, meat shield, protect the caster."  

In fantasy genres balance should be a dirty word unless you are talking about thief skills.


----------



## (Psi)SeveredHead

Thunderfoot said:


> Does nobody remember the phrase, "wizards are squishy"?  Or how about the converse, "Hey, meat shield, protect the caster."




Wizards have always been squishy. They still _are_ squishy in 4e. I'm talking from experience here (as the GM) not just looking at the books.

In previous editions, meat shields had real difficulty protecting a wizard. They could try to get between the bad guy and the wizard, but that didn't work in open terrain. They couldn't stop the bad guys unless they were spiked chain wielders (could you trip on an AoO?) or had the psionic feat Stand Still (not core).



> In fantasy genres balance should be a dirty word unless you are talking about thief skills.




I think balance is an important part of a _game_. It's part of the _balance of fun._ If you have a role that's less fun, why are you there? But of course that's not relevant in a book.


----------



## Plane Sailing

kenjib said:


> In D&D there is no such compensation. Of course you can always make it work that way if you want, ala what Plane Sailing suggests - but that requires a set of skills and motivations that aren't really in the books, and operate outside of the system.




FWIW I think my friends and I were lucky enough to start playing this way from the beginning - probably because we were in at the very start of D&D and the only model we had in our minds that we brought to the games was a literary one, and so we unconsciously picked up some of the literary tropes in terms of balance between characters and integration of the characters with the world.

Furthermore, I think the early editions of D&D did actually support this conceptually at least, with the emphasis on stronghold building and engagement with the wider campaign world at 'name' level; and emphasis which disappeared with 3e onwards.

Cheers


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> psionic feat Stand Still (not core).




Tiny nitpick: Stand Still isn't a psionic feat, its a general feat.


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## Plane Sailing

Crazy Jerome said:


> Riffing off of that while thinking out loud: Graft an almost purely narrative, metagaming, defining/framing system on top of what 4E already has.




Riffing further...

One of the many things I liked about the Conan OGL game from Mongoose was the 'fate points' which PCs got - an opportunity to exert narrative control over the adventure.

In a D&D game where there was a concern that casters had too much relative narrative control over the game through their spells, the non caster classes could be given 'fate points' as compensation - because in literature the warriors often get lucky at the right point, and a lucky break goes their way.

This wouldn't be giving them supernatural powers, but it would be recognising the literary ability of the noncaster classes to steer the narrative.

It might be an interesting idea to try out!


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## kenjib

Dannyalcatraz said:


> The problem with Chekhov's Gun is that if your players are too attuned to that style of storytelling, you may wind up with a Chelsie the Cow situation:




 That's funny stuff. I was referring more to conflict than to setting components though. I don't think that anyone would disagree that challenge should be more than illusory, which is the issue I was discussing regarding magical as a solution for every problem.

~~~~~~~~

Plane Sailing - I like the fate points stuff. I also think you hit on something that the older versions seemed to encourage somehow, and maybe you're right that the stronghold type rules played a large part of it. Is a game driven by plot threads and character motivations through a timeline, or is it a more open sandbox type game, where the players do all kinds of crazy stuff.

It's the difference between whether the gameplay is prescriptive and descriptive relative to the storyline it represents. It seems like nowadays it's common to know what kind of story you want, then plant the plots seeds and follow it to it's conclusion - i.e. you write the story and then play it out. Maybe it's just me, but it seems like in the old days it was more common to go out and mess around, do all kinds of crazy things, and then realize afterward that it was a pretty cool story - kind of like how it sounds to me that EGG's game group worked.

Another way of looking at it is this: In the old days you made a 1st level fighter, gave him a name, dropped him like a blank page on the table and he built his story as he played. Now it seems more common to create a 1st level fighter with a name, backstory, relatives, goals, etc. all pre-written, which all carries out in play.

Wizards with powerful narrative ability thrived in that old freewheeling environment, because they had a mechanical capability to alter the landscape at almost any scale. The other classes only had that kind of ability mechanics-wise if you used the stronghold rules - in which, interestingly, fighters held the most power, placing them back in the protagonist's seat.


----------



## pawsplay

kenjib said:


> There is no balance problem in fantasy literature because you have to look at how conflict is framed and how narrative is constructed. Ultimately, magic will do whatever the author needs it to do, so the real question is not how power is balanced, but rather what authors have needed magic to do.




Conan will do whatever the author needs him to do. Magic is no different from any other subsystem with regard to translating literature to roleplaying.


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## kenjib

pawsplay said:


> Conan will do whatever the author needs him to do. Magic is no different from any other subsystem with regard to translating literature to roleplaying.




Yeah - exactly! ...and boy does Conan seem to get just the right kind of luck at just the right time in almost every story? It's almost magical! 

Magic does have the unique capability to break with real world conventions that would break our suspension of disbelief otherwise though. That's the key. It's a supremely powerful plot device in that way. Conan is still presumably bound by the limits of what an (idealized) human could do. To diverge too far from that would break suspension of disbelief and ruin the story. Wizards do not have those bounds to the same degree.


----------



## Glade Riven

While not liturature, Avatar: The Last Airbender (the cartoon show, not any movie of similar name) has a different take on the Wizard vs. Fighter. The elemental Benders (bending the elements to one's will instead of typical casting) are often both (the different bending styles are based off real world martial arts). There are characters with no bending, however, and cases where bending fails. Things get a little crazy-over-the-top with the bending in the final chapter, but Sokka (one of the main characters) manages to hold his own amongst all the high level benders. By the end, the main party consists of 5 wizard-monks (4 elements + the Avatar), Sokka (fighter), and Sokka's girlfreind (monk).

Granted, the Avatar saves the day and defeats the Big Bad Evil Guy. But it IS his show. At least he got to fight Mark Hamil...


----------



## pawsplay

kenjib said:


> Magic does have the unique capability to break with real world conventions that would break our suspension of disbelief otherwise though. That's the key. It's a supremely powerful plot device in that way.




It's still limited, though. Generally, magic won't make a bunch of extras line up so they can be conveniently roundhouse-kicked by the heroes, but that certainly does happen in supposedly non-magical action movies. Merely because magic could do anything doesn't mean the PCs could do anything. Any ability, whether magic or otherwise, has almost limitless consequences. Conan may be a lucky guy, but he also has a good sword-arm; under the right circumstances, that talent can defeat almost any foe.

Problems arise when you fail to define "magic." It means something different in every game world and it must be definied, i.e. limited. It's not a given that someone who can raise an island with magic is more powerful in game terms than a swordsman; what is involved in casting that spells? Is it fast? Expensive? Tiring? Time consuming? What else can the magician do? 

I've seen systems that ran into problems by including "martial arts." Martial arts quickly included unarmed combat, armed combat, throwing weapons used by Asians, chi techniques, Taoist sorcery, and ninjitsu, all rolled up into one. A problem? You bet! Why? Because it steamrolls over other characters who might focus more specifically on sorcery, unarmed combat, and so forth.


----------



## ProfessorCirno

Thunderfoot said:


> I'm going to take hit on this, but...this goes back to what I've said a million times before - balance is BS!.  Balance is neither a good thing nor a requirement for D&D.  4e's everyone is the same is a sticking point for me.  3e was bad enough.  (I've played both, ran campaigns in both and am not disparaging any edition, per se)




Unless you want to _not be a wizard_, at which point balance matters quite a bit more.



> This idea that a wizard is the most powerful thing at higher levels is what is supposed to happen.  But since DMs try not to kill PCs anymore, the idea that you actually have to make it to higher levels get lost in the sauce.
> 
> Sure a 7th level caster could do some pretty cool stuff, but they had to get there first and a kobold with a lucky crit could end the career of a wizard as easily as a lowly snake and a failed poison save.   Does nobody remember the phrase, "wizards are squishy"?  Or how about the converse, "Hey, meat shield, protect the caster."




Because this isn't balance.

Hey guess what fighter?  Level 1?  That's it.  That's as good as it gets.  Really!  Because the game is "balanced" over levels.  So enjoy level one, because *every level afterwards* you get closer to being obsolete.

Incidentally, your job is to be personal bodyguard to the wizard.  Yeah, you get to be a hireling!  Doesn't that sound fun?

Know what it doesn't sound like?  *Any story, ever.*

Read mythology.  No, I'm serious, go read a few myths, read some fiction.  Go read Greek mythology or Japanese mythology, read up on the Three Kingdoms and on Roland and on Gilgamesh.  Now point out the number of "meatshields" who do nothing but protect the wizard.  And point out the number of godly superpower wizards that are the protagonist.

I'll wait. 

Now point out how many stories are "And this this rediculously awesome warrior guy did something way over the top and basically impossible and it was really rad."

I think the comparisons support me far more then they do you.



> In fantasy genres balance should be a dirty word unless you are talking about thief skills.




Only if you want the game to be Wizards and Wizards: A Wizardplaying Game.


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## Barastrondo

Thunderfoot said:


> This idea that a wizard is the most powerful thing at higher levels is what is supposed to happen.  But since DMs try not to kill PCs anymore, the idea that you actually have to make it to higher levels get lost in the sauce.




Well, more significantly we're in an age where people might say "You know, I've played levels 1-5 a dozen times before: can we just start at 6th level this time around?" This is a perfectly reasonable expectation, particularly when play time becomes the most precious resource available to a player. The players _have_ paid their dues in time and effort, just not with the latest proposed particular characters. If a group doesn't have time to ensure that players play for a year or so with a subpar character before they get to the character they want to play, the "time-invested-justifies-dramatic-power-inequity" model is flawed. 

Personally, I have a fondness for systems that start at closer to balance, but that's largely because it's so easy by compare to make things properly askew when you start from a position of equity than it is to make things equitable when they start from a position of clear imbalance.


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## Thunderfoot

> Only if you want the game to be Wizards and Wizards: A Wizardplaying Game.



Did I mention I HATE playing wizards.  Yes, mythology has many examples of fighting types taking on wizard antagonists, I concur, and often times it is the gods themselves that get involved through a (im)mortal hero.

Frankly, I would be happy if D&D had NO wizards, I find them to be either modeled after Elminster, Raistlin or Gandalf (unfortunately in that order) or some really goofy eastern Wire-fu take-off.  I like that wizards are easy to kill at lower levels.  As for Fighters "peaking" at 1st level - sorry, I don't buy it.  You can make a saving throw versus almost any spell, you cannot save versus two-handed sword.  With a high magic game, fighters can do as much or more damage than a wizard of appropriate level, in any edition.  

Also, when a wizard is out of spells, what do they have to fall back on?  Nothing.  Your wizards have never been out of spells - DM failure.  Gary didn't pull punches (Tomb of Horrors anyone) and neither do I.  If there isn't at least one time when the monsters are breaking down the door while the wizard is frantically trying to re-memorize spells, something is wrong.

Fighters are CRUCIAL to a swords and sorcery game (that's why it's called swords and sorcery).  Sure a wizard can take out armies with powerful fireballs from three hundred yards away.  Let a thief backstab the bastard and see how many spells he casts while he's bleeding out from his kidneys on the floor.  Wizards are inherently easy to kill because they believe that all that power makes them invincible and when you are sitting upon the lofty perch it just means there is farther to fall when you are pushed.

The "balance" in a wizard/fighter relationship is one of give and take.  Wizards can usually take down a fighter even at 1st level with a _magic missile _ likewise a fighter can throw a rock and kill your garden variety mage.  At 6th level the magic-user has powerful long range spells that do great damage.  The fighter (in every edition) has many many more hit points and much better saving throws against said powerful magic - a fireball that does 36 (the max a 6th level wizard can do) hp of damage is scary for a 6th level wizard (who may have 24 if they are lucky) but a fighter who has a decent set of hp rolls will have in the neighborhood of 35 - 50 and this is prior to the save for half and not including any magic armor or fire resist magic they may have.  36 is easily shrugged off and then the fighter gets to swing - if the wizard hasn't rolled 4 for hp at every level - this fight is over.

The problem I see is that over the years players feel "entitled" to always win.  Guess what, even from the early days there was always the description of a character death in the example of play, right up until 3e.  Hell, the NPC cleric even bought it in the basic solo walk through in the Mentzer edition.  I don't see a balance issue - I see a whiny player issue.  Play with a DM who could care less if you live or die and strictly runs an adventure and leaves the living and dying up to you and chance and all this pissing and moaning about balance goes away, quickly.
(okay stepping off the soapbox -  grognard walking)


----------



## SSquirrel

DocMoriartty said:


> Nakor, just about the coolest character in Feists books explains once why wizards do not dominate everyone else.
> 
> Wizard casts spell.
> Second wizard counterspells first wizard.
> Third wizard counterspells second wizards counterspell.
> 
> Fighter walks up and chops first wizard (or second or third) wizard in half with sword.




In many ways, Nakor was really the heart and soul of that book series.  Let's have a moment of silence in his memory.  *grin*

Want an orange?

BTW, to the earlier question from someone, yeah I did know the world was based on their D&D game.  Feist likes to talk about it in forewords pretty often


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> Read mythology. No, I'm serious, go read a few myths, read some fiction. Go read Greek mythology or Japanese mythology, read up on the Three Kingdoms and on Roland and on Gilgamesh. Now point out the number of "meatshields" who do nothing but protect the wizard. And point out the number of godly superpower wizards that are the protagonist.



Most of the great warriors of mythology & legend are not mere mortals.  Either they have been bestowed with offensive and/or defensive blessings by divine entities or are semidivine themselves.

Gilgamesh, son of a goddess; a demigod.  Roland, a great paladin possessed of artifacts and quite blessed; fought no mages, just a bunch of Islamic knights & warriors.

Odysseus, grandson of Hermes.

Achilles, son of Thetis, a nymph, who bathed him in the River Styx to make him invulnerable.

So yeah, they're going to be a bit more resilient than a mere mortal who picks up a sword and sets out to become a great warrior.  They are going to have an edge from the very start.


----------



## kenjib

pawsplay said:


> It's still limited, though. Generally, magic won't make a bunch of extras line up so they can be conveniently roundhouse-kicked by the heroes, but that certainly does happen in supposedly non-magical action movies.




I think that magic people in literature can sometimes create destruction on a far larger scale: going so far as bringing ruin to entire cities (or more!) in a short amount of time. It all depends on what the story needs to have happen. A roundhouse kick, however, can only do so much before it seems kind of silly (paging Chuck Norris!)...



pawsplay said:


> Merely because magic could do anything doesn't mean the PCs could do anything. Any ability, whether magic or otherwise, has almost limitless consequences. Conan may be a lucky guy, but he also has a good sword-arm; under the right circumstances, that talent can defeat almost any foe.




In my original post I was pointing out that "defeat[ing] any foe" is precisely the kind of D&D focus that is not as key to literature - and even when it happens the motive/goal behind it is usually what's really important. In that literary context, any ability does not have almost limitless consequences. There is a wall of suspension of disbelief that eventually you will hit if you push this. Can Conan's sword-arm alone allow him to travel 1,000 miles instantly? Will it allow him to raise a castle from the earth by himself overnight? Will it bring his dead friend back to life?

Magic, however, by it's very nature does not have this wall. If desired, anything Conan can do could be handwaved away using some kind of magical ability. The reverse is definitely not true.



pawsplay said:


> Problems arise when you fail to define "magic." It means something different in every game world and it must be definied, i.e. limited. It's not a given that someone who can raise an island with magic is more powerful in game terms than a swordsman; what is involved in casting that spells? Is it fast? Expensive? Tiring? Time consuming? What else can the magician do?
> 
> I've seen systems that ran into problems by including "martial arts." Martial arts quickly included unarmed combat, armed combat, throwing weapons used by Asians, chi techniques, Taoist sorcery, and ninjitsu, all rolled up into one. A problem? You bet! Why? Because it steamrolls over other characters who might focus more specifically on sorcery, unarmed combat, and so forth.




That may be true in D&D but it's not a problem at all in literature - this difference is exactly what I'm talking about. The fact that literature does not have to define magic gives it a very different role. People just do magical things and the potential is limited only by what the needs of the narrative demand. If limits exist, they are imposed by the author in order to further the story - often to heighten the risk in conflict and increase tension or to avoid the risk of deprotagonizing the hero.


----------



## ProfessorCirno

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Most of the great warriors of mythology & legend are not mere mortals.  Either they have been bestowed with offensive and/or defensive blessings by divine entities or are semidivine themselves.
> 
> Gilgamesh, son of a goddess; a demigod.  Roland, a great paladin possessed of artifacts and quite blessed; fought no mages, just a bunch of Islamic knights & warriors.
> 
> Odysseus, grandson of Hermes.
> 
> Achilles, son of Thetis, a nymph, who bathed him in the River Styx to make him invulnerable.
> 
> So yeah, they're going to be a bit more resilient than a mere mortal who picks up a sword and sets out to become a great warrior.  They are going to have an edge from the very start.




And wizards are different?

Gandalf is the archangel Michael.

Merlin is the antichrist.

The origin of Elminster and Gandalf is Odin, who's, you know, a god.

Hell, the very name "magician" owes it's origin to Zoroastrian priests!

Sorry, wizards are just as supernatural as Hercules is.  It's both or nothing.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> Gandalf is the archangel Michael.




Well, if you want to talk Gandalf, then you're back to fighters being "meatshields"- very competent, yes, but nobody in the Company is even in his neighborhood.

Elminster, being derived from the D&D system, is going to find few warriors his equal.


----------



## pawsplay

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Well, if you want to talk Gandalf, then you're back to fighters being "meatshields"- very competent, yes, but nobody in the Company is even in his neighborhood.




Except Eowyn, who kills the Witch-King, and Aragorn, the only one who can wield Anduril against the forces of Mordor. Apart from those two, who did all the dirty work besides getting their butt kicked by Saruman, you are right.


----------



## pawsplay

kenjib said:


> That may be true in D&D but it's not a problem at all in literature - this difference is exactly what I'm talking about. The fact that literature does not have to define magic gives it a very different role. People just do magical things and the potential is limited only by what the needs of the narrative demand. If limits exist, they are imposed by the author in order to further the story - often to heighten the risk in conflict and increase tension or to avoid the risk of deprotagonizing the hero.




That's a rubbish way to write fantasy. Orson Scott Card would box your ear for saying it. You can certainly take that approach. You can also have espionage organizations that don't have a defined adminstrative structure, they just do secret and espionagey things. You can have fights in which the warriors just do a little of this and a little of that until you decide it's time for one of them to drop. You certainly don't need geography.

The problem is that the result will be bloody stupid.


----------



## Celtavian

*re*

Mostly in fiction the wizard vs. warrior problem is handled by making magic rare and very dangerous. Usually arcane caster types go through a rigorous and dangerous path to power that can possibly leave them dead. But if they live, they become amongst the most powerful and dangerous people in the world.

Let's explore some different individual stories.

Arthurian Legend:

Arthur had Merlin to aid him. Merlin helped him obtain a powerful magical sword which made him king.

The wizard-types in Arthurian legend usually were enchanter-types clouding the minds of men and enslaving them. They kept doing what they were doing until some great knight came along and defeated them. The great knight was usually more resistant their magic by some virtue of their person such as Launcelot being the most bad to the bone knight alive. Even he was taken in by enchantment magic and made to love another to escape.


Narnia Chronicles:

The wizard type (aka the White Witch) was an all powerful figure who ruled the land of Narnia for a long time until the prophesied children came to save the land with the help of Aslan, a god-like lion figure. So they handled the wizard vs. warrior story with the help of divine intervention of some kind usually in the form of help coming for the person from out of nowhere, Help prophesied and fated to thwart the wizard type and lead to their downfall.


Tolkien:

Tolkien engaged in a sort of arms race with magic. Both sides were armed with magic of a sort. But the evil magicians generally gained the upper hand for a time by being willing to do dark things to enhance their power that others would not do. But the good side always had the aid of fate aka the gods to assist when times were dark. To do a bit here and there to turn the tide of the battle along with the courage and tenacity of the common good people like Frodo and the like. They also usually had their own wizards to help them deal with wizards.

Like you never saw Saruman against Aragorn or Frodo. It was always Gandalf against the other wizard type be it Saruman or the Witch King of Angmar. The one time Aragorn did go against he was only able to drive him off and Frodo almost died. The only reason Aragorn was able to drive them off is because they were harmed by fire.


In _A Song of Ice and Fire_, magic is just returning. But the wizardly types are in service to the fighter types. Stannis had his wizard kill his brother with a shadow. The Red Priest is ressurecting people. The Others are some kind of undead menace. Bran can communicate and control beasts. The Faceless Men can shapechange and take on new forms. The Targaryen blood of Daenrys is allowing her to control dragons and bring them back to life.

I could go on and on.

The way the wizard vs. warrior imbalance is solved is using the narrative. Making magic rare. Making the goals of the wizard types as something other than killing the warrior types. Usually the warriors with a destiny have their own wizard helping them or they have wizard or special powers themselves.

Wizards cannot do everything alone. Thus they employ many of the fighter types or they help many of the fighter types. Magic is rare, but a sword is always there for the swinging.

But one has not changed in the majority of fantasy and that is that wizards are the baddest dudes in all the world. The fighter types cannot hope to stand against them unless they get close enough to lay hands on them with a sword which would not happen to often if they straight up ran at them and tried to swing. If you are a fighter type, you better have a plan, you better bring friends, and you better have some magical help of your own.

That is fantasy. 


In fact, D&D is kinder to fighter types than most books. At least in D&D fighter types do the most damage at higher level. Wizards can't deal near as much damage to a single target as a fighter type can with feats like power attack and the like.

Heck, I just put a 1200 hit point hydra against my party. The melees did 90% of the damage to it. The barbarian did 500 plus points of damage by himself.

Fighter-types do fine in D&D. Just because a wizard can take them out in a one on one battle doesn't mean there is something wrong with either class. It's ridiculous that people think in a fantasy game a fighter should be on par in a one on one fight to a high level wizard. Totally against the tropes of fantasy.


----------



## Celtavian

*re*



ProfessorCirno said:


> Unless you want to _not be a wizard_, at which point balance matters quite a bit more.




No. Balance doesn't matter unless the characters are going against each other in a PvP environment.




> Because this isn't balance.
> 
> Hey guess what fighter?  Level 1?  That's it.  That's as good as it gets.  Really!  Because the game is "balanced" over levels.  So enjoy level one, because *every level afterwards* you get closer to being obsolete.
> 
> Incidentally, your job is to be personal bodyguard to the wizard.  Yeah, you get to be a hireling!  Doesn't that sound fun?




You make ridiculous, untrue statements all the time.

Never have I been in a game like you claim exist. Never have I played the hireling of the wizard.

I have made plenty of bad to the bone melee types in every edition of D&D that were useful and an absolute blast to play. 



> Know what it doesn't sound like?  *Any story, ever.*
> 
> Read mythology.  No, I'm serious, go read a few myths, read some fiction.  Go read Greek mythology or Japanese mythology, read up on the Three Kingdoms and on Roland and on Gilgamesh.  Now point out the number of "meatshields" who do nothing but protect the wizard.  And point out the number of godly superpower wizards that are the protagonist.
> 
> I'll wait.
> 
> Now point out how many stories are "And this this rediculously awesome warrior guy did something way over the top and basically impossible and it was really rad."
> 
> I think the comparisons support me far more then they do you.




Let's see. Elric of Melnibone was a ridiculously powerful wizard protagonist.

I've read tons of mythology. They have lots of children of gods and gods themselves or favored of gods doing things. Usually the warrior types have competing gods helping them out against any wizard types they might face.

But wizards were fairly rare in mythology as good or bad guys. It was mostly gods. But the few wizards in mythology like say Baba Yaga or Circe were bad to the bone.




> Only if you want the game to be Wizards and Wizards: A Wizardplaying Game.





Stupid statement.

I have far more experience than you with all editions of D&D. I know for certain that wizards never have and do not now dominate at the D&D table. They are a useful part of the narrative, but they are far from the end all be all that you make them out to be.

Once again I say you have been playing with DMs that don't know how to create encounters to challenge a complete party. I don't have the problems you have at all. In fact, I find it more difficult to challenge the melee characters in my parties than than the wizard types.

In my groups wizards get one action a round. If the enemy makes their saving throw, their turn is over. They basically did nothing. Then the melees go with their three and four attacks with power attack and magic weapons stacked with bonuses and there is no save against damage, creatures start dying.

Obviously your campaigns consisted of some weak, low save creature completely unprepared for dealing with a wizard enemy who allowed the wizard type to _teleport_ in followed by it missing all its saves and dying in the first round to the first spell cast by the wizard.

Sorry if I don't share your experience, but I don't. Your experience is as absurd as those that claim wizards are balanced with fighters one against one.


----------



## Celtavian

*re*

How do I handle the balance problem of warrior vs fighter vs cleric vs rogue in D&D?

I focus on developing a narrative where each character feels an important part of the story first and foremost. I expect each of my players to provide me with background information I can build on. I also read the modules in advance and try to think of different ways to tie the story into a character's motivations.

I develop encounters that I know will give each of my players something to do or be a serious challenge. If it's a big, tough beast I give it a ton of hit points and high saves so that it isn't easily defeated. If it is a single, tough BBEG NPC I provide him with enough help to engage a party in a challenging battle with something for the melees to do and something for the wizard to do.

It's all about carefully planning the challenges and the narrative to involve all players in the story and give them a sense of immersion. 

I consider my job as DM to be storytelling first. I want all that I do including the development of the challenges to develop the story and push it along. I want the players to feel a sense of danger, while at the same time feeling a sense of victory and development.

My friends and I get together to game to be part of a fun story as well as build a strong character. If all we wanted was some game where all characters were balanced against each other we would stick with MMORPGs like WoW or EQ. We're interested in stories like the ones we read. One guy likes Terry Brooks. I'm big into Tolkien. Another guy likes _A Song of Ice and Fire_. But all the people I know ultimately play D&D for the story first and everything else is secondary to trying to capture the feel of being involved in an epic fantasy story and bringing a character to life.


----------



## Victim

pawsplay said:


> That's a rubbish way to write fantasy. Orson Scott Card would box your ear for saying it. You can certainly take that approach. You can also have espionage organizations that don't have a defined adminstrative structure, they just do secret and espionagey things. You can have fights in which the warriors just do a little of this and a little of that until you decide it's time for one of them to drop. You certainly don't need geography.
> 
> The problem is that the result will be bloody stupid.




Of course it will be when you make it stupid.  OTOH, if the author works backwards, deciding what he wants to have happen and then making up rules to support that, it should be reasonably consistent.

It's just as arbitrary though.


----------



## ProfessorCirno

Celtavian said:


> But one has not changed in the majority of fantasy and that is that wizards are the baddest dudes in all the world. The fighter types cannot hope to stand against them unless they get close enough to lay hands on them with a sword which would not happen to often if they straight up ran at them and tried to swing. If you are a fighter type, you better have a plan, you better bring friends, and you better have some magical help of your own.
> 
> That is fantasy.




No, you are factually incorrect.  You prove such *in your very post*.

In every example given the wizard is one of two things: a bit player or a bad guy.  They are never the top dog, nor are they ever the protagonist.

Also your "experience" in D&D is worthless, and if the enemy is making their saving throw in the first place you've never seen a well built wizard, which is what these arguments _always_ come down to.

Edit: If your wizard is doing damage in 3e then you've already lost the argument.


----------



## GreyLord

Celtavian said:


> Mostly in fiction the wizard vs. warrior problem is handled by making magic rare and very dangerous. Usually arcane caster types go through a rigorous and dangerous path to power that can possibly leave them dead. But if they live, they become amongst the most powerful and dangerous people in the world.
> 
> Blah...blah...blah...
> 
> Like you never saw Saruman against Aragorn or Frodo. It was always Gandalf against the other wizard type be it Saruman or the Witch King of Angmar. The one time Aragorn did go against he was only able to drive him off and Frodo almost died. The only reason Aragorn was able to drive them off is because they were harmed by fire.
> 
> Blah...blah...blah




I'm not taking sides really...but the first paragraph is one reason I actually like the idea of rituals in 4e.  Makes Magic powerful, but it can cost money (NOT XP typically mind you) AND time.  Time can be one thing you have precious little of (like in a dungeon with the Kobolds knocking at the door...and the spell you want to cast takes 10 minutes minimum...)

However, the second paragraph kind of rattles my old bones.  I could have sworn the Wytch King was killed by a warrior...a Woman in fact.  And I could have sworn right before that he was wounded by none other than a little halfing thing called a hobbit.

Furthermore I could swear that Saruman came to an untimely end at the point of several many non-magical weapons.  No wizardly interference in killing him that time around...just some rather bad assistance by a one time hand puppet of another court and bad fate.


----------



## (Psi)SeveredHead

GreyLord said:


> I could have sworn the Wytch King was killed by a warrior...a Woman in fact.  And I could have sworn right before that he was wounded by none other than a little halfing thing called a hobbit.




You've got the right of that... but in what way was Angmar a witch? He was called that, but I saw precious little evidence of it.


----------



## kenjib

pawsplay said:


> That's a rubbish way to write fantasy. Orson Scott Card would box your ear for saying it. You can certainly take that approach. You can also have espionage organizations that don't have a defined adminstrative structure, they just do secret and espionagey things. You can have fights in which the warriors just do a little of this and a little of that until you decide it's time for one of them to drop. You certainly don't need geography.
> 
> The problem is that the result will be bloody stupid.




I'm sorry if I'm not being very clear. Those limitations you are talking about are exactly what I mean - magic is only limited if the author limits it. What you are talking about is a way in which the author limits it. Now - why does he do it? Because otherwise there is no tension in the conflict: Magic guy can always know everything that's happening and then just snap his fingers and the whole plot resolves as soon as any conflict appears, and you're right, that is bloody stupid.

So then why do these limitations exist? Heightening the risk of conflict and avoiding the deprotagonization of the hero are two reasons that I brought up. These same reasons (among others) are part of why I also mentioned earlier that the protagonist is more often the warrior than it is the wizard. Making him facilitator instead of protagonist further limits him.


----------



## Dausuul

(Psi)SeveredHead said:


> You've got the right of that... but in what way was Angmar a witch? He was called that, but I saw precious little evidence of it.




The Witch-King was described as "a powerful sorceror." And in the books, the Nazgul made aggressive use of magic during the battle for Gondor--the Black Breath, and the fear and despair they spread, took a heavy toll among the defenders.

Did they use their magic in personal combat? No. But that's exactly the point: In Middle-Earth, being a wizard does not make you invincible against a warrior. Gandalf had more effective "battle magic" than most (his specialty was fire, after all), but he still carried a sword and used it often.


----------



## ProfessorCirno

Dausuul said:


> The Witch-King was described as "a powerful sorceror." And in the books, the Nazgul made aggressive use of magic during the battle for Gondor--the Black Breath, and the fear and despair they spread, took a heavy toll among the defenders.
> 
> Did they use their magic in personal combat? No. But that's exactly the point: In Middle-Earth, being a wizard does not make you invincible against a warrior. Gandalf had more effective "battle magic" than most (his specialty was fire, after all), but he still carried a sword and used it often.




Heck, Gandalf used his sword *more* often then his magic.  He is, again, the archangel Michael, after all! 

Here's my example: 

Here are the visually distinctive elements of a Balor: HELL SWORD! HELL WHIP! FLAME HUGS!


  Here is how you run a 3E wizard, wait no dragon, wait no pit fiend,  wait no Balor in a mechanically optimal fashion when magic is given preference over everything else: summon minions to  harass the party, continually teleport out of range of them, spam  various save-or-HA-HA! unlimited-use spell-like abilities.


  Here is how you run a Balor in a mechanically optimal fashion when magic isn't given preference over everything else: HELL SWORD! HELL WHIP! FLAME HUGS!


----------



## pawsplay

Victim said:


> Of course it will be when you make it stupid.  OTOH, if the author works backwards, deciding what he wants to have happen and then making up rules to support that, it should be reasonably consistent.
> 
> It's just as arbitrary though.




No, it's the opposite of arbitrary. When you work back from the results you want, and develop a consistent plan for getting there, the result is logical. And logic works really well in a codified RPG.


----------



## pawsplay

Dausuul said:


> The Witch-King was described as "a powerful sorceror." And in the books, the Nazgul made aggressive use of magic during the battle for Gondor--the Black Breath, and the fear and despair they spread, took a heavy toll among the defenders.
> 
> Did they use their magic in personal combat? No. But that's exactly the point: In Middle-Earth, being a wizard does not make you invincible against a warrior. Gandalf had more effective "battle magic" than most (his specialty was fire, after all), but he still carried a sword and used it often.




Actually, between the sword, the ring of fire magic, and his Istari Paragon Path/Prestige Class, Gandalf was quite the D&D character.


----------



## SKyOdin

pawsplay said:


> Actually, between the sword, the ring of fire magic, and his Istari Paragon Path/Prestige Class, Gandalf was quite the D&D character.




Not really. All most all of Gandalf's powers are vaguely defined and subtle in their effects. He uses his ring to inspire courage in people's hearts in an undefined way. Most magic in Lord of the Rings is more subtle influence than flash and bang.

In D&D on the other hand, all spells, powers, classes, and equipment are very well defined in their effects, and usually pretty showy. Saying that Gandalf is very much like a D&D character is only true if you can reasonably describe what his stats would be in D&D rules, which I don't think is possible.


----------



## pawsplay

SKyOdin said:


> Not really. All most all of Gandalf's powers are vaguely defined and subtle in their effects. He uses his ring to inspire courage in people's hearts in an undefined way. Most magic in Lord of the Rings is more subtle influence than flash and bang.




Gandalf creates pyrotechnic pinecones in The Hobbit, and summons holy light in LOTR (conceived in the movie as a literal beam). I guess that the ring of fire also guarded him to some extent in his battle with the Balrog. He alters creature's perception of time in The Hobbit in the troll scene.

The power of the One Ring is pretty flamboyant. Sting and Orcrist both glow in the presence of Sauron's servants. 

The sublety of magic in LOTR is often emphasized to contrast it with something like Dragonlance or Sleeping Beauty, but it's possible to overstate it. While being _more subtle_, it isn't all that subtle, or it wouldn't be magic at all.


----------



## nightwyrm

Most fantasy literature has its magic be limited in certain ways depending on how the author wants magic to be used (or not be used) in its setting. If the works is defined by political intrigue, the author may choose to make mind-reading, dominate and other such mind-affecting magic impossible (or not be available to the protagonists). In another setting where the protagonists have to make a long trek, teleportation magic may be impossible. The magic system in that world is defined in such a way that it doesn't become an easy button for the central conflict in those works. In literature, the plotline comes first and _then_ magic is then designed to accomodate and facilitate that plotline via limitations and drawbacks to the magic system. If_ ability X_ is detrimental to the plotline, then magic simply cannot do _ability X_ by author fiat. Another character with skills similar to _ability X_ is then not overshadowed by the magic character.

D&D magic system is not designed that way. It tries to pack every magic caster archetype with abilities covering every magical ability in all myth, legends and literature into a single class. Thus turning the wizard into an easy button.


----------



## Dausuul

pawsplay said:


> The power of the One Ring is pretty flamboyant.




Wha? The only power the One Ring manifests in any immediately obvious fashion is turning the wearer invisible, which I wouldn't call "flamboyant" particularly. And that seems to be just a side effect. The Ring's other demonstrated powers are extending the Ringbearer's lifespan, messing with the Ringbearer's head, and saying "YO! BUDDY! OVER HERE!" to any Ringwraiths who happen to be passing by.

We never see what it does in the hands of a powerful wielder, but the implication is that it's mostly mind-control; all the other Rings, and their wearers, and everything that was ever accomplished with them, falls under the sway of whoever wields the One. Very powerful, but not very pyrotechnic.


----------



## pawsplay

Dausuul said:


> Wha? The only power the One Ring manifests in any immediately obvious fashion is turning the wearer invisible, which I wouldn't call "flamboyant" particularly.




Immediate and unlimited invisibility, plus nigh-immortality, is pretty much the apex of the magic pyramid in terms of magicalness. It is the Ring of Giges and the curse of the Wandering Jew, rolled into one. The wielder is essentially a cursed superhero.


----------



## fanboy2000

Iota said:


> A lot of people agree that D&D has historically heavily favored spellcasters after about a third of the way thru leveling and the classes we drastically unbalanced at the endgame.  I'm trying to brainstorm an approach to correcting this inbalance in a way that maybe makes more sense than the 4e "make everyone a Vancian caster" approach.  So, I'm thinking of look at fantasy source material: the novels and epic tales that inspired fantasy roleplaying games in the first place.



That's a good idea. Remember though, that the stories were written with a different mindset than an RPG, or even RPG based fiction, is written. 



> So, since I don't have the time to read all  the great fantasy literature in one setting, I thought I'd ask everyone here:
> 
> *How have you seen warior characters in fantasy books overcome spellcasters?*



Yes, but the next part of your post sugests that you're already on the trail.



> I recently read a Conan story where Conan's encounter with a wizard was a bit anticlimatic - he just threw a dagger at him and killed him in one shot while the wizard was trying to cast a spell.  So, in that case, spellcasting probably took more than the typical "Standard Action" and the wizard had *very* low Hit Points and no protective magic in place (even though he was anticipating the encounter).



To be fair, Conan kills _a lot_ of people, not just spellcasters, like this. It's kind of a speciality of his. Not only that, but Howard (writing fiction in the 1930s, not RPGs in the 2010s) understands that people often die after one hit. A lot of the tension in Howard's stories comes not from the fight (though there is certainly a lot of that) but from the circumstances surrounding the fight. (I.e., the situation that leads to fight, the necessity of preparing for for, or getting to a point where you can win. 

Conan also has a tendency to lose and then need help getting out of whatever hellish situation he's in. I just finished a story where the villain actually had Conan crucified. [spoil]It wasn't a good saving throw that got him out.[/spoil]

I'm going to recommend a book. _Hour of the Dragon_ it's Howard's only Conan novel, and I just read it for the first time recently. I really enjoyed it. More important to your research, it contains at least 4 spellcasters: Xaltotun, a recently awaked 3,000 year old 'necromancer'; Orastes, a former priest of the Mitra who turned to black arts; Zeiata, an old witch (more like a D&D druid, really or even a spellcasting ranger); and Hadrathus a priest of the cult of Asura. Each of them approaches magic in a different manner. Some aid Conan, other's oppose him. Seeing the different approaches in one story is kind of interesting.

Also, it contains a great line towards the end of chapter 20: "Magic depended, to a certain extent after all, on sword strokes and lance thrusts." In fiction and RPGs, I think that's probably the best outlook on magic one can have.


----------



## I'm A Banana

> Most of the great warriors of mythology & legend are not mere mortals. Either they have been bestowed with offensive and/or defensive blessings by divine entities or are semidivine themselves.
> ...
> So yeah, they're going to be a bit more resilient than a mere mortal who picks up a sword and sets out to become a great warrior. They are going to have an edge from the very start.




There's a case to be made that D&D characters are not mere mortals, either.

No D&D character is just a dirt farmer done good. The editions vary to the degree this is true (1st ed's "just a typical fighting-man, sir! just happen to be better than most fighting-men, sir!" to 4th eds "You are all 1st level demigods in the making!"), but it's pretty true in any edition.

D&D, especially modern D&D, isn't about Samwise Gamgee the Gardener Turned Hero. It's about Aragon and Gandalf and other epic-from-the-start characters. 

Not that it has to be, just that it IS. Which means that Achilles and other mythic fighters are not out of the realm of choice for heroic archetypes for the game.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> D&D, especially modern D&D, isn't about Samwise Gamgee the Gardener Turned Hero. It's about Aragon and Gandalf and other epic-from-the-start characters.




Maybe your games, but that does not describe my history with D&D _at all._

Sure, I have some special-from-the-start PCs, but they are far and away the exception, not the rule.


----------



## Dice4Hire

Demi-gods in the making or local boys done good is a play style, mostly having to do with the type of adventures and the max level and rate of level gain in the game. 

I think earlier editions of D&D were more aimed at the local boys and 4E at the demigods, but the rules do not stop you from going either way.


----------



## ProfessorCirno

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Maybe your games, but that does not describe my history with D&D _at all._
> 
> Sure, I have some special-from-the-start PCs, but they are far and away the exception, not the rule.




Not if you have wizards!


----------



## ProfessorCirno

Actually, farmboy vs hero is interesting.  And it's tied to skills!

You go back to original, old-as-it-gets-school D&D, and adventurers weren't farmboys.  The Fighting Man was a seasoned veteran.  The Magic User had finished his apprentice training.  They weren't wet behind the ears sops, they were professional thieves and looters that went into a dungeon to rob the hell out of it.

Likewise, skills were generally acted out rather then rolled for - and at most you rolled your attribute.  The game was highly narrative, not "simulationist."  There was no tie ropes skill - you were an _adventurer_, you knew how to tie a damn knot!

Slowly - and I think it peaked in 2e - the general idea reversed.  I attribute this in part to skills.  When 2e gave us NWPs, it was amazing to see how many adventurers suddenly couldn't tie knots or swim since they didn't have the NWP for it.  There were rules for everything, and the basis of the game was built on "simulationism" more then anything else.

In 3e we had the same skill problems, where level 20 fighters couldn't tie a knot or knew how to swim, but the game was drifting away from "everyone's a level -1 NPC at the start."  You had NPC classes to illustrate how the PCs were different - and better - then they were.

4e is if anything far closer to the super old school then 3e/2e is.  Adventurers are already seasoned veterans to some point, and the skills the roll are the ones you need actual conflict resolution for.  You don't need a separate "tie knots" skill because, as was so long ago, you're an adventurer!  You don't need a "know how to hitch together rope" skill, that's something you already have.


----------



## Thunderfoot

Your assumption that "seasoned veterans" know how to do common sense things is laughable.  When the US Army deployed to Iraq the 1st time, several units DX'ed (that means got rid of for the non-military minded) hundreds of tents (the GP small, medium and large style - not shelter halves) because the rope tighter was missing.  

Infantry Soldiers that had been career military men didn't know how to tie a bowline or a taught line.  Sorry, even the real world proves that you can get by without a certain set of skills as long as other skills get you to that point.  Maybe the reason the "seasoned veteran" isn't still in is because they could kill, but couldn't keep their equipment clean or maintained.  

Medieval armies (on which our fantasy worlds are usually based) were lacking in discipline, structure and training with the exception of the noble elite who could afford such training, and equipment.  

All that being said a good DM can keep ANY world from being overpowered, it sounds to me like you play with someone (or group of someones) who has/have no self-control.  And if you are the DM, it's time to do some studying.


----------



## ProfessorCirno

Thunderfoot said:


> Your assumption that "seasoned veterans" know how to do common sense things is laughable.  When the US Army deployed to Iraq the 1st time, several units DX'ed (that means got rid of for the non-military minded) hundreds of tents (the GP small, medium and large style - not shelter halves) because the rope tighter was missing.
> 
> Infantry Soldiers that had been career military men didn't know how to tie a bowline or a taught line.  Sorry, even the real world proves that you can get by without a certain set of skills as long as other skills get you to that point.  Maybe the reason the "seasoned veteran" isn't still in is because they could kill, but couldn't keep their equipment clean or maintained.
> 
> Medieval armies (on which our fantasy worlds are usually based) were lacking in discipline, structure and training with the exception of the noble elite who could afford such training, and equipment.
> 
> All that being said a good DM can keep ANY world from being overpowered, it sounds to me like you play with someone (or group of someones) who has/have no self-control.  And if you are the DM, it's time to do some studying.




What does this in any way have to do with what I said?


----------



## I'm A Banana

Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> Maybe your games, but that does not describe my history with D&D at all.
> 
> Sure, I have some special-from-the-start PCs, but they are far and away the exception, not the rule.




Then I'd say you weren't playing in the style the rules assumed. Which is fine, and worked fine with earlier eds, and I _really want_ that good D&D variant where levels represent some sort of actual increase in competence from "inexpert" to "OMG HOLY WOW," instead of just "Woah" to "OMG HOLY WOW," to encapsulate the Heroic Journey in levels 1-20. 

But even in 3e, PC's have ability scores that aren't all 10s and PC classes instead of NPC classes, _simply because they're better than other folks_. Even in 1e, you were a seasoned veteran. 3e characters also lived in a world where there were other "Übermensch" around, which reduced the feeling of that "awesome from the start"-ness, but they weren't, rules-wise, gardeners, dirt farmers, and hedge mages. Level 1 heroes were badasses in comparison to 99% of the population, by default assumption.

That's just the default assumption, of course, and nothing stopped you from playing in a world where everyone was 10th level by the time they were adults, but the game didn't assume that. 

Playing Achilles is a pretty valid D&D character archetype by default, but the rule set mostly assumes that the whole "dipped in the Styx" thing will come up in play, given out by the DM at an "appropriate level" (probably right about the time wizards are getting _stoneskin_ or something). But I'm not sure fighters should have to depend on DM Fiat any more than wizards and clerics and other spellcasters do...


----------



## JoeGKushner

ProfessorCirno said:


> What does this in any way have to do with what I said?




"Likewise, skills were generally acted out rather then rolled for - and at most you rolled your attribute. The game was highly narrative, not "simulationist." There was no tie ropes skill - you were an adventurer, you knew how to tie a damn knot!"


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

ProfessorCirno said:


> Not if you have wizards!




Yes, even with wizards.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> Then I'd say you weren't playing in the style the rules assumed.




Were you there when they wrote 'em up?  Psychic?

The rules in no way assume that you're "special" beyond the fact that your PC has a modicum of training.  That you have an extraordinary stat or two isn't all that unusual.  According to D&D Str charts, I have a 14-15 in that stat, and I'm 5'7", 43years old, am a lawyer, and don't work out anymore.

A "1st lvl Ftr" can describe a talented farmboy brawler, an avg. Joe fresh out of basic training, a 45 year old veteran whose skills have atrophied with age & injury or Hercules at age 5.  A "1st lvl Wiz" sounds like a graduate if a private HS or college student in terms of education.


----------



## SkidAce

nightwyrm said:


> D&D magic system is not designed that way. It tries to pack every magic caster archetype with abilities covering every magical ability in all myth, legends and literature into a single class. Thus turning the wizard into an easy button.




I agree with you on D&D design including everything.  But IMO, the wizard only becomes and "easy" button when you allow all those abilities.  In literature and D&D, the worlds should be designed for people (readers or players) to enjoy their adventure.

Its always been my thought that D&D was a kit, you didn't need to use everything from it all the time.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> Its always been my thought that D&D was a kit, you didn't need to use everything from it all the time.




That's a fat bit of wisdom packed in that sentence.


----------



## pawsplay

Dannyalcatraz said:


> That's a fat bit of wisdom packed in that sentence.




But think of the glacier dwarves!


----------



## pemerton

kenjib said:


> In fiction, while magic capable characters get these meta-narrative shaping traits, the non-magic characters are often given all of the coolest traits that define the conflict (like heir to a lost throne, for example). This keeps them relevant and goes along with my point earlier that often protagonists are mundane while the facilitators are magical.
> 
> In D&D there is no such compensation. Of course you can always make it work that way if you want, ala what Plane Sailing suggests - but that requires a set of skills and motivations that aren't really in the books, and operate outside of the system. Narrative style mechanics could capture this kind of player balance, but then I suspect that you're looking at a type of game that D&D is not trying to be (even if you can make it work). For example, there are many games where you can have more plot-oriented stats such as "incorruptible," "heir to a lost throne," or "soul-bound to a fallen angel," instead of ability stats. In those kind of games, balance between players operates in very different ways (with their own sets of problems as well).
> 
> 4th edition D&D helped to address this problem by simply toning down or removing the meta-narrative controlling powers from magic characters. I think that really watered down a lot of the open and creative feel to the game though. I wonder if there is a different way to address this by giving a very different sort of narrative controlling power to non-magic characters.



Well, 4e does have stuff like "heir to a lost throne" or "soul-bound to a fallen angel". This is the stuff of paragon paths and epic destinies. Unfortunately, what the game is currently missing is any solid guidelines for incorporating this stuff into play in a meaningful way. That doesn't mean it can't be done, however. And this is the stuff which can be used to differentiate the magic from the mundane, without undermining the narrative balance across PCs (I think that the tactical stuff that comes from powers also lends itself better to this than you suggest in your post - fighters get more "meta" powers, for example, than do wizards - like Come and Get It).



Crazy Jerome said:


> Are you then advocating that the answer is to have narrative style balance mechanics in games?
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Because I've got to think that identifying equal amounts of kick-butt as the motivation in D&D balance is getting the cause and effect and correlations subtley wrong.  In my group, when we play heroic fantasy, everyone at the table wants to be doing something.  That means if we play a game that is about butt kicking, then they want butt kicking balance.  If the game is about trade and intrigue, they want balance in that.  If it is about overcoming personal challenges, we aren't playing D&D, because there are better games for that.



But do those games also deliver such crunchy combat goodness! (Well, yes, Burning Wheel does, but for better or worse I run a 4e game . . .)



Crazy Jerome said:


> Graft an almost purely narrative, metagaming, defining/framing system on top of what 4E already has. Fluff of this system is variable--sometimes magic, sometimes not. Call it "Framing" for lack of a better word. It has an almost entirely separate rewards cycle from the rest of 4E. Something like, when you "experience" a narrative issue, your options and power over the narrative grow.
> 
> The tie to the world/story/simulation is that much of the picks are very powerful but obviously situationally limited. "Heir to the throne" lets you do some appropriate stuff. "7th son of a Wizard" lets you do some other equally appropriate stuff. As you grow in your narrative control, through play, the appropriate stuff naturally becomes more powerful and useful. It is not unlike 4E rituals, except heavily slanted towards the metagame. If an ability is too game changing even for ritual, then it becomes a possible Framing ability.



Again, without the need for a whole new subsystem, I think there is scope to build on the existing elements of 4e for this. Different paragon paths and epic destinies, for example, should have implications for the use of various skills, and how they factor into skill challenge framing and resolution (in just the same way that they have different powers that factor into combat framing and resolution).



kenjib said:


> Of course then you're really messing with the core "story" of D&D, which at heart has always been about kicking down the door, kicking the monsters in the junk, and taking their stuff.



Well, the sooner D&D loses this core story, the better in my opinion. 1st ed Oriental Adventures showed me how to abandon it, and for me at least it's only got better from there.


----------



## Hussar

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Were you there when they wrote 'em up?  Psychic?
> 
> The rules in no way assume that you're "special" beyond the fact that your PC has a modicum of training.  That you have an extraordinary stat or two isn't all that unusual.  According to D&D Str charts, I have a 14-15 in that stat, and I'm 5'7", 43years old, am a lawyer, and don't work out anymore.
> 
> A "1st lvl Ftr" can describe a talented farmboy brawler, an avg. Joe fresh out of basic training, a 45 year old veteran whose skills have atrophied with age & injury or Hercules at age 5.  A "1st lvl Wiz" sounds like a graduate if a private HS or college student in terms of education.




Except that your 1st level fighter can have percentile strength, for no other reason than his class, if we're talking 1e or 2e.  

Your 1st level fighter in 3e is based on a point buy value that makes him superhuman compared to baseline.  NPC's don't roll their stats, they work from 15 point buy assumption.  

When have you ever seen a PC with a 15 point buy?

Heck, even as far back as 1e, when they talked about demographics, PC's were less than a single PERCENT of the given population.  Most humans had a d6 HP, not even a hit die.  Even by 3e, those demographic percentages hadn't actually changed that much and PC's were still head and shoulders above the common man.

Farmboy in 3e is a Commoner 1, with a 15 point buy value.  A 1st level PC fighter is considerably more powerful.  

Heck, even a classed NPC isn't even considered as strong of a challenge as a PC.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Hussar said:


> Except that your 1st level fighter can have percentile strength, for no other reason than his class, if we're talking 1e or 2e.




So?

Baseline- that just means he has some kind of edge from his familiarity with combat, not that he's superhuman.

(FWIW, I always thought that was a crappy rule, alongside the rule that certain _races _ or _sexes_ couldn't have percentile strength at all.)



> Your 1st level fighter in 3e is based on a point buy value that makes him superhuman compared to baseline.



1) Ummm...mine rolls his stats, which, as I recall is still the baseline assumption.  Point buy is presented as an equal alternative.

2) Even with point buy, that makes them elite physical specimens, but hardly superhuman by necessity.  Again, it depends upon how those stats match up to the concept.  If he's a Athenian, he may be one of a kind.  If a Spartan, he may be average.

If he's 5 years old, start looking for supernatural parentage.


> When have you ever seen a PC with a 15 point buy?



Never, since we generally roll.

We have 2 GMs who DO use a point-buy, but its not WotC standard.  You have 78 points to distribute freely- that's an average of 13 points per stat.  Above average?  Yes.  Superhuman?  No.



> Heck, even as far back as 1e, when they talked about demographics, PC's were less than a single PERCENT of the given population.




If Michael Jordan represents an innate physical talent of 0.001% of the population of the world today, that means that there are approximately 6.5 million MJs out there.  Some play sports..but maybe not with intensity.  Some are soldiers.  Some are planting rice in a paddy, others are tossing bales of hay.  One may have died because he trod on a landmine in some 3rd-world border war.  Perhaps one or two are playing in KISS tribute bands.  I bet one is a lawyer.  Odds are good that 2 are Chinese and one is Indian.

Only one actually got to play in the NBA.

What makes him MJ isn't his stats, its what he did with them.


----------



## Bluenose

Dannyalcatraz said:


> So?
> 
> Baseline- that just means he has some kind of edge from his familiarity with combat, not that he's superhuman.




How much training do you think it takes to gain the level of familiarity with weapons and armour shown by 1st level fighters in every edition of D&D. How many years does it take? How much competence with the wilds before a 1st level ranger is assumed able to operate without supervision? How long is a wizard's apprenticeship? A 1st level 'any PC class' has training and practice behind them, and not a few weeks of it either. (I might make an exception for a Sorceror, possibly).




> If Michael Jordan represents an innate physical talent of 0.001% of the population of the world today, that means that there are approximately 6.5 million MJs out there. Some play sports..but maybe not with intensity. Some are soldiers. Some are planting rice in a paddy, others are tossing bales of hay. One may have died because he trod on a landmine in some 3rd-world border war. Perhaps one or two are playing in KISS tribute bands. I bet one is a lawyer. Odds are good that 2 are Chinese and one is Indian.
> 
> Only one actually got to play in the NBA.
> 
> What makes him MJ isn't his stats, its what he did with them.




The fact that there's only one Michael Jordan, one Pele, one Michelangelo, one Wayne Gretsky, one William Marshall, suggests that it's not just physical attributes or training or experience or even desire that makes exceptional people. Besides, one in ten thousand (0.001%)? Far less than that even play professional sport.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Bluenose said:


> How much training do you think it takes to gain the level of familiarity with weapons and armour shown by 1st level fighters in every edition of D&D.




You mean like my buddy who went into Special Forces training able to take everyone but the instructor, whom he gave a workout?  (A few months.)

Or do you mean like another buddy who got drummed out of the Marines for being an uncontrollable psycho?  (Ditto.)

Or like some of my friends & family who are career military and can barely shoot straight?  (Never.)



> How much competence with the wilds before a 1st level ranger is assumed able to operate without supervision?




If you're a city slicker like me, a few years if scouting.  If you live in a tribal society, probably by age 8.



> How long is a wizard's apprenticeship?




Depends on the student.  A talented, driven student may pass his tests in months, with any time after that being a formality.  A lazy student, or one who barely has any talent at all may take years.

Look at Marvel's Dr. Strange- he learned in months what the Ancient One had been teaching to another pupil for some time...

Or look at me with calculus.  I suck at it, even after taking it in HS and college.  OTOH, one of my classmates had taught himself calculus by his sophomore year.



> The fact that there's only one Michael Jordan, one Pele, one Michelangelo, one Wayne Gretsky, one William Marshall, suggests that it's not just physical attributes or training or experience or even desire that makes exceptional people. Besides, one in ten thousand (0.001%)? Far less than that even play professional sport.




Certainly- there is opportunity.  Just because you have all of MJ's physical gifts doesn't mean you'll get to use them playing B-ball.  Perhaps you never leave the provincial farm you grew up on and nobody- not even you- suspect you could be leading your country to Olympic Medal contention.

Then there is desire- maybe you don't like B-ball at all, and fishing is your sport if choice.

Nutrition, health, culture, opportunity, drive, luck- all play their role.

I'm an entertainment attorney.  I get to see all kinds of talented people trying to make it, some as good or better than artists making millions.  One, having pulled strings to get a Sony exec to see his show at a Dallas nightclub is still unsigned.  Not because he sucked- he definitely had talent and a good stage show- but because the night before his show, someone robbed the club of all it's equipment.  No lights, no mics, no PA...no show.  The Sony exec left within minutes and never granted my client another shot.


----------



## Hussar

DannyA, you can keep chucking up all the anecdotes you like, but, the game actually disagrees with you.  Normal humans in 1e actually had different stats than PC's.  Actually, scratch that.  Normal humans in 1e DIDN'T HAVE STATS AT ALL.  That's right, they didn't even HAVE a strength score, never mind not having a percentile one.  Con?  Nope.  Dex, nope.  Wis?  Nonexistent.  They did have an Int score - average int, which is 9.

Heck, the demi-humans were considered far more powerful than humans for the simple fact that there were no zero level demi-humans.

I'm kinda wondering though, how exactly that farmboy fresh off the turnip truck has enough money to buy armor and a weapon considering his take home pay is measured in silver pieces per month.  20 years might get him a longsword.  Chainmail?  Fergettaboutit.  Yet, that 1st level fighter has enough resources to easily buy that and more.

You want a game where the PC's start as relative nothings?  There are such games out there.  Chivalry and Sorcery comes to mind and I'm sure there's others.

But D&D?  D&D PC's have been head and shoulders above the rabble at level 1 since OD&D.


----------



## Crazy Jerome

pemerton said:


> Again, without the need for a whole new subsystem, I think there is scope to build on the existing elements of 4e for this. Different paragon paths and epic destinies, for example, should have implications for the use of various skills, and how they factor into skill challenge framing and resolution (in just the same way that they have different powers that factor into combat framing and resolution).




I both agree and disagree with this, and not in a wishy-washy way, either. 

I agree that building on such elements would provide a lot of gaming groups with enough to really make this shine. The DM and players would have to really want it, and go after it, but that would often be enough.

I disagree that this is a good way to do it from a design perspective. It is too tacked on, instead of integrated from level 1 forward. It is "horizontal" design when it should be "vertical". It is the same problem that fate points and other such constructs have. I've used such constructs in games, and they can help. But if they are not intrinsically tied into the reward cycle, then you have to stay after them to make them work:

1. Arcana Evolved or 3.5. The players pursue Hero points and action points, respectively, because they let you do extra stuff. In AE, you get them for being a great big hero. You *use* them when trying to be the great big hero falls completely flat. That is almost but not quite right.

2. Burning Wheel. The players pursue fate, persona, and deeds because fighting for what you believe is the only way for the character to improve a skill very much and with much speed (edge cases not withstanding). 

It is not that the first way is bad. The negative side effects are rather slight, and it does produce some nice moments for those with the right attitude about them. It is merely so much less than what it could be. In my D&D, I'd rather have no such thing (and thus play old school style) or have something really thought through and robust, and thus play BW style. Ideally, in D&D, it would be optional. Otherwise, we get some muddled, weak, middle version that frequently turns into not heroic action, but saved as my "get out of jail free card", and about as exciting as playing that card in Monopoly. 

Specifically, my objection along the above lines to paragon paths and epic destinies (and other similar things) is that they are trying too hard to be that middle ground. It would be better in my eyes if the whole bits were scrapped in favor of some paragon or epic thing that could develop in parallel with the fighting ability. It wouldn't even need to be the same rate as character advancement, either. If your epic destiny is to be a demi-god, start out that way. As you pursue your destiny, it unfolds. Or don't, and it doesn't.


----------



## pawsplay

Bluenose said:


> How much training do you think it takes to gain the level of familiarity with weapons and armour shown by 1st level fighters in every edition of D&D.




To have a marginal advantage over an untrained human? Probably a few months. That's how long it takes to get a yellow belt, or to break in a new combat sports player, or for basic training in the military.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> Normal humans in 1e DIDN'T HAVE STATS AT ALL.




Interesting assertion.  When I get the chance, I'll do a reality check out of the modules.

However, even if true, that means nothing as to the extraordinariness of the PCs.  At best, it means that the adventure writer felt the PCs in question were going to be unlikely combatants, and left filling things in to the DM if needed.



> I'm kinda wondering though, how exactly that farmboy fresh off the turnip truck has enough money to buy armor and a weapon considering his take home pay is measured in silver pieces per month. 20 years might get him a longsword.




Inheritance?  Cashed out if the family farm a la The Prodigal Son?  Did a special favor for the richest man in town?  Stole it?  Helped out a passing adventurer (who CLEARLY doesn't know the value of a GP)?  Everyone in the village chipped in so the local boy can become one of the King's knights?  Found a stashbox while plowing a field?

There are plenty of ways.


----------



## Hussar

And you have no problem with every single PC farmboy suddenly stumbling onto this sort of provenance?  You don't see that as being a step up over Joe Average?

And, you don't even have to look at modules.  The 1e MM has the stats for all sorts of men.  And, guess what?  They don't have stats other than an Int score, same as every other creature in the MM.


----------



## Hussar

pawsplay said:


> To have a marginal advantage over an untrained human? Probably a few months. That's how long it takes to get a yellow belt, or to break in a new combat sports player, or for basic training in the military.




Marginal though?  Let's jump over to 3e.  A 1st level fighter has three times as many hit points, has two feats, is actually capable of wearing armor and using pretty much any weapon and is assumed to have 10 build points more than a standard Commoner 1.  The Commoner 1 can use only one weapon, cannot wear armor proficiently, has no feats and has 10 in every stat.

That's a long way from a marginal advantage.

Going back to 1e, it gets even worse.  The fighter has access to abilities (percentile strength) that normal humans can NEVER have.  A Ranger has 2d8 hp at first level, giving him possibly FOUR TIMES more hit points than the strongest human at first level.

Never mind that Death's Door rules only apply to PC's.  Oh, and PC's have action points that NPC's don't.

There's a list as long as my arm of the advantages that PC's get over everyone else starting at 1st level.  More wealth than most commoners will see in their entire lifetime, the ability to be stabbed by the most damaging sword stroke and ignoring it, the ability to use more than one weapon, armor, access to skills that NPC's cannot have (class skills) and abilities that NPC's cannot have - Bardic music comes to mind.

Yes, I just jumped all over editions there.  

The idea that your 1st level character was some guy just off the turnip truck is not really supported by the rules in any edition.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> Normal humans in 1e DIDN'T HAVE STATS AT ALL.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Interesting assertion. When I get the chance, I'll do a reality check out of the modules.
Click to expand...


And I have.  I'm right now looking at the original _Temple of Elemental Evil_.

Turns out you're right...but you didn't go far enough.

In fact, many NPCs _with actual class levels_ aren't started out at all either, beyond class level, HP, gear, alignment and XP value. I spotted NPCs as high as 2nd level with that disability.  (See the Daughter at location 23, p12, the guards at locations GT 1 & 4, p19, the Brigand Leader at location 7, p22 and the Sergeant at location 33, p26 for examples of statless, leveled NPCs.)  FWIW, the Ogre at location 24, p24 has no stats either.

(This is not unique to _ToEE_, either- I found similarly unstatted NPCs with class levels in the Lankhmar adventures, up to _*Tenth*_ level: see _Nehwon_, p13 for the band of Coroval the Courageous.  He's 10th, has 2 4th level assistants, and another 15 1st level thugs at his disposal...all statless.  Ditto the merchant caravan on the same page: NPCs with class levels and no stats.)

There were also level 0 types who had pricey weapons & chainmail and other goodies, like the Stonemason on p13 (military pick, chain & shield).

This says to me that the mere fact of being a 1st level fighter with listed stats isn't particularly or inherently über special other than denoting that you're a PC, so you get fleshed out.  The "Regular Joe" NPCs don't have stats because, by and large, they don't need them.

And if the DM sees you're going on a killing spree through Hommlet, I'm sure he'd feel just fine if he differentiated between the stats for the "daughter" and the other unstatted fighters you'll encounter.



> The fighter has access to abilities (percentile strength) that normal humans can NEVER have.




Well, since some of the "normal humans" ARE fighters- however low in level- granting one exceptional strength to stiffen up the challenge for an oversized party, for instance, would not be breaking any rules.



> And you have no problem with every single PC farmboy suddenly stumbling onto this sort of provenance? You don't see that as being a step up over Joe Average?




No I don't- see above.

That list I presented was non-exhaustive.  I could go on with other ways Joe Average winds up with gear that costs serious $$$.


----------



## Hussar

No, actually, they are not fighters.  They are "normal humans".  They have a d6 (d4?) hit points, at least according to the monster manual.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Hussar said:


> No, actually, they are not fighters.  They are "normal humans".  They have a d6 (d4?) hit points, at least according to the monster manual.




Your point was that PCs were "special" because they got full stats, right?

Yet NPCs as high as 10th level in bona fide classes- Bard, Thief and Fighter in the 2 modules sampled in part- ALSO have no stats in early edition adventures.  And yes, they do have all of their level-appropriate benefits like spells and death attacks.  This punches a gaping hole in your assertion.

IOW, the only inherent "specialness" to the PCs is that they are PCs.  All that stuff about "no stats" is merely an artifact of simplifying the DM's workload.


----------



## Hussar

Wait a second.  How is that counter to my point?  PC's have stats and NPC's don't.  Doesn't that make PC's special?

How many PC's don't have stats?


----------



## fanboy2000

Iota said:


> *How have you seen warior characters in fantasy books overcome spellcasters?*
> 
> I recently read a Conan story where Conan's encounter with a wizard was a bit anticlimatic - he just threw a dagger at him and killed him in one shot while the wizard was trying to cast a spell.  So, in that case, spellcasting probably took more than the typical "Standard Action" and the wizard had *very* low Hit Points and no protective magic in place (even though he was anticipating the encounter).



If you're still reading this thread, could you tell me what story that was? I'm reading through all the REH Conan material right now for the first time, and I'm having a hard time placing it. It's pretty typical for Conan to dispatch of a people in the manner you mentioned.

Anyways, in answer to your question, bolded for my convience, this is what I've observed:

1. Physical attack.

This is used in stories, like Conan, where combat is quite deadly and people in general, not just wizards, die.

2. Magic Nullification

This is often used when the wizard has used magic to extend their lifespan and uses magic to protect them from physical attack. 

Acquiring the ability to nullify the wizard can be the subject of the story. Maybe there is an artifact that nullifies the wizard's ability and the hero has to find it.

Other times, the spellcaster may be kicking the hero's tail and, at the end of the book, the hero finds the source of the spellcaster's power and destroys it or otherwise prevents it from being used by the spellcaster. 

In D&D physical attack is typically used by NPCs against PCs, while magic nullification is typically what PCs do to NPC spellcasters.

In addition to reading Conan, I like to suggest Fritz Leiber Lankhmar books. Personally, I'd start with _Swords Against Death_.

I'd stay away from anything D&D labeled when it comes to fiction.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Hussar said:


> Wait a second.  How is that counter to my point?  PC's have stats and NPC's don't.  Doesn't that make PC's special?



It counters your point because the lack of stats is not indicative of some game design delineation between "special" and "normal" beings, it's just an artifact of simplified bookkeeping for the DM.

After all, a 10th level character is pretty special, right?  And yet there is poor, normal, "Average Joe" 10th level Coroval the Statless Wonder.

IOW, the lack of stats in and of itself only tells you that the character in question is an NPC, not that he's somehow inherently "lesser."


> How many PC's don't have stats?




None of course, because the player needs to know everything about his PC.  The same does not hold true for each and every NPC the DM controls.

What do you think would happen if, instead of fighting Coroval to defeat him, the party thief challenged him to a test of thieving skills?  If he agrees to the challenge, I guaran-damn-tee you that no DM is going to just let the lack of stats let the PC walk all over he NPC.  He'll take a break, see which stats he needs to fill out the modifiers for the thief skills that the challenges will be based on.


----------



## Hussar

Dannyalcatraz said:


> It counters your point because the lack of stats is not indicative of some game design delineation between "special" and "normal" beings, it's just an artifact of simplified bookkeeping for the DM.
> 
> After all, a 10th level character is pretty special, right?  And yet there is poor, normal, "Average Joe" 10th level Coroval the Statless Wonder.
> 
> IOW, the lack of stats in and of itself only tells you that the character in question is an NPC, not that he's somehow inherently "lesser."
> 
> 
> None of course, because the player needs to know everything about his PC.  The same does not hold true for each and every NPC the DM controls.
> 
> What do you think would happen if, instead of fighting Coroval to defeat him, the party thief challenged him to a test of thieving skills?  If he agrees to the challenge, I guaran-damn-tee you that no DM is going to just let the lack of stats let the PC walk all over he NPC.  He'll take a break, see which stats he needs to fill out the modifiers for the thief skills that the challenges will be based on.




It still doesn't change the fact that Coroval the Statless Wonder gets no bonus damage to his attacks, gets no bonuses to hit on his attacks.

And, now we've gone FAR beyond Joe farmer as well.  We've gone from comparing Joe Farmer to a 1st level PC to a major NPC who is a unique individual in the setting.  After all, how many 10th level NPC's are wandering around in the standard setting?  

Add to that the fact that our 10th level PC is completely statted out, with his abilities included in his stat block, our 10th level PC is still head and shoulders above the 10th level NPC.

Even in 3e, the 10th level PC is considered a full CR ahead of the NPC.


----------



## I'm A Banana

> If Michael Jordan represents an innate physical talent of 0.001% of the population of the world today, that means that there are approximately 6.5 million MJs out there.




Right.

Only, this is D&D, not real life. So when we say "Michael Jordan can fly!" we mean it _literally_, like he's been actually fathered by the God of Winds and given a magical pair of Nikes (by the actual Nike) that assure him victory in sports whenever they are worn.

The top .001% is capable of so much more in a fantasy world.

Fighters being Michael Jordan and wizards being Merlin is part of the problem - - they are very different power scales. You could make spellcasters suffer more for their limited powers, making a more "gritty," or low-powered game. Or you could let fighters be as magnificent, going more Wahoo. D&D has been more inclined to the latter, as evidenced by things like wizards being able to make a demiplane and vorpal swords that lop off heads when they hit things. For most of it's life, it's been able to be the former, too, but it hasn't been inclined to be the former ever. 

But either you're Hercules and Merlin and Orpheus, or you're MJ and Stephen Hawking and Prince. A party including Hercules and Orpheus and Stephen Hawking is not going to work out well for the astrophysicist. 

That's kind of the complaint here. I can get it. I don't think it's a "wizards are overpowered oh noes!" problem, but it's a real issue with not feeling as potent because of a lack of narrative control. Spellcasters get plot control as part of their class, and characters that don't cast spells don't get to be as proactive, and that's not so cool.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> Add to that the fact that our 10th level PC is completely statted out, with his abilities included in his stat block, our 10th level PC is still head and shoulders above the 10th level NPC.




Coroval has all the stuff he needs to be used in combat- death attacks, gear, etc.  They simply don't list his stats and non combat abilities because they aren't needed.

Ditto the unstatted spellcasters.  They have their full complement of spells...no stats.  You don't need them to figure out the spell effects*, so ditch 'em.






*'At least, not for any spell I noticed.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> Only, this is D&D, not real life. So when we say "Michael Jordan can fly!" we mean it literally, like he's been actually fathered by the God of Winds and given a magical pair of Nikes (by the actual Nike) that assure him victory in sports whenever they are worn.
> 
> The top .001% is capable of so much more in a fantasy world.
> 
> _<snip good points>_




Sorry, not buying it.

The MJs & Hawkings of the fantasy world face the same sifting processes as the RW...only moreso.  That still doesn't make them superhuman as some contend.

The _truly_ superhuman ones are perhaps 1% of those MJs and Hawkings...and they aren't necessarily PCs either.


----------



## I'm A Banana

> The MJs & Hawkings of the fantasy world face the same sifting processes as the RW...only moreso. That still doesn't make them superhuman as some contend.




Well, it kind of does. Astrophysicists and basketball players don't slay goblins or cast _Magic Missile_. A level 1 character in any D&D game, regardless of class, is already above and beyond the capabilities of anybody in reality. 

That's kind of the motif of the fantasy genre. King Arthur isn't just a talented ruler, he's a legend, capable of things no one else could do. Merlin isn't just a smart cookie, he's an immortal amorphous creature of ancient mystery, a primordial trickster from a half-remembered pagan past. Even Frodo, though a "humble hobbit," was uniquely superior to every other entity on that planet. Luke Skywalker wasn't just a farm boy (though he didn't always know it!), and Han Solo was no ordinary scofflaw (though he frequently tried to resist it!), and Achilles and Agamemnon weren't just random Achaeans. They were all exceptional, unique, unprecedented individuals. Even the mere mortals among them (Odysseus or Han or Sam, Merry, and Pippin) were not just random mortals, but people with specific and unique roles to play in the heroic legend, with traits that make them stand out from others, things that only they could have done.

This is a well-worn trope that D&D sits snugly in.

As awesome as Stephen Hawking is, he's not a fantasy hero. That's why D&D doesn't assume your fantasy character is going to be Stephen Hawking or Prince. It doesn't think they're going to be level 1 commoners, or ordinary humans with d6 hit points. As exceptional as Michael Jordan is, he's still a normal human being by all standards. Fantasy heroes are not. Fantasy heroes are above and beyond.  



> The truly superhuman ones are perhaps 1% of those MJs and Hawkings...and they aren't necessarily PCs either.




The only case I'm really making is that D&D, by RAW, assumes that your fantasy hero isn't just a normal person, or even an especially talented normal person. In older editions, they are closer to "normal," but even in the earliest, they are superior. By the most recent, they are clearly an entirely different class of being. 

What follows from this is that D&D characters need not be tethered to ideas about what actual people can do. This is important, because while spellcasters have never been tied to ideas about what actual people can do (magic breaks reality), characters without access to spells *have* been (there are swords in reality!). 

And that sucks for anyone whose choice of class doesn't have access to those supernatural things.

One response to give those nonspellcasters access to supernatural things. Let them be dipped in the Styx, let them cut the tops off of mountains, let them eat the hearts of dragons, let them build or be given magical gear without having to depend on the DM to drop it for them.

This answer is supported by the idea that D&D characters have always been as fantasy heroes typically are -- exceptional, extraordinary, uniquely powerful individuals with special traits that they share with no one else in the world.

Such as a god's favor (Odysseus) or a powerful bloodline (Luke) or a nearly suicidal love (Samwise), or, maybe, the ability to forge magic swords themselves (hypothetical D&D fighter).


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> Well, it kind of does. Astrophysicists and basketball players don't slay goblins or cast Magic Missile. A level 1 character in any D&D game, regardless of class, is already above and beyond the capabilities of anybody in reality.




Only the spellcasters.  Without the magic, I simply disagree with this statement.



> The only case I'm really making is that D&D, by RAW, assumes that your fantasy hero isn't just a normal person, or even an especially talented normal person.




Still not convinced- saying it is so does not make it so.  I'll grant you this is true for 4Ed, but the previous editions?  Nah.


----------



## pemerton

Crazy Jerome said:


> It is too tacked on, instead of integrated from level 1 forward. It is "horizontal" design when it should be "vertical". It is the same problem that fate points and other such constructs have. I've used such constructs in games, and they can help. But if they are not intrinsically tied into the reward cycle, then you have to stay after them to make them work
> 
> <snip>
> 
> In my D&D, I'd rather have no such thing (and thus play old school style) or have something really thought through and robust, and thus play BW style. Ideally, in D&D, it would be optional. Otherwise, we get some muddled, weak, middle version that frequently turns into not heroic action, but saved as my "get out of jail free card", and about as exciting as playing that card in Monopoly.
> 
> Specifically, my objection along the above lines to paragon paths and epic destinies (and other similar things) is that they are trying too hard to be that middle ground. It would be better in my eyes if the whole bits were scrapped in favor of some paragon or epic thing that could develop in parallel with the fighting ability. It wouldn't even need to be the same rate as character advancement, either. If your epic destiny is to be a demi-god, start out that way. As you pursue your destiny, it unfolds. Or don't, and it doesn't.



I see what you're saying. 

I think that the idea of the destiny quest - mentioned in various places in the rulebooks but never actually developed - was meant to do some of the work of addressing this issue - of integrating the epic destiny into the heart of play, rather than the weak, "get out of jail free" think that you describe.

I don't have any worked-out mechanical ideas that would persuade you (or me, for that matter) that what I suggested could be done. But I think that, starting with what the game already has to offer, a lot more could be done with those existing elements to at least make possible something more exciting and engaging.

For example - the skill challenge design guidelines - which are currently so completely abstract and spartan (look at the discussion of advantages in the Rules Compendium, for example - how is any GM not familiar with other RPGs meant to work out what to do with them?) - could be enriched in all sorts of ways, including with discussions about how to draw upon PC's PPs or EDs in building or resolving a skill challenge. Or PPs and EDs could have suggestions as to skills the use of which is amplified or emphasised by that path, analogous in certain respects to what is currently done with backgrounds.

The design, as it currently stands, seems to go out of its way to make PPs and EDs irrelevant to the actual content of the gameworld fiction. In which case, why have these aspects of character development at all? Are they only meant to be a distraction from the threatened boredom of nothing happening but the numbers getting bigger?


----------



## SkidAce

Kamikaze Midget said:


> That's kind of the complaint here. I can get it. I don't think it's a "wizards are overpowered oh noes!" problem, but it's a real issue with not feeling as potent because of a lack of narrative control. Spellcasters get plot control as part of their class, and characters that don't cast spells don't get to be as proactive, and that's not so cool.




This is the part I agree with.  Good point!

The DM should be tailoring the world/adventure so the fighters get some narrative control.  Not the "best" example, due to the magical flavor, but a fighter in my Moorcock styled campaign was creating land by pushing back the boundaries of Chaos, by defeating guardians at the edge of the world.  The fighter was the one driving that story so he had the most influence and control in those particular adventures.


----------



## Dioltach

One way that might provide balance between wizards and fighters is to make wizards physically weaker. As in, one blow can kill them, even at high levels.

In the Conan story mentioned by the OP, the wizard died from a single hit from Conan's axe. Conversely, in a 2e AD&D game I was running at the weekend, one of the magic-users in the party took full damage from a dragon's breath weapon and still had enough hit points to run away, while another magic user took bite damage from the same dragon and barely felt it.

One solution would be to introduce the wound point/vitality point system. Critical hits don't do multiples of standard damage: they go straight to the opponent's wound points. Seeing as most characters' wound points are the same as their CON score, regardless of level, even powerful wizards will only have a few WP, say around 10. This encourages fighters to invest in Improved Crits. In fact, I'd say Conan has an incredible critical threat range, lobbed his axe at the wizard and took him for all his wound points. Even if he hadn't killed him, in game terms the wizard would now be suffering significant penalties.

Of course wizards still have an array of protective spells, but they do in fantasy too. Non-magical opponents have to find ways around those protections, like magical weapons.

I'm not saying that the WP/VP system completely solves the problem, but it would definitely make any wizard think twice before putting himself in harm's way.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

Kamikaze Midget said:


> The only case I'm really making is that D&D, by RAW, assumes that your fantasy hero isn't just a normal person, or even an especially talented normal person.



I honestly can't tell if I'm misunderstanding you, or what, but I _think_ I disagree.  (I'm less certain I disagree for 4E, but leaving 4E aside.)

D&D -- as a game -- assumes that your character has the _potential_ to be a world-shaker.  But D&D -- as a game, and at least as we've understood and played it for 30 years -- doesn't say or imply you're not "normal" as a starting character.

I put "normal" in quotes because maybe that's where we disagree.  I believe that even though most fighting men in 3E are warriors, you can start as a fighter and still be "normal."  Even though most orc spellcasters are adepts, an orc can be a cleric and still be "normal."  Clerics and fighters are more powerful than adepts and warriors -- the heroic array versus the standard NPC array is a tiny giveaway -- but not by so much that an origin story of "I'm really just this guy, you know?" rings false.

If pressed to pull a baseline out of my hoop, I'd say that a starting hero would need to be 10 times more powerful (an order of magnitude) than a "commoner" before "normal" becomes BS.

But, again, that may be because I consider "normal" -- in the real world and extrapolated to D&D -- to be a very broad range.  At 6'5" tall (98th or 99th percentile), I don't consider my height to be normal, but if I were 6'2" tall (95th percentile, or taller than nine-out-of-ten taller-than-average men), I would.

(FWIW: I agree that, by default, full spellcasters -- perhaps especially wizards -- in pre-4E D&D were more powerful and/or had narrative control not available to the other classes.  But it simply was never a problem for us.  We literally _never_ have people clamoring to be the wizard or bitching about the wizard's power.  Not once, in 11 years now of 3E and Pathfinder.)


----------



## Crazy Jerome

I'm fairly certain that the "normal or talented normal or more than that" issue is another one of those muddled middle of the road things.  But I am not as sure that this is a bug instead of a feature.  D&D writers have left this somewhat ambiguous so that you could impose your own ideas upon it.  You can't go completely realistic (and Gygax in 1st ed. DMG makes clear why).  And in every edition, there are limits to how crazy on the upper end you can go (though often weak ones, and not the same ones by edition).

But the range is very broad. All it takes to jump the gap between the playstyles expressed by Danny and Kamikaze, is the desire and will to do so.  That is, you can turn D&D into something resembling what either have said, if you want to.  It is simply that the ability to ramp up or down with wizards is not as obvious as it is with fighters.  Thus the OP starting this topic.  And it is not as if there aren't ways to rein in wizards.  The problem is rather that there are many ways, some of them mutually exclusive, some draconian, some not quite effective enough.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Well, let's put it this way: when you look at the true superhumans of legend, they're doing things that were deemed not improbable, but impossible.  Hercules as a child was stronger than the strongest mere mortal.  Odysseus' bow was unstringable by anyone save him.

Their peers were not measured by the millions, or even thousands but in scores.  Worldwide.

So, unless your PCs are starting out with attributes far beyond the ken of men, they are but men.  Men with potential, yes, but just men.


----------



## pawsplay

Hussar said:


> The idea that your 1st level character was some guy just off the turnip truck is not really supported by the rules in any edition.




But that's not what I said. We need only separate out the traits that distinguish a fighter from a magic-user, not a PC from a non-PC. Since a magic-user's melee capability is easily outclassed by a normal 1 HD warrior, we have a benchmark. 

What I was saying was with fairly modest training, you could turn a 1st level Commoner of reasonable mental and physical attributes into a 1st level Warrior inside of a few months. Which raises the question why magic-users don't gain those skills by and by.


----------



## Hussar

The problem is Pawsplay, a 1st level warrior is still weaker than a 1st level PC class.

In every quantifiable way a PC is better than everyone else in the world at the same level.  He's got access to abilities that the NPC doesn't, has more wealth, has more hit points, the list is as long as my arm.

Sure, a 1st level fighter might not be Superman, but, does being Green Arrow suddenly make me Joe Commoner?

The problem I think is that we're simply defining what it means to be super differently.  I think the fact that a PC starts head and shoulders above any NPC makes him super right out of the chute.  It certainly puts him several rungs up the ladder from Joe Commoner, which is what DannyA is claiming a Fighter 1 is.

Never mind that in very, very short order, that Fighter 1 is now Fighter 2 and is several TIMES more durable than Joe Commoner with his 3 hit points.

D&D PC's have never been some guy just off the farm.  Of course they haven't.  D&D PC's are based heavily in Pulps and pulp heroes are not just some guy off the farm.


----------



## I'm A Banana

> Well, let's put it this way: when you look at the true superhumans of legend, they're doing things that were deemed not improbable, but impossible.




See, that's the core of the problem.

D&D spellcasters can do things that are impossible, baked right there into the spell system. Grant wishes. Create alternate realities. Travel faster than light. Fly without wings or artifice. Even create raw energy from nothing and use it as a weapon. Those things aren't just improbable, they're impossible.

D&D warriors don't have the ability to do any of that, unless the DM happens to drop a magic item on them, or uses the plot magic of Fiat to make it so. 

In order to balance out the narrative control offered by the ability to do the impossible, D&D warriors should have the ability to do the impossible as well, baked right into their rules.

Perhaps they are awarded flying mounts and impenetrable armors by smitten gods. Perhaps they eat the heart of a dragon and gain immortality. Perhaps they reshape the world by cutting down mountains and hewing forests into tinder with a sweep of the axe. Perhaps they learn how to ride tornadoes like horses. 

And from Level 1, when spellcasters are mending sucking chest wounds and creating energy from nothing, a D&D warrior needs to be able to do the impossible, too, even if it's just making a +1 sword from a hunk of meteor she found. 

Alternately, you can rule that wizards have to work more in subtlety and cunning (a more literary version of magic that's not as weaponized), but that's a really big diversion from core D&D assumptions about magic, and would probably change the tenor of the game dramatically.

Either everyone can do the impossible, or no one can. Being able to do the impossible just because you gain access to spells is going to leave those without access to spells feeling kind of bilked, by and large.


----------



## JoeGKushner

It appears to me that in many works of modern fiction, that the warrior and the wizard are the same character.

Morlock from the various books by James Enge starting with Blood of Ambrosia.

Rand from Wheel of Time.

Elric from Stormbringer and other books.

etc...


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> D&D PC's have never been some guy just off the farm.




In YOUR campaigns.  Others obviously have different experiences.


> D&D PC's are based heavily in Pulps and pulp heroes are not just some guy off the farm.




Many pulp heroes started off as regular joes- possibly with a small advantage here or there- who fell into extraordinary circumstances.

Buck Rodgers was a gas inspector who was overcome in a coal mine and woke up hundreds of years later.  Nothing in his origins shows him as being destined for greatness.

Flash Gordon went to Yale and played polo.  Unusual, but not superhuman.  And whether he was a son of privilege or a scholarship student is unanswered.

Conan was the son of a blacksmith in a barbarian tribe and a warrior by age 15...which is not unusual.  In the past, Maasai would start doing solo lion hunts in their teens to prove their manhood (due to falling lion populations, solo hunts are now discouraged).

The original Phantom- as in, the one who initially swore the Oath of The Skull- was a cabin boy on a ship.  Subsequent Phantoms were no more extraordinary in origin- all very athletic, but not superhuman...just well trained.

Batman and Tarzan were orphans who were driven to succeed.

Batman and Zorro used their wealth to gain the advantages of special training.  Being rich is no super power; it is not a guarantee of greatness.  All that set them apart was their ethical drive to help others. To right wrongs.  They could just as easily have been hedonistic wastrels.

Most pulp heroes, however, have their origins shrouded in mystery; we only know them through their exploits as establish characters.  IOW, we have no idea whether they were average joes or hidden demigods.

The Shadow, Kent Allard (alias "Lamont Cranston" was a fighter pilot turned vigilante.  What he was before being a fighter pilot, we don't know.

Solomon Kane's origins are, AFAIK, never revealed.


----------



## Dioltach

And getting back on topic, instead of endlessly arguing whether or not PCs are better than normal people or not (which might be better discussed in a thread of its own) ...

I agree with JoeGK, a lot of heroes are a mix of fighter and wizard (or thief and wizard). Sometimes, though, the wizardly abilities are acquired through items. So this might be another way to look at this discussion: do a fighter's abilities (martial and item-based magical powers) put him on an equal level with a wizard, whose abilities, let's not forget, are also sometimes item-based?

In _The Rose of the Prophet_ by Weiss & Hickman, for example, the main protagonist is a wizard. In that setting, however, wizards can only use magic if channelled through scrolls, wands and other items. This makes the protagonist substantially weaker than most other characters in the books most of the time.

Gandalf has Glamdring and his Elven Ring, Ged has his staff, Harry Dresden uses a range of paraphernelia. Essentially, many fantasy characters draw their powers from items. It's simply that fighter types have other options and their magical powers tend to have a different focus then those of wizard characters.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> So this might be another way to look at this discussion: do a fighter's abilities (martial and item-based magical powers) put him on an equal level with a wizard, whose abilities, let's not forget, are also sometimes item-based?



As has been pointed out a few times, it depends upon the setting.

In Niven's "Magic" series, if the mages can't find any mana, they can't do anything a RW college professor couldn't.  So unless they learned some Indiana Jones-esque fighting skills along the way, the warrior will be all over them...and it will be all over.


----------



## ProfessorCirno

A wizard can fly, give himself skin that bullets cannot penetrate, move faster then a speeding bullet, give himself X-ray vision, and shoot out ice (perhaps from their breath?)

They are literally superheros.


----------



## Hussar

DannyA - just a nitpick, but, Conan was the last son of Atlantis and most certainly NOT a "normal Joe".  But, then again, if you define Conan as a Normal Joe, then, yeah, we're not going to have any point of comparison.  Particularly when you count Batman/Bruce Wayne as a "Normal Joe" as well.

Just on a side note, since it's come up a few times, let's do a side by side comparison of character capabilities between editions.  After all, there's been a couple of comments that 4e is what has changed the equation and that now, in 4e suddenly fighters are no longer "Normal Joes".

We'll use the same baseline in every edition - Fighter 1 with an 18 (possibly percentile - /01) strength.

1e - Our fighter using a longsword is doing 11 points of damage on a hit (7 on average).  Which means he is killing outright any 1 HD creature and quite possibly killing 2 HD creatures in a single shot.  Considering that 1HD and 2HD creatures (or less) make up the bulk of encounters at this level, he can pretty much one shot most things he meets.  Note, a standard warrior in this edition is a 0 level Man at Arms and actually does about half as much damage on a hit and cannot possibly survive a max damage attack by any of the creatures that a Fighter 1 can.

Fighter is well above the norm.

Second Edition.  It's ironic that the edition that purported to be the most about "role play" gives us the most powerful iteration of fighter.  F1 with Longsword and specialization is doing 13 points of damage in the first round and 26 in the second.  He's outright killing anything with 1 HD, most likely killing anything with 2 HD and in the second round, outright killing anything with less than 3 HD.

Interestingly, if you use an Ogre, the F1 is now doing 17 and 34 points of damage, meaning he's likely to kill an average ogre in the first round and any ogre in the second.

Again, standard warrior is a 0 level Man at Arms capable of doing a maximum of 8 points of damage with a longsword.

Fighter is still well above the norm.

Third Edition.  Things start to go a bit south at this point.  We'll give our fighter a greatsword and Power Attack (nothing out of the ordinary here) and he's doing 18 points of damage on a single hit.  Looking through the CR 1 and CR 2 creatures, he's one shotting pretty much anything in the SRD.  Although, to be fair, he's not doing in an Ogre at this point.

Normal warrior is a 1st level Warrior, again, this time doing 10 points of damage (assuming also using a greatsword).  

Fighter is still well ahead of the curve.

Fourth Edition.  I'm actually not as well versed in 4e mechanics, but, F1 using greatsword is doing 14 points of damage.  Other than minions, he cannot kill anything in a single hit.  Nothing that our F1 typically faces at this level can be killed outright by the F1.

There is no real baseline warrior though here.  The MM does give a town guard statblock, but, that's not really applicable.  But, it is interesting to note that our F1 is now the weakest of any edition.

Yet, people keep telling me that 4e characters are superhuman.  Very strange.


----------



## pawsplay

Hussar said:


> The problem is Pawsplay, a 1st level warrior is still weaker than a 1st level PC class.




That's not actually a problem for what I said. If you added the 1st level warrior's abilities to a 1st level wizard, you would discern the fighter's advantage over the warrior. By the same token, you can subtract the warrior's abilities from the wizard to see how much a PC has over a non-PC. 

The conclusion is that compared to Joe Off the Farm, a PC has a better ability score array and one extra feat, by dint of being heroic. 

If Joe Off the Farm can spend a few months becoming a 1st level warrior, why can't Magnificus the Wizard? Moreoever, why doesn't the wizard, who has regular access to one of the best sparring partners around, surpass him? As long as Magnificus doesn't acquire an extra fighter feat and reshuffle his ability scores, we haven't broken any of the assumptions made due to the PC/NPC split. 

In short it doesn't really make much sense that by level 10, a wizard's weapon proficiencies are still garbage. It actually makes less sense if the wizard has a single martial or exotic weapon proficiency, and despite using this skill from time to time, does not develop the same breadth as a fighter as Joe Off the Farm.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> DannyA - just a nitpick, but, Conan was the last son of Atlantis and most certainly NOT a "normal Joe".



Hmmm...


> Wikipedia
> Conan is a Cimmerian (based somewhat loosely on the Celts), a barbarian of the far north. One of his grandfathers, however, came from a southern tribe. He was born on a battlefield and is the son of a village blacksmith. Conan matured quickly as a youth and, by age fifteen, he was already a respected warrior who had participated in the destruction of the Aquilonian outpost of Venarium.




and



> The country claimed by and roved over by his clan lay in the northwest of Cimmeria, but Conan was of mixed blood, although a pure-bred Cimmerian. His grandfather was a member of a southern tribe who had fled from his own people because of a blood-feud and after long wanderings, eventually taken refuge with the people of the north. He had taken part in many raids into the Hyborian nations in his youth, before his flight, and perhaps it was the tales he told of those softer countries which roused in Conan, as a child, a desire to see them."
> -- REH, letter to P. Schuyler Miller




and



> Wikipedia
> The origins of the Cimmerians stretch back to the Thurian Age. The Cimmerians are the descendants of colonists from Atlantis. Living on the main Thurian continent, the colonists survived the great cataclysm which submerged Atlantis and destroyed most of the Thurian civilizations. The survivors, at this point reduced to a stone-age level of sophistication, eventually found themselves locked in multigenerational warfare with survivors of a Pictish colony. This prolonged conflict caused the Atlanteans to further devolve into little more than ape-men. With no memory of their history or even of language and civilization itself, these beings eventually redeveloped into a people known as Cimmerians.




The fall of Atlantis occurred 5000 years before the time of Conan- calling him and other Cimmerians "Atlantean" is kind of like calling me an Egyptian, Celt or Mayan or some such.



> Particularly when you count Batman/Bruce Wayne as a "Normal Joe" as well.




In what way wasn't he a normal person besides his wealth and his drive to succeed?  I went to a private school with the sons of multimillionaires and billionaires: most are lawyers, some are MDs, some became AF pilots and tank comanders and even plain old enlisted Marines.  Ain't a one of 'em traipsing around in spandex & kevlar.

Being rich is an advantage, yes, but it doesn't make you superhuman.


----------



## Elf Witch

ProfessorCirno said:


> A wizard can fly, give himself skin that bullets cannot penetrate, move faster then a speeding bullet, give himself X-ray vision, and shoot out ice (perhaps from their breath?)
> 
> They are literally superheros.




Well that is how it should be. Magic is a powerful force. Harry Dresden for example is more powerful than a non caster because he has made items that stop bullets from getting through to him. Murphy the cop has to depend on a bullet proof vest.

At high levels mages should be scary they should be able to rain fire down on a village.

Superman is more powerful than Batman but that does not stop Batman from kicking butt and bring a world of hurt down on the bad guys.


----------



## fanboy2000

Hussar said:


> DannyA - just a nitpick, but, Conan was the last son of Atlantis and most certainly NOT a "normal Joe".



Double nitpick, in the Hyborian Age, REH makes it clear that Atlantis was destroyed thousands of years before Conan was born. Conan is from a country called Cimmeria north of Aqualionia, the country he would eventually become king of. In Hour of the Dragon, Conan emphasizes that he has no royal blood and says explicitly that "I am a barbarian and the son of a blacksmith."

Edit: Apparently, I've been ninjaed by Danny.


----------



## Victim

pawsplay said:


> In short it doesn't really make much sense that by level 10, a wizard's weapon proficiencies are still garbage. It actually makes less sense if the wizard has a single martial or exotic weapon proficiency, and despite using this skill from time to time, does not develop the same breadth as a fighter as Joe Off the Farm.




By level 10, the wizard has +5 base attack over the warrior's +1.  So he can use non proficient weapons almost as well as well as the warrior can use his proficient weapons (seeing as how the warrior is more likely to have a str bonus).  And the wizard will be better at attacking any weapons he's trained in.  Not to mention that the wizard will generally end up with vastly superior HP, so his effective defensive skill is also much higher.  

In terms of general combat skill, as opposed to proficiencies and such, the wizard 1 gains the advantages a warrior holds simply by reaching level 2.


----------



## Fifth Element

Dannyalcatraz said:


> In YOUR campaigns.  Others obviously have different experiences.



I think it's fair to say that while you _could _play dirt-farmer PCs in early editions of D&D, it was not the standard or default. 1st-level fighters were called _veterans_, for example, implying experience in the art war. They could have plate armor and fine swords. They were not dirt farmers by default.

It has been argued in the past that 1st-level D&D characters were _supposed to be_ dirt farmers, which is not the case. That's probably what's being referred to here.


----------



## I'm A Banana

Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> In what way wasn't he a normal person besides his wealth and his drive to succeed? I went to a private school with the sons of multimillionaires and billionaires: most are lawyers, some are MDs, some became AF pilots and tank comanders and even plain old enlisted Marines. Ain't a one of 'em traipsing around in spandex & kevlar.
> 
> Being rich is an advantage, yes, but it doesn't make you superhuman.




...He's _Batman_.

Let that sink in for a minute. He's not a "normal person," because he's frickin' _Batman_.

Lawyers, doctors, pilots, commanders, Marines....all those are normal people. Skilled and driven, yes, but normal people.

None of those people _are Batman_. All of those people are normal people _because they are not Batman_. 

This is kind of central to the idea of handling the Wiz v. Warrior balance in fantasy literature.

If you wrap your head around the apparently heretical idea that _Batman is not a normal person_, you see that fantasy heroes -- including Batman -- aren't normal people. They are special. They are unique. They are exceptional. They are above and beyond any lawyer, Marine, pilot, police officer, or iron-fisty European dictator. They are beyond Michael Jordan and Einstein. They are like unto gods.

This gets into some heady stuff if you follow the breadcrumb trail (like the idea that modern western society considers "hard work" and "fabulous wealth"  and "science" semidivine in nature, re: _The Protestant Ethic_), but for our purposes here, it's enough to say that Batman is effective in a world with Superman and the Green Lantern, in part, because Batman is not a normal person, and if he was, he'd be a Marine or a lawyer, not _freaking Batman_. Normal people are not the kinds of people you tell fantasy stories about. They're the kinds of people you tell historical epics or modern dramas about. Once you're _umm...BATMAN_ you're well out of the realm of normal person and consorting with the divine (even if it's a little hidden beneath a dusting of Protestant Ethic).


----------



## JoeGKushner

ProfessorCirno said:


> A wizard can fly, give himself skin that bullets cannot penetrate, move faster then a speeding bullet, give himself X-ray vision, and shoot out ice (perhaps from their breath?)
> 
> They are literally superheros.




As opposed to the fighter who can withstand fireballs, drops of 100 feet or more and break through adamantine walls with a single attack?

Dude, in D&D, they're all superheroes.


----------



## I'm A Banana

JoeGKushner said:
			
		

> As opposed to the fighter who can withstand fireballs, drops of 100 feet or more and break through adamantine walls with a single attack?
> 
> Dude, in D&D, they're all superheroes.




Exactly why my D&D fighter should be able to chop down mountains and become invincible and wrestle rivers and single-handedly slay lions and generally be more like Heracles and Gilgamesh than like a really skilled Olympic athlete.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> ...He's Batman.
> 
> Let that sink in for a minute. He's not a "normal person," because he's frickin' Batman.
> 
> Lawyers, doctors, pilots, commanders, Marines....all those are normal people. Skilled and driven, yes, but normal people.
> 
> None of those people are Batman. All of those people are normal people because they are not Batman.




Whoop de fricken' doo!

His ward, Dick Greyson, an acrobat, became Nightwing, nearly his equal.

Bruce Wayne was the otherwise normal son of a wealthy man, who, without the deadly encounter his parents had with a thug after a night on the town, wouldn't be Batman either.

He's Batman because he's driven to a point of borderline insanity- a person who has a detailed plan to take down _each and every superhuman in the world_, regardless of their expressed morality or numerous deeds for good or ill is not truly sane- not because he's somehow inherently better than anyone else in the world.

"Batman" is the destination he reached by force of will and training, helped along with essentially a blank check from his wealth, not some inherent property foretold in his lineage.  Its what he made himself into, not what he was from the beginning.


----------



## Dice4Hire

Hussar said:


> Yet, people keep telling me that 4e characters are superhuman.  Very strange.




Why is your whole analysis damage, not attacks, being hit, AC, saves, skills, or anything else? This is very one-sided. The side you are examining is simple as you have pointed out, but other sides paint a different picture.


----------



## CuRoi

Mouseferatu said:


> It wouldn't be to everyone's tastes, but you've got me thinking about a D&D edition (or just variant) in which the spellcasting classes' powers/abilities were innately superior to those of the martial classes--but in which the "assumed level" of magic items was explicitly higher for the martial classes, and in which there were far more magic items that could benefit a non-caster than a caster.




Or an edition where some of the "Buffing" spells were stripped out and martial classes had access to feats that worked like Barbarian Rage so they could buff themselves. Then, creating a base for spellcasting that streamlined spells, pushed "save or suck" up higher in the spell levels, and forced casters to roll "to hit" rolls with criticals required to force the really potent spell effects? All that without making the classes into vanilla templates with simply shared, renamed powers?

Sorta working on that , heh.


----------



## Fifth Element

Hussar said:


> Yet, people keep telling me that 4e characters are superhuman.  Very strange.



It shows that your conclusions are based largely on how you frame the question. Compared to non-combatant NPCs, 4E character are certainly the most powerful of all editions. Compared to typical low-level monsters, however, they're not. It's not as easy as making some assumptions and putting a chart together; your output will depend on your input, and you'll get no agreement as to what is the right input.


----------



## CuRoi

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Maybe your games, but that does not describe my history with D&D _at all._
> 
> Sure, I have some special-from-the-start PCs, but they are far and away the exception, not the rule.




I agree here - my campaigns never start with the PCs as some sort of epic adventurer (well maybe in some players minds...) They are level one nobodies looking to make a name (or keep under the radar) because there's plenty of things out there just dying to kill them and plenty of adventures to be had. Any backstory is just that - backstory and won't necessarily include being some sort of "last of the immortals" or "golden child" nonsense. If it does, I'm the only one that knows and they don't find out until later anyway : )


----------



## ProfessorCirno

Elf Witch said:


> Well that is how it should be. Magic is a powerful force. Harry Dresden for example is more powerful than a non caster because he has made items that stop bullets from getting through to him. Murphy the cop has to depend on a bullet proof vest.
> 
> At high levels mages should be scary they should be able to rain fire down on a village.
> 
> Superman is more powerful than Batman but that does not stop Batman from kicking butt and bring a world of hurt down on the bad guys.




Ok, but Fighters aren't Batman, they're "normal Joes."

Meanwhile, according to Danny, Batman is never allowed to defeat Superman because Batman isn't magical enough.  Or something like that?  Jesus I have no idea what his argument is at this point.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

In a campaign in which I was NOT the DM, a player had his PC's backstory include a story about how he was the hidden son of a slain king, and it was his destiny to overthrow the Usurper.

When that PC died in a decidedly unheroic way- failed Climb check as it happens- the DM said something to the effect that maybe, just maybe, his parents lied about his childhood.

Kind of like how Jack Nicholson was raised thinking his grandparents were his parents and his mother was his sister, what you _think_ you know about your history may not be quite true.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> Meanwhile, according to Danny, Batman is never allowed to defeat Superman because Batman isn't magical enough.




What are you smoking?

Batman has a plan to defeat Supes.  It involved a kryptonite-tipped arrow and repeated application of force to Kal-El's dome- see _Dark Knight_ for details, as I recall.  Now, it was _faked_, but the principle remains the same.

Bats plans on beating Supes with his wits.  And he's like that not by being an inherently superior version of humanity but by taking the time to think things through.  He's a normal man, just obsessively driven and trained to be one of the best single combatants in the world (though, according to DC's own stuff, he's NOT #1).


----------



## I'm A Banana

I don't necessarily wanna keep going down this Batman road, but I think we're getting close to the real point of contention, here, and it applies to the thread topic very well, so I'm going to keep going down it, at least for a while, and try to keep bringing it back to the main topic. 



			
				Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> Bats plans on beating Supes with his wits. And he's like that not by being an inherently superior version of humanity but by taking the time to think things through.




_His Wits_ are inherently superior. His ability to think things through is inherently superior. No actual person has any of this capability, no matter how hard they try. 

A D&D character should have these abilities, and by having these abilities, they would be innately superior to any actual person. 

The abilities would hopefully be expressed in ways that would not require players to be mythic geniuses, so that we'd give the rogue something like *I Knew You Would Do That* that lets them automatically declare an attack a miss every so often (for instance). 

This is how warriors influence the world just as much as wizards: if they are allowed to be truly superhuman, as wizards are.



			
				Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> He's Batman because he's driven to a point of borderline insanity- a person who has a detailed plan to take down each and every superhuman in the world, regardless of their expressed morality or numerous deeds for good or ill is not truly sane- not because he's somehow inherently better than anyone else in the world.




This ability *makes* him better than anyone else in the world. That's why he's unlike any other human being who has ever lived or will live. He is above and beyond with skill. 

"Insanity" is just a mythic weakness, exactly like Achilles' rage, or Odysseus's tendency to piss off Poseidon. It is part of what makes him beyond other people. Even his failings are more deep than any actual person's could ever be.

No one -- sane or not -- has the abilities that Batman has, and no one ever could, no matter how careful, no matter how practiced, no matter how insane, because Batman is not a realistic character born of the actual world, he is a fantasy character, born of legends and adolescent power fantasies. 

As are other warriors in fantasy literature. 

D&D fighters are not allowed to have these abilities, though, because without explicit magic being used, D&D does not let people break reality in the ways that Batman breaks reality. 



> "Batman" is the destination he reached by force of will and training, helped along with essentially a blank check from his wealth, not some inherent property foretold in his lineage. Its what he made himself into, not what he was from the beginning.




His ability to do that is a _fantasy_.

It is not something that any person could ever actually do. 

It gives him the ability to do things that no person could ever actually do, things no less fantastical than cutting down mountains with a sword or wrestling the Nemian Lion or flying because you've been given a special pair of boots by the deity of travel. 

D&D warriors deserve those abilities, too. They deserve to be able to break reality like the warriors in fantasy literature do. Like Batman and Naruto and Orpheus and Gilgamesh do. 

If you're arguing that Batman is somehow "a normal person" while Hercules is not, you are defining "a normal person" is a way that is very, very odd to me, and not in line with any fantasy literature that I am aware of.


----------



## Patryn of Elvenshae

I still can't give the bananaman any experience points.


----------



## fanboy2000

Kamikaze Midget said:


> _His Wits_ are inherently superior. His ability to think things through is inherently superior. No actual person has any of this capability, no matter how hard they try.



I would like to point out that Batman's plan for taking out Superman is "exploit well known weakness." Seriously, everyone has that plan. 5 year olds have that plan. It's a really bad example.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> His Wits are inherently superior. His ability to think things through is inherently superior. No actual person has any of this capability, no matter how hard they try.




His wits are about par for the course for a chess grandmaster or Nobel Laureate- rare, but not unique and definitely not superhuman.  In _DC Universe_, he is touted as being "one of the best" in many fields- detective work, martial arts, certain fields of science, but not _the_ best at any of them.  He has been criticized by his mentors, allies and opponents in certain fields- like martial arts- as being unwilling to put in the time to reach the pinnacles of true mastery...probably because he's got a lot on his plate and his day is 24 hrs long, just like everyone else's.

He's a polymath (and a disturbed one) not a superhuman.

Look at storylines covering his early years, and you'll see that despite this "superiority", he has nearly gotten himself killed with his carelessness and cockyness.  Even as an experienced crimefighter who has first hand knowledge of alien life, he has often been depicted as being unaccepting of the supernatural...a blind spot that has- again- nearly killed him more than once.


> His ability to do that is a fantasy.
> 
> It is not something that any person could ever actually do.




In the RW? Probably not.

Within the context of the reality in which he exists, he is an unusual specimen, but most certainly not unique.

Who is his greatest foe?  The Joker, an utterly insane former chemical engineer.  Not an über genius.  Not one of his martial arts mentors.  A chemical engineer turned psychopath.


> It gives him the ability to do things that no person could ever actually do, things no less fantastical than cutting down mountains with a sword or wrestling the Nemian Lion or flying because you've been given a special pair of boots by the deity of travel.



No, I can't agree with you there.  Batman never does anything _remotely_ supernatural.  He uses wits & science, but never violates the rules of physics in the way you're describing.


> If you're arguing that Batman is somehow "a normal person" while Hercules is not, you are defining "a normal person" is a way that is very, very odd to me, and not in line with any fantasy literature that I am aware of.




Bruce's parents were both human.  Hercules is a demigod, literally half-divine in origin.  He could do things as a child that Bruce could not do as an adult no matter how much he trained.

Bruce Wayne is, in a sense one of the characters in DC's stable who could be considered a paragon of humanity.  He- and those like him- are characters you can aspire to be.

Hercules isn't even fully human.  You literally can never be like him in any meaningful sense at the most fundamental levels.

If you can't see the enormous gulf between the two, you have an odd conception of literature indeed.


----------



## pemerton

Patryn of Elvenshae said:


> I still can't give the bananaman any experience points.



Nor can I. But the post is great.



Kamikaze Midget said:


> _His Wits_ are inherently superior. His ability to think things through is inherently superior. No actual person has any of this capability, no matter how hard they try.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> This ability *makes* him better than anyone else in the world. That's why he's unlike any other human being who has ever lived or will live. He is above and beyond with skill.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> His ability to do that is a _fantasy_.
> 
> It is not something that any person could ever actually do.
> 
> It gives him the ability to do things that no person could ever actually do, things no less fantastical than cutting down mountains with a sword or wrestling the Nemian Lion or flying because you've been given a special pair of boots by the deity of travel.





Dannyalcatraz said:


> In the RW? Probably not.
> 
> Within the context of the reality in which he exists, he is an unusual specimen, but most certainly not unique.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Batman never does anything _remotely_ supernatural.  He uses wits & science, but never violates the rules of physics in the way you're describing.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Hercules isn't even fully human.  You literally can never be like him in any meaningful sense at the most fundamental levels.



And here we see what is, in my view, the fundamental issue - the clash between game and metagame.

_Within the imaginary world_ it is true, as Dannyalcatraz says, that Batman is not supernatural. Whereas Hercules is.

But _relative to the realworld_ it is true, as KM says, that Batman is just as much a _fantasy_ as is Hercules.

Thus, when KM says:



Kamikaze Midget said:


> If you're arguing that Batman is somehow "a normal person" while Hercules is not, you are defining "a normal person" is a way that is very, very odd to me, and not in line with any fantasy literature that I am aware of.



The response is: from the point of view of the real world, the gaming table, you are correct; but from the point of view of the imaginary world in which Batman exists, than Danny is correct.

So if you want a game in which a player can play Batman, the rules of the game have to make it possible for _fantastic_ results to occur, even though they are not, _in the gameworld_, supernatural results. Mechanics that make the gameworld be a fantastic one, without being a supernatural one.

And the standard way to achieve this is via metagame mechanics - that is, mechanics which allow a player to change things in the gameworld without the mechanic actually expressing or tightly modelling some particular action by that player's PC. That is, non-simulationist mechanics.

KM gives a hypothetical example: 



Kamikaze Midget said:


> A D&D character should have these abilities, and by having these abilities, they would be innately superior to any actual person.
> 
> The abilities would hopefully be expressed in ways that would not require players to be mythic geniuses, so that we'd give the rogue something like *I Knew You Would Do That* that lets them automatically declare an attack a miss every so often (for instance).



4e has these sorts of powers for martial classes. They are widely derided - Come and Get It being the most common target. Of course there are legitimate questions to be asked about whether Come and Get It is or is not the best-designed metagame mechanic of all time, but the frequent objections to it don't turn on its merits as a metagame mechanic, but rather are objections to the very _idea_ of the player of a fighter having access to this sort of mechanic.

So, when KM says:


Kamikaze Midget said:


> D&D fighters are not allowed to have these abilities, though, because without explicit magic being used, D&D does not let people break reality in the ways that Batman breaks reality.



I agree, with two exceptions: hit points and saving throws. And I get the impression that many 3E players don't treat hit points and saving throws as metagame anymore (although in AD&D, or at least 1st ed, this is quite clear) and instead as literal "meat" and literal "toughness".

4e tried to take D&D into new territory in this respect, but instead of improving on the experiment and coming up with powers that are richer or more interesting than Come and Get It, the impression from Essentials is that WotC is retreating again, back to the D&D tradition that the only fantastic powers allowed - other than hit points and saving throws-  are those which are supernatural _within the gameworld_.


----------



## Glade Riven

Batman is a cross-classed Rogue-Monk anyways. Maybe ninja class, depending on edition. Green Arrow, on the other hand, is a Fighter that focuses on an archery build and has a bunch of trick arrows.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Good catch on that RW/setting world dichotomy, Pemerton- I'd +1XP you if I could.


----------



## pawsplay

Kamikaze Midget said:


> ...He's _Batman_.
> 
> Let that sink in for a minute. He's not a "normal person," because he's frickin' _Batman_.




Superman isn't a "normal Kryptonian" either. Frankly, Clark should be dead. The problem with Batman is that no real world person has a 72 year long career crammed into about fifteen fictional years. In that context, there is no way he could be so lucky. But in any given comic book, he's quite human in most respects.

However, I do quibble with the "no supernatural abilities" bit. In the DC Universe, amazing kung fu powers are considered "normal" whereas to most of us they would be considered supernatural. That doesn't change what he is in the setting: a highly trained, gifted normal dude with an exceptional destiny. 

Similarly, if you read Mallory, Sir Lancelot knocks Mordred literally off a horse and into the dirt. To actually drive someone with that much force would be impossible (at the least, Lancelot would unhorse himself at the same time). But in-universe, it's a function of him being an exceptional knight, not being a supernatural being. 

From an in-universe standpoint, Batman is an improbability, not an impossibility. He's not as good a martial artist as Lady Shiva, as good an acrobat as Nightwing, as good an analyst as Babs Gordon, as good an archer as Ollie, as good a mechanic or driver as the Blue Beetle, or as good a social engineer as Luthor. However, he is in the top tier in all those categories. He _is _the world's greatest detective (that's what it says on the tin) and at least as good a tactician as anyone he's ever gone up against (including Lady Shiva, whom he generally defeats by out-foxing). 

He is superheroic, but because conceptually, and according to his genre conventions, normal humans are capable of superheroism. Which makes sense; Supes may be the man from Krypton, but he has his off days. Anyone is potentially vulnerable. In The Dark Knight the point is well-made that as terrifying as superbeings are, any one hero or villain is not as scary as the totality of the effects their powers have on the world. Superman can defeat a tank divison; Luthor may blackmail Superman; aliens may mind control Luthor; demons may possess the aliens; etc.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

Dannyalcatraz said:


> He's a normal man, just obsessively driven and trained to be one of the best single combatants in the world (though, according to DC's own stuff, he's NOT #1).



He's actually barely in the Top Five.  Lady Shiva and her daughter (Cassandra Cain, former Batgirl) are both better hand-to-hand fighters, for instance.  (There are a couple of others that are considered equal or better -- Black Canary (trained by Lady Shiva; I'm seeing a pattern) might even be there by now.)


----------



## I'm A Banana

Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> Within the context of the reality in which he exists, he is an unusual specimen, but most certainly not unique.




Neither was Odysseus or Hercules or Achilles or Gilgamesh or.... That doesn't make Batman any different from them.



> He uses wits & science, but never violates the rules of physics in the way you're describing.




Neither does Superman, in the context of the universe. Neither does Achilles or Gilgamesh or Merlin, in the context of the universe. That doesn't make Batman any different from them.



> Bruce's parents were both human. Hercules is a demigod, literally half-divine in origin. He could do things as a child that Bruce could not do as an adult no matter how much he trained.




He also did things that Achilles and Orpheus could not do. And Bruce does things that Herculues could never do. 

That doesn't make Batman any different from them.



> Hercules isn't even fully human. You literally can never be like him in any meaningful sense at the most fundamental levels.
> 
> If you can't see the enormous gulf between the two, you have an odd conception of literature indeed.




No one can ever be like Batman in any meaningful sense at the most fundamental levels.

In the universe of the greek myths, characters could and did be like Hercules, even mostly-probably-mortal characters like Odysseus and Orpheus. In the same way that Batman is like Superman. 

There's should be no enormous gulf between a D&D warrior, and any of those characters. They're all fantasy heroes, as our D&D warrior should be.



			
				pemerton said:
			
		

> 4e has these sorts of powers for martial classes. They are widely derided - Come and Get It being the most common target. Of course there are legitimate questions to be asked about whether Come and Get It is or is not the best-designed metagame mechanic of all time, but the frequent objections to it don't turn on its merits as a metagame mechanic, but rather are objections to the very idea of the player of a fighter having access to this sort of mechanic.




Those objections are what hold back D&D warriors from achieving equity with D&D spellcasters. Spellcasters get to do that because _it's magic, hey!_, but warriors don't get to do that because _they're not magical, hey!_. 

D&D warriors need to be magical. They need to be as clever as Odysseus, as strong as Hercules, as invulnerable as Achilles. Or, as clever as Batman, as strong as the Hulk, as invulnerable as Superman. Since it's ultimately the same thing.

Because D&D has had a problem embracing the idea that warriors of enough skill _just make things happen_, as if by magic, it's a persistent problem.

CaGI is not a great mechanic, but it's not fundamentally different in concept than saying "Batman happened to have planned for this very eventuality...." It's magic. It just works. Because they are that skilled. 



> 4e tried to take D&D into new territory in this respect, but instead of improving on the experiment and coming up with powers that are richer or more interesting than Come and Get It, the impression from Essentials is that WotC is retreating again, back to the D&D tradition that the only fantastic powers allowed - other than hit points and saving throws- are those which are supernatural within the gameworld.




This isn't a problem if all of your fantastic powers are basically the same as a sword blow or an arrow shot, functionally. Essentials characters get no rituals. They only have attacks, defenses, and "utilities" (which are mostly related to attacks and defenses). Aside from skills, they are mostly undefined outside of a combat scenario.

Which works kind of OK with the idea of narrative control like this as treasure. Because wizards don't get _teleport_ by default, it lets you award _teleport_, or a similar effect, to anyone who can do it, at any level you're comfortable with. It might be the actual teleport spell, or it might be the ability to slip through shadows and teleport around that way, or it might be the ability to fly swifter than light itself, or it might be the ability to jaunt through the Feywild, or whatever, the function remains the same.



			
				pawsplay said:
			
		

> He is superheroic, but because conceptually, and according to his genre conventions, normal humans are capable of superheroism.




In D&D, this is true, too.

So why can't my rogue be as clever as Batman/Odysseus/Coyote/whatever, without _me as a player_ having to be this clever?

Why can't my rogue effectively be magical (even if it's handwaived for the modern myths as "really just very skilled and very practiced")? Why can't my rogue have prepared for every contingency and acquired the right weapon for every battle?

Why can't my rogue climb walls without having to roll a friggin' skill check? And why does the Wizard, who should not be as good at this sort of thing, get to?


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> He's actually barely in the Top Five.




A few deceased ones were also better...and more critical of his skills.  My favorite was Paul Kirk, Manhunter.  In the story in which Kirk dies, Bats is criticized (mentally) for taking too much time fighting towards the objective.  Kirk cuts a swath through the foes, Batman gets bogged down.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> He uses wits & science, but never violates the rules of physics in the way you're describing.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Neither does Superman, in the context of the universe. Neither does Achilles or Gilgamesh or Merlin, in the context of the universe. That doesn't make Batman any different from them.
Click to expand...



I know you know what I meant by that.  At no point does Bats do anything beyond the capabilities of another trained human in the DC continuum.  He does not warp reality, he lives within it.  Nothing in his repertoire would be described by DC continuum scientists as being a "power", by DC arcanists a "spell".  He is not the strongest, smartest, fastest.  He is an idealized human.  He has no otherworldliness in his genetics, no blessing of the gods, no magic ritual to set him apart.  Just training.

He is a mundane.  A muggle.



> In the universe of the greek myths, characters could and did be like Hercules, even mostly-probably-mortal characters like Odysseus and Orpheus. In the same way that Batman is like Superman.




No, no they can't.  Not without some non-human aspect to them.  The way Greeks thought about heroism almost precludes this.*. While there are purely human Greek heroes, the ones anyone can name are all partly non-human.

Orpheus was the son of a Muse and either a human or the god Apollo.  Achilles was the son of a nymph and protected by a ritual bathing in the River Styx.  Perseus was the son of Zeus.

Odysseus is as close as you get to Bats- the mist cunning man in the world.  He is strong- no other mere mortal was able to string his bow- but someone like Hercules could.  But even he was the grandson of Hermes on one side and the great-grandson of Aeolus

* Mere mortals who approached the capabilities of the gods were struck down- see Arachne or Psyche.


----------



## Crazy Jerome

Kamikaze Midget said:


> Because D&D has had a problem embracing the idea that warriors of enough skill _just make things happen_, as if by magic, it's a persistent problem.
> 
> CaGI is not a great mechanic, but it's not fundamentally different in concept than saying "Batman happened to have planned for this very eventuality...." It's magic. It just works. Because they are that skilled.




The equally great strength and great weakness of metagaming effects is that they require the participants to provide the world context.  It is a strength when the participants have a view of the world that makes providing the context easy.  It is a weakness when the view is otherwise.  (It makes no difference for this point whether or not the view of the world is "correct" or any other such judgment.  Only whether the view is able to easily or not leverage the metagaming construct into the context.)

To use a silly example, assume a game where the main mechanic for magic is that you (the player, not the character) sing a bit of a song that is relevant to what you want to accomplish. (Apologies to Alan Dean Foster.)  That is almost pure metagame, the one world context hook being the "relevant to intent" part.  You can play this game with young kids, maybe.  They might use nursery rhymes.  It works.  You add an adult to the mix.  *IF* that adult can put themselves into a view of the world where those nursery rhymes can work, loosely, then it will work.  Otherwise, the gap is too far--the adult can grudgingly get from "Little Miss Muffet" to summoning or driving away spiders or padded furniture or maybe a bit of fear effects involving arachnids, but cannot get from there to, say, having a group of talking animals over for a tea party.  In the childs' mind, it is all a strange mixture of fairy tale logic and impressions from a story book twisted with half memories of Lewis Carroll and walruses.  (Not that adults can't tie into that.  But when they do, the tie is into a part of childhood.)

What you *think* you know about how something does work (or would work, if it was possible) informs your view of metagaming mechanics as much as what you do know or don't know.


----------



## pemerton

Kamikaze Midget said:


> Those objections are what hold back D&D warriors from achieving equity with D&D spellcasters. Spellcasters get to do that because _it's magic, hey!_, but warriors don't get to do that because _they're not magical, hey!_.
> 
> D&D warriors need to be magical. They need to be as clever as Odysseus, as strong as Hercules, as invulnerable as Achilles. Or, as clever as Batman, as strong as the Hulk, as invulnerable as Superman. Since it's ultimately the same thing.
> 
> Because D&D has had a problem embracing the idea that warriors of enough skill _just make things happen_, as if by magic, it's a persistent problem.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Why can't my rogue effectively be magical (even if it's handwaived for the modern myths as "really just very skilled and very practiced")? Why can't my rogue have prepared for every contingency and acquired the right weapon for every battle?
> 
> Why can't my rogue climb walls without having to roll a friggin' skill check? And why does the Wizard, who should not be as good at this sort of thing, get to?



KM, just in case it wasn't clear my earlier post about metagame mechanics was meant to be in sympathy with your criticism of D&D's traditional approach. Purist-for-system simulationism - which gives us skill checks, mundane limits on mortal abilities, etc - in combination with _it's magic_ for wizards, which means the simulation permits them to bypass skill checks, mundane limits etc - produces the D&D experience of disparit between wizards and warriors.

There are simulationist systems out there that reduce this disparity - Rolemaster, for example, while still suffering from a wizards-overshadowing-warriors problem, doesn't suffer as badly from it as does D&D because of the greater constraints that RM wizards labour under (in terms of skill development, spell selection and skill rolls for using spells). But the underlying tension is nevertheless there.

But the other point I was trying to make is that _there is a lot of player support for this unstable, disparity-inducing approach_. The attempt by 4e to move away in certain respects has been one of the key points of criticism of 4e. How often have your heard "4e fighters have spells now"? - which makes sense only if the underlying logic is one of _denying_ the metagame character of a power like Come and Get It, and of assuming that the astounding prowess, foresight and/or luck that this power signals is occurring in the gameworld _must have been produced, as if by magic_, by the figher in question.



Crazy Jerome said:


> The equally great strength and great weakness of metagaming effects is that they require the participants to provide the world context.  It is a strength when the participants have a view of the world that makes providing the context easy.  It is a weakness when the view is otherwise.



I think that, in practice, this depends upon what the mechanics in question are.

The HeroQuest 2nd ed rulebook gives an example of the player of a cowboy with Fast Runner 10w suggesting that his PC will outrun the horse, whose Gallop is only 18. The suggested way of handling this: in any sort of mainstream western game, the attempt is disallowed, as it fails the genre-reality constraint on scene-framing; but in a supers western, it would be permissible. I agree that for this sort of constraint on metagame mechanics to work, the ability of the participants to provide world context matters.

But Come and Get It - being a much more tightly defined and circumscribed power - very rarely gives rise to this sort of problem. At least in my experience, it is very rare for there to be any difficulty in explaining why or how the pull took place - be it footwork, taunting, feigning a weakness to trigger a rush, or whatever. Apart from anything else, there is a reasonable chance that the fighter with Come and Get It will have other features of his/her build that emphasise and take advantage of forced movement and/or area attacks - so the use of Come and Get It will just be one more event in a whole sequence of displays of battlefield control. (Again in my exeperience, the existence of effects like Come and Get It is part of what makes the fighter play so very differently from a ranger or even a paladin.) The "problem" of improbably taunting archers and sorcerers into a losing close combat just doesn't come up very often. And the ability to trick and/or force archers and sorcerer who have got within fifteen feet of the fighter into a losing close combat isn't improbable at all - it's just a display of the fighter's close combat virtuosity.

Likewise for KM's example of the rogue not needing to make a skill check to climb - _only if_ the wall is the world's slickest wall of ice, _and_ the narration has rendered the rogue naked and without rope or tools, will there be any difficulty in narrating his/her success at the climb. Apart from anything else - if in a standard skill check system it would be _possible_ for the rogue to succeed (and in RM this is always so, via open-ended rolls) then just narrate the automatic success in whatever terms you would narrate the improbable success under the skill check approach.



Kamikaze Midget said:


> Why can't my rogue have prepared for every contingency and acquired the right weapon for every battle?



This would be great. But I don't think it will be all that popular. I remember a couple of years ago, when someone was asking how Diplomacy might be used in a skill challenge to open the gates of Moria, I replied that it was fairly easy - the player of the PC simply narrates a flashback in which his/her PC spoke to a loremaster wise in magic passwords, and persuaded that loremaster to tell him/her the most powerful and universal ones. (Of coures, the GM might be expected to set a high DC for this sort of check. And the flashback would have to be plausible, given everything else that was known about the gameworld and the PC in question.)

My suggestion was met with general (although not uniform) derision.

Now my example is vulnerable to Crazy Jerome's concerns - it depends upon the participants sharing a sense as to what is and is not permissible in scene-framing - whereas I think that the sorts of metagame mechanics you are after (like the rogue example above) can mostly survive Crazy Jerome's concern. But I think they will nevertheless continue to attract the hostility of simulationist gamers. Because what you are asking for is for the rogue to do something in the gameworld that does not correspond, in causal/temporal sequence, to the mechanic you are using. And _this_ is what simulationist gamers don't like - they are not moved by Crazy Jerome's concerns, which operate at a more abstract and removed level of reflection on workable game design.

By playing the "I have a counter to that" power, or by using a flashback to try and resolve a skill challenge, you are _now_ - in the middle of the current situation - stipulating the consequences of some action that your PC took days or years ago in the gameworld. (This is what makes it a metagame rather than simulationist mechanic.) And this is what attracts the pejorative labels of "pop quiz roleplaying", "retconning", "quantum wounding" (or, in this case, "quantum equipment lists" or "quantum backstory"), etc, etc.

I'm not defending those labels - recently most of the effort I've spent on these boards has been trying to repudiate them - but they seem to have a widespread currency among D&D players. But many of those players also seem to want high magic. And hence we get the enduring problem of the disparity between wizards and warriors.


----------



## Crazy Jerome

[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION],

I'm not really disagreeing with any of your last post, but I will say that while there is a distinction between my concern and KM's, there is also a correlation between them.  Specifically, when someone is of a "more simulationist" bent than the game system supports, on some particular point, then the objections are rooted in dislike of metagaming construct *and *a mismatch between the player's view of the simulated reality and the perceived flow from the narrative mechanic to the simulated reality.  

Gee, that's dense text!  

Some people dislike CAGI because they don't like metagaming constructs (or don't like them in their D&D).  Some people dislike it because they think it is not something that the fighter could do each encounter via mundane techniques--no matter how highly trained.  And for that matter, some people dislike it because they don't care for the idea of "once per encounter" as a rough pacing mechanism, and CAGI is their poster child for that dislike.  

But my experience is that most people expressing dislike at CAGI dislike it for a rather vague mishmash of all of those reasons--not infrequently inconsistently held and *highly* informed by their view of how melee combat works in real life, and then adapted to D&D.  (I'm not talking about the dislike of anyone discussing it carefully.  I'm talking about the way it frequently gets pulled into "venting" asides or outright rants, albeit more elsewhere than here.)  

If it were only one of those things, then it would be easy to deal with.  It is the being wedded to the view of the simulated world while dragging the other stuff in, that makes it hard to see clearly, and thus deal with.  For example, single objections and simple, obvious solutions (not always easy, mind):

1. Don't like metagaming constructs -- 4E is full of them.  Either systematically take them out/replace them, or if that is more work than is warranted, play something else.

2. Don't like the artificialness of the encounter pacing mechanic -- replace with a recharge option, or if that is too much work, play something else.

3. Doesn't map to the view of reality of the game world -- change your view of the game world to fit the mechanic, or change the mechanic to fit your view of the game world.  (It would really not destroy the effectiveness of CAGI, which is a very good power, to limit it to opponents with a melee weapon in hand, for example--and having done that, there are no good "reality" objections to it solely on such grounds.)

I believe it was C. S. Lewis that said the issue with most bad critics is not that they were critics (contra Teddy Roosevelt) or lack in the insights or logic that they brought to their criticism, but rather that their criticism *assumed* that the work should have been written the way they would have written it--their premises, their preferences, their world view.  It is one thing to be critical of the author's premises, preferences, and world view--it happens.  It is another thing to write such criticism of his works without first bothering to get his premises, preferences, and world view clear in your own mind.  

Game consumers, of course, shouldn't be held to as tight a standard as a critic of a written work, at least not until they get to the point of publishing a body of criticism.  But I don't really see how anyone expects to get anything out of any version of D&D, much less adapt it to their world view, until they have a reasonably clear idea of what world view that version of D&D implies (or range thereof).


----------



## JoeGKushner

I'm chuckling at all of the post talking about how Batman isn't super human.

Well, he has all of these advantages and...

Listen, he's fought Superman several times.

He's fought White Martians.

He's devised plans to take out the JLA (that were used by others quite successfully.)

None of this count the crippling damage he's taken from broken backs and gun shot wounds, to his very ability to evade gun shot wounds and fight off mental control by aliens and other powers.

There are whole list of things he's done that in their context, make him far beyond human.


----------



## pemerton

Crazy Jerome, what you say works for me.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> There are whole list of things he's done that in their context, make him far beyond human.




Not from the standpoint of he universe he inhabits- not from his origins.

You take any reasonably fit DC Comics human and give them 15 years to do nothing but train themselves in whatever way they see fit- here, martial arts- and you get the young Batman.  (Batman basically repeated his results with Dick Grayson.)

Then you add X many years of continued training on the job, with all the 

And still, all he is is a man trained beyond what most would consider sufficient...and yet still not up to the snuff of those who have trained harder and longer.

He knows no magic; he is no mutant; he is no alien.

He is just a man- one of the most trained humans in the world; a paragon of the species.

But still just human.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

JoeGKushner said:


> There are whole list of things he's done that in their context, make him far beyond human.



No.  All they demonstrate is plot protection.  Batman -- _both_ of them now -- is quite human.  From his perspective, from the perspective of his friends, family, and (especially) superhero peers, and from the perspective of a reasonable reader.

Batman being "only human" is one of the primary reasons the character has endured!


----------



## JoeGKushner

Jeff Wilder said:


> No.  All they demonstrate is plot protection.  Batman -- _both_ of them now -- is quite human.  From his perspective, from the perspective of his friends, family, and (especially) superhero peers, and from the perspective of a reasonable reader.
> 
> Batman being "only human" is one of the primary reasons the character has endured!




So when he takes Lady Shive out with one punch, one of the #1 martial artist that's plot protection?

When he's using alien technology that no one else can understand, that's plot protection?

We can talk about normal human all we want but when you read some of Morrison's 'Bat God' bits in JLA and you're sitting there going, "He's still nust a normal human.", these are not 'normal' humans.

and as I mentioned, his numerous crippling injuried that he never suffers from.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> So when he takes Lady Shive out with one punch, one of the #1 martial artist that's plot protection?



Considering what Lady Shiva has done to him in the past*, I'd say 1) he surprised her and, as boxers say, "hit the button" and 2) while she is more skilled than he is, she's not nearly as tough, she's a bit of a glass cannon.


> When he's using alien technology that no one else can understand, that's plot protection?




Don't know the plotline, but I have a feeling there actually are other human characters who could understand it- like Lex Luthor.


> and as I mentioned, his numerous crippling injuried that he never suffers from.




_Definitely_ plot protection.  Just like DC wasn't going to let Supes moulder in the grave after Doomsday, Bane's breaking of Bat's back wasn't going to be a permanent change.




*







> http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Lady_Shiva
> "Sandra Wu-San is a mercenary assassin who once trained Batman, and is possibly the greatest martial artist alive. One of Batman's true physical rivals."
> 
> And
> 
> Lady Shiva- Batman Wiki
> 
> "Eager to finally face Batman uninterrupted, Shiva knocked Robin unconscious and challenged the Dark Knight. Initially underestimating Shiva and thinking that she was just showing off, Batman soon found that her skills were such that she could kill him, and began to fight in earnest. It took intervention from Robin to knock Shiva unconscious and subdue her for interrogation."


----------



## JoeGKushner

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Considering what Lady Shiva has done to him in the past*, I'd say 1) he surprised her and, as boxers say, "hit the button" and 2) while she is more skilled than he is, she's not nearly as tough, she's a bit of a glass cannon.
> 
> 
> Don't know the plotline, but I have a feeling there actually are other human characters who could understand it- like Lex Luthor.
> 
> 
> _Definitely_ plot protection.  Just like DC wasn't going to let Supes moulder in the grave after Doomsday, Bane's breaking of Bat's back wasn't going to be a permanent change.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *





So what we're saying is that characters like Batman can overcome injuries that would lead to permanent crippling effects, outfight the greatest martial artists, use alien technology, create technology that is super human (i.e. when he's fighting Predators in essentially Iron Man armor), etc... but hey, underneath all that plot protection, he's just a normal guy and damn lucky that no one's just randomly shot Bruce Wayne in the head?

I'm going with a different definition then; Protagonist capable of doing whatever the plot demands at any time regardless of how outlandish it may be and at times having enough power to rip apart the universe such as when Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman had evolved into godlike entities in Trinity.

Makes calling him 'normal' seem kinda pointless at that point.

"Well, being killed in the present and travelling through numerous time lines.... and then ... and then..."

At what point would someone go, "Gee, Batman isn't quite human."

When he's using the high tech bits from Kingdom Come? When he's using supernatural weapons? Or does all equipment get a nod of forgiveness too because, hey, in theory "anyone" could use it?


----------



## Jeff Wilder

JoeGKushner said:


> So what we're saying is that characters like Batman



This is just ... bizarre.

Are you claiming that James Bond isn't human?  Dirk Pitt?  Arthur Dent?  Any cop on any run-of-the-mill cop show _ever_?

Are you _actually claiming_ that when a protagonist has survived "too much" crap, or shown "too much" competence, he has, by definition, stopped being human?

I mean, because kinda it looks like that's the claim you're making, and all I can do is just kinda shake my head and say, "Whatever," at that point.


----------



## LostSoul

Regarding the use of metagame mechanics:

I always had a problem with -Wises, used in a certain way, in Burning Wheel.  My favourite example, one that I thought about using in a game but didn't:

DM: The orcs are moving through the forest.
Me: Well, everyone knows that the forest is full of orc-hating treants that will destroy them.  They stand no chance!  Since everyone knows this, the Ob is 1 or 2, right?  I can hit that with my Forest-wise 4.  Can I FoRK in Orc-Wise?

Now this is lame in a Story Now game, but if I don't do that I'm not really advocating for my character - I'm not really fighting for what I believe in.  The same thing goes for a Step on Up game.  I call it "Playing with one arm tied behind my back."  If I'm fighting for these things - either to prove my ability or show my beliefs - this sort of mechanic ruins things.

However, I think it does work for a certain kinds of Right to Dream play.  If the whole point is to get a certain feel right, then you've got the perfect opportunity to do so (and be judged by the group on how well you do).


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> ...outfight the greatest martial artists,




On occasion.  That he beat someone solo that he once needed help to defeat shows either improvement, luck, or his opponent made a mistake.  Which it was I cannot say.
When you have well matched opponents, often a single mistake decides the fight.

Do you think Buster Douglas was a better boxer than Mike Tyson?  Most people would assert Mike underestimated Buster and got clocked because he made a mistake.



> At what point would someone go, "Gee, Batman isn't quite human."




When you show me that his abilities are derived from more than comic-book martial arts training.  Show ms some super-soldier serum, genetic mutation, alien blood, or a magic ritual that made him what he is, then you'll start to convince me.

Until then, he's just a highly trained human.  And as other DC martial artists show, not even the best.



> Or does all equipment get a nod of forgiveness too because, hey, in theory "anyone" could use it




Yep.  Gear is gear- it doesn't somehow change you into something superhuman even if it may seem that way.

If I take an AK-47 with a crateload of loaded bananna clips into the jungles of South America and show off to the natives, they may think me some kind of evil god.

But I'm just a man with a gun.


----------



## pawsplay

JoeGKushner said:


> So what we're saying is that characters like Batman can overcome injuries that would lead to permanent crippling effects, outfight the greatest martial artists, use alien technology, create technology that is super human (i.e. when he's fighting Predators in essentially Iron Man armor), etc... but hey, underneath all that plot protection, he's just a normal guy and damn lucky that no one's just randomly shot Bruce Wayne in the head?




That ain't shoes compared to what Jimmy Olsen has been through.


----------



## Crazy Jerome

LostSoul said:


> Regarding the use of metagame mechanics:
> 
> I always had a problem with -Wises, used in a certain way, in Burning Wheel. My favourite example, one that I thought about using in a game but didn't:
> 
> DM: The orcs are moving through the forest.
> Me: Well, everyone knows that the forest is full of orc-hating treants that will destroy them. They stand no chance! Since everyone knows this, the Ob is 1 or 2, right? I can hit that with my Forest-wise 4. Can I FoRK in Orc-Wise?




I think by the book, intended use, you can't use Wises exactly like that. Specifically, you don't set the Obstacle, the GM does. That is one way in which BW is not Story Now, but more traditional. In the group, of course, you are free to suggest an Ob. But the GM has final say. I gather this from things that BW HQ folks have said on the forums from time to time. (I read the RAW BW the same way, but the forum statements have been firmer.)

And even if the GM does accept your Ob, he is not obligated to accept your combination of intent and stakes. I didn't see what the fallout was for missing that roll, in your example. So he might even let that part ride. In fact, that is probably what I'd do. Let you establish the treants for free--then set a tougher route (higher Ob, or multiple Ob's) in order for you to esure the treants come into contact with the orcs in time to do something. If you fail, you may meet the orcs in the forest, possibly at a disadvantaged position. If there is some minor consequence possible for failing the Wise, then I'll let you roll, and pick up the routine check.

Edit:  Should have used "let that part ride" since "Let it Ride" is a different mechanism than "Saying Yes".


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:


> DannyA - just a nitpick, but, Conan was the last son of Atlantis





Erm.....No.  At least, not the Conan REH wrote.  Maybe you mean this guy?







EDIT:  On the Batman thing, you take away this guy's utility belt, and there's nothing he can do that I cannot:


----------



## Raven Crowking

[MENTION=19998]fanboy2000[/MENTION]:  It's called the "Bat-tusi".


----------



## Patryn of Elvenshae

I suspect, RC, that not only can you not invent Bat-Library Paste Remover, but that, even in the event that you did, you will fail to have it in your glove box on the sole occasion that your arch-nemesis utilizes library paste to stick you to your driver seat.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Patryn of Elvenshae said:


> I suspect, RC, that not only can you not invent Bat-Library Paste Remover, but that, even in the event that you did, you will fail to have it in your glove box on the sole occasion that your arch-nemesis utilizes library paste to stick you to your driver seat.




Did he invent it, or does he just carry it?  I admit, mine says "WD-40" on the can, but otherwise........


----------



## JoeGKushner

I can see where some of the replies are coming from but, and its just my opinion, if we take out gear, that essentially means Iron Man, Green Lantern, Colossus, Captain Atom, and a majority of characters in those natures are 'human' because they're not always in a 'super' hero state.

The round about point is that Batman exist in a super hero setting and a 'normal' person would be turned to paste if Superman farted next to them but Batman thrives in the setting because he's not human.

Talk about James Bond, Bourne, etc... seems out of place because those specific characters do not exist in the comic mythos.

And it's like I said, just me, but when you're the hero in a super hero setting, well, you're a super hero.

And Jimmy Olsen has had super powers dozens of times, as has Lois and most other people in the DC setting at one point or another. Heck, I believe the planet itself was drafted in WWIII to fight Magdom.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

JoeGKushner said:


> The round about point is that Batman exist in a super hero setting and a 'normal' person would be turned to paste if Superman farted next to them



So now Lois Lane is also not human.  Okay.


Jeff

P.S. I wonder which is worse, being the victim of a Dutch oven or a Kryptonian kiln?


----------



## JoeGKushner

Jeff Wilder said:


> So now Lois Lane is also not human.  Okay.
> 
> 
> Jeff
> 
> P.S. I wonder which is worse, being the victim of a Dutch oven or a Kryptonian kiln?




Uh, you do realize that Lois has had super powers numerous times including being Super Girl with a wig and all right?

But my point is that the definition of human, when boosted to the levels that Batman is routinely shown to have, is meaingless.

"Batman is just a normal human!"

"Except when he dons the power armor, uses martial art levels past any one else, uses technology that doesn't exist yet, outthinks the greatest thinkers in the world, etc... etc.. .etc... right?"

"Well no, even then he's just a normal guy!"

Sure, we can go with 'human' but when he's able to keep pace with the Justice League on a regular basis, he's 'humanity' means nothing. It's just a palceholder.

It's like the old 70's team ups where Green Lantern is routinely getting his ass handed to him by Thugs on his travels with Green Arrow to showcase the social scene and what's going on in that era. "Erh, wait, doesn't the ring protect you automatically? "Yes, but not from plot device!"


----------



## Jeff Wilder

JoeGKushner said:


> But my point is that the definition of human, when boosted to the levels that Batman is routinely shown to have, is meaingless.



To you.

Batman (Dick Grayson) and Batman (Bruce Wayne) are my two favorite DCU characters ... _because they're only human_.

It is because of that origin and because of that ongoing fact that I enjoy the characters.

This is exactly the same reason that I (sometimes) enjoy playing "just this guy, you know?" characters in RPGs.

I'm sorry that you don't (I'm also okay with it), but this weird claim of yours that "human" is meaningless as a definition for someone like Batman is simply incorrect.  It has meaning for me, and for a huge number of other folks.  If you can't _grok_ that meaning, and why it's important to us, again, I'm sorry (but again, I'm okay with that).  But, frankly, that's on you.


----------



## Patryn of Elvenshae

Raven Crowking said:


> Did he invent it, or does he just carry it?  I admit, mine says "WD-40" on the can, but otherwise........




Now you're really stretching my memory of an episode I haven't seen in ... 15, 20 years ... ? ... but I _think_ the Bats said, "It's a good thing I invented this Bat-Library Paste Remover," rather than, "It's a good thing I brought this Bat-Library Pate Remover."

He certainly didn't say, "It's a good thing I picked up this Bat-Library Paste Remover down at TruValue."


----------



## JoeGKushner

And now we get each other's bit.

To me, because he routinely uses super technology, including a time or two Green  Lantern's ring, has had superpowers numerous times, high tech armor, etc... he's a super hero that goes well beyond 'only human.' To me, without plot protection or massive game balance, to go toe to toe with the things Batman does makes him no different than Superman. 

To you, it seems like those are merely... shells or something that get donned when needed and at the core, despite his continued standing with Superman/Wonder Woman as part of the trinity, his appeal that he's only human.

It's a conversation I've seen on several sites before where the unlikelyness of Batman as seen in Superman/Batman (or in the old days World's Finest) and his bits in Justice Leauge America are contrasted with his more often 'normal' human like bits in the various Batman titles like Detective Comics and others like Shadow of the Bat.



Jeff Wilder said:


> To you.
> 
> Batman (Dick Grayson) and Batman (Bruce Wayne) are my two favorite DCU characters ... _because they're only human_.
> 
> It is because of that origin and because of that ongoing fact that I enjoy the characters.
> 
> This is exactly the same reason that I (sometimes) enjoy playing "just this guy, you know?" characters in RPGs.
> 
> I'm sorry that you don't (I'm also okay with it), but this weird claim of yours that "human" is meaningless as a definition for someone like Batman is simply incorrect.  It has meaning for me, and for a huge number of other folks.  If you can't _grok_ that meaning, and why it's important to us, again, I'm sorry (but again, I'm okay with that).  But, frankly, that's on you.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Patryn of Elvenshae said:


> Now you're really stretching my memory of an episode I haven't seen in ... 15, 20 years ... ? ... but I _think_ the Bats said, "It's a good thing I invented this Bat-Library Paste Remover," rather than, "It's a good thing I brought this Bat-Library Pate Remover."




I can find out, if it's important.  But I'm betting he didn't say he invented it.  



> He certainly didn't say, "It's a good thing I picked up this Bat-Library Paste Remover down at TruValue."




Of course not!

1.  We've never seen a TruValue in Adam West's Gotham City!
2.  Batman doesn't carry money (no pockets, and the utility belt is too full of batarangs, anti-shark bat repellant, etc. for cash).  
3.  Clearly, Batman picked up the WD-40 as Bruce Wayne (or had Alfred pick it up), & mentioning buying it would "out" his secret identity!
4.  He then changed the labels on the can.  I mean, you've seen the batcave, right?  This guy is crazy about labelling things!


----------



## Jeff Wilder

JoeGKushner said:


> And now we get each other's bit.



Possibly.  I'm still puzzled by this ...



> he's a super hero that goes well beyond 'only human.'




... because I don't understand why you feel that "only human" is dichotomous to "a superhero."

"Only human" is like "a shapeshifter" or "someone doused in speed-inducing chemicals" or "the last orphan of a dead world" or "the one and only recipient of the Super-Soldier serum."

All of these things are _also_ possible in "a superhero."


----------



## Raven Crowking

Jeff Wilder said:


> ... because I don't understand why you feel that "only human" is dichotomous to "a superhero."




Because these people are *clearly* more than human:



























RC


----------



## Umbran

JoeGKushner said:


> I can see where some of the replies are coming from but, and its just my opinion, if we take out gear, that essentially means Iron Man, Green Lantern, Colossus, Captain Atom, and a majority of characters in those natures are 'human' because they're not always in a 'super' hero state.




The original (faserip) Marvel Superheroes game even had a name for it: Hi-Tech Wonder.  A normal dude with technology (or magical implements, or other gear) that allows him to operate as a hero.  

Iron Man is the archetype here.  But several in both the DC and Marvel universes fit.  Green Arrow and Hawkeye, Green Lantern, Captain Britain, Goliath/Ant Man... the list goes on.  Bats is in no way unique in being a "normal human" among super-powered beings.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> Bats is in no way unique in being a "normal human" among super-powered beings.




Agreed, but I separate Bats/Green Arrow/Nightwing/Speedy etc., from guys like Iron Man and Box.  The former are hyperskilled martial artists with some gizmos- somewhat like physically fit gadgeteers- while the latter are predominantly dependent on their tech- true gadgeteers and power armor guys.


----------



## Victim

The whole thing is pretty arbitrary.

Is Batman "just a man" or whatever?  Yeah.  How much does that actually matter though?  Sometimes it matters quite a bit.  Other times Batman can get bashed around in ways that would kill or cripple a normal human body, dodge attacks coming from people with superhuman speed, never get shot in the face, etc.  

In terms of determining the results of what Batman does, you can infer very little from the fact that he's only human.  "Because it's Batman" can play a much bigger role, depending on the writer, other characters involved, the enemy he faces, etc.


----------



## pawsplay

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Agreed, but I separate Bats/Green Arrow/Nightwing/Speedy etc., from guys like Iron Man and Box.  The former are hyperskilled martial artists with some gizmos- somewhat like physically fit gadgeteers- while the latter are predominantly dependent on their tech- true gadgeteers and power armor guys.




Have you ever thought about how tough Tony Stark must be to get knocked around inside that armor?


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

pawsplay said:


> Have you ever thought about how tough Tony Stark must be to get knocked around inside that armor?




Oh, I'm not saying he isn't tough or driven.  It's just that, stripped of his armor or tech he can MacGuyver, he's not a major combat threat.  A brown-belt from the local dojo could mop the floor with him.

If he gets out of your LoS in the Apple Store, however, he'll find a way to make a Uni-Beam out of an iPad or repulsors out of the latest iPhones.


----------



## JoeGKushner

Umbran said:


> The original (faserip) Marvel Superheroes game even had a name for it: Hi-Tech Wonder.  A normal dude with technology (or magical implements, or other gear) that allows him to operate as a hero.
> 
> Iron Man is the archetype here.  But several in both the DC and Marvel universes fit.  Green Arrow and Hawkeye, Green Lantern, Captain Britain, Goliath/Ant Man... the list goes on.  Bats is in no way unique in being a "normal human" among super-powered beings.




And there's the geist of it.

Claiming to be a 'normal human' when you can routinely do everything that the 'super humans' do is silly to me.

"Well, Batman is only human, but with access to this technology that doesnt' exist, he can stand with the best of 'em!"

In a game, the mechanics would either serverly penalize playing Batman and the GM would really have to go out of his way not to squish him like in say, Heroes Unlimited, or in Champions, he'd effectively be the same but probably with better combat stats to represent the whole 'glass ninja' bit where higher dexterity/combat mastery couped with martial arts has him doing the same damage as the guy who throws tanks around.

The actual effect of being human is sum zero.


----------



## JoeGKushner

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Oh, I'm not saying he isn't tough or driven.  It's just that, stripped of his armor or tech he can MacGuyver, he's not a major combat threat.  A brown-belt from the local dojo could mop the floor with him.
> 
> If he gets out of your LoS in the Apple Store, however, he'll find a way to make a Uni-Beam out of an iPad or repulsors out of the latest iPhones.




Ah, but even that's not really true anymore.

He's had hand to hand training from Steve (Captain America), which usually only comes into play when he's armorless and these days, between Extremeis Virus, which lasted up til Secret Invasion, and his new Repulsor technology... human probably isn't the right word anymore.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> In a game, the mechanics would either serverly penalize playing Batman and the GM would really have to go out of his way not to squish him like in say, Heroes Unlimited, or in Champions, he'd effectively be the same but probably with better combat stats to represent the whole 'glass ninja' bit where higher dexterity/combat mastery couped with martial arts has him doing the same damage as the guy who throws tanks around.




When published comic book heroes* (and those characters obviously based on them) have been released for HERO in various publications, those like Bats have the limitation "Normal characteristic maximums", which means to exceed those maxima, you pay double.

In Heroes, Unlimited, he'd be created under the "Training" rules.

Either way, neither game truly penalizes you for playing the archetype.  Now, obviously, you'll just lose if you go toe to toe with someone who benches 60 tons...which is why they don't.  You avoid his blows- maybe you don't even get close at all-  and use your wits to get you the victory.


* Off the top of my head, I know I have magazines including HERO stats for the X-Men & Magneto, the Justice Machine, and the Teen Titans.  I may have others, and I doubt that I have all such articles.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

JoeGKushner said:


> Ah, but even that's not really true anymore.
> 
> He's had hand to hand training from Steve (Captain America), which usually only comes into play when he's armorless and these days, between Extremeis Virus, which lasted up til Secret Invasion, and his new Repulsor technology... human probably isn't the right word anymore.




Well good on him!  About time he stopped using his armor as a crutch.  (I stopped buying most comics back in the 1990s, and haven't bought any since 2008.)


----------



## JoeGKushner

Dannyalcatraz said:


> When published comic book heroes* (and those characters obviously based on them) have been released for HERO in various publications, those like Bats have the limitation "Normal characteristic maximums", which means to exceed those maxima, you pay double.
> 
> In Heroes, Unlimited, he'd be created under the "Training" rules.
> 
> Either way, neither game truly penalizes you for playing the archetype.  Now, obviously, you'll just lose if you go toe to toe with someone who benches 60 tons...which is why they don't.  You avoid his blows- maybe you don't even get close at all-  and use your wits to get you the victory.
> 
> 
> * Off the top of my head, I know I have magazines including HERO stats for the X-Men & Magneto, the Justice Machine, and the Teen Titans.  I may have others, and I doubt that I have all such articles.




In Champions, you'll find only a handful of super heroes take the limitation. For example Seeker in 4th ed. Normal human but he doesn't take the penalty.

Most of the people who DO take the penalty work around it with power armor. Which irnoically enough the rules tell you to pretty much shut down because a limitation that isn't a limitation isn't a limitation and worth zero points.

And in Heroes Unlimited, since the game has zero balance, it proves my point. Unless the GM is catering to all the players, like a good GM should mind you, the normal humans are going to go squish. I've seen enough 'car stoppers', which actually do 1d4 M.D.C. damage in Heroes Unlimited, used in this manner to take care of such normals.

The same is also true for Marvel Super Heroes FASERIP edition which tried to balance such characters with martial arts allowing them to sun people they couldn't otherwise effect but the same was true. Daredevil, meet Kurse. Kurse, hit Daredevil twice for Unearthed Damage each time. What's that you say? His Incredible Dexterity didn't keep him from going quish? A fight like the one where Spiderman beats the crap out of Firelord simply wouldn't happen in the game. 

In terms of balancing warrior vs wizard, Batman is the greatest wizard there is. His equipment, 'preperation' and other bits are his spells. "I must use the Bat Thingamigerick to temporarily stun him and then move him into these areas where I've set up these high-tech devices that don't exist and then strike him in the spots that he has no weakness in any other comic to claim victory."

Mind you, I'm not saying I don't like Batman at all. I even dig the new old Robin as Batman with Batman's evil cloned son whose shown to have sold his soul to the devil when he becomes Batman in the future. 

But in terms of what Batman can do? He's gotta be the least 'normal' human this side of Doc Savage.


----------



## JoeGKushner

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Well good on him!  About time he stopped using his armor as a crutch.  (I stopped buying most comics back in the 1990s, and haven't bought any since 2008.)




If you used to enjoy comics, I've found the digital subscription Marvel offers allows a pretty vast backlog of comics (8,000 +) so I'm usually a few months or more behind but it's pretty cool.


----------



## I'm A Banana

> Are you actually claiming that when a protagonist has survived "too much" crap, or shown "too much" competence, he has, by definition, stopped being human?




"Normal Humans" aren't fantasy heroes.

The two concepts are mutually exclusive.

If you're a fantasy hero, you're not just a normal human, no matter how many tortured paragraphs are dedicated to your supposed normal humanity, no matter how often you say "I'm just a guy doing a job, folks." As a fantasy hero, you will do things that normal humans could never do. 

If you are a normal human, you're not capable of being a fantasy hero, no matter how much money, time, practice, or madness you have. No matter how dramatic your history, no matter how lofty your dreams, no matter how idealized your future, you will never be a fantasy hero, and you will only ever do things that, while they may be impressive, are limited by forces beyond your control.

This is the difference between REALITY and FANTASY.

D&D warriors have been forced into some elite version of the former for most of their history; D&D wizards have only ever been the latter, because magic, by definition, makes it a fantasy. 

The balance has been handled in literature by never really making the mistake of presuming that your fantasy warrior needs to only perform things that talented athletes can do while simultaneously letting your wizards grant their own wishes and forge their own demiplanes and go to heaven for a weekend's vacation.

So even if your D&D warrior is just "some farm boy," he should be capable of killing dragons, saving princesses, surviving volcano dungeons, rising from the dead, eating the heart of a dragon, cutting down mountains, standing strong against a million arrows, being a destined savior of a cursed town, wrestling a river, being invincible, receiving gifts from gods, taming tornadoes, killing Superman, and picking his teeth with the bones of the gods while sitting on a throne made of the skulls of all who dared oppose him.

Because while he might say "I'm just a farm boy, folks!", the fact is, he's not a farm boy, he's a fantasy hero, which means he can do more than _climb pretty good if he's lucky_. It means he gets to do things that no normal person gets to do.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> If you're a fantasy hero, you're not just a normal human, no matter how many tortured paragraphs are dedicated to your supposed normal humanity, no matter how often you say "I'm just a guy doing a job, folks." As a fantasy hero, you will do things that normal humans could never do.




Not within the context of the fiction.  What guys like Bats do is within the capabilities of anyone willing to commit to 15 years of training all day in a comic book martial arts style.

And if that person has also been artificially enhanced by DC's version of a super-soldier serum to be ACTUALLY superhuman, Bats loses.  We saw that when Deathstroke took him down (way, way back in Deathstroke's own series)...twice.

BTW, he's also proven himself to be a rival to Bats in planning.  Hired to take down the Teen Titans in something like TT#2, and TT was into its 40s before the plan was realized...


----------



## JoeGKushner

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Not within the context of the fiction.  What guys like Bats do is within the capabilities of anyone willing to commit to 15 years of training all day in a comic book martial arts style.
> 
> And if that person has also been artificially enhanced by DC's version of a super-soldier serum to be ACTUALLY superhuman, Bats loses.  We saw that when Deathstroke took him down (way, way back in Deathstroke's own series)...twice.
> 
> BTW, he's also proven himself to be a rival to Bats in planning.  Hired to take down the Teen Titans in something like TT#2, and TT was into its 40s before the plan was realized...




And Batman has taken Deathstroke down as well druing the tail end of Infinite Crisis. Much like the Shiva fight, plot protection comes through.
 Deathstroke beating Batman in his own book isn't that remarkable. 

Now when Bane beat Batman and broke his back through a massive series of events, that was pretty much a set up only for the guy with the flaming swords to become Batman. It was still a good story. 


It's all about plot protection and niche protection. Anyone remember Promethus when first introduced before becoming a bitch? Another top of the line one there. 

It's one of the reasons why talking about Supers is entertaining because so many issues have been put out that most people can at least point to a few things in their favor or to prove that point.

Doesn't make them right, just right for that example. And just for right now like Tony Start being human when he's got that big ole generator in his chest that emits nanobots to cover him in new armor.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> And Batman has taken Deathstroke down as well druing the tail end of Infinite Crisis




Alas, that one is after my time.

So it's Deathstroke 2-1 over Bats?


----------



## Jeff Wilder

Dannyalcatraz said:


> BTW, [Deathstroke]'s also proven himself to be a rival to Bats in planning.  Hired to take down the Teen Titans in something like TT#2, and TT was into its 40s before the plan was realized...



And which was the only Teen Titan to escape, as Slade himself wryly observed?  "The one without powers."  Robin.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

JoeGKushner said:


> And just for right now like Tony Start being human when he's got that big ole generator in his chest that emits nanobots to cover him in new armor.



The chest-tech isn't the only reason Stark is no longer human.  The armor now lives in his _bones_ as memory metal.


----------



## LostSoul

Kamikaze Midget said:


> "Normal Humans" aren't fantasy heroes.
> 
> The two concepts are mutually exclusive.




I disagree.  The hero of Poltergeist was a normal human.  That was a fantasy movie, she was a regular woman, and still a hero.


----------



## Hussar

Going back to Conan for a second, I'll admit that the "son of Atlantis" thing comes up in the De Camp versions, so, it might have been added later.  

However, this is a character that is beaten senseless, crucified, left to hang for a day or so, the cross is cut down and he slams to the ground without any cushioning, after the nails are pulled from his hands, he pulls the nails from his feet BY HIMSELF, stands up without help, gets on a horse and then rides for several hours.

This is considered a normal guy?

See, I look at Batman and I see a character that is just head and shoulders above everybody else.  Sure, there are other super heroes that might be on par, but, think about that for a second.  Batman is on par with SUPER HEROES.  Not normal Joes.  No normal human is even close to equal to Batman/Bruce Wayne.

Sure, Robin/Nightwing might be somewhere in the ballpark, but, since when is he a Normal Joe?

Are we saying that unless you've been bitten by a radioactive platypus you are a normal human, no matter what?  That just because you are strong, smarter, and in every quatifiable way better than a normal person, you're still just a normal guy because you can't shoot lazer beams from your eyes?

Really?

I would say that Batman is the paragon of humanity.  He's the ultimate idealized character, and, as such, he's no long "normal human".  

Same as pretty much any other pulp character.  Doc Savage is a pretty good example here.


----------



## I'm A Banana

LostSoul said:
			
		

> I disagree. The hero of Poltergeist was a normal human. That was a fantasy movie, she was a regular woman, and still a hero.




The hero of Poltergeist was the hero of a horror story, not the hero of a fantasy story. Though there is often some overlap, generally, horror heroes will be normal people who triumph over the supernatural because of some combination of luck and determination and a weakness of the villain, not because of their inherent awesomeness. This is the genre dividing line between fantasy and horror, broadly speaking. In fantasy, the protagonists are the most awesome. In horror, the villains get to be the most awesome.



			
				Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> Not within the context of the fiction. What guys like Bats do is within the capabilities of anyone willing to commit to 15 years of training all day in a comic book martial arts style.




Fine, but why can't a D&D fighter do things that Batman can do? Why is a D&D warrior stuck in the land of Michael Jordan and Olympic athletes? 

Batman is different than people like Michael Jordan and Stephen Hawking and Bruce Lee, even if, in the fiction, it's just because he chose a different job than these "normal people."

A D&D fighter should be able to do the incredible things that Batman can do. These things are not, when compared with the Real World, any different than the incredible things Achilles and Hercules and Gilgamesh and Musashi and Lancelot and Samson do.

In the context of D&D (a fantasy stewpot), even if a warrior is some normal dude, he's not just a good athlete or a clever fighter. He's beyond that.

Why can't they fight like Batman fights?


----------



## Jeff Wilder

Kamikaze Midget said:


> Fine, but why can't a D&D fighter do things that Batman can do?



As far as I can tell, they do.

They can't do what _Superman_ can do, but they can do what Batman can do.  They can't fly or use telekinesis or spontaneously generate electricity.  But they can fight awesomely.

Which is, of course, the point.



> A D&D fighter should be able to do the incredible things that Batman can do.



Depending on what specific feats you have in mind, a D&D fighter _can_ do these things.



> In the context of D&D (a fantasy stewpot), even if a warrior is some normal dude, he's not just a good athlete or a clever fighter. He's beyond that.



Of course he is.  He's an _briliiant_ fighter.



> Why can't they fight like Batman fights?



They can.

Of course, when they borrow abilities from their friends -- as Batman borrows tech quite a bit -- people will bitch about how "everything the fighter can do is because the wizard helped him."


----------



## JohnRTroy

Why does it have to be "balanced" in fiction?

It's fiction.  It doesn't have the same rules as gaming.  There is no such thing as "Balanced characters" in fiction.

Novels and Movies/TV are a different medium.  Games are games.   They don't HAVE to be balanced.  You don't roll dice or have levels in real life.

Does that mean logic and world building shouldn't exist in a novel?  No.  But it does mean that writers shouldn't think of their protagonists as characters in a video game with relative levels of power.  Heck, even editors of major publishers have suggested people not write novels like it's a D&D campaign.  

I think breaking down things into statistics and trying to quantify that stuff will actually hurt fiction.  We actually need to stop trying to write stuff in that manner.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Hussar said:


> Going back to Conan for a second, I'll admit that the "son of Atlantis" thing comes up in the De Camp versions, so, it might have been added later.
> 
> However, this is a character that is beaten senseless, crucified, left to hang for a day or so, the cross is cut down and he slams to the ground without any cushioning, after the nails are pulled from his hands, he pulls the nails from his feet BY HIMSELF, stands up without help, gets on a horse and then rides for several hours.
> 
> 
> This is considered a normal guy?




As normal as many an action hero.

Just saw one two nights ago that was variation on the 1954 book, _I Am Legend_- the potagonist was shot with a high-caliber weapon in both legs and either one or both shoulders and left for dead.  Instead of bleeding out and/or being eaten by zombies, he managed to (evenually) get up, stagger down the street, break into a car, hot-wire it, drive the car- which MAY have been a stick (I don't recall)- to track down the man who shot him.  He then gets into a martial arts fight with his shooter.  Now, he _does_ need a little help to win the fight, but he IS doing spin-kicks on legs that have been ventillated by a .45.

Then he drives the damsel in distress and himself out of the city- which is going to be destroyed by bombs...in a Corvette.

All within the hours before he recieves any real medical treatment for his wounds.  He's a badass, yes, but he's just a human with training.  No super powers.  No soldier serum.  No alien blood.



> See, I look at Batman and I see a character that is just head and shoulders above everybody else.  Sure, there are other super heroes that might be on par, but, think about that for a second.  Batman is on par with SUPER HEROES.  Not normal Joes.  No normal human is even close to equal to Batman/Bruce Wayne.
> 
> Sure, Robin/Nightwing might be somewhere in the ballpark, but, since when is he a Normal Joe?




Nightwing- Dick Grayson- was an ordinary human being from birth.  He happened to be an acrobat.  After his parents were murdered, he went through Bats' training program.

No mutant blood, no magical rituals, no alien nanotech. Just comic book martial arts.

Ergo, normal human.



> Are we saying that unless you've been bitten by a radioactive platypus you are a normal human, no matter what?  That just because you are strong, smarter, and in every quatifiable way better than a normal person, you're still just a normal guy because you can't shoot lazer beams from your eyes?
> 
> Really?




Yes.

Because, as I've said, any human who succeeded at going through the same training- and that is all it is, training- would get comparable results.  We know this because other characters who _have_ gone through that kind of training have had comparable results.  And there is a subset of those who have gone beyond and actually gained _REAL_ superpowers- Deathstroke, Paul Kirk, etc.,- who are/were even more badass.



> I would say that Batman is the paragon of humanity.  He's the ultimate idealized character, and, as such, he's no long "normal human".




I agree with you up to the word "character."  A "paragon of humanity" can only be so if he is still actually human. 



> Same as pretty much any other pulp character.  Doc Savage is a pretty good example here.




That just makes pulp characters into a Mary Sues.  If the only things he's got for ingredients to are the same mentors and such- IOW, training- as anyone else might theoretically have to make him über, then all he is is human.

The Phantom, Doc Savage- they're just highly trained humans, nothing else.



Kamikaze Midget said:


> Fine, but why can't a D&D fighter do things that Batman can do?




Short answer: they can.  Train in martial arts.  Train the various stealth skills. Train in Knowledge skills.  Use no lethal weapons.  Use gear, and lots of it- and the better the gear, the better you'll do.

What you'll find is that the system isn't built to handle the "genius" warrior, but all the other stuff is available.

You'll also find that, just like the real Batman, you can only be so prepared.  While you may have a plan to defeat every potential foe you face, you may have to retreat to your home base to get the equipment necessary to implement it.  It's not like Bats carries around kryptonite on his utility belt every day just in case he runs into some rogue kryptonians.  (Or an all-yellow suit to take down Green Lanterns, or some lead in case he runs into rogue daxamites, or...)



> Batman is different than people like Michael Jordan and Stephen Hawking and Bruce Lee, even if, in the fiction, it's just because he chose a different job than these "normal people."




That just means he took a different career path- it doesn't elevate him above humanity.



> A D&D fighter should be able to do the incredible things that Batman can do.




He can.



> These things are not, when compared with the Real World, any different than the incredible things Achilles and Hercules and Gilgamesh and Musashi and Lancelot and Samson do.




But when compared to those characters within the context of their fiction, he's just a normal human, ad he starts coming up short.

Achilles was invulnerable but for a weak spot that would have been protected by better footwear choices.

Hercules and the other strongmen do things that, by definition within their realities, _nobody_ else could do.  Bats actually has rivals & superiors who could match his exploits.

Lancelot was the greatest warrior in the world AND blessed by God.

Miyamoto Musashi was a real life human, subject to all the limitations that implies- that he was a great warrior and writer does not elevate him beyond that.  (Or were you referring to someone else?)


> In the context of D&D (a fantasy stewpot), even if a warrior is some normal dude, he's not just a good athlete or a clever fighter. He's beyond that.



I disagree.



> Why can't they fight like Batman fights?




As pointed out, he can.


----------



## JoeGKushner

Jeff Wilder said:


> Of course, when they borrow abilities from their friends -- as Batman borrows tech quite a bit -- people will bitch about how "everything the fighter can do is because the wizard helped him."




See, I was going the other route that Batman himself is the Wizard because he has so much of his own tech; things that wouldn't exist in the real world. Like the new Batmobile that Grayson was using in the new Batman and Robin when that title launched. 

This doesn't get into making artificial green K in Dark Knight Returns or any of the other more amusing things like bat shark repellent.

With Bat's financies, genius, etc... he's got a lot of the verisitility that a wizard with a very full spell book has.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

JoeGKushner said:


> See, I was going the other route that Batman himself is the Wizard because he has so much of his own tech; things that wouldn't exist in the real world. Like the new Batmobile that Grayson was using in the new Batman and Robin when that title launched.
> 
> This doesn't get into making artificial green K in Dark Knight Returns or any of the other more amusing things like bat shark repellent.
> 
> With Bat's financies, genius, etc... he's got a lot of the verisitility that a wizard with a very full spell book has.




Or an Artificer.


----------



## pemerton

I think KM's point is that a non-magical PC, in D&D, isn't guaranteed to be able to do what Batman does because eg skill rolls, to hit rolls etc are needed - whereas for wizards they are not.

This really has nothing to do with whether or not, in the fictional world, Batman is a human. It's whether the _mechanics_ should produce the result that the player of a mortal hero should have a harder time of having Batman-level effects on the story, than the player of a supernatural hero does in having Superman-level effects on the story.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

The point stands: nothing Batman does in combat _sans equipment_ is beyond the ability of a D&D fighter, monk or other martial PC.

Skill rolls are another matter, but that isn't the issue, since wizards & fighters get the same number of skill points...just different class skills.


----------



## Hussar

Which point though DannyA?

I've noticed something of a drift here.  At the start of this conversation, it was that fighters were basically the same as normal humans, just a bit better.  IOW, a 1st level fighter literally was the farmboy just off the turnip truck.

When that was pretty soundly disproved (1st level fighter has access to abilities that no normal human can possibly have, 1st level fighter can survive damage that no normal human can survive, just to name two elements) suddenly "normal human" got changed to Batman.

Y'know what?  I don't really even consider someone like Michael Jordan to be a normal human.  I mean, I could train sixteen hours a day for most of my life and still not be as good of a basketball player as he is.  Batman would routinely crush MJ on the court.  Then he'd turn around and kick Hoyce Gracies ass and then compare notes with Bill Gates on how to create the next version of Windows.

And the funny thing is, Batman, from a certain perspective is a normal human.  He doesn't have any super powers.  But, while 100% factually accurate to call Batman a normal human, it's false in all the ways that actually matter.

But, hey, if you're saying that a 1st level fighter is Batman, then, basically, we're saying the same thing.  Because whether you want to say Batman or Hercules, they're both not even in the same ZIP code as an average commoner.

Which was my point all the way along.


----------



## Ultimatecalibur

First I'm going to respond to the threads original topic:

The "Fighter/Mage-User Same Team Power Disparity at High Skill Levels" is largely a modern western concept born from D&D itself.

In Arthurian Legend, Merlin was roughly on par with the various major knights. His only magical powers were prophecy, casting protective enchantments and dispelling curses. Several of the major knights had such knightly purity that they could not be cursed and had such skill at arms that they had no need of protective charms. Merlin could not destroy towns on a whim.

In Wuxia, if there was a sorcerer capable of easily leveling towns on the heroes side, the warriors were one man armies capable of balancing on a leaf floating in the middle of a lake during a monsoon.

In the Anime Slayers, Lina and Gourry had roughly the same level of skill in there respective classes. When facing a band of a dozen brigands Lina would cast a spell or Gourry would defeat them with a show of swordsmanship to the same result. As for the dragon slaying spell Dragon Slave that Lina found while treasure hunting? Gourry had the Sword of Light, a weapon that could critically injure Demon Gods.


Now on to Batman:

Batman's power level varies depending on whose writing him, where he's appearing and who he is facing.

In the Dark Knight films he is a physically fit, well trained human with access to experimental military grade equipment. He faces street thugs, mobsters, non-superhuman ninja and madmen.

In the JLA comic books he is an impossibly wealthy(in an emergency and need of a spaceship? Got one prepped and ready to launch) 5+dan blackbelt in a dozen martial arts, master detective, with the equivalent knowledge of someone with a master's degree in chemistry, physics, biology, psychology and medicine. He faces evil gods, advanced alien invasion fleets, and businessmen able to cause total global economic collapse.

When it _requires_ a martial artist who can kill superhumans unarmed(Lady Shiva) or a super soldier (Deathstroke) in order to beat you in a fight _you are superhuman_ even if you are a "normal" human.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Hussar said:


> Which point though DannyA?
> 
> I've noticed something of a drift here.  At the start of this conversation, it was that fighters were basically the same as normal humans, just a bit better.  IOW, a 1st level fighter literally was the farmboy just off the turnip truck.
> 
> When that was pretty soundly disproved (1st level fighter has access to abilities that no normal human can possibly have, 1st level fighter can survive damage that no normal human can survive, just to name two elements) suddenly "normal human" got changed to Batman.



That is some _amazingly_ selective reading of my posts.  Nothing of the kind was "pretty soundly disproved" since I pointed out 1st level fighters in published sources who were, in fact, still working in mundane professions like farmer or tavern wench...and who had all the special abilities available to them as per their class.



> Y'know what?  I don't really even consider someone like Michael Jordan to be a normal human.



Michael Jordan might disagree, as would his MD and his momma.  I think I see where your problem is.



> But, while 100% factually accurate to call Batman a normal human, it's false in all the ways that actually matter.



Not within the context of the fictional universe in which he lives.



> But, hey, if you're saying that a 1st level fighter is Batman, then, basically, we're saying the same thing.




No, Bats is an experienced fighter.  He trained 15 years before becoming an adventurer.  During that training, he "leveled up" but it wasn't until he donned the cowl that he got any real "live fire" action.



> Because whether you want to say Batman or Hercules, they're both not even in the same ZIP code as an average commoner.



"Average commoner" and "normal human" are not identical terms, nor are they mutually exclusive.  I'm a normal human, but I'm far beyond average in many ways.

Batman may not be an average commoner, but he, too, is just a normal human.[/QUOTE]



Ultimatecalibur said:


> When it _requires_ a martial artist who can kill superhumans unarmed(Lady Shiva) or a super soldier (Deathstroke) in order to beat you in a fight _you are superhuman_ even if you are a "normal" human.




I can't agree with this at all.  After all, it doesn't require a superhuman to beat him- a simple gunshot would do it.  No sniper has ever really tried, though.  Ditto explosives.  Thank you, plot protection!


----------



## I'm A Banana

Jeff Wilder said:
			
		

> As far as I can tell, they do.
> 
> They can't do what Superman can do, but they can do what Batman can do. They can't fly or use telekinesis or spontaneously generate electricity. But they can fight awesomely.




Functionally, Batman can do all those things, as well as what Superman can do. Let's take flight. Batman can't just leap into the air and soar...but he can leap into the air an extraordinary height because of his martial arts training, and he can open his cape to function like a glider, with which he can catch thermals because of his brilliant intellect and practice, and combine it with the grappling hook to rope him to higher vertical ground. 

He might need the right "planning" or "equipment" or "tool," but this is just Batmanspeak for the right "magic item" or "god's blessing" or "supernatural skill."

A D&D warrior needs to depend on the generosity of a DM dropping the right item or providing the right mount or giving the right set-up and permitting them to make the right skill checks to _maybe_ do any of that.

For a D&D warrior to work like Batman (without having to be as intelligent themselves), we could have the player just say "I use my _Soaring Wings_ ability to take to the sky!" And Soaring Wings would say something like "The user flies 25 feet."

This would represent some combination of athletics, tools, skill, training, knowledge, and natural ability, without the player needing to actually line everything up like that. 



			
				Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> That just means he took a different career path- it doesn't elevate him above humanity.




His "career path" is "fantasy hero," which isn't a career path available to any Real People, including Michael Jordan and Stephen Hawking. It's a career path arguably available to any burger-flipper with a dark secret and a drive in the fictional universe of the funny pages, but for Actual Human Beings, it's not an option.

That's key because the moment we start working within the fantasy milieu, we don't have to justify what any character can do based on what actual, real-life human beings are actually capable of in real life. What Batman can do is not based on what actual real, flesh and blood, Michael Jordan mortal human beings can do. It's based on what fantasy heroes can do. 

And D&D fighters, then, don't have to rival Michael Jordan anymore. They get to rival Batman (who rivals Superman and all sorts of other clearly not normal people characters).



			
				pemerton said:
			
		

> I think KM's point is that a non-magical PC, in D&D, isn't guaranteed to be able to do what Batman does because eg skill rolls, to hit rolls etc are needed - whereas for wizards they are not.
> 
> This really has nothing to do with whether or not, in the fictional world, Batman is a human. It's whether the mechanics should produce the result that the player of a mortal hero should have a harder time of having Batman-level effects on the story, than the player of a supernatural hero does in having Superman-level effects on the story.




Spot on. The fiction that Batman exists in bears no resemblance to reality.

The fiction that D&D warriors exist in bear no resemblance to reality.

Reality is not a useful measure to calibrate what these characters are capable of.

Myths, legends, epics, idealized power fantasies -- that is what these characters are capable of.

"Normal in the context of the fiction" or not, they are not normal in the context of REALITY.


----------



## Ultimatecalibur

Dannyalcatraz said:


> I can't agree with this at all.  After all, it doesn't require a superhuman to beat him- a simple gunshot would do it.  No sniper has ever really tried, though.  Ditto explosives.  Thank you, plot protection!




Funny, I remember a couple attempts to use both situations.

In one attempt a sniper was contracted to kill Bruce Wayne or some other VIP. Batman caught wind of it and set it up so that when the sniper took position to fire either he, Robin or another Bat was there to take him out.

In another situation Batman was trapped with a bomb he couldn't defuse. He escaped by riding out the blast in a nearby safe.


----------



## WizarDru

See, from my perspective, most of the latter part of this discussion is just speaking to the fact that Batman is a character who can be used in a wide variety of stories.  He can be in a street-level crime drama in which he takes down a thug with a car battery one day and take out Darkseid the next. He can be disabled by a lucky shot to the head from King Tut or he can go toe-to-toe with a horde of Kobra's thugs and not get a scratch. He can travel through time, hang with the Demon and fight drug kingpins. 

Each writer treats him differently; Morrison has created what some call the "Bat-God", Batman as the ultimate expert. On the one hand, nothing he does is beyond the capability of a normal human in a comic book world, but at the same time he has accomplished more and is capable of more than a dozen other superheroes. 

Batman in a discussion like this is something of a macguffin, due to his popularity, long life and (as noted) plot protection. If we remove Batman from the equation and then replace him with say, Green Arrow or similar heroes, I think we'd see a difference in the discussion. Even characters like Captain America and the Punisher are both too powerful and famous to be counted (as most characters don't consider surviving in a chunk of ice for 20+ years or being turned into Frankenstein and getting better as 'normal').


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> In one attempt a sniper was contracted to kill Bruce Wayne or some other VIP. Batman caught wind of it and set it up so that when the sniper took position to fire either he, Robin or another Bat was there to take him out.



So he survived the sniper attack by not being shot?

I guess that settles it- you'd HAVE to be superhuman to survive not being shot by a trained sniper!


> In another situation Batman was trapped with a bomb he couldn't defuse. He escaped by riding out the blast in a nearby safe.



So he survived the bomb by finding an explosive resistant area in which to take cover?

I guess that settles it- you'd HAVE to be superhuman to survive an explosion by taking cover!




Going back a ways to Bat's plan vs Supes...

The key to his plan wasn't exploiting Supes' weakness to kryptonite, but rather noticing that Supes relies on his powers like a crutch- his REAL weakness.

Because of it, even though he's fast enough to avoid any kind of physical contact a human could initiate, including gunfire, Supes is so confident in his gifts that he will stand there and let you hit him.  In the staged attack on Supes in DKR, the kryptonite arrow could have easily been avoided.

A criminal with a few kryptonite-tipped bullets or a kryptonite bowie knife may well be able to kill Supes if they make the same deduction.


----------



## Ultimatecalibur

Dannyalcatraz said:


> So he survived the sniper attack by not being shot?
> 
> I guess that settles it- you'd HAVE to be superhuman to survive not being shot by a trained sniper!
> 
> So he survived the bomb by finding an explosive resistant area in which to take cover?
> 
> I guess that settles it- you'd HAVE to be superhuman to survive an explosion by taking cover!




Ugh, Danny, please stop. You are using fallacious arguments, primarily a variation of the "No true Scotsman" fallacy, irrelevant conclusions, and begging the question.

The point being is that while Batman's race is "normal" human, just like Superman's race is "Kryptonian" and the Flash's is "Speedster," he is still a superhero. They all solve problems in ways that are beyond what real people can reasonably do. If a sniper shoots a bullet at a one of them: Superman catches the bullet with his superspeed, the Flash dodges it after the shot is fired, and Batman already new about the sniper and set it up so that the sniper could not make the shot for various reasons. They handle the bomb problem in a similar way: Superman survives by his invulnerability, the FLash outruns the blast and Batman dives into a nearby safe and rides out the blast in a way that would kill a real person but comes out unharmed.




> Going back a ways to Bat's plan vs Supes...
> 
> The key to his plan wasn't exploiting Supes' weakness to kryptonite, but rather noticing that Supes relies on his powers like a crutch- his REAL weakness.
> 
> Because of it, even though he's fast enough to avoid any kind of physical contact a human could initiate, including gunfire, Supes is so confident in his gifts that he will stand there and let you hit him.  In the staged attack on Supes in DKR, the kryptonite arrow could have easily been avoided.
> 
> A criminal with a few kryptonite-tipped bullets or a kryptonite bowie knife may well be able to kill Supes if they make the same deduction.




One of Batman's, and also Sherlock Holmes', "superpowers" is to make those kinds of deductions. No one else can really make those deductions because they don't have the "World's Greatest Detective" class. Your average thug with kryponite weaponry would not make those deductions or have the ability to act on them, only Batman and those with similar skills can and do.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> Ugh, Danny, please stop. You are using fallacious arguments, primarily a variation of the "No true Scotsman" fallacy, irrelevant conclusions, and begging the question.




No, you're providing extremely bad counterexamples.

That someone survives a sniper attack by having the attack thwarted- your example- is in no way indicative of being superhuman.  Ditto your example of surviving an explosion by taking cover in an explosion-resistant thing like a safe- arguably, something like that could provide more protection than a bomb suit.


----------



## Hussar

Ultimatecalibur said:


> /snip
> 
> In another situation Batman was trapped with a bomb he couldn't defuse. He escaped by riding out the blast in a nearby safe.




Was he inside a refrigerator at the time?  

DannyA - you posted examples of exceptional unique people (classed NPC's are not normal people) in an attempt to say that normal people are just like PC's.

This is patently untrue.  It's untrue in any edition.  The simple fact that you can grant a PC class to an NPC doesn't make NPC's "normal people" it means that this given NPC is NOT a "normal person".  The bartender is a retired 5th level fighter is a pretty common trope, but, note, he's a retired ADVENTURER, not a lifetime bartender/inn keeper who has never ventured beyond the walls of his town.

An NPC has lower stats than a PC, lacks access to abilities granted to PC's (exceptional strength, Action Points, to name two examples), cannot survive damage that PC's can actually walk away from, can't use the Death's Door rules in some editions, on and on and on.

How much does it take for a PC to not be considered "normal human"?


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> DannyA - you posted examples of exceptional unique people (classed NPC's are not normal people) in an attempt to say that normal people are just like PC's.




In what way is a 1st level fighter who works as a menial in her father's business "exceptional?"  For all you know, she's like Kate from _Taming of the Shrew_, a psycho, or just likes to fight.  Unusual, perhaps, but not exceptional.


> The bartender is a retired 5th level fighter is a pretty common trope, but, note, he's a retired ADVENTURER, not a lifetime bartender/inn keeper who has never ventured beyond the walls of his town.




If it says he is, he is.  If it says he's head of the local militia in a town that frequently gets overrun by invading goblin hordes, he may never have left his town in his life.

You're letting class levels lead you to making assumptions about backgrounds, and that's simply not supported by what is in print.



> An NPC has lower stats than a PC, lacks access to abilities granted to PC's (exceptional strength, Action Points, to name two examples), cannot survive damage that PC's can actually walk away from, can't use the Death's Door rules in some editions, on and on and on.




I'll grant you death's door and action points since those are explicit carve-outs, but the rest simply isn't true.  The lack of info in those NPC stats are merely evidence of an intent to simplify bookeeping.  The spellcasters have multiple levels of spells- so we know they have to at least meet the casting minimums for those.  The rogueish ones have death attacks and the like.  And while nameless, statless "Daughter" (again, how is she exceptional merely by virtue of being a Fighter?) may not have exceptional strength- actually, in that edition, as a female, she is prevented from having it at all anyway*- that doesn't mean there aren't other NPCs fighters with it.  And it's not like every PC fighter had it, either.





* Actually, Hussar, which is it?  Is she exceptional because she's a fighter or is she merely normal because she's just a nameless, statless NPC?


----------



## Ultimatecalibur

Dannyalcatraz said:


> No, you're providing extremely bad counterexamples.




Actually I'm pointing out where to situations _you_ brought up were countered.



Dannyalcatraz said:


> I can't agree with this at all.  After all, it doesn't require a superhuman to beat him- a simple gunshot would do it.  *No sniper has ever really tried, though.  Ditto explosives.*  Thank you, plot protection!




_You_ said that Batman wasn't superhuman because he could be taken out by a sniper or explosives. _I_ brought up one situation each were he prevented himself from being taken out by a sniper or explosives.



> That someone survives a sniper attack by having the attack thwarted- your example- is in no way indicative of being superhuman.  Ditto your example of surviving an explosion by taking cover in an explosion-resistant thing like a safe- arguably, something like that could provide more protection than a bomb suit.




You are trying to Move the Goalposts:
1. Your assertion - You said that it does not require a superhuman to beat him, and gave 2 examples of non-superhuman threats that could beat him.
2. Proof that your assertion was false - I provided examples where Batman beat those threats
3. Attempts to dismiss - You are saying that my examples don't count because anyone could do them.
4. Requesting other greater evidence - You said my examples were bad and are implying that you want better examples.

If you still want "better" counterexamples I can give you them:

1. Sniper sent to kill Bruce Wayne, Bruce Wayne predicts when and where the shot will be made. Bruce Wayne dodges when he predicts that the sniper will fire and the shot misses.

2. The bad guys deliver a supertech bomb set to blow up a city, Batman has had little to no contact with the supertech before and successfully defuses the bomb on his first try.


----------



## fanboy2000

I would like to point out that there is a difference between normal meaning ordinary or most common, and normal meaning possible, but not necessarily probably, in real life.

You know, for whatever it's worth.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> Actually I'm pointing out where to situations you brought up were countered.




No, what I said was:







> After all, it doesn't require a superhuman to beat him- a simple gunshot would do it. No sniper has ever really tried, though. Ditto explosives. Thank you, plot protection!




Tried, yes- but in the former, the shot never hit him because of the intervention of others, ergo it cannot be evidence of his superhuman-ness.  In the second, he took cover- as any human might- and survived.  Had he survived _without_ taking cover, you might have an argument in your favor.  But what he did was no more remarkable than a bomb-squad tech surviving an unplanned detonation in his bomb-suit.

Remember, the point was whether he was or was not superhuman.  Not being shot is no evidence at all.  Surviving an explosion from which he took cover is at best ambiguous.


> You are trying to Move the Goalposts:
> 1. Your assertion - You said that it does not require a superhuman to beat him, and gave 2 examples of non-superhuman threats that could beat him.
> 2. Proof that your assertion was false - I provided examples where Batman beat those threats
> 3. Attempts to dismiss - You are saying that my examples don't count because anyone could do them.
> 4. Requesting other greater evidence - You said my examples were bad and are implying that you want better examples.




No, I'm not.

The problem lies in your second point- he survived the threats, but he did so by mundane reasons.

Look at the history of some of the RW's leaders and see just how many shootings and bombings they've survived.  Are they superhuman for doing so?  Absolutely not.  Some of the attempts were thwarted by intervention- as the sniper attack on Bats was.  Mubarek, for instance, survived 6 attempts, including an assault by multiple AK-47 wielding assailants.

Some people have survived bombings by being protected within bomb resistant areas or just the bodies of others, like the Iraqui journalist Muaid Lami who survived an explosion that killed 5 people next to him with relatively minor chest and arm wounds.  Again, this is mundane...as in, not supernatural or superhuman.

And as for your 3rd point, yes, they don't count because they could be done by anyone.  If literally _anyone _can do it, then it isn't evidence of being superhuman.  It isn't evidence of anything at all.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> If you still want "better" counterexamples I can give you them:
> 
> 1. Sniper sent to kill Bruce Wayne, Bruce Wayne predicts when and where the shot will be made. Bruce Wayne dodges when he predicts that the sniper will fire and the shot misses.




That is what I'd call excellent detective work, especially within the context of comic books or other escapist literature.  Again, that proves nothing.



> 2. The bad guys deliver a supertech bomb set to blow up a city, Batman has had little to no contact with the supertech before and successfully defuses the bomb on his first try.




So, multiple attempts (successful and unsuccessful) at defusing bombs gives him an edge...but he doesn't know the particular tech in question.  Still he manages to defuse the superbomb?

Again, this is something you'd find as a common trope in action stories.

It used to be, every bomb had different colored wires and a countdown clock.  Nowadays, most fictional bombs are closer to the real things- multiple redundant detonators, etc., and especially, fewer clocks and no "telltale" wiring.

And yet I just watched a communications/dispatch agent with NO field agent experience on _Primeval_ successfully pick the correct wire out of multiple identically colored wires on a bomb with no visible timer, a tripwire/counterweight trigger, and a metronome trigger to save the agent she's falling for.

Is she superhuman?

No, like Bats, she (and her future beau) had narrative plot protection (or in layman's terms, she got lucky)*.  As did Bats.

Surviving a bomb by defusing it is not evidence of being superhuman unless doing so requires you to do something no human can do, such as fit your arm (your ACTUAL arm, not some waldo) down an 8' long, 2" in diameter shaft to do so.



* And that was in a show that has killed off most of the lead characters from the first season.  They're not afraid to kill characters off, often spectacularly.


----------



## pemerton

Ultimatecalibur said:


> In Arthurian Legend, Merlin was roughly on par with the various major knights. His only magical powers were prophecy, casting protective enchantments and dispelling curses. Several of the major knights had such knightly purity that they could not be cursed and had such skill at arms that they had no need of protective charms. Merlin could not destroy towns on a whim.
> 
> In Wuxia, if there was a sorcerer capable of easily leveling towns on the heroes side, the warriors were one man armies capable of balancing on a leaf floating in the middle of a lake during a monsoon.



These are good examples - and not just for taking us back to the relevant literature, but for pointing out how martial characters can have abilities that are the functional equivalent of D&D magic (resistance to curses, preternatural balance) although they are, in the story, not anything other than a manifestation of their martial prowess.



Dannyalcatraz said:


> The point stands: nothing Batman does in combat _sans equipment_ is beyond the ability of a D&D fighter, monk or other martial PC.



The issue isn't whether or not the PC can achieve it if the GM is very generous, and/or if the player in question rolls three 20s in a row. The question is whether it is a _baseline_ for a martial PC, as it is a baseline for Batman.

To reiterate - I don't think anyone on this thread is saying that, in the fictional world of DC comics, Batman is a supernatural being. They're saying that, by the standards of the real world he is a fantastic being. And that there is no reason why RPG PCs shouldn't be able to be similarly fantastic in what they can do, even if _within the gameworld_ they are not supernatural.

3E, with its requirement that martial abilities be handled via skill checks rather than the auto-success associated with spells, doesn't do this.



Dannyalcatraz said:


> Skill rolls are another matter, but that isn't the issue, since wizards & fighters get the same number of skill points...just different class skills.



Skill rolls aren't another matter - they are the very matter at hand! In 3E, a fighter can only climb if his/her player makes a successful roll on a d20, whereas a wizard can climb with no chance of failure if his/her player has ticked the "spider climb" box at the start of play. So the player who has opted to bring Merlin to the table is better able to emulate Batman than is the player who has opted to bring Batman to the table. This is the problem KM is talking about.

The solution, as KM says, is to give martial PCs powers that don't require good dice rolls in order for those PCs to fill their designated roles:



Kamikaze Midget said:


> For a D&D warrior to work like Batman (without having to be as intelligent themselves), we could have the player just say "I use my _Soaring Wings_ ability to take to the sky!" And Soaring Wings would say something like "The user flies 25 feet."
> 
> This would represent some combination of athletics, tools, skill, training, knowledge, and natural ability, without the player needing to actually line everything up like that.



Another good example to add to the examples of balance and curse resistance given by Ultimatecalibur.



Kamikaze Midget said:


> The fiction that Batman exists in bears no resemblance to reality.
> 
> The fiction that D&D warriors exist in bear no resemblance to reality.
> 
> Reality is not a useful measure to calibrate what these characters are capable of.
> 
> Myths, legends, epics, idealized power fantasies -- that is what these characters are capable of.
> 
> "Normal in the context of the fiction" or not, they are not normal in the context of REALITY.



Fully agreed.


----------



## pemerton

Dannyalcatraz said:


> No, like Bats, she (and her future beau) had narrative plot protection (or in layman's terms, she got lucky



And KM's point is that _martial classes, as rules constructs for RPGs, should bring their own luck_. Not depend upon the _player_ getting lucky with his/her D20s, and/or having a generous GM.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> kill rolls aren't another matter - they are the very matter at hand! In 3E, a fighter can only climb if his/her player makes a successful roll on a d20, whereas a wizard can climb with no chance of failure if his/her player has ticked the "spider climb" box at the start of play. So the player who has opted to bring Merlin to the table is better able to emulate Batman than is the player who has opted to bring Batman to the table. This is the problem KM is talking about.
> 
> The solution, as KM says, is to give martial PCs powers that don't require good dice rolls in order for those PCs to fill their designated roles:




Or have fewer spells that replace skills.

Or have most spells that emulate skills operate based on some kind of class level basis.

Or make spellcasters' "learning spells" decisions more focused- like what happens with Specialization- or more randomized- as per previous editions.

Or, or, or.

"Magicing-up" the warrior isn't the only solution.  It may not even be the best.

Spider Climb, to me, isn't that big of a deal.  By itself.  I've seen many films and read many stories in which spellcasters did essentially the same thing.

OTOH, if your game is full of spells that let you best any skill at any time..._and_ there is insufficient "scarcity" of spells to make doing so a realistic opportunity cost, there is a problem.

I'm just not convinced that there is insufficient scarcity.


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## Dannyalcatraz

pemerton said:


> And KM's point is that _martial classes, as rules constructs for RPGs, should bring their own luck_. Not depend upon the _player_ getting lucky with his/her D20s, and/or having a generous GM.




I don't care about that one way or the other, having played in systems that do and don't do that.

I'm just talking about this notion that Bats is somehow more than human within the context of his universe; the notion that by virtue of having a base class you are extraordinary, and thus can't be just a "Farmboy" or the like...that this is somehow hard-coded into the rules.


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## Mort

Dannyalcatraz said:


> I'm just talking about this notion that Bats is somehow more than human within the context of his universe; the notion that by virtue of having a base class you are extraordinary, and thus can't be just a "Farmboy" or the like...that this is somehow hard-coded into the rules.




I immediately thought of this from a GURPS perspective. an ordinary human is what 75-100 points or less? Batman is a 1000 point character (maybe 500 points in early incarnations but still far enough above "ordinary human" for the term to be meaningless) no less points than Superman, just built very differently. Since he started that way, saying he's "only human" is misleading; he's human in a way pretty much no other human could ever be.

As for having a base class making you extraordinary - well it does. Because you have a base class - that's the whole point. You are not "just a farmer" you are a fighter who happens to farm, or a wizard who happens to be a shopkeeper - there's a big difference. Just like Superman is a farmboy, but saying he's just a farmboy is somewhat ludicrous.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Mort said:


> I immediately thought of this from a GURPS perspective. an ordinary human is what 75-100 points or less? Batman is a 1000 point character (maybe 500 points in early incarnations but still far enough above "ordinary human" for the term to be meaningless) no less points than Superman, just built very differently. Since he started that way, saying he's "only human" is misleading; he's human in a way pretty much no other human could ever be.



He's the same in HERO as well.

However, Batman is also an_ experienced _character.  His stats are the result of years of training.

NOT of being superhuman from the start.

Take a look at Batman Year One and you get a far lower point total.

Take a look at Batman as a kid shortly after he became an orphan, and his point total will be lower still...probably indistinguishable from any other rich kid you'd care to stat out.



> As for having a base class making you extraordinary - well it does. Because you have a base class - that's the whole point. You are not "just a farmer" you are a fighter who happens to farm, or a wizard who happens to be a shopkeeper - there's a big difference. Just like Superman is a farmboy, but saying he's just a farmboy is somewhat ludicrous.



The original assertion put forth by those like Hussar was that the notion of your 1st level fighter being fresh off the farm was ludicrous AND that this was hard-coded into the rules.

My contention is that this notion is incorrect, and provided exemplars of low-level fighters who were STILL working on the farm.  (No info was provided stating such NPCs had ever left their towns.)

Then there were assertions that by virtue of being NPCs, they were per se normal, and that only PCs were extraordinary.

That's having it both ways.

As for Super-Farm-Boy- of course he's not normal- he's a solar powered alien.  He is what he is from the moment he landed on Earth.

Batman had to make himself work to become what he is.


----------



## Hussar

DannyA said:
			
		

> * Actually, Hussar, which is it? Is she exceptional because she's a fighter or is she merely normal because she's just a nameless, statless NPC?




She's exceptional in that system because she has a class.  Normal humans DON'T HAVE CLASSES.  How is this hard to understand.  Normal humans are zero level.  Even your town militia is ZERO LEVEL.  In AD&D, normal humans are zero level.  Normal humans don't have six stats, they only have one (Int).  Normal humans can't gain levels (see the followers rules for more on that.).  

Gaining a class makes you no longer a normal human in that system.




Dannyalcatraz said:


> I don't care about that one way or the other, having played in systems that do and don't do that.
> 
> I'm just talking about this notion that Bats is somehow more than human within the context of his universe; the notion that by virtue of having a base class you are extraordinary, and thus can't be just a "Farmboy" or the like...that this is somehow hard-coded into the rules.




Because, hard coded into the rules, a classed character (by this I mean PC classed character, not NPC class) has access to abilties that are more than a normal person can have.

No matter what, that farmboy is either a zero level commoner or a 1st level commoner.  In either case, a 1st level fighter has abilities that that 1st level commoner CANNOT have by the rules.  The 1st level fighter is built with a higher point buy, has enough hit points to walk away from attacks that instantly kill the farm boy, on and on and on.  

Is a 1st level fighter Superman?  Nope.  Of course not.  But, by dint of having abilities and features that a normal human cannot possibly have without first gaining that class, he's no longer just some farmer who picked up a sword.

BTW, IIRC, female humans in AD&D can have percentile strength, but, they are limited to a certain percentage (and I cannot remember that number).


----------



## Mort

Dannyalcatraz said:


> He's the same in HERO as well.
> 
> However, Batman is also an_ experienced _character.  His stats are the result of years of training.
> 
> NOT of being superhuman from the start.




That's backstory though, kind of like saying Peter Parker was a normal human before he was bit by a spider or saying Hal Jordan was a normal human before he got the green lantern ring. It doesn't change the fact that by the time you get to the actual character (and not the backstory) the term  "normal human" no longer applies. Batman's backstory just happens to be unusually fleshed out.


----------



## Ultimatecalibur

Dannyalcatraz said:


> No, what I said was:
> 
> Tried, yes- but in the former, the shot never hit him because of the intervention of others, ergo it cannot be evidence of his superhuman-ness.




The problem I have here is that in the sniper situation _Batman_ set everything up. There was no outside intervention by others. He was the one who directed placement of things. He set it up so that the sniper only had on viable sniping location. He assigned Robin to stay there and ambush the guy. He planned the whole situation out on his own and set things into motion so that he would win. He was confident enough to go to the target area and let his less skilled protege that he personally trained fight the sniper as practice. 



> In the second, he took cover- as any human might- and survived.  Had he survived _without_ taking cover, you might have an argument in your favor.  But what he did was no more remarkable than a bomb-squad tech surviving an unplanned detonation in his bomb-suit.




Batman discovered the near detonation bomb, reacted lightning fast by jumping into a nearby safe and locked himself inside. He then road out the explosion, proceeded to preformed an impromptu safe escape and came out practically unharmed.

Safe escapes are one of the most dangerous tricks escape artist can perform. Most professional escape artists only do the trick after a lot of preparation and a tons of practice.



> _Remember, the point was whether he was or was not superhuman.  Not being shot is no evidence at all.  Surviving an explosion from which he took cover is at best ambiguous._




Batman's "superhuman-ness" is in his ability to plan, set up things in such a way that things will go the way he wants, react to any unforeseeable circumstances faster than humanly possible and has all of the skills to do all that he wants. 



> No, I'm not.
> 
> The problem lies in your second point- he survived the threats, but he did so by mundane reasons.




Mundane reasons that in most cases require multiple of people working together to pull off. Batman did it as one person.



> Look at the history of some of the RW's leaders and see just how many shootings and bombings they've survived.  Are they superhuman for doing so?  Absolutely not.  Some of the attempts were thwarted by intervention- as the sniper attack on Bats was.  Mubarek, for instance, survived 6 attempts, including an assault by multiple AK-47 wielding assailants.




An as you point out Mubarek had a lot of help, dozens if not hundreds of men watching his back. Batman stops the assassin going after him _on his own_. One man doing what 50 people are normally required is more than just human its "super"human



> Some people have survived bombings by being protected within bomb resistant areas or just the bodies of others, like the Iraqui journalist Muaid Lami who survived an explosion that killed 5 people next to him with relatively minor chest and arm wounds.  Again, this is mundane...as in, not supernatural or superhuman.




And often enough they only survived based on pure luck. The equivalent of rolling a 20 on a reflex save. If that situation were to be repeated Muaid Lami might not survive. Put a bomb beside Batman 20 times and 20 times Batman will survive with nary a scratch.



> And as for your 3rd point, yes, they don't count because they could be done by anyone.  If literally _anyone _can do it, then it isn't evidence of being superhuman.  It isn't evidence of anything at all.




The problem is that while anyone can occasionally survive  if they are lucky, Batman is more than occasionally lucky.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Mort said:


> That's backstory though, kind of like saying Peter Parker was a normal human before he was bit by a spider or saying Hal Jordan was a normal human before he got the green lantern ring. It doesn't change the fact that by the time you get to the actual character (and not the backstory) the term  "normal human" no longer applies. Batman's backstory just happens to be unusually fleshed out.




That's very different: Parker was changed at the basest level into something non-human.  His powers are- since the change- an intimate part of his biology.  He may or may not be a mutant in Marvel's terminology, but he is definitely beyond human.

Jordan, like all Lanterns, has an innate fearlessness.  Beyond that, he's a trained test pilot, possibly a decent brawler.  Nothing unusual there.  After meeting the prereq of fearlessness, a Lantern candidate need only be chosen to bear the ring.  But fearlessness in humans isn't a marker of superhumanity.  Quite often, it is a marker of psychopathy.

Batman has no mutation, innate or induced.  He has no alien tech that works essentially as a wish-granting device (with an engineered flaw).  All he has is his skills and training.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> She's exceptional in that system because she has a class. Normal humans DON'T HAVE CLASSES. How is this hard to understand. Normal humans are zero level. Even your town militia is ZERO LEVEL.




Contrasted with


> Kamikaze Midget post #149 this thread
> 
> No D&D character is just a dirt farmer done good.




Yet we have evidence of a fighter still being an utterly nameless "dirt farmer done good"  in a published AD&D adventure.

The point is that if you can be a Lvl 1 fighter and still be serf, there is no reason why you can't be a fighter who was a serf yesterday and has just started his adventuring career.

Did you ever look at the AD&D DMG before asserting "normal" NPC had no stats?  Pgs 100-106 have racial adjustments to stats, as well as minimum ability scores for classes...AND for laborers, mercenaries and merchants- the lack of stats in the adventures is because generating stats for NPCs not crucial to the main plot is left to the DM.

As for militias being strictly zero level, I give you these 2 counterexamples:



> *Forgotten Realms Adventures*, 2Ed, p 82.
> City of Daerlun
> 
> ...The guard is supplemented by a local militia, numbering some 2,000 level 1 fighters...
> 
> and
> 
> City of Tantras p110
> ...Tantras can field a militia reserve of 6,000 men and women, all F1s.



Those are _in addition_ to all the regular F1s in the guard, watches and other regular forces in those cities.
IOW, a 1st level Fighter is not all that uncommon or unusual, about on par with someone who has entered the armed forces of a modern day country.  I'd say that this is pretty good evidence that normal humans can and do have class levels.



> The problem I have here is that in the sniper situation Batman set everything up. There was no outside intervention by others. He was the one who directed placement of things. He set it up so that the sniper only had on viable sniping location. He assigned Robin to stay there and ambush the guy. He planned the whole situation out on his own and set things into motion so that he would win. He was confident enough to go to the target area and let his less skilled protege that he personally trained fight the sniper as practice.




First, that happens every other week on _Burn Notice_- it's a standard action TV/movie trope (see _X-Files_ and many, many others).  They even do this in standard police dramas- they JUST did it on _Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior_- though the backup charged with taking down the sniper is usually other cops.

Second, if Robin (not the adult Nightwing, but one of the teens that followed him) could take him out solo, he probably wasn't that much of a threat to begin with...all of which would factor into his assessment and decision as to whether to put himself into the "trap" as "bait."



> Batman discovered the near detonation bomb, reacted lightning fast by jumping into a nearby safe and locked himself inside. He then road out the explosion, proceeded to preformed an impromptu safe escape and came out practically unharmed.
> 
> Safe escapes are one of the most dangerous tricks escape artist can perform. Most professional escape artists only do the trick after a lot of preparation and a tons of practice.




What's your point?  Confronted with certain death by explosion, who WOULDN'T jump into the safe?  One thing at a time- survive the explosion, then survive whatever predicament you got into while surviving the explosion.

And as for getting out, not only has he been long established as a competent safe-cracker (even in the freakin' TV series), Batman packs not only lockpicks in his utility belt, but other devices to get past locks, like mini-torches and acid capsules.  AND a 5-10 minute air supply as well.

There was no way he wasn't getting out.



> Batman's "superhuman-ness" is in his ability to plan, set up things in such a way that things will go the way he wants, react to any unforeseeable circumstances faster than humanly possible and has all of the skills to do all that he wants.




Standard action-hero trope.



> Mundane reasons that in most cases require multiple of people working together to pull off. Batman did it as one person.




Nope- by your own description, he did ONE solo.  The other, he had help.  As for the one he did solo, again, that's not that big a surprise.  Its another one that pops up in action stuff repeatedly- the last time I remember seeing it was in CSI: Miami, "Crime Wave" in which Horatio and others go into a bank vault to escape a tsunami.  Classic narrative plot protection.



> Batman stops the assassin going after him on his own.




You said he had help from Robin.  Which is it?



> Put a bomb beside Batman 20 times and 20 times Batman will survive with nary a scratch.




Again, this is classic narrative protection.  99 times out of 100, the main character does not get killed, especially in his own book/movie/show.



> Batman is more than occasionally lucky.




Fortune favors the prepared mind.  Also, plot protection favors the main character.

How often did MacGyver conveniently find exactly what he needed to escape whatever room he was in?  The answer is, nearly every time.  Those times he didn't, his immediate escape wasn't crucial to the plot because someone was going to let him out.


----------



## ProfessorCirno

I'm trying to figure out how "standard action hero trope" translates to "normal," considering action heroes are almost all by definition larger then life characters.

Batman - and John McClain, and James Bond, and many other "Human" heroes - are superhuman.  Literally, they are humans that are rather super, or superior.  Yes, they have the element of being "human," but they are also very clearly "better then human."


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> I'm trying to figure out how "standard action hero trope" translates to "normal," considering action heroes are almost all by definition larger then life characters.



Because the people they are are the result of nothing but extreme training, which, within the context of their respective fictionverses, means what they do is within the possibilities of any other human on the planet with the same training & gadgetry.  Bond isn't unique- he's one of several elite agents of one of almost 200 counties in the world...and we know that even GB has agents in training for his spot, since other 00 agents have been killed and replaced.


----------



## ProfessorCirno

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Because the people they are are the result of nothing but extreme training, which, within the context of their respective fictionverses, means what they do is within the possibilities of any other human on the planet with the same training & gadgetry.  Bond isn't unique- he's one of several elite agents of one of almost 200 counties in the world...and we know that even GB has agents in training for his spot, since other 00 agents have been killed and replaced.




That's blatantly false.

Certainly Bond is one of several elite agents, but he's always _the best_.  While he hypothetically lies withing the "possibilities" of other people, at the same time, *nobody ever hits his stride*.  James Bond has never _lost_.

The same goes for all action heroes, and for Iron Man, and for Batman, and for John McClane, and for Rambo, and for every other "human" character.  While they are all "human," they are also all unquestioningly better then all other "humans."

You put way, _way_ too much emphasis on a person's origins.


----------



## Kingreaper

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Michael Jordan might disagree, as would his MD and his momma.  I think I see where your problem is.



1) Michael Jordan knows he's exceptional.
2) Michael Jordan's MD will know that he's exceptional very well, because Michael Jordan's lifestyle has put different strains on it from those you would find on your average modern, western, human.
3) No-one's mother thinks that their kid is just a normal human. Mother's tend to think their kids are exceptional even when they aren't.


You seem to be mistaking "normal human" for "human"

If I have a car that can go 0-300 in 1 second, it's still a car. But you wouldn't call it a normal car.


----------



## Raven Crowking

ProfessorCirno said:


> James Bond has never _lost_.




I take it you never saw _*On Her Majesty's Secret Service*_.  In the final scene, Bond's newly wed wife is sniped down and dies in his arms.

The incident is again referenced in *License to Kill*.

It is very clear that, in this at least, Bond lost.

See also how he fails to save Vesper in *Casino Royale*, and how that subsequently affects him in *Quantum of Solace*.  Again, quite clear that Bond can fail, and that he can lose things he cannot replace.



RC


----------



## Raven Crowking

Kingreaper said:


> You seem to be mistaking "normal human" for "human"





Agreed.  "Normal" is definitely the shifting sand in this discussion.

But, for the sake of argument, saying that an Epic character isn't a "normal" human =/= that the character could not have begun that journey as a farmer just off the turnip truck.

For the "Batman is not a normal human" argument to disprove DA's main thesis, you would have to demonstrate that Bruce Wayne wasn't "normal" the night his parents got shot.  I.e., at the start of his adventuring career.

Focusing on what Michael Jordan is now in no way suggests that Michael Jordan was a basketball star when he first touched a ball.  The end product is not where a person (or character) begins.


RC


----------



## Celtavian

Ultimatecalibur said:


> First I'm going to respond to the threads original topic:
> 
> The "Fighter/Mage-User Same Team Power Disparity at High Skill Levels" is largely a modern western concept born from D&D itself.




It existed long before D&D. Not sure where you are getting this from. I can name dozens of examples of myth and older fantasy literature against this assertion.



> In Arthurian Legend, Merlin was roughly on par with the various major knights. His only magical powers were prophecy, casting protective enchantments and dispelling curses. Several of the major knights had such knightly purity that they could not be cursed and had such skill at arms that they had no need of protective charms. Merlin could not destroy towns on a whim.




Not true at all. Merlin was always a powerful figure feared by the common knights. He was instrumental in Arthur's rise to power and manipulated the course of events to allow for Excalibur to be had and for Arthur to come to power. In the stories Merlin's motivations were not to be as powerful as possible like a player character one upping everyone else as you see in a common D&D group. Would have made for a rather boring story.

Merlin used his great power to elevate others and manipulate the affairs of men. He was heads and tails above them as an entity in both power and prestige.



> In Wuxia, if there was a sorcerer capable of easily leveling towns on the heroes side, the warriors were one man armies capable of balancing on a leaf floating in the middle of a lake during a monsoon.
> 
> In the Anime Slayers, Lina and Gourry had roughly the same level of skill in there respective classes. When facing a band of a dozen brigands Lina would cast a spell or Gourry would defeat them with a show of swordsmanship to the same result. As for the dragon slaying spell Dragon Slave that Lina found while treasure hunting? Gourry had the Sword of Light, a weapon that could critically injure Demon Gods.




Agree about anime.


The wizard as a power is as old as time itself. Whether from the mythical figures of Circe or the wizard like gods of ancient myth, wizard type figures were always beings of great power that interfered with mortals for their own whims. They weren't adventuring characters hanging out with the local fighter as part of a group.

That is something from D&D.


----------



## nightwyrm

Since wuxia and anime has been brought up, let's take a look at a how eastern fantasy genre handles this. I think a major difference between east and west fantasy is the lack of a sharp division between supernatural and non-supernatural in eastern fantasy. 

Take martial arts for instance, certain works will have martial arts that's more or less doable by real people. In more fantastic works, martial arts will start incorporating chi and quivering palm type stuff. And in truly fantastic works, martial artists can fly or gain prolonged youth and immortality. But all three works will call it martial arts. There's no "mundane" or "supernatural" martial arts label.

From an eastern fantasy POV, supernatural and mundane are a continuum, not two separate categories. "Supernatural" abilities is obtainable by taking a "mundane" skillset to the extreme (normal people can jump, martial artists can jump to the top of trees) or is treated as just another learnable skillset like swordfighting. This is where the common "train real hard and you too can fly" anime trope comes from. An underlying philosophy or assumption in most eastern works is that everything is learnable and doable if you put in the effort and/or have a teacher. There is no magic/mundane boundary that is uncrossable if you aren't born with magic (in general of course, specific works may have specific restrictions).


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> For the "Batman is not a normal human" argument to disprove DA's main thesis, you would have to demonstrate that Bruce Wayne wasn't "normal" the night his parents got shot. I.e., at the start of his adventuring career.




...OR that at some point after he started- something supernatural like a magic ritual, a radioactive spider bite, super-soldier serum, a shower of chemicals charged with the electricity from a lightning strike, a gamma or cosmic ray burst, an infusion of alien nanotech, etc.- gave him innate (not trained) abilities that would be otherwise impossible for any human to have.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> You seem to be mistaking "normal human" for "human"




In the context in which I made that statement, MJ is as normal as you or I- he just worked harder.

Pro B-Ball scouts & talent evaluators say it takes a minimum of 10,000 hours of intense practice to reach their full potential...and a similar regimen to maintain their skills.  That's what he has to do rain, shine, travel, special events, and so forth.  And over that time, he needs to maintain his health, both physical & mental.

MJ did so.  He is an exceptional B-ball player (the G.O.A.T.?), but he is a normal human.

A guitarist doing Q&A at a guitar show asked the question of the audience, "How many of you picked up the guitar to learn to play like me?"  Some hands went up.  "Well, it won't happen," he said- there was an audible gasp- "because unlike me, you're not going to practice right after you get up, right after breakfast, right after lunch, before dinner, and as the last thing you do before you turn out the lights."


----------



## Mort

Dannyalcatraz said:


> ...OR that at some point after he started- something supernatural like a magic ritual, a radioactive spider bite, super-soldier serum, a shower of chemicals charged with the electricity from a lightning strike, a gamma or cosmic ray burst, an infusion of alien nanotech, etc.- gave him innate (not trained) abilities that would be otherwise impossible for any human to have.




This is the disconnect. You're saying unless he was born that way (though you could argue that batman was born "that way" but there was a trigger to finish it off) or some outside force intervened, he's simply human. I'm saying the combination of factors that make Batman who he is - the extreme wealth, the mental ability and focus above just about any other superhero, the physical perfection, the ability to excell at anything he tries (training is one thing, being regarded as the top of the heap of martial artists in the DC Universe is something else entirely) - makes "human" especially "normal human" just a mark on the page and not really applicable.

To put it another way, yes Batman had to work at it, unlike Superman for example, but he had everything there to work with; no one else, not even in the DC Universe could work their way to his level, not really. And that takes him beyond normal human.

Hmm, maybe I'll have to read the rest of the thread and focus on the actual question, sorry for the threadjack.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> You're saying unless he was born that way (though you could argue that batman was born "that way" but there was a trigger to finish it off) or some outside force intervened, he's simply human.



Yep.  And just so we're clear, no DC writer has _ever_ implied that he was anything but a normal- albeit rich- kid.



> I'm saying the combination of factors that make Batman who he is- _<snip>_- makes "human" especially "normal human" just a mark on the page and not really applicable



With which sentiment I simply can't agree...for a variety of reasons.

Wealth is not a super power.  Burning some portion of that fortune spending your entire waking life training in various martial and mental disciplines is not a super power.  Being able to plan many moves ahead is not a super power.  And so forth.

What he has at his disposal, he has in extreme abundance, but he has nothing that rises to the level of paranormal, i.e. outside the realms of human possibility.

Or, to put it another way, a paragon of humanity is still, ultimately, human.


> training is one thing, being regarded as the top of the heap of martial artists in the DC Universe




Except he's NOT top of the heap of martial artists in the DC universe.  One of the best?  Absolutely.  The clear number 1?  No.

Again, I'll refer to the closing issue of the Manhunter series in which, while Batman got bogged down in the crowd of martial arts fighters, Paul Kirk cut right through, criticizing Bat's skills.



> To put it another way, yes Batman had to work at it, unlike Superman for example, but he had everything there to work with; no one else, not even in the DC Universe could work their way to his level, not really. And that takes him beyond normal human.




Within the DC universe, others HAVE reached equivalent levels of competence.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Double Post


----------



## JoeGKushner

Raven Crowking said:


> I take it you never saw _*On Her Majesty's Secret Service*_.  In the final scene, Bond's newly wed wife is sniped down and dies in his arms.
> 
> The incident is again referenced in *License to Kill*.
> 
> It is very clear that, in this at least, Bond lost.
> 
> See also how he fails to save Vesper in *Casino Royale*, and how that subsequently affects him in *Quantum of Solace*.  Again, quite clear that Bond can fail, and that he can lose things he cannot replace.
> 
> 
> 
> RC




Ah, but now we come to conflict! Conflict, potential loss, ennui, despair, character motivation! These things happen to almost all characters including fully standard super hero ones and can be character defining moments like when fans phoned in to kill Robin. How many times did we see that display case get broken in the Batcave?


----------



## JoeGKushner

Dannyalcatraz said:


> ...OR that at some point after he started- something supernatural like a magic ritual, a radioactive spider bite, super-soldier serum, a shower of chemicals charged with the electricity from a lightning strike, a gamma or cosmic ray burst, an infusion of alien nanotech, etc.- gave him innate (not trained) abilities that would be otherwise impossible for any human to have.




And yet despite not having any innate abilities, his scope of focus enables him to move among the super human so then the net result is... yup, Batman is essentially a super human despite not having any 'super powers' that any other human could use. The nature of the setting makes that possible. Superman = impossible. Batman fighting Superman and as a normal human winning? No possible but happens frequently enough because in the nature of Batman's setting, where the laws of physics decide to take a nap, well, Power Armor and other things are the norm depending on where in the Batman spectrum we are.

Two recent examples would probably be from the movies where Superman/Batman get introduced to the new Supergirl. The Amazon's isle comes under attack from Doomsday clones. Somehow Batman survives this. Part of it is the standard super-Bat Tech that once again, no normal human would have access to. Part of it plot protection.

The other one would be the Red Hood animated feature. While still doing things that some would argue are 'normally humanly possible', its on the lower end of the Bat Spectrum.


----------



## Raven Crowking

JoeGKushner said:


> Ah, but now we come to conflict! Conflict, potential loss, ennui, despair, character motivation! These things happen to almost all characters including fully standard super hero ones and can be character defining moments like when fans phoned in to kill Robin. How many times did we see that display case get broken in the Batcave?




As should be obvious, conflict happens whether you win or lose.  

Loss happens only when you lose.

No one claimed that only superhumans or non-humans could experience conflict; it was claimed that not losing was a sign of being superhuman.  

Of characters who, in fact, have lost.


RC


----------



## ProfessorCirno

Raven Crowking said:


> As should be obvious, conflict happens whether you win or lose.
> 
> Loss happens only when you lose.
> 
> No one claimed that only superhumans or non-humans could experience conflict; it was claimed that not losing was a sign of being superhuman.
> 
> Of characters who, in fact, have lost.
> 
> 
> RC




Utterly irrelevant.  He has _experienced_ loss as the emotion.  He has not lost as the narrative design.

Narrative.

The word has meaning.

I'm expressing this to the entire thread because _this is the disconnect_.



Dannyalcatraz said:


> ...OR that at some point after he started-  something supernatural like a magic ritual, a radioactive spider bite,  super-soldier serum, a shower of chemicals charged with the electricity  from a lightning strike, a gamma or cosmic ray burst, an infusion of  alien nanotech, etc.- gave him innate (not trained) abilities that would  be otherwise impossible for any human to have.




As I already said, you put *far* too much emphasis on origin stories, but I think I see the disconnect.

In the "world of the DC universe," Batman is a normal guy.  In the world  of the Rambo universe, Rambo is a normal guy.  In the world of the  James Bond story, James Bond is a normal guy.  And in the mythology as  it is told, Beowulf is a normal guy.

In terms of narrative design, they are not.

*Narrative matters*.  Batman is an "ordinary man" compared to  Superman, but still wins at the end of the day against other Evil  Supermans.  Rambo is an ordinary man who nonetheless rips a great big  machinegun - sized hole through third world countries filled with  baddies.  James Bond is an ordinary man but still defeats every other  "ordinary man" he comes across.  Beowulf is an ordinary man, but he rips off Grendal's arm, dives underwater for several hours, kills Grendal's Mother, and slays a dragon.

Because narratively speaking they aren't ordinary characters.  They're  protagonists, which in of itself makes them extraordinary, but also  gives them narrative power.  Beowulf isn't the son of the gods.  He's  not a magical sorcerer.  He is by all accounts an entirely mundane king  in the scope of his "world."  But because he is *narratively* the protagonist, he isn't juts "a normal guy."

Narrative matters.  Ignoring it leads to crappy stories and crappy games.


----------



## fanboy2000

ProfessorCirno said:


> As I already said, you put *far* too much emphasis on origin stories, but I think I see the disconnect.



Of course he's putting an emphasis on origin stories. The original contention was that a first level fighter couldn't have been a farm boy in D&D. The disconnect is that people are using stories set after Batman's had enough time to raise a son from 12 to adulthood, and start doing it again, as evidence that he was _never_ normal.

If you start a D&D game at first level and the backstory is that you're PC was a farm boy, then that's your character's backstory. Of course you're not going to stay a farm boy, that's boring. But your PC still started out as a normal farm boy.

It's like saying Abraham Lincoln couldn't have been born in a one-room log cabin in Kentucky to a farmer because he later became President of the United States.



> Narrative matters. Ignoring it leads to crappy stories and crappy games.



I agree.


----------



## ProfessorCirno

fanboy2000 said:


> Of course he's putting an emphasis on origin stories. The original contention was that a first level fighter couldn't have been a farm boy in D&D. The disconnect is that people are using stories set after Batman's had enough time to raise a son from 12 to adulthood, and start doing it again, as evidence that he was _never_ normal.
> 
> If you start a D&D game at first level and the backstory is that you're PC was a farm boy, then that's your character's backstory. Of course you're not going to stay a farm boy, that's boring. But your PC still started out as a normal farm boy.
> 
> It's like saying Abraham Lincoln couldn't have been born in a one-room log cabin in Kentucky to a farmer because he later became President of the United States.




The problem I have is that he is claiming that because Batman has "normal guy" as an origin story he can _never_ be thought of as being extrahuman or superhuman unless something objectively supernatural happens to him.H is belief is that the supernatural requires the supernatural to occur.  Batman can't be a superhero because an alien never gives him a magic ring, or because a radioactive spider never bites him.

In other words, you can never be Beowulf, because a wizard never makes him magical.


----------



## I'm A Banana

Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> Or have fewer spells that replace skills.
> 
> Or have most spells that emulate skills operate based on some kind of class level basis.
> 
> Or make spellcasters' "learning spells" decisions more focused- like what happens with Specialization- or more randomized- as per previous editions.
> 
> Or, or, or.
> 
> "Magicing-up" the warrior isn't the only solution. It may not even be the best.




100% AGREED! 

These options -- ideally, I think used simultaneously -- all help reduce that wizard vs. warrior balance problem in a way similar to the way fiction handles it.

Personally, I'm in favor of more boosting up the warrior rather than tearing down the spellcaster. The reason for this is that "spells" (and effects that functionally work the same) are more fun and heroic than percentage chances of success.

The most helpful thing to look at in D&D history here, is, I think, the difference between the 4.0 _Magic Missile_ and the 4.e _Magic Missile_.

The old 4e MM required a roll to hit, and basically worked like firing off a (weak) arrow. It introduced a "roll for success" element.

The new MM just deals its damage automagically. It does not have a "roll for success" element.

Even though the new MM is largely considered a weaker, less effective power, I find it more fun and heroic than the old one, simply because it just works. It doesn't have a chance of failure. I _like_ that effect. It is empowering, as a player, to be able to just do something, and to force the world to react, rather than to try and do something, and potentially fail. If fantasy heroes fail, it isn't usually because they aren't skilled, it's because their weakness is exploited, or because their enemies have fantastic levels of skill in whatever is opposing the hero. 

I want warriors to be able to do the same thing. I'd much rather have that then have wizards rolling to hit with Magic Missile.



> Spider Climb, to me, isn't that big of a deal. By itself. I've seen many films and read many stories in which spellcasters did essentially the same thing.
> 
> OTOH, if your game is full of spells that let you best any skill at any time...and there is insufficient "scarcity" of spells to make doing so a realistic opportunity cost, there is a problem.
> 
> I'm just not convinced that there is insufficient scarcity.




I'm not sure "scarcity" is the problem. Making _Spider Climb_ scarce doesn't make the rogue feel better when he's outshone because the wizard's player got lucky. 

However, I do think that "scarcity" can be a solution (see: my idea of making all class powers work as treasure), as long as its applied on a broader level.

It's the idea that any character might gain an ability something like _Spider Climb_. Maybe it's the mage, maybe it's the rogue, maybe it's the fighter, maybe it's the cleric...

Or the idea that _only one character_ is ever going to be good at climbing. It might be the Wizard, or it might be the Rogue, or it might be the Fighter, or it might be the Cleric....

At any rate, you're not telling Batman to roll to climb while Merlin just does it.


----------



## Diamond Cross

Indiana Jones is not a Wizard, yet look at all the people he's defeated. Why, you could say he's even defeated God.

And Superman is primarily a fighter.


----------



## Hussar

ROTF - Batman survived an explosion Indiana Jones style and hid in the fridge.  Nice.


----------



## Diamond Cross

Huh? Where did Batman survive in a fridge?


----------



## Hussar

He climbed into a safe and rode the blast to safety.  I was making a somewhat lame joke.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> Batman is an "ordinary man" compared to Superman, but still wins at the end of the day against other Evil Supermans.




As someone else pointed out, depending upon the particular writer.

By that I mean that on the one hand we have the Batman who was bogged down fighting other martial artists & mercenaries in a massive assault while another martial artist- Paul Kirk, Manhunter- cut through them like a knife through butter.  Bats is good, but Kirk is far, far better.

Then you have the story to which you allude (written after my love affair with comics was over, so I haven't read it) in which he takes down multiple superhumans.  (Those Evil Supermans must have been utter morons.)

That, to me, is not so much a commentary on the essential nature of Batman as it is evidence of crappy X crappy X crappy writing*.

...Kind of like when Electro discovered that Spider-Man could walk on walls due to static cling?  Or when Spider-man took down Firelord- Galactus' herald, who had essentially fought the Fantastic Four to a standstill- _in single combat._






* That is to say, crappy cubed.


----------



## Hussar

But, that being true DannyA, it still doesn't allow you to pick and choose which bits of canon you prefer.  

Totally agree that there's been some horribly bad writing for Batman over the years.  But, unfortunately, it's still canon.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> ...it still doesn't allow you to pick and choose which bits of canon you prefer.




No, I _still _get to choose which parts of canon I _prefer._  I just can't make them not canon.  (Still, even as idiotic as that described scenario was, did they offer any reason why he was able to do so?*  Again, I don't know the storyline.)

I look at comic book cannon this way: if it stinks to high heaven, reject it...just like the comic book companies do.

The Static Cling Spidey thing worked for a while, but it was ultimately ignored out of relevance.  Beyond a short patch of issues, AFAIK, they've never addressed it again.  (And I bet they've come up with a different rationale by now.)

And clearly, this stinks to high heaven.  IF he can take on multiple Evil Supermen, why was he slowed by mere martial artists in the Manhunter storyline?  How do minions occasionally manage to get the best of him..._*EVER?*_  (Bats HAS spent time in handcuffs and ropes, after all...)



* For instance, how did he avoid being hit by beings capable at moving at relativistic speeds?  Why didn't they use their heat vision?  Or an AoE attack like super breath?  Was Bats using kryptonite or alien tech to level the playing field?


----------



## ProfessorCirno

I, uh, didn't literally mean he defeats evil clones of superman.  I was refering to his ability to stand side-by-side with Mister Krypton and fight gigantic horrible monstrous magical supervillains.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Like I said- that storyline occurs long after I quit buying comics- I can only go by what I'm told here.

This whole thing reminds me of Karate Kid from Legion of Superheroes.  Despite having "mastered every martial art developed up to the 31st century", he was initially rejected by the LoS because he "had no powers."

This is a guy who could dent steel with his fists- veeeery wuxia.  He earned membership by fighting Superboy (whom he could not hurt).  And once took on the entire Fatal Five single-handedly, clearly defeating the Persuader, Emerald Empress, and Mano (the last by luck, he claimed).

Arguably the best martial artist in the entire continuum of DC...

Could it be that they're setting up a tie in?  Bats as the founder of "Super Jeet Kune Do?"

_*blech*_

I hope not.


----------



## Ultimatecalibur

Celtavian said:


> It existed long before D&D. Not sure where you are getting this from. I can name dozens of examples of myth and older fantasy literature against this assertion.




Most of those examples you would name would be non-wizard vs wizard stories or wizard/witch/other-spellcaster grants a boon and not "wizard and non-wizard team-up to go questing."



> Not true at all. Merlin was always a powerful figure feared by the common knights. He was instrumental in Arthur's rise to power and manipulated the course of events to allow for Excalibur to be had and for Arthur to come to power. In the stories Merlin's motivations were not to be as powerful as possible like a player character one upping everyone else as you see in a common D&D group. Would have made for a rather boring story.
> 
> Merlin used his great power to elevate others and manipulate the affairs of men. He was heads and tails above them as an entity in both power and prestige.




And that is why I said _major knights_. Figures such as Gawain, Lancelot(ugh talk about a french Marty Stu), Percival, Galahad, Mordred, Tristan, Dinadan and even Arthur himself. These guys went around slaying dragons, beating up giants, thwarting the schemes of various sorcerers and enchantresses and defeating groups of a dozen or more rival knights. Each of these guys was just as feared/respected by the common knight as Merlin was.

The Knights of the Round Table were the medieval equivalent of the Justice League. Round Table pages and squire were often better knights than the knights other kings could field.



> Agree about anime.



 Thanks.




> The wizard as a power is as old as time itself. Whether from the mythical figures of Circe or the wizard like gods of ancient myth, wizard type figures were always beings of great power that interfered with mortals for their own whims. They weren't adventuring characters hanging out with the local fighter as part of a group.
> 
> That is something from D&D.




That depends on how you define wizard. If you include wandering sages and priests who go around defeating supernatural threats then you have your adventuring wizards who sometimes hang out with various warriors.



Dannyalcatraz said:


> * For instance, how did he avoid being hit by beings capable at moving at relativistic speeds?  Why didn't they use their heat vision?  Or an AoE attack like super breath?  Was Bats using kryptonite or alien tech to level the playing field?




In the JLA: Tower of Babel story, Batman personally came up with the plans and manufactured most of the tools to disable the rest of the Justice League: Made Nanites that turn the Martian Manhunter's skin into Magnesium, a device that would cause Wonderwoman to be trapped within her own mind and fight an undefeatable opponent and a vibration-bullet that would give the Flash seizures, synthesized Red Kryptonite and a fear toxin that gave Aquaman sever hydrophobia, the only thing he didn't make himself was the freeze ray to stop Plastic Man because he had one already.



Hussar said:


> ROTF - Batman survived an explosion Indiana Jones style and hid in the fridge.  Nice.




Actually Indy survived Batman style. I remember the story from Batman: the Animated Series and it probably was based off of a golden age story.


----------



## pemerton

nightwyrm said:


> I think a major difference between east and west fantasy is the lack of a sharp division between supernatural and non-supernatural in eastern fantasy.



I think the notion that this sort of divide exists in "western" (=Northern and Western European?) fantasy is a bit anachronistic.

In the Mabinogion, are the various kings and other warriors supernatural or not? The question doesn't arise within the context of the stories, and probably not within the context of the orignal authors and audience. It is a modern projection.

In Arthur, is Lancelot's great prowess supernatural (in D&D terms, the divine abilities of a paladin, as 1st ed DDG tackled the issue) or not? For the greatest of Christian warriors, it doesn't make sense to ask this question.

Likewise Thor's ability to hook the Midgard Serpent, or to drink so much that he causes the ocean level to drop. Is this supernatural, or is he just a really tough (and thirsty) viking?

Even in Tolkein, it doesn't make sense to ask how much of Elrond's ability to restore physical and mental wellbeing, or how much of Aragorn's ability to lead, is supernatural rather than just a manifestation of the personality of each.


----------



## Ultimatecalibur

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Like I said- that storyline occurs long after I quit buying comics- I can only go by what I'm told here.
> 
> This whole thing reminds me of Karate Kid from Legion of Superheroes.  Despite having "mastered every martial art developed up to the 31st century", he was initially rejected by the LoS because he "had no powers."
> 
> This is a guy who could dent steel with his fists- veeeery wuxia.  He earned membership by fighting Superboy (whom he could not hurt).  And once took on the entire Fatal Five single-handedly, clearly defeating the Persuader, Emerald Empress, and Mano (the last by luck, he claimed).
> 
> Arguably the best martial artist in the entire continuum of DC...
> 
> Could it be that they're setting up a tie in?  Bats as the founder of "Super Jeet Kune Do?"
> 
> _*blech*_
> 
> I hope not.




Want to know something even worse? He dodged a lightning bolt in one story.


----------



## pemerton

ProfessorCirno said:


> *Narrative matters*.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> narratively speaking they aren't ordinary characters.  They're  protagonists, which in of itself makes them extraordinary, but also  gives them narrative power.  Beowulf isn't the son of the gods.  He's  not a magical sorcerer.  He is by all accounts an entirely mundane king  in the scope of his "world."  But because he is *narratively* the protagonist, he isn't juts "a normal guy."
> 
> Narrative matters.  Ignoring it leads to crappy stories and crappy games.



Agreed.

It's a bit depressing, though, that after 100 posts we've barely moved on from the point I made in post 222 upthread.

Can't we all agree that this distinction between ingame "normality" and metagame protagonism exists, and get on to discussing the various ways in which martial/mortal/natural/"normal" progatonists can be made viable within a roughly D&D-ish mechanical framework?

(For clarity - Prof Cirno, this isn't a criticism of you and your many posts in this thread, with which I almost entirely agree. It's a call for others in the conversation to recognise the distinction that you and I and KM and others have drawn, and then to frame the discussion with reference to it.)


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Ultimatecalibur said:


> Want to know something even worse? He dodged a lightning bolt in one story.




That goes along with a lot of people calling him a Ranger/Monk...

Still pretty churning to the gut...


----------



## Hussar

But, comic wanking is fun.    Ok, ok, I'll stop.

Really, in my mind there are only a few solutions. 

1.  Undo the weaponization of magic.  Turn casters into pretty much fighters (or perhaps slightly weaker fighters, after all Gandalf wasn't a poor fighter, and depending on which version of Merlin you like, he could use a sword too) with the ability to do something like ritual magic.  

2.  Bring the non-casters up to par with the casters.  The Buffy RPG, for example, gives the "normal" characters more metagame powers.  The less powerful you are in game, the more powerful you are at a meta-game level.  Or, go the legendary route and make fighter types just damn powerful.  

I'm not really sure there are any other solutions.  Either you bring down the casters to the mundane level or you bring up the non-casters to the fantastic level.  The problem comes when you try to mix the two.  It's not an unsolvable problem by any stretch.  A group may very well just work around it.  I know the groups I've been in mostly have over the years.  But, if you want to code it into the game, you pretty much have to go one route or the other.


----------



## pemerton

Option 3. There is at least one sort of literary approach to the issue which sees warriors (eg Aragorn, Boromir, Faramir) as more deeply invested into the social and political reality of their world than are wizards (eg Saruman, Elrond, Obi-Wan - Gandalf is a bit of an exception here). The mechanics could find a way to leverage this - not necessarily in the 1st ed AD&D way of turning high level fighters into wargame pieces, but in something like the HeroWars/Quest way, where these relationships to which fighters have access but wizards don't can be used as augments to the fighter PC's own actions. 

(Having written this, maybe it's just a particular version of Option 2, if you see relationship-based augments as a type of metagame power.)


----------



## Ultimatecalibur

I think whats important is parity. Being equal but different.

When confronted by a problem the wizard, fighter and rogue should be able to deal with it in their own way with the same regularity of success. A 20ft wall? The wizard levitates up and over, the fighter digs in and climbs up and the rogue jumps, flips and parkours his way up the wall. An enemy combatant? The wizard blasts him with a magic spell, the fighter slices him in half with a sword and the rogue sneaks up and stabs him in the back. A locked doorway? The wizard uses a spell to unseal the door, the fighter breaks the door down and the rogue picks the lock.

When the WotC designers talk about D&D's sweet spot they are talking about those levels where this is mostly true.


----------



## ProfessorCirno

pemerton said:


> I think the notion that this sort of divide exists in "western" (=Northern and Western European?) fantasy is a bit anachronistic.
> 
> In the Mabinogion, are the various kings and other warriors supernatural or not? The question doesn't arise within the context of the stories, and probably not within the context of the orignal authors and audience. It is a modern projection.
> 
> In Arthur, is Lancelot's great prowess supernatural (in D&D terms, the divine abilities of a paladin, as 1st ed DDG tackled the issue) or not? For the greatest of Christian warriors, it doesn't make sense to ask this question.
> 
> Likewise Thor's ability to hook the Midgard Serpent, or to drink so much that he causes the ocean level to drop. Is this supernatural, or is he just a really tough (and thirsty) viking?
> 
> Even in Tolkein, it doesn't make sense to ask how much of Elrond's ability to restore physical and mental wellbeing, or how much of Aragorn's ability to lead, is supernatural rather than just a manifestation of the personality of each.




It's actually an *incredibly* modern thing.  

The question is this: what makes a hero?

Is it your origins? Some stories believe it is something bred in the  bones, something inherent to an individual. The very earliest heroes  were gods and the children of gods; Hercules, Susano'o, Krishna.  Or they were taught by the fey, or were somehow connected to the faerie, as can be seen in some Irish mythology.  Or they had some magnificent destiny pre-plotted before them.  The important thing lying in this is that _they were all supernatural_, be they fighters or wizards both.  Some power was granted on them.  This, in turn, is what makes Beowulf so damn _fascinating_, as he doesn't seem to be gifted with any outside power.

But that's old storytelling. Post-modernism has subverted traditional  heroic construction and we no longer favor divine provenance (or, for  that matter, prophecy, fate, destiny and other related structures).

Today we see a lot more self-built heroes (especially with the  secularisation of literature): characters who have made themselves  strong, tough, skilled through their own efforts rather than the  blessings of the gods or what-have-you. Contemporary and futuristic  heroes are almost all atheists, in practice if not belief. They may have  superhuman reflexes and reactions but this is always 'natural' or, at  most, created by Man/Technology. These are characters that are The Best  Soldiers, The Smartest Hackers, The Most Persistent Cops.

So the idea presented in this thread is that Batman and other post-modern style heroes are all down to Earth people.  That's the rub, isn't it, though? They're not normal people - they're  heroes. Heroes are always a little off-kilter, a little out-of-step with  the rest of the world. After all, you have to be outside the world to  change it - and to challenge others who would change the world for their  own ends. Heroes are a kind of autogyro, correcting our equilibrium  whenever some mad king or crazed scientist attempts to disrupt it. After  all, that's where the word "hero" comes from: to protect or defend.

That's part of why heroes were all divine or otherworldly in origin: not  just as an explanation of their power, but also to allow them to  reshape the world on their own terms, to fight and defeat enemies in an  acceptable manner. When a normal person kills someone, it's murder; when  a hero kills someone, it's justice.

And that's where the problem with D&D comes in.  It takes the post-modernist hero who is non-supernatural, takes the pre-modernist hero who is staunchly supernatural, and then claims that they must coexist (oh, but only the supernatural ones get any power).  In doing so you strip the post-modernist hero of his *heroism*.  Suddenly Beowulf isn't allowed to reshape the world on his terms; he has to abide by the rules the wizards put down (the same rules the wizards break).

That's why this superman / batman argument is a non-argument, or at least in the terms they're being argued.  Superman and Batman are both heroes.  The difference is that Superman is far more pre-modernist and takes his strength from an outside origin, whereas Batman is post-modernist.  Trying to claim Batman is just a normal average Joe is missing every sort of point that could ever be missed.


----------



## I'm A Banana

> the various ways in which martial/mortal/natural/"normal" progatonists can be made viable within a roughly D&D-ish mechanical framework




Well, one of the more obvious solutions is actually pretty much what Batman does: Make their own gear.

Imagine if a D&D fighter did not have to depend on DM handouts to get their magic items. They could craft their _Flametounge_ or their _Holy Avenger_ themselves. "Craft" is an ambiguous term -- they could dunk their armor in the blood of a red dragon and make it _Armor of Fire Resistence_. The don't "cast magic" per se, but the weapons and equipment they wield become enhanced. 

From an out-of-character perspective, they could simply select powers. "Oh, I'm level 3, I'm going to gain the _Armor of Frost_ ability that lets me freeze enemies who hit me!" Next adventure, they have it.

From an in-character perspective, they could stumble upon their item ("Guess what I found under the chicken coop!"), they could craft their item ("Using Undying Ice from the Frostfell, I craft a suit of armor!"), they could _pay someone else to craft it_ ("Dear Dwarves of Glacier Mountain..."), they could be rewarded with the item ("Huh, guess the Queen of Winter liked the way I killed that dragon..."), they could have it delivered by an international support network ("Thank you for this most recent gadget, Q!"), or they could even discover the way to make that happen from simple research in a fantasy world ("Oh, I guess if I bend the metal _here_, and add this bit of dragon's tooth _there_, and leave it out in a snowbank overnight....").

Same way Spellcasters learn new spells, warriors gain new items.

Armor. Weapons. Boots. Rings. Rogues are no longer outclassed by a wizard with _invisibility_, because they get to choose their very own _ring of invisibility_ at about the same level. 

This *also* frees up the DM to award more random treasure. Rather than useful, narrow, practical things, the DM can play with magic items with a heavy cost, a weird theme, or a slightly divergent theme. More wondrous items, less +1 things. The +1 things are right there for adventurers to make/find/whatever themselves, automagically as they level up. 

So a hypothetical D&D Batman goes from a _Batarang +1_ and a _Cloak of the Bat_ at first level, all the way up to _Kryptonite Bullets_ and a _Helm of True Seeing_ (or whatever). 

This also meshes with the myths, and lets characters customize their gear to their hero's theme.


----------



## JoeGKushner

Hell, it probably meshes with the myths better as many heroes find or are given there weapons. "Hey Persus, outside of being half god, here are some awesome magic items."


----------



## pemerton

Prof C, all I would want to add to your post is that you leave out Conan as perhaps the most salient of (post-)modern heroes when talking about D&D warriors.

But yes, Beowulf and Conan both get stripped of their power and heroism if we insist that their modernism (if we can talk about that in relation to Beowulf) be reflected not only within the fiction, but at the metagame level of the player's protagonism.


----------



## pemerton

Kamikaze Midget said:


> Well, one of the more obvious solutions is actually pretty much what Batman does: Make their own gear.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> From an out-of-character perspective, they could simply select powers.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> From an in-character perspective, they could stumble upon their item ("Guess what I found under the chicken coop!"), they could craft their item ("Using Undying Ice from the Frostfell, I craft a suit of armor!"), they could _pay someone else to craft it_ ("Dear Dwarves of Glacier Mountain..."), they could be rewarded with the item ("Huh, guess the Queen of Winter liked the way I killed that dragon..."), they could have it delivered by an international support network ("Thank you for this most recent gadget, Q!"), or they could even discover the way to make that happen from simple research in a fantasy world ("Oh, I guess if I bend the metal _here_, and add this bit of dragon's tooth _there_, and leave it out in a snowbank overnight....").
> 
> Same way Spellcasters learn new spells, warriors gain new items.



This is roughly how I do it in my 4e game, using wishlists and treasure parcels as per the DMG. (And counting the rituals found or granted against the wizard PC's notional share of the treasure.)

Of course it could be more systemetised than treasure parcels. And we could also have better guidelines for differentiating items by class (eg fighters use items that are _literally_ items, whereas priests use more divine boons and monks use more special training, etc).

I remember that the idea of wish lists generated a lot of horror when 4e was released, and is still mentioned fairly often in disparaging tones. Do you have any ideas on how to sell it, or how to sell your amped-up version of it?


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> Imagine if a D&D fighter did not have to depend on DM handouts to get their magic items. They could craft their Flametounge or their Holy Avenger themselves. "Craft" is an ambiguous term -- they could dunk their armor in the blood of a red dragon and make it Armor of Fire Resistence. The don't "cast magic" per se, but the weapons and equipment they wield become enhanced.




We got to see _some_ of that in _Dragonslayer_ in the crafting of the Spear...even though it wasn't up to the task.

D&D also took a stab at that with Weapons of Legacy, but it was ultimately too bogged down with feat requirements.


----------



## I'm A Banana

> I remember that the idea of wish lists generated a lot of horror when 4e was released, and is still mentioned fairly often in disparaging tones. Do you have any ideas on how to sell it, or how to sell your amped-up version of it?




Take the DM out of the equation. Much like how the DM is out of the equation with spells. The DM doesn't need to do anything for your fighter to get his _Vorpal Sword_. It's right there on the Fighter chart under "Epic Weapon," their level 18 class feature. YOU get to choose it! 

DMs don't need to bother handing out +1 weapons anymore. Instead, they can give out, I dunno, the _Hand of Vecna_. Or a _Well of Many Worlds_. Or a _Decanter of Endless Water_. 

DMs don't have to parcel out treasure according to a wishlist.

Fighters get all the items they need to kick butt. 

Wizards still get spells.

Everyone's happy, no?


----------



## Celtavian

Ultimatecalibur said:


> Most of those examples you would name would be non-wizard vs wizard stories or wizard/witch/other-spellcaster grants a boon and not "wizard and non-wizard team-up to go questing."




Most of them would include divine intervention or fantastical beings. I'm not sure where the first tale of the old man sorcerer came from. Maybe Arthurian legend is where I first came upon it. Most of the past myth involved gods interacting with mortals and they were almost the sole wielders of what we would see as magic.





> And that is why I said _major knights_. Figures such as Gawain, Lancelot(ugh talk about a french Marty Stu), Percival, Galahad, Mordred, Tristan, Dinadan and even Arthur himself. These guys went around slaying dragons, beating up giants, thwarting the schemes of various sorcerers and enchantresses and defeating groups of a dozen or more rival knights. Each of these guys was just as feared/respected by the common knight as Merlin was.
> 
> The Knights of the Round Table were the medieval equivalent of the Justice League. Round Table pages and squire were often better knights than the knights other kings could field.




The knights were strong. But I doubt any one of them could go toe to toe with Merlin. Many of them fell sway to lesser wizards than Merlin. But Arthurian legend didn't involve much flashy D&D magic where the simple motivation is to destroy. Most older fantasy used wizard-types as enchanters of men's minds. Different type of fantasy that you could simulate using the D&D system, but it definitely isn't the D&D version of the wizard.



> That depends on how you define wizard. If you include wandering sages and priests who go around defeating supernatural threats then you have your adventuring wizards who sometimes hang out with various warriors.




It completely depends on the writer. But in my experience the adventuring wizard hanging out with the fighter is something mostly seen in D&D. Most of what I've read written before D&D's time involved wizard-type figures that were ancient and powerful. Usually the young fighter was seeking them out to help them save the kingdom or for some other reason or the young fighter was an object of desire or a pawn in one of their games.




I don't know if you are aware of how this whole discussion came about. But it came down to complaints that 3E gave the wizard too much power, thus rendering the fighter or other classes as useless and weak. And thus a game system that didn't make it so fighters stood a chance against wizards one versus one was what made fighters useless.

Many of us, myself included, don't see it that way. Fighters don't have to be able to take a wizard in a one on one fight to be useful. Just like you don't see Gandalf fighting Aragorn or Rand'al'thor blasting down his non-magical buddies or Merlin blasting down Arthur or Superman kicking the living crap out of Aquaman to put it into superhero perspective.

And ultimately it is up to the DM to create challenges that incorporate the abilities of every class into the game. Not sit there and let the wizard scry, teleport in, cast a no save spell, and end the encounter which apparently is what a great many of the people complaining about the 3E magic system were experiencing. Yet it wasn't something experienced by DMs like myself that have been playing for years and know better than to let players game the system.

I don't think because certain players are abusing a system that it should be re-designed in a manner that removes all chance of abuse and puts said fighter and wizard on equal ground for no other reason than game balance even if it completely removes all the flavor from the magic system and waters it down into a very uninteresting, uninspired system that adheres too strictly to balance versus flavor. Especially given that decades of flavor were built into the magic system that made it a unique aspect of the game system.  

It would have been better to incorporate ideas about how DMs can deal with some of the situations that come up using story telling devices rather than slavishly adhering to the rules. Because a DM is ultimately the lead storyteller first and foremost. His or her job is to drive the story. The rules are a framework for adjudicating combat and other situations, but are still there to serve the story first and not the other way around. As  a 3E and now _Pathfinder_ DM I don't have trouble challenging my players, even with the so called omnipotent wizard present. 

I prefer my D&D be representative of fiction. Which often makes the heroes extraordinary, even the fighter types. Though the fighters might lose to a prepared wizard in a one versus one battle, they are no less impressive than the wizard when they step onto the field of battle and go toe to toe with a giant or cut down a horde of trolls by themselves. It is up to the DM to create scenarios where the fighter shines bright. That is more important than the game designer trying to balance the fighter versus the wizard whether it be in fiction or in a game.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> Take the DM out of the equation. Much like how the DM is out of the equation with spells. The DM doesn't need to do anything for your fighter to get his Vorpal Sword. It's right there on the Fighter chart under "Epic Weapon," their level 18 class feature. YOU get to choose it!




Or simply something like the mechanic in the OA Samurai, CompWar Kensai and XPH Soulknife.


----------



## Ultimatecalibur

Kamikaze Midget said:


> Well, one of the more obvious solutions is actually pretty much what Batman does: Make their own gear.
> 
> Imagine if a D&D fighter did not have to depend on DM handouts to get their magic items. They could craft their _Flametounge_ or their _Holy Avenger_ themselves. "Craft" is an ambiguous term -- they could dunk their armor in the blood of a red dragon and make it _Armor of Fire Resistence_. The don't "cast magic" per se, but the weapons and equipment they wield become enhanced.
> 
> From an out-of-character perspective, they could simply select powers. "Oh, I'm level 3, I'm going to gain the _Armor of Frost_ ability that lets me freeze enemies who hit me!" Next adventure, they have it.
> 
> From an in-character perspective, they could stumble upon their item ("Guess what I found under the chicken coop!"), they could craft their item ("Using Undying Ice from the Frostfell, I craft a suit of armor!"), they could _pay someone else to craft it_ ("Dear Dwarves of Glacier Mountain..."), they could be rewarded with the item ("Huh, guess the Queen of Winter liked the way I killed that dragon..."), they could have it delivered by an international support network ("Thank you for this most recent gadget, Q!"), or they could even discover the way to make that happen from simple research in a fantasy world ("Oh, I guess if I bend the metal _here_, and add this bit of dragon's tooth _there_, and leave it out in a snowbank overnight....").
> 
> Same way Spellcasters learn new spells, warriors gain new items.
> 
> Armor. Weapons. Boots. Rings. Rogues are no longer outclassed by a wizard with _invisibility_, because they get to choose their very own _ring of invisibility_ at about the same level.
> 
> This *also* frees up the DM to award more random treasure. Rather than useful, narrow, practical things, the DM can play with magic items with a heavy cost, a weird theme, or a slightly divergent theme. More wondrous items, less +1 things. The +1 things are right there for adventurers to make/find/whatever themselves, automagically as they level up.
> 
> So a hypothetical D&D Batman goes from a _Batarang +1_ and a _Cloak of the Bat_ at first level, all the way up to _Kryptonite Bullets_ and a _Helm of True Seeing_ (or whatever).
> 
> This also meshes with the myths, and lets characters customize their gear to their hero's theme.




I have a problem with doing it that way. It makes equipment inherent to the character's power. Strip them of their level granted equipment and they become useless. Its an okay concept for certain archetypes like gadgeters and artificers, but for others things like techniques work better.

If the game gives Fighters the ability to leap 40 feet into the air and across a 60ft gorge, what does it matter if the Wizard can fly 30ft a round?

4th edition actually does grant try and grant Fighter these sort of abilities, and few people have problems with what the exploits generally allow 4ed Martial Characters to do. Most of the problems people have lie with either the use limits or the actual mechanics of a power. People often have trouble getting their minds around daily Martial powers and ask questions like, "Why can I only hit guys extra hard once per day?" The other sort of problem comes from powers that could be better designed. Would people be complaining about Come and Get It if it was something like "Enemies within Burst 3, Intimidate vs Will, Hit: Each target must spend his next turn to attempt to make an attack against you. All attacks made in this way grant you an Opportunity Attack."


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> Strip them of their level granted equipment and they become useless.




OTOH, the Samurai/Kensai/Soulknife avoid this issue by making he power in some way linked to the PC himself.  Yes, you might have to perform a ritual, but at least the loss of your weapon is not a perm-screwing.

(Which, FWIW, is how some staves and other magic items are created in fiction...)


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

OTOH, simply doing that makes treasure kind of boring...


----------



## Bluenose

Ultimatecalibur said:


> I have a problem with doing it that way. It makes equipment inherent to the character's power. Strip them of their level granted equipment and they become useless. Its an okay concept for certain archetypes like gadgeters and artificers, but for others things like techniques work better.




That's why you'd make it a character effect rather than an item power. Any sword held by Lancelot is an epic level magic item. Any spear held by Cuchulain bursts into flames when he uses it. Then if it's actually a special enchanted weapon, it gives some extra power that isn't related to the prowess of the person using it; so your specially enchanted spear not only hits harder and causes nastier wounds (any spear you hold does that) but also allows you to throw it at a location, and leap on board to fly there. Carnwennan creates a zone of shadow, Tizona frightens opponents, Stormbringer heals you as it kills enemies. These aren't personal powers of the user, rather they're something that comes from the enchanted weapon.


----------



## pawsplay

ProfessorCirno said:


> The problem I have is that he is claiming that because Batman has "normal guy" as an origin story he can _never_ be thought of as being extrahuman or superhuman unless something objectively supernatural happens to him.H is belief is that the supernatural requires the supernatural to occur.  Batman can't be a superhero because an alien never gives him a magic ring, or because a radioactive spider never bites him.
> 
> In other words, you can never be Beowulf, because a wizard never makes him magical.




You seem to be equating fantastical with supernatural in a way that I think a lot of people, including myself, are unwilling to agree to. In a sense you're saying that because they do what normal people do not do, can not reliably or feasibly do, James Bond, Sherlock Holmes, and Robin Hood are supernatural. I would say they're unrealistic, just in a very realistic way.  

Many characters with supernatural powers, like Beowulf, have natural origins, while others, such as Perseus or Lancelot, have supernatural origins but no overtly magical powers.  Batman is a modern myth, an embodiment of American-style humanism and heroism. If you take away his Puritan work ethic he ceases to be a superhero. Simply equating him with someone like Beowulf or Lancelot makes Batman not Batman, as surely as Perseus ceases to be Perseus as soon as you say his father is not Zeus. 

Batman cannot win against Superman and the like because he is superior by nature, or the whole story breaks down. Batman wins despite being purely human because of his tremendous character, will, and work ethic, not to mention a little luck. If you stat him up in RPG terms and make him literally beyond human, you have gone astray. Moxy is not a superpower. Batmans is the king of moxy. That's why he wins. he's Jack the Giant Killer, he's Aladdin, and Little Orphan Annie, not Beowulf, Lancelot, or Perseus. He may be a billoinaire, but as an orphan and a kid from a rough town, his origin is that of scarcity and necessity. He's not Lancelot, he's Percival; his chief weapon is the clear-sightedness of spiritual certitude. His nature is common, and his circumstances are the product of chance, or destiny.

The reason he and Superman are a popular teamup is because they are alike in relying on their determination and moxy. Each one regular defeats foes above their weight class, whether it's Batman versus Lady Shiva, or Superman versus Zod. That's why those stories work. The Kryptonian and the American are alike in being unflinching, and those teamups hightlight that commonality, as well as their relatives strengths and weaknesses.


----------



## Raven Crowking

ProfessorCirno said:


> Utterly irrelevant.  He has _experienced_ loss as the emotion.  He has not lost as the narrative design.
> 
> Narrative.
> 
> The word has meaning.






In OHMSS, Bond marries the girl because he wants to.  That is part of the narrative.  She gets shot by a sniper in what is probably one of the most effective closes in a Bond film.  That is part of the narrative design.

IN CR, Bond quits and goes to be with Vesper because he wants to.  That is part of the narrative.  She gets killed by Quantum, and he fails to save her, as part of the narrative design.  So strong is this thread in the narrative that it is the driving force in the next movie.

The name of the sequel, "Quantum of Solace", comes from an Ian Fleming short story, where it refers to the minimum comfort needed to be able to go on (in the original story, to go on with a relationship).  It is apt for the movie, where Bond is only to gain a minimum of comfort, allowing him to go on after Vesper's death.

I begin to think you either have never seen these movies, or that you fail to understand narrative.  

Similarly, in _*Batman:  Mask of the Phantasm*_, we see Bruce Wayne have a chance at a normal, happy, life......a chance that is taken away from him.  The Gotham World's Fair is used as a symbol of Bruce Wayne's future:  first a bright, shiny place (which nonetheless has the model the Batmobile is designed from); second as the lair of the Joker; third being blown up and destroyed completely.

There is little doubt that in BMotP, Batman loses.  He loses his chance at happiness (twice), he fails to catch the Phantasm, he fails to prevent the mobsters from being murdered, he fails to stop the Joker....all he has at the end is a slight hope of some future where he might attain again some of what he lost.  It is a sad ending, and one of the best.

In all of these films, the hero _*survives*_, but the hero also _*loses*_.  Well, in QoS, Bond might be said to win minimally (in that he gains the satisfaction needed to continue)....everyone he sleeps with is killed, as is his friend.  He has a lot of guilt weighing on his mind.  

_*That is the gist of the narrative.*_

I have had fiction published, and I have been paid for it.  Samples are available on my website.  I have some idea of the meaning of narrative.  


RC


----------



## Raven Crowking

pemerton said:


> Prof C, all I would want to add to your post is that you leave out Conan as perhaps the most salient of (post-)modern heroes when talking about D&D warriors.
> 
> But yes, Beowulf and Conan both get stripped of their power and heroism if we insist that their modernism (if we can talk about that in relation to Beowulf) be reflected not only within the fiction, but at the metagame level of the player's protagonism.




Not if we model the stories.

In the Conan stories, it is clear that 

(1) Conan is a mortal human.  The first thing that we are told about him is that he is long dead.

(2) Supernatural forces have an interest in his doings......but not because he was born as a demi-god or chosen one; rather they are interested in him because his actions make him important to their goals in the world.

Thus, his hit points and saving throws rise not only due to personal power, but to some level of divine protection.  And, likewise, he is directly (and occasionally explicitly) used by the good gods of the setting to deal with their foes, who serve the evil gods.

But, since Conan is not himself supernatural, he sometimes requires the aid of those who are in order to defeat them.  This is a theme in the first Conan story, and is a major theme/plot point of the only REH Conan novel.


RC


----------



## I'm A Banana

> It makes equipment inherent to the character's power. Strip them of their level granted equipment and they become useless. Its an okay concept for certain archetypes like gadgeters and artificers, but for others things like techniques work better.




1: Mythically, narratively, equipment *is* inherent to a character's ability. Arthur without Excalibur is just a squire. It's also a way that "normal" fantasy heroes equalize themselves with the creatures around them. Without some augmentation, they aren't "normal" anymore.

2: "Strip them of their items" is like "stick naked them in an anti-magic zone." If you're doing that, you _want_ them to become useless.

3: You don't have to use it in exclusion of other abilities. Fighters get to make their own magic _boots of striding and springing_; maybe monks don't need to make the boots. Ultimately, same effect.



> OTOH, simply doing that makes treasure kind of boring...




I would rather give out _Interesting, Unpredictable Item Of Magical Chaos And Plot Creation_ than another _+X Slotted Item To Your Specific Niche Because Otherwise You Will Suck_ anyday. 

In other words, letting people make their own defining equipment frees me up to give out unique, unpredictable magic items like candy.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

ProfessorCirno said:


> The problem I have is that he is claiming that because Batman has "normal guy" as an origin story he can _never_ be thought of as being extrahuman or superhuman






> Batman can't be a superhero



Are you aware of what you're doing here?

Batman is not extrahuman or superhuman.  Batman _is_ a superhero.

"Superhuman" and "superhero" are not the same thing.  If you and others continue to use the words as synonyms, of course you're going to continue to misunderstand.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

Dannyalcatraz said:


> D&D also took a stab at that with Weapons of Legacy, but it was ultimately too bogged down with feat requirements.



Just FYI, the feats required to use weapons of legacy were actually given to the bearer free.  The complaint against weapons of legacy were that the sacrifices (e.g., loss of hit points, penalties to saves) were too much.  (I disagree, but I'm solidly in the minority.)


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> I would rather give out Interesting, Unpredictable Item Of Magical Chaos And Plot Creation than another +X Slotted Item To Your Specific Niche Because Otherwise You Will Suck anyday.




Not quite on my point, which was if all PCs can make their own _actual _magic items- if it's built into the classes- then there is a commonality to magic; it simply isn't as big a deal.

It sucks the magic out of the magic.


----------



## Hussar

Jeff Wilder said:


> Are you aware of what you're doing here?
> 
> Batman is not extrahuman or superhuman.  Batman _is_ a superhero.
> 
> "Superhuman" and "superhero" are not the same thing.  If you and others continue to use the words as synonyms, of course you're going to continue to misunderstand.




Umm, the dictionary would like to disagree with you:

from Superhero - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



> A superhero is a type of stock character possessing "extraordinary or superhuman powers" and dedicated to protecting the public




Which is pretty much how the word is used in everyday English.  Since when is a superhero _not_ superhuman in some way?

----------------------

As far as KM's idea goes, I like it a lot, but, I think DannyA's reaction would be fairly common.  Considering how much resistance there is to the idea that fighters don't have to be strictly mundane (as evinced by the reactions to books like Bo9S, for example) I don't think making a fighter even more like a wizard is going to fly.

Me?  I like it.  But, I can hear the gnashing of teeth already.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Perhaps if the creation of magic items was linked to a _single_ feat (so it doesn't so adversely impact feat-starved classes) and appropriately high skill checks against appropriate craft checks as opposed to being an innate class feature.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

Hussar said:


> Umm, the dictionary would like to disagree with you:
> 
> from Superhero - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Um, actually it doesn't.  Note that it says "extraordinary _or_ superhuman."  Do you understand that "or" indicates that it's a choice, not an equivalent?

Batman is "extraordinary."  Batman is not "superhuman."  Batman is a superhero, because he is extraordinary in many respects.  He is not a superhero because he is superhuman, and nor is he superhuman because he is a superhero.  He's not extraordinary because he's superhuman, and he doesn't become superhuman just because he's extraordinary.



> Which is pretty much how the word is used in everyday English.



No, it's not.  "Superhuman" and "superhero" are not synonyms.  Anyone using them as such is incorrect, and (as we're seeing here) that incorrect usage is leading to an incorrect -- flatly, factually incorrect -- conclusion.



> Since when is a superhero _not_ superhuman in some way?



Pretty much since the genre has existed, there have been superheroes who are not superhuman.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Kamikaze Midget said:


> 1: Mythically, narratively, equipment *is* inherent to a character's ability. Arthur without Excalibur is just a squire. It's also a way that "normal" fantasy heroes equalize themselves with the creatures around them. Without some augmentation, they aren't "normal" anymore.




It might interest you to know that, in earlier forms of the story, Excalibur and the sword in the stone are not the same weapon.  It was later attempts to tighten the stories that equated the two.

So, mythically, narratively, Arthur without Excalibur is still the rightful King.

Even drawing the sword from the stone isn't what makes Arthur the rightful King.  You put the cart before the horse.  Mythically, narratively, being the rightful King is what makes Arthur able to draw the sword.

Finally, within the context of the myth, the sheath is probably more important/wondrous than the sword.

Also, for the "supernatural heroes who cannot lose" crowd, Arthur's trajectory epitomizes the hero who ultimately loses everything:  His queen, his best friend, his sister/mate, his kingdom, his son, and the hopes of his people.  


RC


----------



## Raven Crowking

Jeff Wilder said:


> Pretty much since the genre has existed, there have been superheroes who are not superhuman.




Indeed.


----------



## nightwyrm

Raven Crowking said:


> It might interest you to know that, in earlier forms of the story, Excalibur and the sword in the stone are not the same weapon. It was later attempts to tighten the stories that equated the two.
> 
> So, mythically, narratively, Arthur without Excalibur is still the rightful King.
> 
> Even drawing the sword from the stone isn't what makes Arthur the rightful King. You put the cart before the horse. Mythically, narratively, being the rightful King is what makes Arthur able to draw the sword.
> 
> Finally, within the context of the myth, the sheath is probably more important/wondrous than the sword.
> 
> Also, for the "supernatural heroes who cannot lose" crowd, Arthur's trajectory epitomizes the hero who ultimately loses everything: His queen, his best friend, his sister/mate, his kingdom, his son, and the hopes of his people.
> 
> 
> RC





I think what Kamikaze was getting at was that Excalibur and its shealth is always linked to Arthur.  You don't have Arthur giving his sword and shealth to the better fighter Lancelot so the Camelot party can have an uber character.  Just like Ironman doesn't give a copy of his suit to Batman or Batman sharing his gadgets with the rest of JLA.  Ironman is defined by his suit.  Batman is defined by his toys.  If you have an adaptation of the Arthurian legend and both Arthur and Excalibur is in it, you're not gonna have some other dude permanently wielding the sword.

All this talk about heroes and their weapons brings to mind the visual novel/anime Fate/Stay Night.  The plot is essentially modern mages summoning historical/mythical heroes for a battle royale.  The summoned heroes have access to the weapons associated with them in their legends.  Those weapons are treated as part of the heroes' skill set rather than D&D-style magic items that they can trade around with.


----------



## Ultimatecalibur

nightwyrm said:


> I think what Kamikaze was getting at was that Excalibur and its shealth is always linked to Arthur.  You don't have Arthur giving his sword and shealth to the better fighter Lancelot so the Camelot party can have an uber character.  Just like Ironman doesn't give a copy of his suit to Batman or Batman sharing his gadgets with the rest of JLA.  Ironman is defined by his suit.  Batman is defined by his toys.  If you have an adaptation of the Arthurian legend and both Arthur and Excalibur is in it, you're not gonna have some other dude permanently wielding the sword.




The reason only Arthur uses Excalibur in legend is because its _his_ magic sword to wield. Lancelot has his own and so do others. Think of it as the party was rolling for treasure and Arthur won Excalibur and its sheath.



> All this talk about heroes and their weapons brings to mind the visual novel/anime Fate/Stay Night.  The plot is essentially modern mages summoning historical/mythical heroes for a battle royale.  The summoned heroes have access to the weapons associated with them in their legends.  Those weapons are treated as part of the heroes' skill set rather than D&D-style magic items that they can trade around with.




But remember every one of the servants had comparable "magical items" better suited for their style of fighting.

This talk of about magic items vs inherent bonuses is probably better suited for another topic.


----------



## Beginning of the End

Hussar said:


> Which is pretty much how the word is used in everyday English.  Since when is a superhero _not_ superhuman in some way?




The very next paragraph: "By most definitions, characters do not strictly require actual superhuman powers to be deemed superheroes..."

Rule of thumb: When your own sources disagree with you, you're wrong.


----------



## Raven Crowking

nightwyrm said:


> I think what Kamikaze was getting at was that Excalibur and its shealth is always linked to Arthur.




Except that it is not.  

Excalibur - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The name Excalibur apparently derives from the Welsh Caledfwlch which combines the elements caled ("battle, hard"), and bwlch ("breach, gap, notch").[1] Geoffrey of Monmouth Latinised this to Caliburnus (likely influenced by the medieval Latin spelling calibs of Classical Latin chalybs "steel"), the name of Arthur's sword in his 12th-century work Historia Regum Britanniae. Caliburnus or Caliburn became Excalibur, Escalibor, and other variations when the Arthurian legend entered into French literature.

Caledfwlch appears in several early Welsh works, including the poem Preiddeu Annwfn and the prose tale Culhwch and Olwen, a work associated with the Mabinogion and written perhaps around 1100. The name was later used in Welsh adaptations of foreign material such as the Bruts, which were based on Geoffrey. It is often considered to be related to the phonetically similar Caladbolg, a sword borne by several figures from Irish mythology, although a borrowing of Caledfwlch from Irish Caladbolg has been considered unlikely by Rachel Bromwich and D. Simon Evans. They suggest instead that both names "may have similarly arisen at a very early date as generic names for a sword"; this sword then became exclusively the property of Arthur in the British tradition.[2] Most Celticists consider Geoffrey's Caliburnus to be derivative of a lost Old Welsh text in which bwlch had not yet been lenited to fwlch.[3] In Old French sources this then became Escalibor, Excalibor and finally the familiar Excalibur.

In Chretien de Troyes's Perceval, Gawain carries Escalibor and it is stated, "for at his belt hung Excalibor, the finest sword that there was, which sliced through iron as through wood"[4] ("Qu'il avoit cainte Escalibor, la meillor espee qui fust, qu'ele trenche fer come fust."[5]). This statement was likely picked up by the author of the Estoire Merlin, or Vulgate Merlin, where the author (who was fond of fanciful folk etymologies) asserts that Escalibor "is a Hebrew name which means in French 'cuts iron, steel, and wood'"[6] ("c'est non Ebrieu qui dist en franchois trenche fer & achier et fust"; note that the word for "steel" here, achier, also means "blade" or "sword" and comes from medieval Latin aciarium, a derivative of acies "sharp", so there is no direct connection with Latin chalybs in this etymology). It is from this fanciful etymological musing that Malory got the notion that Excalubur meant "cut steel"[7] ("'the name of it,' said the lady, 'is Excalibur, that is as moche to say, as Cut stele.'").​
_A little learning is a dangerous thing; 
drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: 
there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, 
and drinking largely sobers us again._


RC


----------



## pawsplay

Raven Crowking said:


> Indeed.




In fact, the word predates the comic book genre, including Action Comics. And Batman predates (1939) the vast majority of superhuman comic book characters. The term superhero only refers to mutants and magicians and such because it refers to superheroic characters. Certainly, Dracula is not a "superhero," even though he is superhuman, highly competent, and driven by operatic forces.


----------



## I'm A Banana

> Not quite on my point, which was if all PCs can make their own actual magic items- if it's built into the classes- then there is a commonality to magic; it simply isn't as big a deal.
> 
> It sucks the magic out of the magic




Well, that's something of the point. A fighter's equipment becomes a class ability. It's no more magical than a wizard's spells or a cleric's prayers or a druid's friendship with a hulking predator. Batman's cape isn't exactly a unique object of superscience in the universe he inhabits. Having a deity as a parent isn't exactly something that gets you noticed among the Greek heroes. 

That said, the fact that things that the DM hands out can be more random, more chaotic, more unpredictable, more destructive, more rare, and more powerful goes a long way to sticking the sense of awe right back into its hole. Glorath's +1 sword isn't special, but this _Sphere of Annihilation_ just became a bigger ping on the radar specifically because it isn't a class feature, so it's not an assumed part of your power, so it could behave much more erratically.

_Edit_: It's also true that while equipment can be a class feature for a fighter, it won't be for a town guard or a farmer or even the village blacksmith. Taking the "Fighter" class signifies that you are a fantasy hero. I don't think it's too much for D&D games to assume that PC's are fantasy heroes. Even if Glorath started life as the spoiled son of a noble, with some combination of skill, grit, luck, madness, determination, and Protestant Ethic, he has taken the "Fantasy Hero" job, and he does not need to have abilities in line with what a town guard or a farmer does any more than Batman has abilities in line with what the Gotham police officers have.


----------



## JoeGKushner

Jeff Wilder said:


> Just FYI, the feats required to use weapons of legacy were actually given to the bearer free.  The complaint against weapons of legacy were that the sacrifices (e.g., loss of hit points, penalties to saves) were too much.  (I disagree, but I'm solidly in the minority.)




Part of that though, may be WoTC own OGL come to bite them back in the ass via The Game Mecahnics books where such sacrifices were not standard but other sacrifices, the taking of a specific PrC with slightly reduced ability gains in core class, were slightly lessened, among others.


----------



## ProfessorCirno

Jeff Wilder said:


> Are you aware of what you're doing here?
> 
> Batman is not extrahuman or superhuman.  Batman _is_ a superhero.
> 
> "Superhuman" and "superhero" are not the same thing.  If you and others continue to use the words as synonyms, of course you're going to continue to misunderstand.




No, he's superhuman.  None of the _nameless_ characters in the comics surpass him.  He is superior to the average human.  He is better then they are.  He is superhuman.

See, he keeps getting compared to *other superheros*.  Some of them are stronger then him, some are better at martial arts.  Well ok, but they're other heroes!  But the nameless human civilians don't regularly match him, because he's simply better then they are.



Raven Crowking said:


>




You continue to argue semantics rather then the point.

James Bond does not end his movies with "And then the villains won, *THE END*."  James Bond isn't defeated by the nameless mooks the supervillain sends out at him.

Heroes certainly undergo loss, nobody but the strawman you have  constructed is arguing against that.  But the movies end with his  victory.  He isn't wordlessly gunned down followed by the roll of the  credits.

Once again, people are confusing in-universe power for in-narrative power.  Batman is a "normal man" in universe who "just happens" to always have a gadget, or be able to use martial arts, or have several plans in back up.  In narrative, he's flat out _better_ then the non-characters who represent humanity.  His ability to always have a gadget, or be able to use martial arts, or have a back-up plan, makes him better then human.  His ability to *be a protagonist* means he can be "The Greatest Detective."

James Bond is a "normal man" who just happens to be better at karate chopping then everyone else, or is more suave and charismatic then everyone else, or always has a gadget at the ready,  or can _jump off a skyscraper and live_ by "holding onto the banner" as it rips.  But _nobody else does this_.  In-universe he is a "normal man."  Narratively he is very starkly not.


----------



## Patryn of Elvenshae

A "normal human" in the DC Universe is not Batman; it's the beat cop whom Batman saves from the Joker.


----------



## Hussar

See, to me, the term superhuman means exactly what it says on the box - more than human.  Anyone who is better than human is, by definition, superhuman.  Batman does things no normal human could possibly do.  Even with training, Robin becomes a pretty good fighter, but, he's still not as good as Batman, not as smart as Batman and doesn't have the will power of Batman.  So, no, training just isn't enough.

Now, if you insist that superhuman means that he has to be able to shoot lazer beams from his eyes, then sure, Bats isn's superhuman.  

RC - I think you're conflating suffering a loss with losing.  Bond does suffer a loss and loses friends from time to time in the movies.  However, he never, ever, outright loses.  His victory might be pyrric, but, it's still a mark in the win column.  The bad guys are foiled, the world is saved and Bond moves on to his next adventure.

Which is, of course, entirely in keeping with the genre.  It wouldn't be a Bond movie if he ends the movie with the bad guys blowing up London and he's dead.


----------



## Raven Crowking

ProfessorCirno said:


> James Bond does not end his movies with "And then the villains won, *THE END*."





Again, it is clear that you haven't seen _*On Her Majesty's Secret Service*_.  That's pretty well exactly how that movie ends.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Her_Majesty's_Secret_Service_(film)

Bond and Tracy marry in Portugal, then drive away in Bond's Aston Martin. Bond pulls over to the roadside to remove flowers from the car. Tracy thanks Bond for marrying her and having a future away from the British Secret Service. As this happens, Blofeld (wearing a neck brace) and Bunt in a Mercedes-Benz 600 drive past the couple's car; Bunt sprays the car with bullets from a M16A1 automatic rifle. Bond dives behind the car and survives the drive-by attack, only to discover that Tracy has been killed by a shot to the forehead. A police officer pulls over to inspect the bullet-riddled car, prompting a tear-filled Bond to mutter that there's no need to hurry to call for help by saying, "We have all the time in the world," as he cradles Tracy's lifeless body. On that, the film comes to an end.​
Similarly, Bond's major mission in _*Casino Royale *_is to prevent Le Chiffre from acquiring funds for terrorism, and, if possible, to aquire him for British Intelligence.  He fails in both.  Over the course of the film, he discovers that he would rather be with Vesper than stay in the Secret Service.  He fails.  At the end of the film, he manages to capture White, which is a minor victory (and one which is undone at the start of the next movie).

_A little learning is a dangerous thing; 
drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: 
there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, 
and drinking largely sobers us again._

And I also note that you are shifting the goalposts.  Now, a character is superhuman unless he can be defeated by a _*nameless*_ human?  I.e., unless you are regularly beaten by the dregs of the fictional universe you occupy, you are clearly superhuman?  Really?    I've never been beaten by a nameless human.....I must be superhuman!

I begin to think that you are pulling my leg with this.



			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> RC - I think you're conflating suffering a loss with losing. Bond does suffer a loss and loses friends from time to time in the movies. However, he never, ever, outright loses. His victory might be pyrric, but, it's still a mark in the win column. The bad guys are foiled, the world is saved and Bond moves on to his next adventure.
> 
> Which is, of course, entirely in keeping with the genre. It wouldn't be a Bond movie if he ends the movie with the bad guys blowing up London and he's dead.




Well, if by "never losing" you mean that he is always around so that the studio can make a buck with the next film, then, any serial character would be definition be superhuman.  I think there were quite a few episodes of _*Leave it to Beaver*_, and I can't remember Ward Cleaver, June Cleaver, Wally, or the Beaver ever actually losing, or being taken out by the end of the episode with their pleasant little town in flames.  Gee, Wally, I guess the Beaver really is superhuman!  

And, hey, now that we are differentiating between "suffering important losses" and "losing", I guess I've never actually lost, either.  After all, I'm still here, and Toronto isn't in flames.  I *must* be superhuman!


RC


----------



## WizarDru

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> Again, it is clear that you haven't seen On Her Majesty's Secret Service.  That's pretty well exactly how that movie ends.




Well, No. It ends with a tragedy for Bond, but Blofeld's scheme is defeated. And as part of the "Blofeld's Trilogy", it could be argued that this is the second act. But the villains lose in the film: they just make Bond pay for his victory.


----------



## Mort

Raven Crowking said:


> Again, it is clear that you haven't seen _*On Her Majesty's Secret Service*_.  That's pretty well exactly how that movie ends.




Not correct. Bond suffers a tragic personal loss, his mission, however, is a full success.


----------



## Raven Crowking

ProfessorCirno said:


> James Bond does not end his movies with "And then the villains won, *THE END*."






WizarDru said:


> Well, No. It ends with a tragedy for Bond, but Blofeld's scheme is defeated. And as part of the "Blofeld's Trilogy", it could be argued that this is the second act. But the villains lose in the film: they just make Bond pay for his victory.






Mort said:


> Not correct. Bond suffers a tragic personal loss, his mission, however, is a full success.




Note the first quote.  It doesn't say, "In no film does Bond fail his primary mission".  It says, "James Bond does not end his movies with "And then the villains won, *THE END*".

In OHMSS, Bond beats the villians repeatedly.  He prevents Blofeld's main scheme.  And then the villians won, *THE END*.  That's the film.  

Losing at X doesn't somehow negate winning at Y.  Losing at X or Y doesn't negate winning at Z.

Now, let us cast our eyes on _*Casino Royale*_, which is an interesting counter-point to OHMSS.  In CR, Bond does fail in both his primary mission, and in his primary desire.  BUT the film ends with "And then James Bond won, *THE END*.  And it is a very similar "Then X won" in both of the given films.  Both X's have had something precious taken away from them, but were able to get a modicum of revenge.

But, IF one is to say that the ending of OHMSS doesn't count as a win for Blofeld, THEN it is unfair to say that the ending of CR is a win for Bond.  Because these films parallel each other in this way, it is impossible to say (with a straight face, anyway) that both end with Bond winning.

Either way, there is a clear indication that Bond can, and does, lose.


RC


----------



## Erekose

nightwyrm said:


> . . . You don't have Arthur giving his sword and shealth to the better fighter Lancelot so the Camelot party can have an uber character . . .




I can't remember the specific details but there are seveal instances of Arthur lending Excalibur to other knights depending on the nature of their quest.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

Hussar said:


> Anyone who is better than human is, by definition, superhuman.



Interesting.

What, as you see it, is the percentile break-point for when someone ceases to be human?

If John Smith is the best human in the world at math, by your definition John Smith stops being human, and Jane Johnson then becomes the best human in the world at math.  At which point Jane Johnson, by your definition, stops being human, and Xie Zhoumeng then becomes the best human in the world at math.  At which point Xie Zhoumeng, by your definition, stops being human ...



> Batman does things no normal human could possibly do.



This is simply wrong.  It's not a matter of opinion, it's not a matter of degrees.  It is simply contrary to what is flatly stated in the Batman canon and by the creative teams behind the Batman mythology.



> Even with training, Robin becomes a pretty good fighter, but, he's still not as good as Batman, not as smart as Batman and doesn't have the will power of Batman.



And yet he's now Batman.  (And, BTW, he's a _better_ acrobat than Batman.  So, of course, now Dick Grayson is superhuman ... )



> So, no, training just isn't enough.



Again, flatly wrong.  You are operating on incorrect assumptions, which (of course) produce incorrect conclusions.

You have decided that "Batman isn't human because he can do amazing things and he can do amazing things so he can't possibly be human."  It's circular and it's incorrect.


----------



## Raven Crowking

"You must spread XP around...yadda yadda"

Note also what is inherent in the "because nameless mooks can't take him out" meme.  Those nameless mooks are, therefore, *worse* than the named characters who can occasionally win against a Bond or a Batman.  

IOW, if Perry White is human, and Bruce Wayne is superhuman, nameless thug #2 must be *subhuman*.

So, Bruce Wayne is not superhuman because he is never bested by humans, but rather because he is not bested by *subhumans*.  

Except, sometimes, these subhumans *do* get the advantage over our heroes.  What to do?  Why, define winning in such a way as to eliminate any temporary advantage!

Suddenly, of course, these subhumans also cannot win against Perry White, elevating Perry White from the human to the superhuman.  In fact, anyone who is not gruesomely murdered is superhuman, because, hey, there's always a chance that whatever setback occurs might be temporary........indeed, these _*subhumans*_ must also be *superhuman*........and so it goes.........


RC


----------



## Diamond Cross

And Batman does regularly defeat superhumans, such as Killer Croc, who has superhuman levels of strength. 

And because he has Kryptonite, he can beat Superman. But that's the only way he'll beat Superman. He can slow him down but other than that there's just no way for him to beat Superman. Even with enough prep time.

And Blofield did kill James Bond's wife, which is why Bond is so afraid to get close to another woman. Even though they never really speak of it again, and only vaguely hint at it.

The thing about Casino Royale II (I call it two because there was another movie with same name) though is that while the bad guys did win, Bond did get his revenge, and it was actually a two parter with Quantum Of Solace being a loosely related part two.

And the bad guys won by getting the money. Which was their primary goal.


----------



## ProfessorCirno

Raven Crowking said:


> Note the first quote.  It doesn't say, "In no film does Bond fail his primary mission".  It says, "James Bond does not end his movies with "And then the villains won, *THE END*".
> 
> In OHMSS, Bond beats the villians repeatedly.  He prevents Blofeld's main scheme.  And then the villians won, *THE END*.  That's the film.




Your argument is literally built on semantics.  There is nothing more here that can be said (least you twist _it_ into another semantical debate).

If you truly think that "James Bond's girl dies at the end" means he loses, then clearly *every* action movie is secretly a Greek tragedy as the protagonist loses something dear to them.  Rambo's girl dies in Rambo?  *Rambo loses the movie!*


----------



## Mort

Diamond Cross said:


> The thing about Casino Royale II (I call it two because there was another movie with same name) though is that while the bad guys did win, Bond did get his revenge, and it was actually a two parter with Quantum Of Solace being a loosely related part two.
> 
> And the bad guys won by getting the money. Which was their primary goal.




I really wanted to like Casino Royale, and in some ways I did. I liked the grittiness, particularly the clear showing of what tends to happen to women Bond gets even remotely close to.

But the poker scene at the end just killed it for me (I happen to like poker and the the way Bond wins was so absurd it ruined suspension of disbelief more for me than the stunts, shootings, and car chases. YMMV of course).


----------



## Jeff Wilder

Mort said:


> But the poker scene at the end just killed it for me (I happen to like poker and the the way Bond wins was so absurd it ruined suspension of disbelief more for me than the stunts, shootings, and car chases. YMMV of course).



It wasn't terrible.  For "terrible," checked out "The Cincinnati Kid," which is inexplicably considered a classic poker movie.  Talk about destroying suspension of disbelief (for any knowledgeable poker player).  (There is one way to reconcile the ending of "TCK" with real poker, but it doesn't jibe with the rest of the movie.  At all.)


----------



## Raven Crowking

ProfessorCirno said:


> Your argument is literally built on semantics.  There is nothing more here that can be said (least you twist _it_ into another semantical debate).






Hardly.  There is nothing semantical about it.

Unless, by "semantics" you mean "the meaning of the words used", in which case, yes, I am guilty of expressing meaning by using words.



OTOH, the stream of rhetoric, fallacious reasoning, and hyperbole that some are engaged in.......But, go ahead, continue with your ad hominem attacks.  Anyone who will be convinced by them is already convinced, and anyone who understands what they are will equally be able to ignore them.



> If you truly think that "James Bond's girl dies at the end" means he loses, then clearly *every* action movie is secretly a Greek tragedy as the protagonist loses something dear to them.  Rambo's girl dies in Rambo?  *Rambo loses the movie!*




(1)  Not "James Bond's girl", but "James Bond's wife, to be with whom he was willing to quit the Secret Service"; i.e., someone for whom the character was willing to change his basic nature.

I highlight this because it is an example ot the semantic argument that you accuse me of engaging in.  You attempt to change the meaning of the character in the context of the film by changing her into just "James Bond's girl", equating her therefore with the string of disposable Bond girls.

(2)   "James Bond's wife, to be with whom he was willing to quit the Secret Service"; i.e., someone for whom the character was willing to change his basic nature, dying as the final scene of the movie doesn't make *every* action movie "secretly a Greek tragedy as the protagonist loses something dear to them".

Again, this is not only an attempt to use semantics and hyperbole to shift the argument, but demonstrates either a willing, or an intentional, ignorance of the weight of the "final scene" in a work of literature or film.

Suffice it to say that most people understand that the order of events is important to a story.  "Bob comes out on top, and then loses everything" is a tragedy.  "Bob loses everything, and then comes out on top" is not.

Likewise, I am willing to bet that better than 95% of all EN Worlders are aware that a sudden reversal as the final scene of a film carries more weight _*because*_ it is the end of the film.  It is what we are left with.  That is why the reversal occurs at the end in both _*On Her Majesty's Secret Service*_ and *Casino Royale*.

(3) Perhaps you are hoping that this will divert attention from *James Bond does not end his movies with "And then the villains won, THE END."* but your statement is still wrong.

OHMSS and CR still mirror each other, and the outcomes of the film are either that Bond loses in one or the other, because the position of Bond is mirrored in these films.  If the reversal in CR is enough for it to be a win for Bond, then it is also enough to be a loss in OHMSS.  Likewise, if Bond doesn't lose at the end of OHMSS, neither can he be said (again, with a straight face) to win at the end of CR.

The guy who wrote this post might be an idiot (http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...-dms-dont-like-magic-marts-4.html#post5484046), but I'd say someone who can say, "Oh yeah, sorry, I'm wrong" is far less likely to intentionally engage in twisting arguments than, say, someone who is less comfortable doing the same.  YMMV, though, and I suspect it does.

It is not semantics to point out that your arguments make no sense.  I hope, though, that I have also succeeded in pointing out/parsing the semantics in your attempt to accuse others of the same.


RC


----------



## Mort

Jeff Wilder said:


> It wasn't terrible.  For "terrible," checked out "The Cincinnati Kid," which is inexplicably considered a classic poker movie.  Talk about destroying suspension of disbelief (for any knowledgeable poker player).  (There is one way to reconcile the ending of "TCK" with real poker, but it doesn't jibe with the rest of the movie.  At all.)




I'll check it out (Hopefuly it's in the "so bad it was worth it" catagory and not the there's 2 hours I'll never get back catagory.).

Still though, in Casino Royale, most of the game itself was not terrible but that last hand and how he wins, just yuck. I suppose they had to resolve it in some way and to some maybe even many people the way it was done was dramatic but to me it was just stupid.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Mort said:


> I'll check it out (Hopefuly it's in the "so bad it was worth it" catagory and not the there's 2 hours I'll never get back catagory.).
> 
> Still though, in Casino Royale, most of the game itself was not terrible but that last hand and how he wins, just yuck. I suppose they had to resolve it in some way and to some maybe even many people the way it was done was dramatic but to me it was just stupid.




Poker is an area where I admit I am pretty ignorant.  

Can you explain this to me?


----------



## Jeff Wilder

Raven Crowking said:


> Poker is an area where I admit I am pretty ignorant.  Can you explain this to me?[Why the final scene in Casino Royale isn't ideal.]



There are several problems with it.

(1) The likelihood of four players having hands that good in the same hand is virtually nonexistent.

(2) The idea that Le Chiffre would effectively risk _everything_ with the third-best hand is fairly unlikely.  If it were just Bond in the hand, it would be more believable, but one of the other two players -- both already all-in -- could _easily_ have Ace-Eight.

(3) The fact that neither of the other two players beat the living hell out of Le Chiffre for that absurd slow-roll.  (This is the one that bugs _me_ most.)

In general, though, it's not a _terrible_ example of (overly dramatic) movie poker.  It's definitely Bond-like.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Thanks.


----------



## Mort

Jeff Wilder said:


> There are several problems with it.
> 
> (1) The likelihood of four players having hands that good in the same hand is virtually nonexistent.
> 
> (2) The idea that Le Chiffre would effectively risk _everything_ with the third-best hand is fairly unlikely.  If it were just Bond in the hand, it would be more believable, but one of the other two players -- both already all-in -- could _easily_ have Ace-Eight.
> 
> (3) The fact that neither of the other two players beat the living hell out of Le Chiffre for that absurd slow-roll.  (This is the one that bugs _me_ most.)
> 
> In general, though, it's not a _terrible_ example of (overly dramatic) movie poker.  It's definitely Bond-like.




Just the fact that the movie keeps hammering how "good" Bond is, how "good" Le Chiffre is (despite the silliest tell on the planet but that's a movie thing and no worse than eating vs. crushing oreos) the ending is based on both ridiculous luck and bad play. I'm certain there are worse poker instances in movies and television, but being a Bond fan, this one bugged me. 

I guess it also bugged me (and this is purely pedantic and on me) that they felt the need to modernize it - Bond was always expert at Baccarat not poker - but I guess the writers/producers (perhaps rightly) felt the current crowd would understand poker better.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

Mort said:


> JBond was always expert at Baccarat not poker



The funny thing is that Baccarat chemin-de-fer has almost nothing to do with player skill.  It's a very fair game for a player in a casino -- getting very close to 50/50 -- but it's an extremely simple game, and deviating from the basic strategy would indicate a deficiency of some sort.  The punto banco version of Baccarat, in fact, doesn't even allow the players to make choices.

Being an "expert" at Baccarat is barely a step up from being an "expert" at roulette.


----------



## pawsplay

Diamond Cross said:


> And Batman does regularly defeat superhumans, such as Killer Croc, who has superhuman levels of strength.
> 
> And because he has Kryptonite, he can beat Superman. But that's the only way he'll beat Superman. He can slow him down but other than that there's just no way for him to beat Superman. Even with enough prep time.




Actually, that's not true. Batman hs beaten Superman without Kryptonite before. In one case, knowing Superman's scruples, he rigged himself with a detonator and used a hostage (Superman did not understand Batman's psychology well enough to realize that the "innocent person" Batman specified as the victim was Batman himself). 

Further, Superman (in most versions) is not completely invulnerable. While his battlesuit in the Dark Knight series isn't quite up to snuff, that was really just a ploy to get Superman into position, relying on Superman's tendency to resolve all tactical conflicts with his fists. In a proper ambush situation, Batman's mastery of technology is sufficient to take Superman out.


----------



## ProfessorCirno

Raven Crowking said:


> *snip*




Again, you do not seem to understand the difference between "undergoing loss" and "the hero loses."

As for the rest of your post, it's almost as if there's a phrase for that...

In the end, this is all just one big (boring) tangent.  The end result of my previous statement nonetheless exists: James Bond in the narrative scope is not a normal human.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

ProfessorCirno said:


> James Bond in the narrative scope is not a normal human.



Yes, and an apple is not a fruit.

(As long as _I_ get to define "fruit.")


----------



## ProfessorCirno

Jeff Wilder said:


> Yes, and an apple is not a fruit.
> 
> (As long as _I_ get to define "fruit.")




Non-statement


----------



## Locien

I think people are confusing the words "average", "normal". Batman and James Bond are not "average", but they are both still fundamentally human. They perform feats well beyond that of an "average" human but use abilities and skills that are fully possible to be used by(or fully attributable to) humans, albeit extraordinary humans(when does not make them superhuman, but better than an average human, who has by nature very limited abilities).
Also I don't think there is a solution in (at least western) literature for the wizard/fighter problem because the characters are usually simply handed different roles and are used differently. To be honest if you want to solve the wizard/fighter problem borrow from anything where a fighter has some sort of techniques beyond sword swinging. Wuxia, manga/anime, whatever you need for inspiration, you need to power-up or remake the fighter.  That's why I liked book of nine swords for 3.5(which incidently made me want to play a class from that book), is that it game fighters something interesting to do other than something you need to sink 10+ feats into before using.


----------



## pawsplay

ProfessorCirno said:


> In the end, this is all just one big (boring) tangent.  The end result of my previous statement nonetheless exists: James Bond in the narrative scope is not a normal human.




True, but neither is he a supernatural human.


----------



## Hussar

What confuses me here is why does superhuman mean that someone is no longer human?

Super means exceptional, great, wonderful, outright better.  Superhuman means what it says on the box - better than human.  Normal humans make superhuman efforts all the time, yet no one tries to claim they're no longer human.

Are people claiming that Spider-man isn't even human anymore?  He's pretty obviously superhuman, I think we'd all agree there, but, not human at all?  Really?

RC - go back to the beginning of this tangent and you'll see that the goalposts have long been on pretty shaky ground.  The original point way back was that a 1st level fighter could be the same as some farmer just off the turnip truck.  That was the claim being disputed.  

I pointed out that our 1st level fighter, in any system, has abilities that no normal human can have - he can survive damage that will outright kill a D&D DEFINED normal human, he can have exceptional strength, which no normal human can have, he can gain xp (depending on system, some normal humans cannot gain xp).  He actually has stats, which normal humans don't, (barring exceptional examples, which, by definition, are exceptional)(again, this is system dependent).

In all measurable ways, our 1st level fighter is outright betting in the D&D universe than a normal human (which is defined by the different systems as either being a 0 level human, or a 1st level commoner).

If you are better in all quantifiable ways than a defined normal human, how are you not superhuman?

There's goalpost shifting going on in this thread, but, I'm not really sure I'm the one that tied on the rollerskates.  For example, while Bond might arguable lose in one movie (and a remake movie), there are about thirty other movies where he doesn't.  So, while it's pedantically incorrect to say that Bond never loses, it's pretty damn close to the truth.


----------



## I'm A Banana

1st level fighters are still Fantasy Heroes, so they are still "above the rabble," so to speak. Batman isn't just a Gotham City beat cop with an alcoholism problem, he's _friggin' Batman_. James Bond isn't just some posh manwhore git with a gun, he's goddang _James Bond_. 

This is pretty well driven into the ground.

Now all that's left is finding out how you want to emulate Batman's or James Bond's _completely unrealistic and fantastic_ abilities in D&D, assuming you want your fighter to be like Batman or James Bond and have these powers only through the auspices of the Protestant Ethic or Plot Coupons or Being Magically Wealthy or somesuch. Of course, if you're happy with some existing solution, I suppose you're done.  

Pre-4e mostly sez: "Make them roll for it, just give them bigger numbers than everyone else!" (problem: wizards do it automagically, no roll required, and the ladies are all OMG SO hot for REALZ)

4e sez: "Give them spells, just don't _call them_ spells!" (problem: rules gets in front of narrative, and they trip over each other and fall down the stairs and die together screaming)

One idea I had was "Give them magic gear as a class feature." (problem: Well, guess we aren't playing a gritty low-magic type of game here...)

YMMV for how much any of those problems actually is a problem. 

Anyone got any other brilliant schemes, or are we all done here but for the fanwank about how somehow James Bond isn't a fantasy hero and what godlike illegal aliens takin' all our superheroin' jobs a spoiled rich brat in black footie pyjamas can punch in the face? 

I am hoping it is the first one!


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Double post


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> I pointed out that our 1st level fighter, in any system, has abilities that no normal human can have - he can survive damage that will outright kill a D&D DEFINED normal human, he can have exceptional strength, which no normal human can have, he can gain xp (depending on system, some normal humans cannot gain xp). He actually has stats, which normal humans don't, (barring exceptional examples, which, by definition, are exceptional)(again, this is system dependent).
> 
> In all measurable ways, our 1st level fighter is outright betting in the D&D universe than a normal human (which is defined by the different systems as either being a 0 level human, or a 1st level commoner).



And



> 1st level fighters are still Fantasy Heroes, so they are still "above the rabble," so to speak.



Except this is patently untrue unless you ignore the actual stuff printed in various sources.

1) The AD&D DMG lets NPC fighters have all the same advantages as PC fighters- whether an NPC actually GETS those strength adjustments is left to the DM.

2) There are THOUSANDS of F1s populating the militias of every city and regions listed in various sources, to be called up from the local townships to support the "real" armed forces.  What about the hordes of REAL military, the bulk of whom of are F1s with serious gear like horses, chain & lances?  Are you calling these tens of thousands of militiamen & regular army "Fantasy Heroes?" 

3) Then what about F1s like "Daughter?"  How in the hell is the young laborer with a level of fighter a "Fantasy Hero?"  There is NOTHING in her description that says she's an adventurer of any kind.

F1 is PERFECT for describing NPCs with only a modicum of training...and TSR did _exactly_ that.


----------



## pawsplay

Hussar said:


> What confuses me here is why does superhuman mean that someone is no longer human?




Superhuman means "above human" or "more than human," so by definition, it is something outside the boundaries of the merely human.



> Super means exceptional, great, wonderful, outright better.  Superhuman means what it says on the box - better than human.  Normal humans make superhuman efforts all the time, yet no one tries to claim they're no longer human.




Humans do NOT make superhuman efforts all the time, based on our working definition. They are human efforts. Extraordinary human efforts, sure, but human nonetheless. Sometimes someone might say superhuman, as a hyperbole.

To actually call those efforts superhuman requires a different sense of superhuman; in that case it would simply mean above ordinary human capability. If you allow that a woman defending her children from a grown cougar for four hours is superhuman, sure, I'll allow that Batman is superhuman. But that mother is still fully and only human, and so would Batman be. And she is not Beowulf.



> Are people claiming that Spider-man isn't even human anymore?  He's pretty obviously superhuman, I think we'd all agree there, but, not human at all?  Really?




He's certainly less human. I wouldn't say he's not human at all, or inhuman, but he is certainly superhuman, and certainly not a normal human. I thought that Kirsten Dunst's idea of a weird _The Fly_-like sequel with half-spider-baby offspring was spot on.



> I pointed out that our 1st level fighter, in any system, has abilities that no normal human can have - he can survive damage that will outright kill a D&D DEFINED normal human, he can have exceptional strength, which no normal human can have, he can gain xp (depending on system, some normal humans cannot gain xp).  He actually has stats, which normal humans don't, (barring exceptional examples, which, by definition, are exceptional)(again, this is system dependent).
> 
> In all measurable ways, our 1st level fighter is outright betting in the D&D universe than a normal human (which is defined by the different systems as either being a 0 level human, or a 1st level commoner).




That's just not true. Under OD&D or AD&D he was likely identical in every respect to the local guard captain or a seasoned knight. He would only lack stats if he were defined as a 1 HD monster, but that is purely optional; NPCs can have any stats a PC has, and do. A certain percentage of the normal population are 1st level fighters; most editions of D&D will actually tell you how many.



> So, while it's pedantically incorrect to say that Bond never loses, it's pretty damn close to the truth.




Is it pretty damned close to the truth that Dale Earnhart Sr. never crashes? What you are saying by "close to the truth" actually looks to me like, "not true." Things that are not true might indeed be very close to the truth, but that doesn't make them true, any more than my being similar in many important respects to a dog means that I chew rawhide.


----------



## Sepulchrave II

> F1 is PERFECT for describing NPCs with only a modicum of training...and TSR did exactly that.




Sometimes. TSR was anything but consistent in the way that it characterized "normals" vs. heroes: the modules scattered characters with PC classes all over the place; the rulebooks, OTOH, emphasized the "specialness" of such characters.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Sepulchrave II said:


> Sometimes. TSR was anything but consistent in the way that it characterized "normals" vs. heroes: the modules scattered characters with PC classes all over the place; the rulebooks, OTOH, emphasized the "specialness" of such characters.




You mean rulebooks like the AD&D *DMG* I cited above?

The 2Ed DMG, pgs 104-117 avoids any real detail connecting job and class level, all while getting quite derailed about the broad spectrum of what you might find in a given job- but it leaves exact class & level to the DM.  "Footman, Militia", for instance, are "townsfolk and peasants...fall(ing) somewhere between irregulars and light infantry in equipment and quality.  However, in areas with a long standing tradition of military service, militia can be quite formidable."

By way of comparison, "irregulars" included "Viking Berserkers" and "Scottish Highlanders."  So I looked in the Monstrous Compendium..."Berserkers" had 2 att/rd- something a 2Ed Warrior (of any class) normally didn't get until 13th level.  IOW, the 2Ed DMG contemplates the existence of militiamen who can stand up to that...if the DM wants them to exist.

Furthermore, the MC also points out that NPC adventurers have all their salient info determined by class.  They are not gimped merely because they are NPCs.  And in some other categories, higher level NPCs (Lvl3+) are statted as "adventurers."  Even slaves "may be of any class."

So having levels in a class does not make you special in these _rulebooks_.  In fact, the rulebooks show why seemingly innocuous NPCs might have surprising abilities- the rules told the adventure designers this was perfectly fine.


----------



## ProfessorCirno

pawsplay said:


> Is it pretty damned close to the truth that Dale Earnhart Sr. never crashes?




*Welp.*


----------



## I'm A Banana

.....ooookay...



> Except this is patently untrue unless you ignore the actual stuff printed in various sources....F1 is PERFECT for describing NPCs with only a modicum of training...and TSR did exactly that.




The first level fighter is not perfect for describing an NPC with only a modicum of training. Actually, the first level fighter is a *horrible way* to describe an NPC with a modicum of training, I think.

First of all, designers more skilled than I have already found this to be a problem and came up with solutions for it. This is part of the reason for NPC classes in 3e. Warriors and Commoners, not FIGHTERS. Fighters are special. Not unique, if you go according to 3e's town generation engine (which is a sort of kludge to determine this sort of thing), but certainly special. 4e STILL makes Fighters special, because anything that is not a PC is either statless, or a monster. In 4e, the NPC with only a modicum of training is not even worthy of monster stats most of the time. If the F1 PC wants to kill some NPC, they pretty much get to. Don't even need to roll, really. So the problem was seen and has been addressed in a few different ways. 

Secondly, this is just generally not a good way to describe such an NPC. D&D, as a role-playing game of fantasy heroism, has fantasy heroes as player characters (or else it is not a very good fantasy hero RPG). If some nameless militia member can equal your skill, you, my friend, are not a fantasy hero. 

Thirdly, mechanically, representing an NPC and a PC identically is problematic from a gameplay perspective. A player needs more in-play options than an individual DM's plaything to feel engaged. Similarly, DMs need to be able to whip up  and run a militia member more easily than a PC fighter can be generated, because there will be a lot more of them. 

Fourth, it doesn't actually matter what happened in the early days of TSR. "Daughter" can be reinterpreted as Com1 or a Level 1 Minion or not given stats or _whatever_. The idea is to provide the rules that best give you the experience you're looking for in the game. Presuming that you want to be a fantasy hero when you play a heroic fantasy game like D&D, using the same rules to represent a player's fantasy hero and some random soldier is not going to give you the experience of playing a fantasy hero. 



> 1) The AD&D DMG lets NPC fighters have all the same advantages as PC fighters- whether an NPC actually GETS those strength adjustments is left to the DM.




But was that the best design? I'd argue no, it wasn't.



> 2) There are THOUSANDS of F1s populating the militias of every city and regions listed in various sources, to be called up from the local townships to support the "real" armed forces. What about the hordes of REAL military, the bulk of whom of are F1s with serious gear like horses, chain & lances? Are you calling these tens of thousands of militiamen & regular army "Fantasy Heroes?"




They don't have to be F1s. They can be Com1s. War1s. Level 1 Minions. Unstatted entities because their stats never affect the gameplay of fantasy heroism that you're presumably interested in playing if you're picking up D&D. In a game of heroic fantasy, horses, chainmail, and lances are not "serious gear," they are basic expectations that the fantasy hero then goes out and does better at than all those tens of thousands militia members and regular grunts, because they are a fantasy hero. 



> 3) Then what about F1s like "Daughter?" How in the hell is the young laborer with a level of fighter a "Fantasy Hero?" There is NOTHING in her description that says she's an adventurer of any kind.




You seem to be under the assumption that the writers under TSR decided to slap fighter levels on laborers because it was objectively the best way to model a laborer.

I don't know who "Daughter" is, but a young laborer shouldn't have a level of fighter unless they're a fantasy hero, because fighter levels are for PC's, who are fantasy heroes, because D&D is a game of heroic fantasy roleplaying. NPC's can be challenges for those heroes (in which case they need some stats, but not necessarily or desirably equivalent PC stats) or scenery (in which case, they don't need stats). 

The best way to model a laborer is generally not to bother wasting page space modeling them unless they're going to challenge the PC's. And in that case, they should probably be weak and easily defeated, since being trumped by some goon off the street _instantly_ makes you not fantasy hero material. 

In the cases where PC classes are given to random basic mundane NPC's, this is a _mistake_.

Unless you're not playing heroic fantasy.

In which case, no one gets to be Batman, no one gets to be Merlin, no one gets to be Conan, no one gets to be James Bond, no one gets to go into ancient dungeons and slay wicked dragons.

You could maybe get an archeology degree and grab a government grant and take a long trip to delve into an old ruin and get an infection and die several years later? But if that's what D&D has been trying to be all these years, it is continuing to suck hard at being that.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Kamikaze Midget said:


> The first level fighter is not perfect for describing an NPC with only a modicum of training. Actually, the first level fighter is a *horrible way* to describe an NPC with a modicum of training, I think.




That's your opinion; obviously, others disagree.



> First of all, designers more skilled than I have already found this to be a problem and came up with solutions for it.




And designers more skilled than either of us have also, by definition, found this NOT to be a problem.



> This is part of the reason for NPC classes in 3e. Warriors and Commoners, not FIGHTERS. Fighters are special. Not unique, if you go according to 3e's town generation engine (which is a sort of kludge to determine this sort of thing), but certainly special.




Haven't really gone looking through my 3.X stuff, but I wouldn't be surprised to find "commoners" with Fighter levels.  However, while I have supplements galore, I don't have much in the way of 3.X adventures, so I'll have to leave that to someone else.



> 4e STILL makes Fighters special, because anything that is not a PC is either statless, or a monster. In 4e, the NPC with only a modicum of training is not even worthy of monster stats most of the time. If the F1 PC wants to kill some NPC, they pretty much get to. Don't even need to roll, really. So the problem was seen and has been addressed in a few different ways.




4Ed does make PCs more special, that is true.



> Secondly, this is just generally not a good way to describe such an NPC. D&D, as a role-playing game of fantasy heroism, has fantasy heroes as player characters (or else it is not a very good fantasy hero RPG). If some nameless militia member can equal your skill, you, my friend, are not a fantasy hero.




Just because someone can kick your ass fresh out of training doesn't mean they'll always be able to kick your ass if you continue to train.

In addition, it makes _perfect_ sense for someone in a strife-ridden area to have some skill at fighting, maybe even a lot.  Look at Israel.  By law, every Israeli citizen (except Arabs) over 18 must serve in the military- 3 years for men, 2 for women, longer if you become some kind of specialist, like a sniper (like Dr. Ruth).  IOW, the entire adult population of Israel has gone through basic training and some specialization.  In D&D terms, that means every doggone Israeli is at least F1 in 1ED/2Ed terms.



> Thirdly, mechanically, representing an NPC and a PC identically is problematic from a gameplay perspective.




To you, but again, others may not feel as you do.  I certainly don't.  I didn't have a problem with that from either side of the DMs screen.



> Fourth, it doesn't actually matter what happened in the early days of TSR.




That wasn't exactly from the "early days"- that was from the omnibus version of "Queen of the Demonweb."

Besides, it most certainly DOES matter when people are using absolutes describing the way D&D "never" or "always" handled NPCs.


> "Daughter" can be reinterpreted as Com1 or a Level 1 Minion or not given stats or _whatever_.




Sure, if you want to change things to fit your vision of how the game should be run.



> But was that the best design? I'd argue no, it wasn't.




Your milage obviously varied.




> They don't have to be F1s. They can be Com1s. War1s. Level 1 Minions.




But the _fact_ remains that they- "peasants" and "townsfolk" WERE F1s, so saying D&D didn't have commoners with PC class levels is simply untrue.  And it follows from that that saying the assumption of heroism starts at Level 1 and is hardwired into the game is also untrue.



> In a game of heroic fantasy, horses, chainmail, and lances are not "serious gear,"




In a game where the best equipped fighter in the party may lack 2 of the three of those at the same level because he can't afford it- and neither can the party as a whole- I think "serious gear" is exactly the phrase I'd use.  It also indicates that "Mr. Fantasy Hero" still has some growing to do before he can start patting himself on the back.

At level one, he's still just an Ordinary Joe in terms of combat capability.  And if he thinks otherwise, he may find himself to be a Dead Joe.




> You seem to be under the assumption that the writers under TSR decided to slap fighter levels on laborers because it was objectively the best way to model a laborer.



No- as I pointed out, they actually have rules for making "laborers" without class levels as well.  According to the rules of AD&D, the categories of "laborer" and "fighter" are not mutually exclusive.



> I don't know who "Daughter" is, but a young laborer shouldn't have a level of fighter unless they're a fantasy hero, because fighter levels are for PC's, who are fantasy heroes, because D&D is a game of heroic fantasy roleplaying. NPC's can be challenges for those heroes (in which case they need some stats, but not necessarily or desirably equivalent PC stats) or scenery (in which case, they don't need stats).




Now you're putting the horse before the cart.  You're superimposing your view of the game over the actual rules.



> The best way to model a laborer is generally not to bother wasting page space modeling them unless they're going to challenge the PC's.




They didn't. She has a quick paragraph that notes she's a F1.



> And in that case, they should probably be weak and easily defeated, since being trumped by some goon off the street _instantly_ makes you not fantasy hero material.



If this is so, how do you reconcile this with protagonists who actually DO get caught off guard.  Even Bats spent time bound by ropes, after all.



> In the cases where PC classes are given to random basic mundane NPC's, this is a _mistake_.




In your worldview, perhaps.  Not to me.

That Joe Thug has a level or 2 in a PC class isn't particularly surprising- it means he's got skill.  Wouldn't you expect even a beginning legbreaker or assassin for the guild might have some skills besides plowing?  It just makes it the sweeter when he goes down.  Even 4Ed recognizes this in the sense that minions are glass cannons.  If you don't take them down, they WILL kick your ass.



> Unless you're not playing heroic fantasy.



PLEASE.  Samwise was a gardner before he joined the Company of the Ring.

He's heroic because he walked right out of the Shire with virtually nothing and survived the same tests as mighty wizards and warriors.  And what would have happened if he hadn't?  While he's a supporting character in many ways, in others, he's not just a support, he's the _spine._

Not bad for a hobbit without so much as a +1 pruning shear for most of the story...


----------



## Sepulchrave II

> You mean rulebooks like the AD&D DMG I cited above?




That is rather glib. See page 35:



			
				1E DMG said:
			
		

> Human and half-orc characters suitable for level advancement are found at a ratio of 1 in 100




Or page 30:



			
				1E DMG said:
			
		

> Note that regular soldiers are 0 level men-at-arms with 4-7 hit points each.




A _sergeant_ is a first level fighter (p.31). 

The level title of an F1 is _Veteran_.

Is the idea of a first level fighter as a gnarly old veteran, maybe once a sergeant, so bizarre? The fact that a 1st level *PC* fighter starts at age 15 +1d4 years makes them kind of special to me. It would make them exceptional - they begin with skills equal to the gnarly old veteran. Do they possess some natural genius?

As I stated previously, there was no consistent portrayal. My _impression_ from the 1E PHB and DMG was that - in the context of the game world - characters with class levels were assumed to be "special." It was also my _impression_ that the published modules did not bear this out, any more than they bore out the warnings about giving out too much loot.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Consider a classic hero: Jeanne D'Arc.  A true fantasy hero who was _literally_ a farm girl one day and a Paladin 1 the next- all she had to do was say "Yes, Lord."

Yet this is the very kind of hero some say cannot be supported by D&D's rules; that the game has hardwired against such a possibility.


----------



## Sepulchrave II

> Consider a classic hero: Jeanne D'Arc. A true fantasy hero who was literally a farm girl one day and a Paladin 1 the next- all she had to do was say "Yes, lord."
> 
> Yet this is the very kind of hero some say cannot be supported by D&D's rules; that the game has hardwired against such a possibility.




I don't understand. Joan starts the game at age 18 as a 1st level Paladin. There is no "before;" she has some backstory about being a farm girl and having visions.


----------



## I'm A Banana

> Just because someone can kick your ass fresh out of training doesn't mean they'll always be able to kick your ass if you continue to train.
> 
> In addition, it makes perfect sense for someone in a strife-ridden area to have some skill at fighting, maybe even a lot. Look at Israel. By law, every Israeli citizen (except Arabs) over 18 must serve in the military- 3 years for men, 2 for women, longer if you become some kind of specialist, like a sniper (like Dr. Ruth). IOW, the entire adult population of Israel has gone through basic training and some specialization. In D&D terms, that means every doggone Israeli is at least F1 in 1ED/2Ed terms.




There are ways to model combat experience that don't make you a fantasy hero. These things are explicitly for NPC's, since PC's are assumed to be fantasy heroes. 

Things like the Commoner and the Warrior were invented and given levels -- to reflect the continuum between someone mostly untrained (Commoner 1) and someone with some pretty extensive actual training (Warrior 3).

Or, in 4e terms, the difference between an unstatted NPC, a Level 1 Minion and a Level 3 Standard (or even Elite or Solo). 

But Real Life military training is not analogous or useful, since Real Life doesn't involve dragons or +1 swords or wizards. We've already clearly made the case that fantasy heroes are not Real People. Israeli citizens don't exist in D&D terms, no wealthy lunatic can be Batman, Hitler doesn't get an alignment, and marines don't get levels in anything because the real world doesn't work like that. 

This is about the heroic fantasy genre, and how best to evoke the feel of heroic fantasy. 

Batman and James Bond and Conan the Barbarian and Odysseus and Achilles and Hercules and a level 1 D&D fighter are all better than Real People, because that evokes the feel of heroic fantasy, that is part of what heroic fantasy is about: being better than Real People. 



> Besides, it most certainly DOES matter when people are using absolutes describing the way D&D "never" or "always" handled NPCs.




This was never meant in a literal absolute sense, as far as I can tell. It was meant in the sense of "When I play D&D, I expect this to be the case." The argument is not frickin' exegetical. This is not an extensively researched pissing contest where we measure who is right by the amount of rules they can cite. This is people talking casually about something they are kind of passionate about, and what they would like to see.

I'd like to see warriors and wizards on par like they are in fantasy narratives, which is the genre D&D also works in.

That has nothing to do with Israeli military training or specific NPC's in old adventures, as far as I can tell.



> But the fact remains that they- "peasants" and "townsfolk" WERE F1s, so saying D&D didn't have commoners with PC class levels is simply untrue. And it follows from that that saying the assumption of heroism starts at Level 1 and is hardwired into the game is also untrue.




You're mixing your tenses. If you're playing that specific 1e module, perhaps not. OR, perhaps that particular 1e module's offhand reference is wrong. Or maybe you ignore it because you think irrelevant or stupid anyway. You can't extrapolate from a limited example like that, or even if you had 100 examples, because the facts don't matter, people's expectations do.

Perhaps that was part of the problem, after all: that fighters were like commoners, and wizards were not. 

These useless citations don't tell us what we should do going forward. If we want a game that reflects heroic fantasy, we should do away with laborers with fighter levels _oh look we already did that, guess that problem is solved_.

If you want to play a game where every laborer is a trained combatant, every hero the equal of a laborer, I don't understand what you're gaining. I don't know what would be appealing about that, if you want to play a game of heroic fantasy. It sounds more like a game of "Laborers & Militia Members." Which is valid, but not what I imagine D&D to be.



> According to the rules of AD&D, the categories of "laborer" and "fighter" are not mutually exclusive.




Those rules are not divinely inspired writ. They can be wrong, mistaken, dumb, weird, awkward, and unhelpful. Such as by giving peasants fighter levels, or using fighter levels to model Normal People combat ability. 



> Samwise was a gardner before he joined the Company of the Ring.




But he wasn't a gardner in the Real World.

And he was always heroic. To not be affected by the One Ring? That is a level of power unmatched by any other character in that world. And he was _basically born that way_. Samwise is above and beyond, unique and exceptional, specially, significantly powerful. He couldn't slay a dragon or rule an empire or kill superman, but, then, LotR's heroism was of a different flavor than D&D's, Conan's, or Batman's. 

That is both because he is a fantasy hero, and why he is a fantasy hero.



> Consider a classic hero: Jeanne D'Arc. A true fantasy hero who was literally a farm girl one day and a Paladin 1 the next- all she had to do was say "Yes, lord."
> 
> Yet this is the very kind of hero some say cannot be supported by D&D's rules; that the game has hardwired against such a possibility.




Jeanne is hardly a classic hero. For one, she is an Actual Person who is considered to have done miraculous things in the name of an Actual God with Actual Miracle Powers. Actually. 

This is not Batman or Samwise at all. This is not fantasy fiction. This is History and Religion of the Real World.

If you're considering Batman and Jeanne D'Arc on the same continuum, the problems here are more deeply fundamental. Conflating the two is possibly even insulting, depending on one's personal faith and calibration. 

You could still, of course, play a character inspired by Jeanne D'Arc. In your backstory, you were a farmgirl, then you said "Yes, God" and became a Paladin, and now you and your Celestial Warhorse ride around saving France from dragons and goblins and demons and devils and the like while healing disease with a touch. Maybe your military victories are part of your backstory, maybe they are still to come, but you're killing monsters, so there's that.

This would pretty much be how you'd play any character inspired by some actual historical figure.

George Washington is a Chaotic Good barbarian/warlord with a Con of 20.

He was none of these things in real life, since in real life, he wasn't a fantasy hero, no matter how awesome I think he is.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Sepulchrave II said:


> That is rather glib. See page 35:
> 
> 
> 
> Or page 30:
> 
> 
> 
> A _sergeant_ is a first level fighter (p.31).
> 
> The level title of an F1 is _Veteran_.




1) it's not glib to point out I'm using actual rules from rulebooks.
2) That the DMG says a sergeant is a 1st level fighter and a "veteran": this tells us ranks/level names aren't mechanics; that D&D terminology may be self-contradictory.  Again, the same book tells us peasants and townsfolk can be classed as well.



> Is the idea of a first level fighter as a gnarly old veteran, maybe once a sergeant, so bizarre?




No...nor is the concept that someone may be a skilled fighter- perhaps as a militia member- and choose not to pursue the adventuring lifestyle.  Or that someone may be a skilled fighter without having fought in battle (morale is an entirely different matter.  My aforementioned buddy who tried out for the Army Rangers was a skilled combatant when he enlisted- his father was a martial artist.



> The fact that a 1st level *PC* fighter starts at age 15 +1d4 years makes them kind of special to me. It would make them exceptional - they begin with skills equal to the gnarly old veteran. Do they possess some natural genius?




In Wales of old, it was law that young men took up the bow before age 10.  In modern Somalia, there are grizzled 15 year old combat vets with AK-47s leading squads of 12 year olds.

In both cases, there are similar pressures: if your life expectancy is about 30, you need to start 'em young to get quality adult soldiers.



> As I stated previously, there was no consistent portrayal. My _impression_ from the 1E PHB and DMG was that - in the context of the game world - characters with class levels were assumed to be "special."




Take another look at that section I quoted- they are "special" as in unusual, yes, but not so far as some assert that having class levels equates with being a "Fantasy Hero."



> It was also my _impression_ that the published modules did not bear this out, any more than they bore out the warnings about giving out too much loot.




Again, since the DMG is stating that you can give NPCs class levels as DM's discretion, as needed, there is no mechanical linkage between having class levels and being exceptional.

(FWIW, that 2Ed source I cited wasn't a module, it was more like a gazetteer, listing city details, important personalities- like Elminster- and each region's armed forces, down to militias, if any.)


----------



## Sepulchrave II

> In modern Somalia, there are grizzled 15 year old combat vets with AK-47s leading squads of 12 year olds.




Either way, the first level fighter is a badass. 

Do I understand where you're coming from - I might be completely wrong - but that there should be some equality of eligibility for PC class-status amongst the general NPC population, in order to model the Farmgirl Jeanne -> St. Jeanne transition?


----------



## Neonchameleon

Raven Crowking said:


> "You must spread XP around...yadda yadda"
> 
> Note also what is inherent in the "because nameless mooks can't take him out" meme. Those nameless mooks are, therefore, *worse* than the named characters who can occasionally win against a Bond or a Batman.
> 
> IOW, if Perry White is human, and Bruce Wayne is superhuman, nameless thug #2 must be *subhuman*.




Who says that nameless mooks can't take out Perry White?  They certainly kidnap Jimmy Olsen enough times.



Dannyalcatraz said:


> Except this is patently untrue unless you ignore the actual stuff printed in various sources.
> 
> 1) The AD&D DMG lets NPC fighters have all the same advantages as PC fighters- whether an NPC actually GETS those strength adjustments is left to the DM.




The AD&D DMG also states that only 1 in a hundred NPCs has what it takes to make a PC class.

[quoe]2) There are THOUSANDS of F1s populating the militias of every city and regions listed in various sources, to be called up from the local townships to support the "real" armed forces.[/quote]

According to the 1e DMG (passage previously cited), these are F0s not F1s.  



> What about the hordes of REAL military, the bulk of whom of are F1s with serious gear like horses, chain & lances? Are you calling these tens of thousands of militiamen & regular army "Fantasy Heroes?"




No.  It's simply worldbuilding that is explicitely opposed to the 1e DMG.  Doesn't mean it wasn't done by TSR - just that they were doing so in opposition to the stated worldbuilding of default D&D.



> 3) Then what about F1s like "Daughter?"




I don't know why someone chose to stat her as a military veteran proficient in plate armour when she probably hasn't ever seen any.  Weird worldbuilding.



> How in the hell is the young laborer with a level of fighter a "Fantasy Hero?" There is NOTHING in her description that says she's an adventurer of any kind.




The part that says Fighter 1 says that she's proficient in all types of armour, naturally talented with all weapons she hasn't explicitely studied, and has more hit points than the average bear.  And doesn't go down like a mook against a mid level fighter (who gets 1 attack/level against L0 opponents).  In short you've given her a mix of talent, skill, and luck.  And made her one of those 1 in 100 who gets a PC class.  Whether or not she ever gets the call to become an adventurer or survive as one, she has the potential right there.



> F1 is PERFECT for describing NPCs with only a modicum of training...and TSR did _exactly_ that.




F1 is Perfect for describing NPCs with sufficient military training to wear plate armour without penalty and only take a small penalty with weapons they aren't proficient at.



Dannyalcatraz said:


> By way of comparison, "irregulars" included "Viking Berserkers" and "Scottish Highlanders." So I looked in the Monstrous Compendium..."Berserkers" had 2 att/rd- something a 2Ed Warrior (of any class) normally didn't get until 13th level. IOW, the 2Ed DMG contemplates the existence of militiamen who can stand up to that...if the DM wants them to exist.




Yeah.  About those monsters...  And militia can outnumber raiders and fight from behind defences.  2 attacks isn't much good if you take a dozen crossbow bolts coming in.



> So having levels in a class does not make you special in these _rulebooks_.




It just puts you in a category of 1 person in 100 according to the 1e DMG.  You can claim that's not special all you like.



> In fact, the rulebooks show why seemingly innocuous NPCs might have surprising abilities- the rules told the adventure designers this was perfectly fine.




Indeed.  That word _seemingly_ is important.



Dannyalcatraz said:


> In addition, it makes _perfect_ sense for someone in a strife-ridden area to have some skill at fighting, maybe even a lot.




Indeed.  AD&D had 0th level men at arms who had some skill and weird monsters like beserkers.  A 3e Warrior 6 is pretty skilled compared to a Fighter 1.



> In D&D terms, that means every doggone Israeli is at least F1 in 1ED/2Ed terms.




In AD&D terms, every doggone Israeli is at least F0.  Not F1.  In 3e terms it's Warrior 1.



> To you, but again, others may not feel as you do. I certainly don't. I didn't have a problem with that from either side of the DMs screen.




Neither do I.  But the DMG makes the default F0, not F1.



> Besides, it most certainly DOES matter when people are using absolutes describing the way D&D "never" or "always" handled NPCs.
> 
> Sure, if you want to change things to fit your vision of how the game should be run.




And TSR did.  But that doesn't mean that upgrading F0 to F1 wasn't a change despite your claims.  This is about D&D RAW.



> But the _fact_ remains that they- "peasants" and "townsfolk" WERE F1s,




*Not if you were playing by the guidelines in the AD&D DMG.  *They were *F0* not F1.



> so saying D&D didn't have commoners with PC class levels is simply untrue.




1 person in a hundred according to the DMG.



> And it follows from that that saying the assumption of heroism starts at Level 1 and is hardwired into the game is also untrue.




Yes.  If you change the RAW (as TSR did regularly, I'll grant) then you change the assumptions hardwired into the game.  If you give everyone and their pet dog PC classes and levels rather than give one person in a hundred a PC class and level then PC classes cease to be special.  And when everyone is somebody then no one's any body.  This is not in dispute.



> No- as I pointed out, they actually have rules for making "laborers" without class levels as well. According to the rules of AD&D, the categories of "laborer" and "fighter" are not mutually exclusive.




Of course not.  A few labourers are _also_ fighters.  But most laborours _do not have class levels_.



> Now you're putting the horse before the cart. You're superimposing your view of the game over the actual rules.




And you're ignoring the rules of the game.



> They didn't. She has a quick paragraph that notes she's a F1.




So she's special.  Nothing wrong with named NPCs being special.



> That Joe Thug has a level or 2 in a PC class isn't particularly surprising- it means he's got skill.




And in AD&D is 1 in a hundred.



> Wouldn't you expect even a beginning legbreaker or assassin for the guild might have some skills besides plowing?




Of course.  In AD&D RAW this is represented by _Weapon Proficiency_.  Which is somewhere between a 2 and a 4 point improvement in their THAC0.  And remember that even fighters are only proficient in a very limited range of weapons.



> He's heroic because he walked right out of the Shire with virtually nothing and survived the same tests as mighty wizards and warriors. And what would have happened if he hadn't? While he's a supporting character in many ways, in others, he's not just a support, he's the _spine._
> 
> Not bad for a hobbit without so much as a +1 pruning shear for most of the story...




Oh, indeed.  Sam is one of the bigger heroes in literature.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Sepulchrave II said:


> I don't understand. Joan starts the game at age 18 as a 1st level Paladin. There is no "before;" she has some backstory about being a farm girl and having visions.




There was an assertion put forth by some that the game had hardwired assumptions that said PCs by definition could not be "fresh off the turnip farm."  This is a statement about cetain backstories being, essentially, nonsense as far as D&D is concerned.

Except that Jeanne has _exactl_ that kind of backstory.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Dannyalcatraz said:


> There was an assertion put forth by some that the game had hardwired assumptions that said PCs by definition could not be "fresh off the turnip farm."  This is a statement about cetain backstories being, essentially, nonsense as far as D&D is concerned.
> 
> Except that Jeanne has _exactl_ that kind of backstory.



La Pucelle is a Paladin not a Fighter.  Divinely empowered characters have free reign to break the rules through Deus Ex Machina.  That said, I don't think anyone is disputing that PCs, being special, get a licence to break the fluff guidelines anyway.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> This was never meant in a literal absolute sense, as far as I can tell




_Someone_ said that I was not playing the game in the way it was designed...



Kamikaze Midget said:


> Then I'd say you weren't playing in the style the rules assumed.




..._that_ in the context of my assertion that in my gaming history, I had seen farmers turned fighters _frequently_, in response to someone saying the game "wasn't about Samwise" type characters, but instead about Aragorns.



> But he wasn't a gardner in the Real World.




No, but he was a gardener in the context of his fictionverse, _exactly_ the same kind of character some are asserting cannot exist in the fictionverse of a D&D game.



> But Real Life military training is not analogous or useful




Balrog Scat.

Israelis have a law that mandates each adult citizen be trained and serve in their armed forces because they are surrounded by enemies from whom they fear attacks at any time.

The same model could be applied to a fantasy land where the country faces frequent incursions by barbarian hordes, goblin tribes and the neigboring kingdom to the South.



> Jeanne is hardly a classic hero. For one, she is an Actual Person who is considered to have done miraculous things in the name of an Actual God with Actual Miracle Powers. Actually.




First of all, I was giving a nod to the consideration that her legend may be embellished, and that aspects of it are certainly disputed (Personally, I'm a Catholic, and we sainted her in the 1920s.)

Second, real or not, she's an exemplar of the kind of backstory some are asserting D&D is hardwired against: serf today, warrior tomorrow.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> Not if you were playing by the guidelines in the AD&D DMG




I already quoted pages of that book pointing out where one may find that state the DM is given the ability to grant class levels to his NPCs at his discretion.

The 2Ed DMG does likewise, as quoted.


----------



## Bluenose

Dannyalcatraz said:


> There was an assertion put forth by some that the game had hardwired assumptions that said PCs by definition could not be "fresh off the turnip farm." This is a statement about cetain backstories being, essentially, nonsense as far as D&D is concerned.
> 
> Except that Jeanne has _exactl_ that kind of backstory.




So your adventuring party has a magic-user, a thief, a cleric, and a fighter.

"Quite remarkable how you went through a wizard's apprenticeship while working as a carpenter, isn't it." 

"Amazing how you learnt to pick locks and disable traps while working on a turnip farm."

"I think it's wonderful you learnt enough religious lore to become ordained and pray for spells while also being a cook."

"You're a fighter, did you need any special training to hit things, fight on horseback, or wear armour."

Some of those statements should probably not be taken too seriously.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> So your adventuring party has a magic-user, a thief, a cleric, and a fighter. _<snip>_




Any may have had a relative who taught them the basics.  Some may have learned their skills by serving in the militia, especially in a region frequenly overrun by invaders.

According to some fantasy- the most recent exemplar I can think of is Turtledove's _Darkness_ series- anyone sufficiently intelligent can learn magic from a book.

Being a thief may be the actual reason you're no longer welcome in your home community...

As for priests, there's a reason they call it a "calling."  There are countless exemplars from fiction and RW faith traditions of laborers turned theologians.  In my own faith, the Church was founded by people who literally walked away from their fishing nets to do so.  As that religion grew and became more formalized, entering the priesthood didn't release you from menial work.  Alongside your studies of theological material, you still had to put in yor day's work in the fields, in the laundry, in the presses, sweeping, or whatever your duties were.

If the being you consider to be divine says "Serve," according to most faiths and literary sources, odds are you'll have all the support you'll need.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Dannyalcatraz said:


> I already quoted pages of that book pointing out where one may find that state the DM is given the ability to grant class levels to his NPCs at his discretion.
> 
> The 2Ed DMG does likewise, as quoted.




So the DM is explicitely given the power to grant class levels to NPCs.  This is because most NPCs _don't_ have class levels.  Only a few special ones do.  The DM can make NPCs special at his whim; some NPCs _are_ special - anyone with class levels is special.

The guidance you are giving therefore is on our side of the argument and against yours.  It explicitely reinforces the fact that only special people have class levels (rather than level 0).


----------



## I'm A Banana

> There was an assertion put forth by some that the game had hardwired assumptions that said PCs by definition could not be "fresh off the turnip farm." This is a statement about cetain backstories being, essentially, nonsense as far as D&D is concerned.
> 
> Except that Jeanne has exactl that kind of backstory.




They aren't "fresh off the turnip farm" in the sense that the have better stats and abilities than a turnip farmer. And if they _don't_, they _should_. 

Of course, part of the...er...genre...of martyrs and saints is that they are supposed to be inspiration for all of us Normal People, being Normal People themselves whom a Real God inspired to do Real Miracles. So We Can Be Like Them Maybe If We Are Good And Believe.

This is not part of the genre of fantasy heroics, since Batman is not meant to be an inspiration to anyone, he is meant to _save them_. No one is expected to be Batman or James Bond. They are very clearly entities without equal.



> Any may have had a relative who taught them the basics. Some may have learned their skills by serving in the militia, especially in a region frequenly overrun by invaders.
> 
> According to some fantasy- the most recent exemplar I can think of is Turtledove's Darkness series- anyone sufficiently intelligent can learn magic from a book.
> 
> Being a thief may be the actual reason you're no longer welcome in your home community
> 
> As for priests, there's a reason they call it a "calling." There are countless exemplars from fiction and RW faith traditions of laborers turned theologians.




But a first level fighter isn't a militia member, they're a fantasy hero, so they need to be better than a militia member.

st level wizard PC's are still more skilled than any adept or hedge wizard, since 1st level PC's are fantasy heroes, not just anyone with sufficient intelligence.

Not everyone who steals a coin has the ability set of a 1st level rogue. 

A cleric is not just a theologian or a scholar, they are a miracle-worker, a walking conduit of actual divine magic, from Fantasy Gods. 

Being a deacon or a scofflaw or a potion-brewer or a militia member is not being a fantasy hero, it is being a Fantasy Person in the Fantasy World. A Gotham city beat cop isn't going to be able to apprehend the Joker. You need Batman for that. Any random fantasy person isn't going to be able to slay the dragon. You need a fantasy hero for that. You need the PC's for that.


----------



## Raven Crowking

ProfessorCirno said:


> Non-statement






Jeff Wilder said:


> Yes, and an apple is not a fruit.
> 
> (As long as _I_ get to define "fruit.")




Exactly so.  It is strange, isn't it, how someone who *accuses everyone else of semantics games *wants to define "human" in a way that precludes general uses of the term.



And yet still somehow ignores the obvious conclusion that, if Bond has a victory in OHMSS, he suffers a loss in CR.  Conversely, if he has a victory in CR, he suffers a loss in OHMSS.  It doesn't really matter what kind of victory, the conditions are mirrored.  He is on either side of the same divide.

I notice that, with his rhetorical dance, he has no answer to that.  Just further insults.  Wonder why that is?



> RC - go back to the beginning of this tangent and you'll see that the goalposts have long been on pretty shaky ground.  The original point way back was that a 1st level fighter could be the same as some farmer just off the turnip truck.  That was the claim being disputed.




Well aware of it.  

And the goalposts for what "some farmer just off the turnip truck" means have been shifting ever since, as time and again it was demonstrated that a 1st level fighter could, indeed, have been some farmer just off the turnip truck.

I mean, we've gotten so far now as to suggest that if Batman or James Bond, at the height of their careers, are not just some farmers off the turnip truck, neither could a 1st level Fighter be.

I.e., no Jack from Jack in the Beanstalk for you, my friend.  Uh uh.  Apparently, the game can't support it.

If I say X can be Y, it requires (to a rational mind) only one example of X that is Y to prove the point.  No examples of X that are not Y actually disprove that X can be Y.

This thread reads as though I said "Some animals can be mammals" and then a bunch of folks jumped up with examples of animals that were fish, or insects, or crustaceans, and thought that somehow proved that animals cannot be mammals.  On top of that, they brought up the platypus, the kangaroo, and the echidna, and decided that they were not mammals, either, because they have different characteristics from raccoons.

We have, effectively, a "There's no such thing as raccoons!  *THE END*!", but when it is demonstrated that there are raccoons, the response is, effectively, "Well, you're an ignorant poo-poo head, so no there are no raccoons."

You are right in your statement about the general case in, for example, 1e AD&D.  But you are not right to extend that general case to include all cases.  Obviously, a 1e 1st level fighter can also have a 12 Strength and 2 hp.

You are also wrong that normal humans don't have stats (in the sense that they don't have measurable Strength, Charisma, etc.).  You mistake a bookkeeping convenience for a truth about the universe.  Even when counterexamples of normal humans with stats are given, you seem unable to see beyond the statblock.

Most normal humans have stats in the average range.  They don't carry a bonus or a penalty.  They are unremarkable, so they are not remarked upon.  It is not uncommon to list only the unusual stats, because they are what affect gameplay.

Likewise, the standard statblock might not list that an NPC has hair, but that doesn't mean he isn't a bigfoot-in-training.

Likewise, if a statement is made that X never Y (Bond never loses, for example), it requires only one counter-example to demonstrate that to be untrue.  That isn't pedantry; and the statement isn't "close to truth".  

It disproves the statement.

When a line of reasoning requires the statement to be true (Bond is superhuman because Bond never loses), it also disproves the line of reasoning.

From a rational standpoint, it doesn't disprove the conclusion (which may or may not be true for reasons other than those expressed by the line of reasoning).  It does help to establish that the person putting forth a line of reasoning that is based on being knowledgeable about a subject (for example, what Bond can or cannot do, or what Bond movies are like) probably doesn't know as much as he might wish you to believe he does.  

And, if he cannot admit as much and adjust to the obvious error, it might tell you something about future lines of reasoning as well.  

Specifically, a person who cannot admit to error when the error is clearly demonstrated is unlikely to be that careful about differntiating his or her facts from convenient fiction in other discussions.  One should take his or her input with a very large grain of salt.

Moreso if the person, rather than admitting to a clearly demonstrated error, responds with insulting the person for making said clear demonstration.  The size of that grain of salt (to the rational mind) becomes even larger.



Dannyalcatraz said:


> There was an assertion put forth by some that the game had hardwired assumptions that said PCs by definition could not be "fresh off the turnip farm."  This is a statement about cetain backstories being, essentially, nonsense as far as D&D is concerned.




That is the gist of it.

And I think it is blatantly obvious that D&D can handle that backstory pretty darn easily.  Obviously, YMMV.


RC


----------



## Neonchameleon

Dannyalcatraz said:


> According to some fantasy- the most recent exemplar I can think of is Turtledove's _Darkness_ series- anyone sufficiently intelligent can learn magic from a book.




Pity D&D is not generic fantasy then.  (Although 4e is better at representing this with its ritual rules).  D&D is D&D - and in AD&D unless you are a human and dual class, your fighter 1 will _never_ be able to cast spells.



> As for priests, there's a reason they call it a "calling." There are countless exemplars from fiction and RW faith traditions of laborers turned theologians. In my own faith, the Church was founded by people who literally walked away from their fishing nets to do so. As that religion grew and became more formalized, entering the priesthood didn't release you from menial work. Alongside your studies of theological material, you still had to put in yor day's work in the fields, in the laundry, in the presses, sweeping, or whatever your duties were.
> 
> If the being you consider to be divine says "Serve," according to most faiths and literary sources, odds are you'll have all the support you'll need.




If you are granted personal divine intervention then all the rules are out of the window.  Because that's what becoming a divine caster is.  Divine intervention.  A miracle.  You have won the lottery.  (Or lost it if you listen to some Invokers).  Someone witha calling but no divine empowerment is _not_ a cleric.  Fighter, Rogue, Bard, or even Wizard.  But not Cleric.

So yes you can be a PC fresh off the turnip farm if you are a cleric.  All it takes is a miracle (literally).


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Neonchameleon said:


> So the DM is explicitely given the power to grant class levels to NPCs.  This is because most NPCs _don't_ have class levels.  Only a few special ones do.  The DM can make NPCs special at his whim; some NPCs _are_ special - anyone with class levels is special.
> 
> The guidance you are giving therefore is on our side of the argument and against yours.  It explicitely reinforces the fact that only special people have class levels (rather than level 0).




*At no point* in this discussion have I asserted that NPCs with class levels were the norm.  My assertion is and always has been that since there is ample evidence in supplements of "peasants", "townsfolk", "laborers" and "militia" with class levels- as well as rules support for those exemplars in the rulebooks- that having a class level does not automatically anoint a character as a "Fantasy Hero".

In addition, since the rules for NPCs explicitly support things like laborers with F1 capabilities, the position that the game is hardwired against supporting farmer turned fighter is equally invalid.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> Pity D&D is not generic fantasy then. (Although 4e is better at representing this with its ritual rules). D&D is D&D - and in AD&D unless you are a human and dual class, your fighter 1 will never be able to cast spells.




That's not the point and you should know that.

In case you missed it, though, the point is this: *while becoming a D&D Wizard requires being literate, it does NOT require being an apprentice. * IOW, it is perfectly good backstory for a sufficiently intelligent individual to have picked up W1 by having acquired a book of magic and read it, even in D&D.  Apprenticeship is the most common path into Wizardry, but it is not the ONLY path.


----------



## Sepulchrave II

It also occurs to me that - in my parlance, at least -  the term _NPC_ has actually changed its meaning over time. 

Whereas NPC has now come to mean (in my mind) any character not controlled by a player, it seems that the term used to be used more explicitly with reference to those characters with PC-class levels:

i.e. 

the 3rd level Dwarf fighter is an NPC
Bob the barman is a Normal Man, or "scenery", or an element in the game - but not an _NPC_ in any significant sense.

Does anyone else perceive this shift of emphasis in meaning, or is it just me? I am not suggesting a hard divide here; simply more of an emphasis.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Seeing the examples I'm citing go back to AD&D, I don't see a shift.


----------



## SkidAce

I kinda agree with Sepulchrave II, in fact I pretty much count all "normal" people as minions in 4E.  Brings them to the "0" level roots.

And the ones I pick out of the crowd are NPCs.  "Characters" in the adventure or story, non-player (i.e. DM).

some of those get levels or special abilities, some don't.  It's flexible.

Oh and to stay on topic...

It's still my opinion that the fighter/wizard concerns should be fairly leveled out during game play and the course of the adventure.  My old 1st ed group had fighters that picked up some "extrodinary" abilities, became lords of keeps, etc.

Granted not well codified in the rules..../grin


----------



## Neonchameleon

Dannyalcatraz said:


> That's not the point and you should know that.
> 
> In case you missed it, though, the point is this: *while becoming a D&D Wizard requires being literate, it does NOT require being an apprentice. * IOW, it is perfectly good backstory for a sufficiently intelligent individual to have picked up W1 by having acquired a book of magic and read it, even in D&D.  Apprenticeship is the most common path into Wizardry, but it is not the ONLY path.



Mea culpa.  I forgot to check the thread title after opening and thought I was on the "At first level how powerful are PCs" thread not the wizard v warrior balance thread that appears to have drifted sharply.


----------



## Erekose

Sepulchrave II said:


> It also occurs to me that - in my parlance, at least -  the term _NPC_ has actually changed its meaning over time.




I've been playing D&D since the mid-80s and an NPC has always meant any character not controlled by the players (although to be fair in the early days players sometime controlled their NPC henchmen)


----------



## pawsplay

Sepulchrave II said:


> It also occurs to me that - in my parlance, at least -  the term _NPC_ has actually changed its meaning over time.
> 
> Whereas NPC has now come to mean (in my mind) any character not controlled by a player, it seems that the term used to be used more explicitly with reference to those characters with PC-class levels:
> 
> i.e.
> 
> the 3rd level Dwarf fighter is an NPC
> Bob the barman is a Normal Man, or "scenery", or an element in the game - but not an _NPC_ in any significant sense.
> 
> Does anyone else perceive this shift of emphasis in meaning, or is it just me? I am not suggesting a hard divide here; simply more of an emphasis.




That is correct. Although other games treated the term differently, 3e was the first edition of D&D to consistently refer to all non-PCs as NPCs; previous editions generally referred to a 2 HD Veteran or a 1d4 hit point Normal Man as a "monster," although this had no significance except as to how you detailed their characteristics (for instance, no abilities other than Intelligence, and great strength only by inference from having a bonus to hit or damage). 

It's also worth noting that a 1 HD monster has all the capabilities of a 1st level fighter in OD&D. In a few cases "monsters" are noted as actually being Fighters. Taken together with the notion that, in addition to these Veterans and Brigands running around, there were explictly knights who were 1st level fighters, it should be clear that NPCs with class levels are not unusual, Fighters even less so than most. Anyone who can pick pockets absolutely must be a Thief in AD&D, or some special "monster" with thief abilities. In the absence of particularly distinguishing characteristics, a 1st level fighter is a competent, but generally rather ordinary being. If he makes it to 2nd level he becomes exceptional. It's not until 3rd level he really qualifies as particularly heroic.

What makes wizards different, in AD&D, is that, basically, teachers or books are hard to find, and a certain slice of the population lacks the Intelligence to reliably learn any spells. 3e carries this idea forward, with spellcasting ability depending on a Ability Score such as a wizard's Intelligence. Being a 1st level wizard isn't more of an accomplishment than getting a Bachelor's degree, or self-teaching a trade. In the Dying Earth, learning a simple spell required only literacy, although the unc-clever were likely to die of overly ambitious efforts.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> ...teachers or books are hard to find, and a certain slice of the population lacks the Intelligence to reliably learn any spells.



And literacy was not a given.  Even a smart person with a magic book would be up a creek if they weren't able to read it.


----------



## Hussar

Dannyalcatraz said:


> There was an assertion put forth by some that the game had hardwired assumptions that said PCs by definition could not be "fresh off the turnip farm."  This is a statement about cetain backstories being, essentially, nonsense as far as D&D is concerned.
> 
> Except that Jeanne has _exactl_ that kind of backstory.




Can you explain how Jeanne is different from Spider Man?  What training did she undergo a la Batman to become that Paladin 1?



			
				RC said:
			
		

> I.e., no Jack from Jack in the Beanstalk for you, my friend. Uh uh. Apparently, the game can't support it.




Umm, why would Jack be a fighter?  He never wears armor, never attacks anything and his one act of violence is chopping down a beanstalk.  0 level peasant all the way.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:


> Umm, why would Jack be a fighter?  He never wears armor, never attacks anything and his one act of violence is chopping down a beanstalk.  0 level peasant all the way.




A fighter is a fighter without armour.  A fighter is a fighter whether or not he is attacking anyone.  And a fighter is a fighter even if he is only attacking a beanstalk.

But you're right in one thing; Jack shouldn't be considered a fighter.  Jack is a normal human who becomes a thief (1e parlance) or rogue (3e parlance), making great use of his skills to climb, hide, move silently, and steal various items from the giant and his wife.  Moreover, in a 3e game, he makes great use of Bluff.

But perhaps we are imagining our new PC to be Farmer Giles of Ham, who begins his career by shooting a blunderbuss at a giant (who thinks the bugs are fierce outside the mountains, and goes home).  

Or perhaps our new PC starts as a woodcutter, who ends up using his woodsman's axe to save a girl in a red hood from a wolf, and saves Granny in the process.  

_"My imagination is strong enough to play an elf, a dwarf, or a flumph.  I can accept beholders and dragons, and don't blink at the ecology of this here dungeon, but I can't wrap my mind around Bob the 1st-level Fighter having started out as some turnip farmer.....Nosiree!  That's just too fantastic!"_

Sorry, but I just don't believe it.

_"I prefer to think of my PCs as something special, even from the word Go......"_

Yep.  That I believe.  

_".......And if you don't think of your PCs in the same way, you're doing it all wrong....."_

Sorry.  Nope.  Don't believe that at all.



RC


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Hussar said:


> Can you explain how Jeanne is different from Spider Man?  What training did she undergo a la Batman to become that Paladin 1?



I brought her up, not because she received training- she didn't- but because she's a perfect exemplar of 2 types of hero mentioned in the thread:


Due is a "Fantasy Hero" from the moment she dons armor and picks up a sword in the service of God for the French.
Literally the day before she did that, she was a farmhand.


----------



## Hussar

Dannyalcatraz said:


> I brought her up, not because she received training- she didn't- but because she's a perfect exemplar of 2 types of hero mentioned in the thread:
> 
> 
> Due is a "Fantasy Hero" from the moment she dons armor and picks up a sword in the service of God for the French.
> Literally the day before she did that, she was a farmhand.




Peter Parker is a teenage geek on the day before he gets bitten by a radioactive spider.  The day after, he's Spider-man.

How is Spider-man superhuman but Jeanne D'Arc not?



			
				RC said:
			
		

> "My imagination is strong enough to play an elf, a dwarf, or a flumph. I can accept beholders and dragons, and don't blink at the ecology of this here dungeon, but I can't wrap my mind around Bob the 1st-level Fighter having started out as some turnip farmer.....Nosiree! That's just too fantastic!"




That's a bit of a strawman though.  Bob the turnip farmer IS NOT A 1st level fighter.  That's right there, in black and white, in the rules.  We're not making this up.  This isn't some way out there reinterpretation of the rules.  It's RIGHT FREAKING THERE.  Bob the Turnip Farmer is a 0 level normal human or a 1st level commoner.  

By the time Bob the Turnip Farmer is a 1st level fighter, he hasn't been a turnip farmer for some time.  AND once he becomes that 1st level fighter, he's now capable of things that none of his peers are capable of.  He is quantitatively superhuman at this point.  He can survive damage that will outright kill any of his peers.  He has knowledge that none of his peers, no matter how much they train, can ever have (a commoner can practice with a sword 15 hours a day for ten years and he still can't specialize in that weapon until such time as he STOPS being a commoner and STARTS being a fighter).  

Any leveled character, whether PC or NPC, by virtue of HAVING LEVELS IN PC CLASSES, is no longer a normal human.  That character is quatifiably (and I keep repeating that because it's important - you can actually, in game terms, MEASURE how much better that character is) better than any normal human as defined by the system in question.

The woodcutter in Little Red Riding Hood could easily be modeled by a 3e commoner class - he only uses 1 weapon, uses no armor and only uses a single skill to skin a wolf.  

Now, if the woodcutter then takes up arms and armor, starts using a bow and leads a pack of desperate men against the Sherrif, he stops being a commoner and now he's a PC class.

Unless you want to claim that the greatest bowman ever (Robin Hood of legend (not history)) is just a normal human.  

Which brings it back around to why this conversation can't go forward.

Spider man is a superhuman.  He is capable of superhuman things.  But, apparently Batman is just a normal guy, despite being capable of superhuman things.  Jeanne D'arc is just a normal human, despite being chosen by God and having all her strength flow from that.  

And around and around we go.


----------



## pawsplay

Hussar said:


> Peter Parker is a teenage geek on the day before he gets bitten by a radioactive spider.  The day after, he's Spider-man.
> 
> How is Spider-man superhuman but Jeanne D'Arc not?




Because she wasn't bitten by a radioactive virgin?...

...

Ok, let's ask the audience on this one.  What do you all think? 



> That's a bit of a strawman though.  Bob the turnip farmer IS NOT A 1st level fighter.  That's right there, in black and white, in the rules.  We're not making this up.  This isn't some way out there reinterpretation of the rules.  It's RIGHT FREAKING THERE.  Bob the Turnip Farmer is a 0 level normal human or a 1st level commoner.




Where does it say in the rules that Bob the Turnip Farmer is a 0 level Normal Man? He may come from good Normal Man stock, but he could still be a 1st level fighter. Every D&D edition I am aware of posits that a certain percentage of any human settlement are, in fact, 1st level warriors. Whetber by training or talent, Bob could be one of them.

Observe:

Bob d'Turnippe
Human Fighter 1
Str 15, Dex 12, Con 13, Int 13, Wis 10, Cha 8
Feats: Power Attack, Weapon Focus (longspear), Combat Reflexes
Skills: Climb 4 (+5), Handle Animal 4 (+3), Profession (farming) 4 (+4), Ride 4 (+5).

Is that a problem for you?

Or how about 
Bob d'Turnippe
Fighter 1
Str 15, Dex 12, Con 13, Int 13, Wis 10, Cha 8
Weapon Choices: spear (Basic), sword (Basic), club (Basic), dagger (Basic)
General Skills: Labor (Farming) (Wis), Muscle (Str), Profession (teamster) (Int), Riding (Horse) (Dex)


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> How is Spider-man superhuman but Jeanne D'Arc not?



Whether she is or not (there is no need to go back into that quagmire, since I already said she is a Fantasy Hero from the moment she acquiesced to God) is immaterial: the point was she's farmer day N and fully skilled Holy Warrior day N+1, a backstory you insisted earlier D&D is hardwired against.


----------



## fanboy2000

pawsplay said:


> Because she wasn't bitten by a radioactive virgin?...
> 
> ...
> 
> Ok, let's ask the audience on this one.  What do you all think?



Well, Joan's powers were charisma and military strategy. Not exactly beyond mortal ken. By contrast, spiderman can stick to walls without special equipment, avoid dangerous situation even when not paying attention, and pick-up a car and drop it on you if he feels like it. 

The Maid of Orleans is more awesome than _any_ superhero, FWIW, because she's a real person. Superheros don't exist in the world, that's why they're called superheros and not just heroes.


----------



## Hussar

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Whether she is or not (there is no need to go back into that quagmire, since I already said she is a Fantasy Hero from the moment she acquiesced to God) is immaterial: the point was she's farmer day N and fully skilled Holy Warrior day N+1, a backstory you insisted earlier D&D is hardwired against.




No, it's not.  

Jeanne becomes a paladin through Deus Ex Machina (quite literally) and not through training, as you originally posited.

If she was a farmer on day N and a paladin on day N+1 without the intervention of a god, then you would have a point.

Kinda the same way that Peter Parker is a normal person on day N and Spider Man on day N+1.  Or Bruce Banner is a normal scientiest on day N and The HULK on day N+1.  

In other words these characters become legendary and super-human, not through anything inherent to the character itself, but rather through some sort of outside intervention creating the exceptional character.

Pretty much the same way a DM can declare that a normal human is no longer a normal human but now has PC class abilities.

Bob the turnip farmer is bob the zero level normal human or 1st level commoner on day N and will remain so forever until the DM decrees that he is no longer a normal human and grants him a PC class.

Even in 3e, he's still a Commoner (although he might gain levels in that particular class) or a Warrior (possibly, and he can gain levels in that class as well) unless the DM decrees that he's an exceptional individual and gains a PC class and not an NPC class.


----------



## pawsplay

So you agree that the only thing separating Bob the Turnip Farmer, with no special training, from a PC class, is GM fiat. We are making progress.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> If she was a farmer on day N and a paladin on day N+1 without the intervention of a god, then you would have a point.




From the very beginning on this point, my position has been that F1 can represent a variety of things:


Dannyalcatraz said:


> A "1st lvl Ftr" can describe a talented farmboy brawler, an avg. Joe fresh out of basic training, a 45 year old veteran whose skills have atrophied with age & injury or Hercules at age 5.



(And added things like militia members in a war-ravaged region, etc.)

WHY someone is a farmboy who becomes a F1 is immaterial to the point.


----------



## Bluenose

pawsplay said:


> So you agree that the only thing separating Bob the Turnip Farmer, with no special training, from a PC class, is GM fiat. We are making progress.




Well, if we're dealing with Bobbus, son of Eddus the Roman Turnip Farmer, then assuming he's done the basic militia training expected of every Roman Citizen as a teenager, he can join the legions, get sent for six months training in Capua, and then be considered fit to be sent to a legion. Where he might be sent to one of the veteran cohorts for extra training, or put directly into a regular cohort if they needed to make up the numbers. Please note that Bobbus isn't trained to fight on horseback, which a D&D Fighter is, and he's familiar with a lot less by way of weaponry than a D&D Fighter. Of course, Bobbus has now committed himself to 16 years in the legions. So he's not likely to become a wandering adventurer any time soon. If Bobbus was training to be a Man-at-Arms, a Maryannu, a Sipahi, a Ghulam, a Yeni-Ceri, or a Samurai then he'd certainly expect longer in training.



Dannyalcatraz said:


> From the very beginning on this point, my position has been that F1 can represent a variety of things:
> 
> (And added things like militia members in a war-ravaged region, etc.)
> 
> WHY someone is a farmboy who becomes a F1 is immaterial to the point.




How someone who starts as a farmboy becomes a F1 is, by contrast, rather signficant. A massively talented farmboy brawler who also happens to be competent with a wide variety of weapons and armour *and* who knows how to fight on horseback without it being a disadvantage, still has to be able to afford their equipment.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> How someone who starts as a farmboy becomes a F1 is, by contrast, rather signficant. A massively talented farmboy brawler who also happens to be competent with a wide variety of weapons and armour and who knows how to fight on horseback without it being a disadvantage, still has to be able to afford their equipment.




Having played PCs who fought with weapons based on their commoner's background- picks, hammers & mauls for a mason turned Paladin, for instance- and having played peniless warriors who had to depend on the wealth of their partymates to buy anything beyond studded leather and a club, or others who inherited their gear from relatives (perhaps even the one who trained them), or those who had their gear by virtue of being in the militia or their employer (and thus, did not own it) and others besides, I'd say there are a number of ways you can figure out how the farmboy got his gear.

Ones I've thought of but haven't tried yet:

1) scavenged from a battlefield
2) stolen
3) community chipped in
4) prosperous family farm, and farmboy wanted his birthright early (a la the Prodigal Son, but spent on gear)
5) found in a hidden cache (a la Tom Cruise in _Legend_)
6) bartered for in exchange
7) satisfaction of a debt
8) indentured servitude


----------



## Sepulchrave II

Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> 1) scavenged from a battlefield
> 2) stolen
> 3) community chipped in
> 4) prosperous family farm, and farmboy wanted his birthright early (a la the Prodigal Son, but spent on gear)
> 5) found in a hidden cache (a la Tom Cruise in _Legend_)
> 6) bartered for in exchange
> 7) satisfaction of a debt
> 8) indentured servitude




I think these are all good ideas; plot hooks and character motivation cascade off of these. But they actually seem to feed the notion of heroic-ness to me, insofar as they are evocative of archetypal tales or stories: each would be a great kick-off for an heroic career. They are all exceptional circumstances. 

To me, it is precisely the confluence of exceptional circumstances that makes a character heroic.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:


> Peter Parker is a teenage geek on the day before he gets bitten by a radioactive spider.  The day after, he's Spider-man.
> 
> How is Spider-man superhuman but Jeanne D'Arc not?





Radioactive spider DNA.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:


> That's a bit of a strawman though.  Bob the turnip farmer IS NOT A 1st level fighter.  That's right there, in black and white, in the rules.  We're not making this up.  This isn't some way out there reinterpretation of the rules.  It's RIGHT FREAKING THERE.  Bob the Turnip Farmer is a 0 level normal human or a 1st level commoner.




Not in any system, not in any edition, does it specify what Bob the Turnip Farmer is.

All it ever does is generalize what the average turnip farmer is.

Which brings it back around to why this conversation can't go forward.


RC


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:


> Unless you want to claim that the greatest bowman ever (Robin Hood of legend (not history)) is just a normal human.




Actually, I'm glad you brought this up as an example.  I don't know how much mythology and folklore you go in for, so I don't know how much you actually know about the "Robin Hood of legend", or even *which* "Robin Hood of legend" you mean!  

Let's use this page as a bit of a reference:  Robin Hood - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Again, as with the Bruce Wayne or turnip farmer examples, we are examining whether or not Robin Hood could be considered a normal human at the start of his career.  

The early ballads are also quite clear on Robin Hood's social status: he is a yeoman. While the precise meaning of this term changed over time, including free retainers of an aristocrat and small landholders, it always referred to commoners. The essence of it in the present context was "neither a knight nor a peasant or 'husbonde' but something in between."[16] We know that artisans (such as millers) were among those regarded as "yeomen" in the 14th century.[17]​
Nothing supernatural there.  Note that, as a yeoman, Robin is some form of commoner.  Possibly a farm owner.  Possibly a turnip farm owner.  

The character of Robin in these first texts is rougher edged than in his later incarnations. In "Robin Hood and the Monk", for example, he is shown as quick tempered and violent, assaulting Little John for defeating him in an archery contest; in the same ballad Much the Miller's Son casually kills a "little page" in the course of rescuing Robin Hood from prison.[6] No extant ballad actually shows Robin Hood "giving to the poor", although in a "A Gest of Robyn Hode" Robin does make a large loan to an unfortunate knight which he does not in the end require to be repaid;[68] and later in the same ballad Robin Hood states his intention of giving money to the next traveller to come down the road if he happens to be poor.​
Again, nothing supernatural there.  He is even defeated in an archery contest.

In the 18th century, the stories become even more conservative, and develop a slightly more farcical vein. From this period there are a number of ballads in which Robin is severely "drubbed" by a succession of professionals including a tanner, a tinker and a ranger.[84] In fact, the only character who does not get the better of Hood is the luckless Sheriff. Yet even in these ballads Robin is more than a mere simpleton: on the contrary, he often acts with great shrewdness.​
  Clearly superhuman.

But, ah, you might be thinking of that little incident of splitting an arrow in an archery contest.  Specifically because the good folks at Myth Busters couldn't reproduce it (although at least one filmed appearance of the trick, as described on the program, was attributed to the work of a very talented human archer).

Well, sorry, but Myth Busters didn't prove it couldn't be done; they only proved that they couldn't do it.  And, while it is an interesting data point (and a fun program), it is not conclusive.

But, even if it were, we are again making the mistake of looking at a character at the height of his powers, and imagining that this somehow indicates where he was when he started out.  As though Bruce Wayne was the frikkin Batman on the night his parents were murdered.  As though Peter Parker were somehow superhuman before the radioactive spider bite.

As though the legendary Robin Hood might not have once been a turnip farmer.

Which brings it back around to why this conversation can't go forward.

And around and around we go.



RC


----------



## Hussar

Raven Crowking said:


> Radioactive spider DNA.




And being tapped by a GOD is so different?  Remember, we're positing that Jeanne is a paladin, not a fighter - she now has supernatural powers - curing disease, healing, detecting evil, etc.

Let's swim back upthread a second:



			
				Pawsplay said:
			
		

> Bob d'Turnippe
> Human Fighter 1
> Str 15, Dex 12, Con 13, Int 13, Wis 10, Cha 8
> Feats: Power Attack, Weapon Focus (longspear), Combat Reflexes
> Skills: Climb 4 (+5), Handle Animal 4 (+3), Profession (farming) 4 (+4), Ride 4 (+5).




1.  Why is Bob an elite?  That's not a normal human right there according to the rules.

2.  Where exactly did Bob learn to use nearly every weapon out there with equal facility?

3.  Where exactly did Bob learn to wear all kinds of armor?

4.  What part of Bob's life picking turnips did he pick up the ability to specialize in weapons, something NO ONE ELSE CAN EVER DO?  

So, again, how is Bob a normal human?  He's quantitatively better than a normal human by virtue of having an elite array, he has combat skills that no common man can ever learn no matter how much they train and I notice you leave out the fact that he has FIVE AND A HALF TIMES more hit points than an average joe.

To me RC?  This is why the conversation can't go forward.  The definition of "Average Joe" has gone from zero level commoner to a freaking ELITE Level 1 Fighter that even the DMG says is an average encounter for a SECOND LEVEL PARTY.  This guy is a hard encounter for a 1st level party.  

Mr Average Joe?  He's a 1/2 CR.  He's an easy fight for an average party.


----------



## Ranes

Hussar said:


> 1.  Why is Bob an elite?  That's not a normal human right there according to the rules.




Actually, the opposite is true, right there, according to the rules.



			
				d20 SRD said:
			
		

> The elite array is most appropriate for monsters who add levels in a player character class.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:


> And being tapped by a GOD is so different?  Remember, we're positing that Jeanne is a paladin, not a fighter - she now has supernatural powers - curing disease, healing, detecting evil, etc.




Is Jeanne a paladin?  Did she have those powers?  I thought we were talking about the historic person.

BUT, if we are talking about a fantasty world person, then, no, it isn't so different.  In fact, there are some Spider-Man comics that suggest that Spidey gained his powers mystically from Anansi, and that the radioactive spider bite was just the manifestation of the same.

IOW, Peter Parker was a normal human _*until*_ he got bitten, when he got superhuman powers.  In this light, our fantasy Jeanne was a normal human _*until*_ she got touched, and got her fancy powers.

Neither is a counter-example of how a character cannot have "previously was a normal person (turnip farmer or otherwise) as a background".  The game can handle it very, very easily.



> Let's swim back upthread a second:




Lets not.

Or, if you like to, you can go upthread and see that all the subsequent questions in this post have been answered, many more than once.



> To me RC?  This is why the conversation can't go forward.  The definition of "Average Joe" has gone from zero level commoner to a freaking ELITE Level 1 Fighter




To me Hussar?  This is why the conversation can't go forward.  The definition of "human" has gone from "human" to "normal human".  And when "normal human" is shown to be perfectly fine, it jumps to "Average Joe".  We are a long way now from claiming that our 1st level fighter is "superhuman".

Without realizing it, perhaps, you have conceded Danny Alcatraz's point, because he never said Average Joe.  You have brought your argument down below the bar of what you are arguing against!  

Even then, though, it is blindingly obvious that any edition without point buy can produce a level 1 fighter with average stats, and with as few hit points as an average commoner.  Likewise, commoners can be created with one or more above-average stats, access to minor spell use (see N1), a bonus to hit that bumps them up to equivilency with a 1st level fighter, or whatever else the DM desires.

Your current "Average Joe" argument, in some editions, then relies upon said fighter being slightly more skilled at arms than the average person, which, unless "skilled at arms" is somehow more of an indicator than "skilled at milling", "skilled at running an inn", or "skilled at taking care of horses", pretty much prevents a wide swath of the campaign world from being an "Average Joe".  

Again, let's look at what could be created using the 1e PHB for a moment, using a standard 3d6 set, roll once.  

Our level 1 fighter is skilled in four weapons, and can wear armour.  He has 10-sided hit dice, giving a range of 1-10 hit points, plus any Con modifier.  He has a 0.5% chance of qualifying for exceptional Strength (most fighters will not).  On a 16-18 Con, he gains a extra bump to his hit points over what other characters get; there is a 4.7% chance of this occurring.

Meanwhile, our peasant farmer who is in good shape can also wear armour, can also use weapons, and has a range of 1-8 hit points.

It is quite easy to imagine rolls that result in a fighter whose only point of superiority is roughly a 5% better chance to hit opponents due to using the fighter attack matrixes.  Using the Secondary Skill table from the DMG, there is even a chance that his background is that of a farmer.

Let me repeat that:  _*Using the Secondary Skill table from the DMG, there is even a chance that his background is that of a farmer*_.

Now, let me ask you a question:  Are you actually saying that you can see no way in which our 1e fighter could legitimately have a background of turnip farmer?  


RC


----------



## pawsplay

Hussar said:


> 1.  Why is Bob an elite?  That's not a normal human right there according to the rules.




Sure it is. Fighters normally have the elite array. A fighter with the non-elite array would be abnormal.



> 2.  Where exactly did Bob learn to use nearly every weapon out there with equal facility?




That happened in third edition. <rimshot>



> 3.  Where exactly did Bob learn to wear all kinds of armor?




He hasn't yet, but he's a quick learner. And frankly, after learning to fight in the butcher mail and scavenged brig he's been using, everything else seems like a piece of cake.



> 4.  What part of Bob's life picking turnips did he pick up the ability to specialize in weapons, something NO ONE ELSE CAN EVER DO?




His vocational counselor ecommended it. What, no one else can take a level in fighter?



> So, again, how is Bob a normal human?  He's quantitatively better than a normal human by virtue of having an elite array, he has combat skills that no common man can ever learn no matter how much they train and I notice you leave out the fact that he has FIVE AND A HALF TIMES more hit points than an average joe.




He's just an average Joe, who happens to be tough, smart, and a little lucky. And he has skills any common man can learn; most simply lack the knack, or choose to avoid situations that would result in gaining adventuring XP. 

Am I not a normal human? I'm pretty sure I can use every martial weapon with basic ability. True, I've rarely used a weapon in a deadly situation, but then again, I've had a lot more time to handle weapons of various sorts than your typical 20-year-old, even one that's been in the militia. Heck, if I were a D&D character, I would probably need a level in monk or ninja, since I can handle a sai or a nunchaku. I don't know exactly how many hit points I have, exactly, but I've never had a broken bone other than a rib. Assuming the normal ability score rolls represent some kind of normal distribution, I have the elite array, as I'm a pretty bright guy who is also strong enough to use a bastard sword one-handed. 

Hussar, no one ever claimed the fighter was unexceptional, just that the fighter is fully and completely human, and may not have any advanced training, just moxy.


----------



## Hussar

RC said:
			
		

> Without realizing it, perhaps, you have conceded Danny Alcatraz's point, because he never said Average Joe. You have brought your argument down below the bar of what you are arguing against!




Umm, what?  Go back and reread how this all started.  The entire thing started because DannyA claimed that a Normal Joe was a Fighter 1.  Let's roll back the wayback machine shall we?



			
				DannyA said:
			
		

> Dannyalcatraz said:
> 
> 
> 
> Were you there when they wrote 'em up?  Psychic?
> 
> The rules in no way assume that you're "special" beyond the fact that your PC has a modicum of training.  That you have an extraordinary stat or two isn't all that unusual.  According to D&D Str charts, I have a 14-15 in that stat, and I'm 5'7", 43years old, am a lawyer, and don't work out anymore.
> 
> A "1st lvl Ftr" can describe a talented farmboy brawler, an avg. Joe fresh out of basic training, a 45 year old veteran whose skills have atrophied with age & injury or Hercules at age 5.  A "1st lvl Wiz" sounds like a graduate if a private HS or college student in terms of education.
Click to expand...



How is he not claiming that a F1 is an average Joe when he uses those exact words?


----------



## pawsplay

Hussar said:


> Umm, what?  Go back and reread how this all started.  The entire thing started because DannyA claimed that a Normal Joe was a Fighter 1.  Let's roll back the wayback machine shall we?
> 
> 
> 
> How is he not claiming that a F1 is an average Joe when he uses those exact words?




He specified an average joe "fresh out of basic training," not a statistically unexceptional turnip farmer.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Sepulchrave II said:


> 1) scavenged from a battlefield
> 2) stolen
> 3) community chipped in
> 4) prosperous family farm, and farmboy wanted his birthright early (a la the Prodigal Son, but spent on gear)
> 5) found in a hidden cache (a la Tom Cruise in Legend)
> 6) bartered for in exchange
> 7) satisfaction of a debt
> 8) indentured servitude
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I think these are all good ideas; plot hooks and character motivation cascade off of these. But they actually seem to feed the notion of heroic-ness to me, insofar as they are evocative of archetypal tales or stories: each would be a great kick-off for an heroic career. They are all exceptional circumstances.
> 
> To me, it is precisely the confluence of exceptional circumstances that makes a character heroic.
Click to expand...



There is nothing exceptional on that list *at all.*


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Re: Average Joe

The F1 Average Joe is unusual only in the sense of the rarity of the pofession as opposed to being a farmer, cooper, or other kind of laborer.  If your family was large, you might even expect that some would be sent into soldiering, or the priesthood if smart enough.

Becoming a fighting man did not require some kind of exceptional ability.  Big, small- they took 'em all and let the training and happenstance sort them out.  If you wer really good, you got a good assignment, possibly specialist training.  If you were average, you were a footsildier.  If you were on the lower end, you might be sent home as a "future leader" of your town's militia.

But in no way does Average Joe fresh out of basic mean you're extraordinary.


----------



## fanboy2000

Hussar said:


> Umm, what?  Go back and reread how this all started.  The entire thing started because DannyA claimed that a Normal Joe was a Fighter 1.  Let's roll back the wayback machine shall we?



I agree, but I don't think you went back far enough. 

First, KM made a really strong claim. Look at the the first sentence of the quote.



Kamikaze Midget said:


> No D&D character is just a dirt farmer done good. The editions vary to the degree this is true (1st ed's "just a typical fighting-man, sir! just happen to be better than most fighting-men, sir!" to 4th eds "You are all 1st level demigods in the making!"), but it's pretty true in any edition.
> 
> D&D, especially modern D&D, isn't about Samwise Gamgee the Gardener Turned Hero. It's about Aragon and Gandalf and other epic-from-the-start characters.
> 
> Not that it has to be, just that it IS. Which means that Achilles and other mythic fighters are not out of the realm of choice for heroic archetypes for the game.



Of course, while he says that it doesn't have to be that way, he then says that it is. Which doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but whatever. Still that's some pretty strong language about the nature of D&D and it was begging for someone to say "not in my game."



Dannyalcatraz said:


> Maybe your games, but that does not describe my history with D&D _at all._



Which is what happened. 

Now, of course, that's Dannyalcatraz's (I wonder if he's ever been to Alcatraz, I haven't and I used to live in the Bay Area) experience. It is what it is and you can't really argue with that. 



Kamikaze Midget said:


> Then I'd say you weren't playing in the style the rules assumed.



So, of course, KM doesn't. Instead he makes the claim that the rules assumed a certain style contrary the style Dannyalcatraz normally played. *And that is what started this tangent*.

See, here's the deal: anytime someone makes a claim about what style the rules a particular edition of D&D, or D&D as a whole, support--and imply that they either don't like or are indifferent to the style--people come out of the T1 lines to say that that person is wrong. Then an army of equal size comes out and says that the original poster is right. 

Anyways, the lawyer from Texas then comes-up with the response you quoted.



Dannyalcatraz said:


> Were you there when they wrote 'em up?  Psychic?
> 
> The rules in no way assume that you're "special" beyond the fact that your PC has a modicum of training.  That you have an extraordinary stat or two isn't all that unusual.  According to D&D Str charts, I have a 14-15 in that stat, and I'm 5'7", 43years old, am a lawyer, and don't work out anymore.
> 
> A "1st lvl Ftr" can describe a talented farmboy brawler, an avg. Joe fresh out of basic training, a 45 year old veteran whose skills have atrophied with age & injury or Hercules at age 5.  A "1st lvl Wiz" sounds like a graduate if a private HS or college student in terms of education.




But after all of this, I gotta question for you, maybe I should make it a poll, but here it is: 

If you were the DM for a D&D game set in Greyhawk and you wanted to start a game a first level and a player came up to you and asked if his first level fighter could have the back story of being a potato farmer before he was a fighter, would you allow it?

Would the edition of D&D influence your answer? What about the setting? Have you ever played in a game where a PC's background was something similarly mundane?

O.k., that's more than one question, but they all key off each other.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:


> Umm, what?  Go back and reread how this all started.  The entire thing started because DannyA claimed that a Normal Joe was a Fighter 1.  Let's roll back the wayback machine shall we?
> 
> 
> 
> How is he not claiming that a F1 is an average Joe when he uses those exact words?






pawsplay said:


> He specified an average joe "fresh out of basic training," not a statistically unexceptional turnip farmer.




Beat me to it.  

And I still haven't heard an answer to my question:



			
				Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> It is quite easy to imagine rolls that result in a fighter whose only point of superiority is roughly a 5% better chance to hit opponents due to using the fighter attack matrixes. Using the Secondary Skill table from the DMG, there is even a chance that his background is that of a farmer.
> 
> Let me repeat that: Using the Secondary Skill table from the DMG, there is even a chance that his background is that of a farmer.
> 
> Now, let me ask you a question: Are you actually saying that you can see no way in which our 1e fighter could legitimately have a background of turnip farmer?





RC


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> Now, of course, that's Dannyalcatraz's (I wonder if he's ever been to Alcatraz, I haven't and I used to live in the Bay Area) experience. It is what it is and you can't really argue with that.




Alas, saw it from the shore and no closer.  We were scheduled to go on one of the tours, but bad weather made us cancel that.  Nobody likes riding a ferry in a thunderstorm.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

fanboy2000 said:


> I wonder if he's ever been to Alcatraz, I haven't and I used to live in the Bay Area



Alcatraz, along with Chinatown _on a weekday_, is one of the few genuinely worthwhile "touristy" things to do in the Bay Area.  It is unsettling, especially the tour at dusk (if they still have it).

That's not to say that they're the only things worth experiencing in the Bay Area -- I moved here 12 years ago after falling in love with the place -- but the best stuff here isn't what you can see from an open-top bus.


----------



## Mort

I don't really understand the current tangent re: could a  F1 have been a turnip farmer before he became a F1.

Its back-story, which by definition is pure fluff - how is it even a question that, of course he could have been a turnip farmer. And at the time of the back-story he is "just a turnip farmer" whether he becomes more than that - is level 1+ where the game starts.

Heck he could have been a quadriplegic who one day found that not only could he walk and swing his arms, he now knows how to use a sword! Taking this as a sign, he seeks out adventure (now whether he ends up dead by level 2 is a different matter entirely).


----------



## Raven Crowking

One would think that was obvious, Mort.


----------



## Mort

Raven Crowking said:


> One would think that was obvious, Mort.




One would, and yet here we are on post 470+ with this tangent taking up a number of those!


----------



## Raven Crowking

Mort said:


> One would, and yet here we are on post 470+ with this tangent taking up a number of those!




Yup.  And there are still folks entrenched in the idea that, if your guy was a turnip farmer before he became a fighter, *you are playing the game wrong*!


----------



## Mark Chance

How is the Wizard vs Warrior Balance Problem Handled in Fantasy Literature? Well, Conan usually handled the problem by gutting the wizard.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Mark Chance said:


> How is the Wizard vs Warrior Balance Problem Handled in Fantasy Literature? Well, Conan usually handled the problem by gutting the wizard.




Yup.

But it should be noted that sometimes Conan solved the problem by getting another wizard to help.


----------



## rkwoodard

*Black Company*

Black Company: The Silver Spike

One of the Narrators of Glen Cook’s Silver Spike, is a potato farmer who ran away from home and joined the army.  By the end of the book he is back to being a potato farmer, and he won the girl. He was in a world with big bad magic users and weird creatures.  He held his own in the story, through brains, planning, general son of a gun toughness. 

How does Fantasy Lit handle farmers turned Heroes…..They simply let them be heroes….and farmers. 

The tangent seems to be down to how big of a jump of circumstance do you need to see the farmer turned fighter...or rather commoner turned PC. I don't need much.  Others, based on the powers of 1st level characters of your edition of choice might need more.

Richard


----------



## Raven Crowking

Likewise Clint Eastwood's character in _*The Outlaw Josey Wales *_begins as "a peaceful Missouri farmer" (The Outlaw Josey Wales - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia).  Turns out, he has a talent for killing folks.

This tangent, IMHO, is so long because the question of a wizard-vs-warrior balance assumes _a priori _that wizards and warriors are two different things, and until that is established, it is difficult to answer how one deals with that difference.


----------



## Sepulchrave II

Dannyalcatraz said:


> There is nothing exceptional on that list *at all.*




They are all means to explain why a turnip farmer has equipment valued at 100gp - five years' work for a common laborer.

If unexceptional, why the need to explain where the money came from at all?




			
				fanboy 2000 said:
			
		

> If you were the DM for a D&D game set in Greyhawk and you wanted to start a game a first level and a player came up to you and asked if his first level fighter could have the back story of being a potato farmer before he was a fighter, would you allow it?




PCs can do whatever they like as far as backstory is concerned. They are exceptional.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> They are all means to explain why a turnip farmer has equipment valued at 100gp - five years' work for a common laborer.
> 
> If unexceptional, why the need to explain where the money came from at all?



I don't feel the need, but apparently, you do.



> 1) scavenged from a battlefield



The more wars, the more weapons & armor to be scavenged- only exceptional if there hasn't been a war in a few generations.  At best, unusual.


> 2) stolen



Theft is utterly commonplace.


> 3) community chipped in



 This _would_ be unusual.  But, OTOH, if a small town could find someone both willing and able to fight in their service- as a lawman/mayor, leader of the militia, etc.- gearing him up would be a forseeable job perk.


> 4) prosperous family farm, and farmboy wanted his birthright early (a la the Prodigal Son, but spent on gear)



The only thing unusual here is how he spent the money.  Buying out a spare heir wasn't all that unusual.


> 5) found in a hidden cache (a la Tom Cruise in Legend)



Admittedly an unusual variant on scavenging after a conflict, but not so much so that it is without precedent.  Tomb-raiding- by accident or by profession- was pretty commonplace in parts of Africa before the advent of archaeology.


> 6) bartered for in exchange



 If you don't have money, you're going to barter, and you'll do so with whatever resources you have on hand.  If the debt is big enough, or the other party is in dire enough straits, the deal may be heavily one-sided.


> 7) satisfaction of a debt



see above.


> 8) indentured servitude



Again, nothing special here- it was actually pretty common for warriors of various types in many cultures to be indentured.

For example:


> Wiki: indenture
> In England the earliest surviving examples are from the thirteenth century. These are agreements for military service, proving that a paid, contract army was then in existence, although other evidence indicates that the method had already been in use for at least two hundred years.[1] Exchequer records of Henry V's French campaign of 1415 (the Agincourt campaign), including the indentures of all the captains of the army agreeing to provide specified numbers of men and at what cost, may still be read.[3] An Indenture was commonly used as a form of sealed contract or agreement for land and buildings. An example of such a use can be found in the National Archives, where an indenture, from about 1401, recording the transfer of the manor of Pinley, Warwickshire, is held.[4]


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> But in no way does Average Joe fresh out of basic mean you're extraordinary.




I want to expand on this:

The UAW has about 400k members.  The Big 3 account for about 14m jobs overall.  About 1m people in the USA consider farming to be their primary job.  In comparison, 800k are employed as city/state/federal law enforcement of some kind.  There are about 1.7m enlisted in the Army.

IOW, being a paid, trained fighting man isn't all that rare in the modern world.

Now, yes, it was rarer in the 13th century, but not so rare  as some are implying.


----------



## Diamond Cross

Dannyalcatraz said:


> I want to expand on this:
> 
> The UAW has about 400k members.  The Big 3 account for about 14m jobs overall.  About 1m people in the USA consider farming to be their primary job.  In comparison, 800k are employed as city/state/federal law enforcement of some kind.  There are about 1.7m enlisted in the Army.
> 
> IOW, being a paid, trained fighting man isn't all that rare in the modern world.
> 
> Now, yes, it was rarer in the 13th century, but not so rare  as some are implying.





It is when you compare to a total population, especially a large one that has tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of people.

The united States currently has 310 million people.

So those numbers don't quite make up 10 percent of the population.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> So those numbers don't quite make up 10 percent of the population.




But they are in roughly the same proportion to other "blue collar" jobs in the population- police are outnumbered by farmers, and farmers are roughly doubled upmby the Army.

In a medieval society, you'd have far more farmers than footmen...but footmen themselves would outnumber masons, tanners, coopers, smiths and many other "laborers."


----------



## Sepulchrave II

Danny, I'm curious: 

(1) Are you a DM who considers class and level demographics, or do you place NPCs entirely as the game/your judgment requires? 

(2) Would you consider an "average" farmer in 3.x something like a Com 3 or a Com 5? I ask because I'm wondering if you have a generally different notion of level to me in this regard.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

I had to study population demographics for a Masters I was pursuing at one time, and I found the ones in RPGs were...off.  So I basically ignore what's in RPG books and go with what I learned.

That said, I don't usually think about minor NPCs in terms of class unless & until players force the issue.  So, a random encounter with a belligerent man in the streets could be anything- a drunk farmer, a slumming noble, a killer trying to pass his initiation into the local Assassin's Guild, a retired adventurer who mistakenly believes he's still the man...

In a structured encounter, I consider what the encounter is supposed to be about.  So most laborers aren't going to have secret skills.  But if Daddy is a former Imperial Captain who used his mustering out benefits to buy a small vinyard to raise his family on, you can bet he's taught his kids something of what he learned in the service.  (I know too many cops' daughters who are dead-eye shots...)

Now, even then, I'm not going to make them equally skilled.  Algernon may just not have fighting blood in him, after all, preferring the books his father's wealth brings in...

And if you listen to my NPC introductions, you may even get a feel for which ones are unusual and which ones aren't.


----------



## Celtavian

*re*



Raven Crowking said:


> Likewise Clint Eastwood's character in _*The Outlaw Josey Wales *_begins as "a peaceful Missouri farmer" (The Outlaw Josey Wales - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia).  Turns out, he has a talent for killing folks.




I haven't kept track of this tangent argument. But an awesome understatement. "A talent for killing folks". I like that. Makes me laugh.

So many great quotes in that movie.

"Dying ain't no kind of living."

"Buzzards gotta eat."


----------



## I'm A Banana

> And there are still folks entrenched in the idea that, if your guy was a turnip farmer before he became a fighter, you are playing the game wrong!




I think the problem is actually that if your turnip farmers (or militia members or even town guards) have fighter stats, your fighter doesn't feel like a Fantasy Hero, he feels like a turnip farmer (or a militia member or a town guard). 

Which is part of the problem of a wizard vs. warrior separation -- your wizards never feel like they are turnip farmers. Even at their least powerful, they are able to _will_ an enemy to be hurt (magic missile!). And pretty quickly they can blast fire, fly, teleport, scry, make universes, turn into monsters, and summon demons to do their bidding. 

But your fighter...well, he's a turnip farmer. Maybe even a _well trained turnip farmer_. Oh yipee.

This is part of why the fighters need to feel more like Batman and James Bond and Conan than like turnip farmers, militia members, or town guards. 

Fighter levels are a lousy mechanic to model NPC commoners, which is why mechanics like the commoner NPC class were invented, and why 4e advises you not to bother statting up NPC commoners at all, and gives you rules like Minions for when you do.  

Even commoners that are "skilled warriors" (town guards, trained militia, even three-star generals advising kings who once won decisive military victories) aren't FIGHTERS, just like even Commissioner Gordon is not BATMAN. 

Now, there might be NPC fighters who are rivals, foils, antagonists, allies, underlings, etc. Batman needs his Robin, and, eventually, retires and is replaced by another Batman. 

All these characters are much more powerful than a trained militia member. They are fantastic and unrealistic. That is what D&D fighters need to be if they are to rival the warriors in fantasy literature. That is part of why beet farmers, militia members, and town guards shouldn't be fighters (though a fighter could have been any of these in her past).


----------



## Diamond Cross

Why do the D&D fighters need to rival the warriors in literature?


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> I think the problem is actually that if your turnip farmers (or militia members or even town guards) have fighter stats, your fighter doesn't feel like a Fantasy Hero, he feels like a turnip farmer (or a militia member or a town guard).




The difference between a turnip farmer who is S17 D13 C16 I12 W10 Ch 10 and a fighter with the same stats is _Achilles' Choice._

Just because you're big & strong doesn't mean you want to be a warrior.  They may get all the glory, those fightin' boys, but they tend to die young and far from home, far away from sweet Marie, the milkmaid...

So one slab 'o humanity learns to farm and farm while the other learns to farm & fight- then leaves town, a marginally better warrior than his rival.  After he returns from his first campaign, though, he's probably the baddest thing they've seen in a decade.


----------



## ProfessorCirno

Diamond Cross said:


> Why do the D&D fighters need to rival the warriors in literature?




The same reason everytime anyone has used any sort of supernatural ability in any sort of fiction, it's been turned into a spell.

In fact, the opposite of that.  Because in 3.x what swiftly happened is that there was a spell for everything, literally.  Even the best class abilities were, at best, aping a different spell.  The best fighter is a wizard who casts fighting spells.  The best rogue is a wizard who casts rogue spells.  Etc, etc.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

ProfessorCirno said:


> Because in 3.x what swiftly happened is that there was a spell for everything, literally.  Even the best class abilities were, at best, aping a different spell.  The best fighter is a wizard who casts fighting spells.  The best rogue is a wizard who casts rogue spells.  Etc, etc.



Well, that happened for _you_.  For some reason.  It didn't happen to a lot of us.


----------



## I'm A Banana

Diamond Cross said:
			
		

> Why do the D&D fighters need to rival the warriors in literature?




Because D&D spellcasters rival the spellcasters in fantasy literature.

D&D is a game of fantasy heroism -- it's got a genre. Part of what D&D is selling is "You get to pretend to be a fantasy hero!"

If it's only doing that for spellcasters, then we have a problem. There's a whole swath of fantasy heroes from Batman to James Bond to Odysseus that aren't getting the support one might expect from a game of heroic fantasy.



			
				Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> The difference between a turnip farmer who is S17 D13 C16 I12 W10 Ch 10 and a fighter with the same stats is Achilles' Choice.




Well, by the time 3e rolls around, turnip farmers (and town guards and militia members) have Str 10 Dex 10 Con 10 Int 10 Wis 10 Cha 10, and before that they don't even have stats for the most part, after that their stats are fairly meaningless to their combat ability,  but that's not the thrust of the counterpoint.

The thrust of the counterpoint is that the *functional* difference between Batman and Commissioner Gordon or some jarhead marine isn't a _choice_, it is the quality of being a fantasy hero. 

It may be fluffed away as a choice in the background story information, but by the time the story opens, they're already different.

By the time the first d20 is rolled, the fighter is already different from the turnip farmer.



> Just because you're big & strong doesn't mean you want to be a warrior. They may get all the glory, those fightin' boys, but they tend to die young and far from home, far away from sweet Marie, the milkmaid...




A PC isn't just some grunt trooper. They are a fantasy hero. Their kind has not been seen for years, will not be seen easily again, and will be spoken of in legends, simply by virtue of them being a fantasy hero. 

The difference between Random Soldier Boy and a fantasy hero is as immense as the gulf between a Gotham City five-oh, and Batman. And it needs to be that way from the start if you're interesting in playing a fantasy hero. It certainly is that way from the start if you're a wizard or a cleric. The local priest cannot close wounds; the local potion-witch cannot will people to feel pain. 



> So one slab 'o humanity learns to farm and farm while the other learns to farm & fight- then leaves town, a marginally better warrior than his rival. After he returns from his first campaign, though, he's probably the baddest thing they've seen in a decade.




If he's not already different by the time he sets out, he is going to be eaten by that dragon, killed by that orc, and mutilated in his sleep by that goblin. That is the fate of normal soldiers, of town guards, of beet farmers, of Gotham City Donut Jockeys, of trigger-happy NPCs who think they're going off to become the next Big Hero only to be impaled on the first kobold's spear as the battle begins. 

That's part of what makes the heroic fantasy genre. When the dragon's breath incinerates everyone else in the world, it requires a _hero_ to stand against it. When the Joker is terrorizing Gotham, it requires a _hero_ to stand against him. People who are just beet farmers and beat cops get killed, in massive waves. That's why a hero is needed. Heroes don't get killed by dragons, beet farmers do.

So D&D makes beet farmers, militia members, marines, cops, and all those people who will be unable to stop the Great Evil statless (DM fiat can kill them!) or low-level Commoners or Warriors (Maybe they'll get lucky and save and survive, due to their extensive combat training but probably not...). Heroes will probably survive. Because they are the heroes. 

Early D&D varied in this, because early D&D largely didn't really try to emulate a genre, it just tried to give you interesting things to put in a dungeon, to kill PC's in droves. 

Of course, early D&D had a bigger problem with the wizard vs. warrior balance, too. 

These problems are not unrelated, I think. If the only difference between a beat cop and Batman is that Batman went off to fight the Joker and got lucky enough to survive, Batman could not fight Superman, or fight other supervillains on a regular basis. 

The difference is that the Joker gets to automatically kill beat cops. But Batman, favored by luck, enhanced by superheroic, godlike levels of tech, practice, and skill....Batman has a good chance to survive. The Dragon gets to kill as many beet farmers as they want, but the Fighter -- the Fighter has a good chance to survive.


----------



## Ultimatecalibur

Dannyalcatraz said:


> The difference between a turnip farmer who is S17 D13 C16 I12 W10 Ch 10 and a fighter with the same stats is _Achilles' Choice._
> 
> Just because you're big & strong doesn't mean you want to be a warrior.  They may get all the glory, those fightin' boys, but they tend to die young and far from home, far away from sweet Marie, the milkmaid...
> 
> So one slab 'o humanity learns to farm and farm while the other learns to farm & fight- then leaves town, a marginally better warrior than his rival.  After he returns from his first campaign, though, he's probably the baddest thing they've seen in a decade.




Danny if you are using those stats and a level of Fighter for a turnip farmer, he's not just a turnip farmer he is the best damned turnip farmer in the area. If a bull gets ornery and breaks out of his pen, he is the guy that they go get to catch him. If a fight breaks out between 2 guys in the market, he can stop it by smacking their heads together. He might not be the guy that regularly grows the turnips that takes top position in the local fair, but he is the guy a lot of people look up to.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

Kamikaze Midget said:


> [Fighters] aren't getting the support one might expect from a game of heroic fantasy.



Well, that seemed to happen to _you_.  For some reason.  It works fine for a lot of us.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> Danny if you are using those stats and a level of Fighter for a turnip farmer,




Please reread what I wrote: 2 guys, both extremely big and fit.  Both are farmers by birth, but one leaves to become a warrior while the other _remains nothing more than a farmer_...IOW, one has a level of fighter and one does not. They are fairly evenly matched when one leaves town, but not after the warrior has some more training.

As for those stats, I just plucked them out of the air.  But have you ever worked on a farm or known someone who did?  Pitching 50lb bales of hay around will make you pretty damn big- it's why Nebraska farmboys- as well as their counterparts in other states- do so well as linemen in college & the NFL.



> Well, by the time 3e rolls around, turnip farmers (and town guards and militia members) have Str 10 Dex 10 Con 10 Int 10 Wis 10 Cha 10, and before that they don't even have stats for the most part, after that their stats are fairly meaningless to their combat ability, but that's not the thrust of the counterpoint.




The 3.5 DMG's breakdown for a hamlet of 200 people (p139):
One 1st level Aristocrat (mayor)
One 3rd level Warrior (constable)
Nine 1st level Warriors (two guards, seven militia members)
One 3rd level Expert smith (militia member)
Seven 1st level Expert crafters and professionals of various sorts
 One 1st level Adept
One 3rd level Commoner barkeep (militia member)
One hundred sixty-six 1st level Commoners (one is militia member)
One 3rd level Fighter
Two 1st level Fighters
One 1st level Wizard
One 3rd level Cleric
Two 1st level Clerics
One 1st level Druid
One 3rd level Rogue
Two 1st level rogues
One 1st level Bard
One 1st level Monk.
Clearly, some of those NPC townies have some interesting stats.  And the DMG makes no assumption as to whether they have those PC class levels by dint of being former adventurers or merely talented & gifted persons who found being a big fish in a small pond was more than enough for them.

In addition, nowhere in the section about NPC stats does it say that average NPCs have 10s across the board.  What it _actually_ says is this:



> *3.5 DMG p110*
> All PCs and all of the NPCs described in this section are "elite," a cut above the average.  Elite characters (whether they are PCs or not) have above average ability scores and automatically get maximum hit points from their first Hit Die.  _*Average characters, on the other hand, have average abilities (rolled on 3d6) *_and don't get maximum hit points from their first Hit Die...Likewise, some fighters, wizards, and so on are average people rather than elites; they have fewer hit points and lower ability scores than the NPCs described here.




(Emphasis mine.)
That section is the preamble to a series of charts designed to generate unusual NPCs, but simultaneously anticipates the question about the "Average Joe."

IOW, they may have unusually high stats, equal to those of a PC, its just not likely.  But straight 10s?  That's a handy bookkeeping rule, but it isn't what is in the DMG.  They may even have "PC" base classes without being adventurers.

Then there's this, from the section about NPC classes:


> *3.5 DMG p107*
> Its possible for NPCs to multiclass, and even to obtain levels in PC classes if you so desire...Keep in mind, though, that dangerous areas are more likely to produce higher-level NPCs than peaceful, settled lands.  A commoner who must regularly fight off gnolls trying to ransack his farm or burn his crops is likely to be of higher level than one who rarely encounters a challenge of this sort.




Which confirms what I said earlier about NPCs in tough, strife-plagued regions.



> Even commoners that are "skilled warriors" (town guards, trained militia, even three-star generals advising kings who once won decisive military victories) aren't FIGHTERS,




The 3.5 DMG would appear to disagree.


----------



## Celtavian

Kamikaze Midget said:


> I think the problem is actually that if your turnip farmers (or militia members or even town guards) have fighter stats, your fighter doesn't feel like a Fantasy Hero, he feels like a turnip farmer (or a militia member or a town guard).
> 
> Which is part of the problem of a wizard vs. warrior separation -- your wizards never feel like they are turnip farmers. Even at their least powerful, they are able to _will_ an enemy to be hurt (magic missile!). And pretty quickly they can blast fire, fly, teleport, scry, make universes, turn into monsters, and summon demons to do their bidding.
> 
> But your fighter...well, he's a turnip farmer. Maybe even a _well trained turnip farmer_. Oh yipee.
> 
> This is part of why the fighters need to feel more like Batman and James Bond and Conan than like turnip farmers, militia members, or town guards.
> 
> Fighter levels are a lousy mechanic to model NPC commoners, which is why mechanics like the commoner NPC class were invented, and why 4e advises you not to bother statting up NPC commoners at all, and gives you rules like Minions for when you do.
> 
> Even commoners that are "skilled warriors" (town guards, trained militia, even three-star generals advising kings who once won decisive military victories) aren't FIGHTERS, just like even Commissioner Gordon is not BATMAN.
> 
> Now, there might be NPC fighters who are rivals, foils, antagonists, allies, underlings, etc. Batman needs his Robin, and, eventually, retires and is replaced by another Batman.
> 
> All these characters are much more powerful than a trained militia member. They are fantastic and unrealistic. That is what D&D fighters need to be if they are to rival the warriors in fantasy literature. That is part of why beet farmers, militia members, and town guards shouldn't be fighters (though a fighter could have been any of these in her past).




Isn't that why they created the NPC classes warrior, commoner, aristocrat, expert, and adept? To create NPCs that can have some ability, but at the same time aren't on par with PCs.

Heck. Right now I have a wizard who started off as a village boy. That's his background.

I can't believe this strange argument went on for this many pages. It's obvious if your player feels like saying his character started off as a turnip farmer, that's his option. If he one day ends up the greatest warrior the world has ever seen, it's his option how that came to be whether through training or divine providence.

There is nothing within the rules or any assumptions for a given world other than what the DM and players create together. If you want to assume in your world that the average fighter or even wizard is as common as turnip farmers, by all means that you're option. If you want to make the PCs super rare individuals along the lines of Batman or Conan, that's your option. You can make any of those scenarios occur within a given world.

D&D default is the PCs are the stars. Not by virtue of what class they choose. There are plenty of high level fighters, super powerful wizards, insanely powerful monsters, and friggin gods. It's a vast world for pete's sake. They are the stars because they are the PCs of the given campaign. It's your job as DM to make them the stars.

I'm not even sure what you guys were trying to debate with this turnip farmer talk. If a PC wants to say his guy was a turnip farmer, spend skill points in profession (farmer) or what not, that's his option. Some DM going to tell him "Dude, you can't be a great fighter with that turnip farmer background. It's not working for me." I mean, really? Really, really? You going to do that as a DM?


----------



## Celtavian

Jeff Wilder said:


> Well, that happened for _you_.  For some reason.  It didn't happen to a lot of us.




Truth to counter Professor Cirno's lies.

I have a barbarian with 271 hit points. No wizard, on his best day, buffed to the gills, will have that many hit points.

And I have yet to see this naked fighter with no magic items that is the wizard's punk.

The two-hander fighter in my _Pathfinder_ campaign does damage the wizard can't touch and with his _Ring of Free Action_ (you know, magic items that grant supernatural abilities), he's pretty hard to stop. He even gets one round on the wizard, the wizard is pretty much dead. One round even with _stoneskin_ up. The guy crits for 130 points plus 3d12 damage.

Whenever I hear these strange complaints, I seriously wonder who they were playing the game with. The barbarian in my group with _Come and Get Me_ outputs something like 250 points of damage a round if something swings at him. 

It's pretty ridiculous this talk that melee type characters can't do much. The greatest damage weapon the wizard has is a buffed up melee character. 

Now if you want to talk rogues being the red-headed step child of 3.x editions of D&D. Then we can talk. But fighters, paladins, barbarians, and the like. They were damage hammers second to none. No wizard could let one of those guys in his range or he was equally dead.

A prepared wizard can most likely take out a fighter. But a high level fighter gets one round on the high level wizard, that wizard was more than likely dead man walking.


----------



## I'm A Banana

> Well, that seemed to happen to you. For some reason. It works fine for a lot of us.




Actually, I haven't had many problems in this regard, personally. I never found the fighter appealing as a class, really, and those in my games who played warriors I always made sure to emphasize how they could be special. Nothing beats the gnome barbarian in 3e who fell, terminal velocity, directly into a pool of lava, and managed to crawl out, without dying. No turnip farmer, that.

But it's a problem that many players have experienced, and it's a solution that makes the game even more enjoyable for me, and it's a phenomenon that certainly exists, even if it missed me, personally.

So D&D would benefit as a whole from having rules that helped warriors feel more like the warriors in fantasy literature, like how the spellcasters feel like spellcasters in fantasy literature already, I think.

It's not my personal crusade for my personal game. It's a crusade for a broader, more fun, more accepting game.

And I don't quite understand what value can be found in the model of "At level 1, your spellcaster is like unto a god, but your fighter is a lucky beet farmer." No one has yet really explained what is so awesome about that. They've denied they've experienced that, but if others have experienced that, and D&D wants to include a lot of people in its umbrella, I don't understand what you loose by stopping others from experiencing that.



			
				Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> Please reread what I wrote: 2 guys, both extremely big and fit. Both are farmers by birth, but one leaves to become a warrior while the other remains nothing more than a farmer...IOW, one has a level of fighter and one does not. They are fairly evenly matched when one leaves town, but not after the warrior has some more training.




The difference between a Level 1 Minion and a Level 3 Minion is still less than the difference between a Level 1 Minion and a Level 1 Fighter.

The fighter class does not effectively represent normal combat training. It represents Being Batman. Being a fantasy hero. 



> As for those stats, I just plucked them out of the air. But have you ever worked on a farm or known someone who did? Pitching 50lb bales of hay around will make you pretty damn big- it's why Nebraska farmboys- as well as their counterparts in other states- do so well as linemen in college & the NFL.




"Pretty Big" is not effectively modeled with a Str  of 17. "Pretty Big" might be a Str of 11 instead of 10.

You seem to be taking the assumption that low-level D&D somehow models normal people in the fantasy world, instead of modeling low-level fantasy heroes. 

This is a problem, because a low-level wizard is not a normal person in a fantasy world, they are capable of truly heroic, impossible things, and they go on to do even more impossible things. Low-level fighters should be comparable -- capable of truly heroic, impossible things, and going on to do even more impossible things.

The difference isn't going off to war -- that's just nobodies fighting nobodies. People who will be forgotten fighting people who will be forgotten. The difference is going off to fight a villain. That's a narrative trope fighting a narrative trope, and then you're in the realm of fantasy heroism that D&D best emulates.


----------



## Celtavian

Kamikaze Midget said:


> Actually, I haven't had many problems in this regard, personally. I never found the fighter appealing as a class, really, and those in my games who played warriors I always made sure to emphasize how they could be special. Nothing beats the gnome barbarian in 3e who fell, terminal velocity, directly into a pool of lava, and managed to crawl out, without dying. No turnip farmer, that.
> 
> But it's a problem that many players have experienced, and it's a solution that makes the game even more enjoyable for me, and it's a phenomenon that certainly exists, even if it missed me, personally.
> 
> So D&D would benefit as a whole from having rules that helped warriors feel more like the warriors in fantasy literature, like how the spellcasters feel like spellcasters in fantasy literature already, I think.
> 
> It's not my personal crusade for my personal game. It's a crusade for a broader, more fun, more accepting game.
> 
> And I don't quite understand what value can be found in the model of "At level 1, your spellcaster is like unto a god, but your fighter is a lucky beet farmer." No one has yet really explained what is so awesome about that. They've denied they've experienced that, but if others have experienced that, and D&D wants to include a lot of people in its umbrella, I don't understand what you loose by stopping others from experiencing that.




I'll admit 3.x didn't give the melees types much but insane damage output.

_Pathfinder_ changed that dramatically. Now melee-types can do all kinds of crazy stuff.

Rogues can do strength damage now. Dispel Magic with their attacks.

Fighters are the undisputed master of weapons. They can do crazy stuff llike keep creatures stunned or crit some so viciously as to blind them.

Barbarian rage powers make them freaking unstoppable death machines.

The monk feels a great deal more like a master of the martial arts. They are better at combat maneuvers. Have more combat style options per additional feats. Their ki pool grants them tangible cool abilities that allow them to operate like a supernatural martial artist.

The Paladin is pretty unreal in overall power. An unstoppable holy force that any caster would fear.

And the Inquisitor is freakishly strong.

_Pathfinder_ made melees a lot more interesting. It clearly shows that the D&D system did not need the kind of completel overhaul it got in 4E to make melee characters more interesting. _Pathfinder_ used the 3.x system to upgrade every melee character and turn them into the types of warriors you read about in literature capable of extraordinary feats of combat prowess no commoner could possibly equal.

They did a great job. My players, even the guy who enjoyed 4E, loves _Pathfinder_. They made melee characters that are fun to design. No longer is it only fun for a caster character to spend hours mulling over his feat and spell build. Now it is fun for a barbarian to mull over his rage power build. Or a fighter to mull over his feat build with tons more options. Or a rogue to mull over his rogue talent build. _Pathfinder_ did what people were asking for in 3.x without scrapping the entire system and destroying the flavor of previous editions of D&D.

So if you're looking for melee characters with supernatural type combat abilities, _Pathfinder_ has it in spades.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> "Pretty Big" is not effectively modeled with a Str of 17. "Pretty Big" might be a Str of 11 instead of 10




Dude- what ARE you smoking?  "Pretty Big" doesn't start until you're hitting the mid-teens in stats.

_ I'M_ a Str 14 in D&D terms,  I'm 5'7", 250, and I don't do the kinds of things my big relatives on the farm in Covington do*.  My first cousin Kev is just a shade over 6'2" and has a bench of 400lbs.  (We're both 43 years old, btw.)  You know what he does?  He's a trucker.

I didn't even start at Nose Guard on the football team at my _private_ school (total team size, just under 40 guys).  Our average lineman weighed 180lbs, and the guy in front of me benched 300lbs at age 18, 5'7" 175.  I didn't get that beefy a bench until my junior year of college.  One guy on our team was pressured to play because of his size.  He had no talent, but he was big.  I lined up against him one day.  He threw me 5 feet.  For the record, there were running backs at public schools bigger than most of our linemen.

And my kind of strength wouldn't cut it in college ball.  College linemen routinely average nearly 400lb bench presses, and the linebackers are in the low-300s.  NFL linemen?  Guards and Tackles: 535 lbs, Center: 500 lbs, a typical DE: 440 lbs and your MLBs and OLBs: 370 lbs.

Fighting men do NOT have the monopoly on being big hunks of humanity.  Not even in D&D.




* I'm not even the strongest guy_ in my game group._


----------



## Jeff Wilder

Kamikaze Midget said:


> it's a phenomenon that certainly exists, even if it missed me, personally.



It's a phenomenon that exists for some people.  I also know people who claim that the rogue is overpowered.

I have seen nothing to convince me that what they are experiencing is a result of the _game_, rather than the result of _how they're playing_ the game.



> So D&D would benefit as a whole from having rules that helped warriors feel more like the warriors in fantasy literature, like how the spellcasters feel like spellcasters in fantasy literature already, I think.



My warriors do feel like the warriors in fantasy literature.  They don't feel like the warriors of wuxia, but all I can say to that is "thank Christ; I hate wuxia."



> It's not my personal crusade for my personal game. It's a crusade for a broader, more fun, more accepting game.



Which, oddly, would alienate at least half the people in this thread.  That's so very _accepting_ of you.



> And I don't quite understand what value can be found in the model of "*At level 1, your spellcaster is like unto a god*, but your fighter is a lucky beet farmer."



And ... beautiful.  At this point there's literally nothing to be gained by reading you any further in this thread.


----------



## pawsplay

Kamikaze Midget said:


> By the time the first d20 is rolled, the fighter is already different from the turnip farmer.




Unless he is a turnip farmer. Then you are logically incorrect. 



> A PC isn't just some grunt trooper. They are a fantasy hero. Their kind has not been seen for years, will not be seen easily again, and will be spoken of in legends, simply by virtue of them being a fantasy hero.




I don't know about that. I played plenty of fighters who were fighters because they didn't qualify for any other class. 



> The difference between Random Soldier Boy and a fantasy hero is as immense as the gulf between a Gotham City five-oh, and Batman.




Not at 1st level, it isn't. 



> And it needs to be that way from the start if you're interesting in playing a fantasy hero. It certainly is that way from the start if you're a wizard or a cleric. The local priest cannot close wounds; the local potion-witch cannot will people to feel pain.
> 
> If he's not already different by the time he sets out, he is going to be eaten by that dragon, killed by that orc, and mutilated in his sleep by that goblin.




The problem with your argument is that at 1st level, the cleric or the wizard are equally vulnerable to being eaten by dragons, killed by orcs, and so forth. Being a cleric or a wizard is an unusual specialty, but it does not necessary relate to any level of heroism at all. In some fantasy worlds, the majority of priests are clerics, actually. Being a wizard or a cleric is not much different than being a US Marine, a computer hacker, or con artist. These are unusual talents, but those people are not necessarily legendary characters. 

So, no, in many games 1st level characters are not destined heroes. Some of them are destined to be casualties in the first battle with orcs. Warrior and wizard alike. Wizards are not automatically characters of legend; some of them are chumps who can try to cast a fireball right before an orc puts an arrow in them in scene 1, reel 1.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Sometimes, you get to be a hero just by surviving what you shouldn't have; by doing something nobody in the world thought you could do, not even yourself.

That's the kind of hero you see in _Deliverance_, _Aliens_ or in _Westworld._  The heroes were not the biggest, strongest, smartest or what have you, they were the ones who succeeded where others did not.

Or to put it another way, class & stats don't make the hero, ACTIONS do.


----------



## Raven Crowking

If I am using the secondary skills system in 1e AD&D, I have slightly better than a 6% chance of having a farmer/gardener background (slightly higher because on a roll of 86-00 I roll twice, and that chance could come up again on either roll, and I am too lazy to determine the exact odds of that happening).

I still await the answer to my question:  Is anyone seriously suggesting that my 1st level fighter, with relatively average stats and 6 hp, and a secondary skill of farmer/gardener, cannot have "turnip farmer" as a background?

I mean, we've dismissed any ground-breaking statistical difference.  My guy now has about a 5% better chance to hit targets, and nothing else better than Joe Farmer down the road could have.

Anyone still want to claim that my 5% chance elevates me to the superhuman?  Anyone?  Bueller?



RC


----------



## Mort

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Sometimes, you get to be a hero just by surviving what you shouldn't have; by doing something nobody in the world thought you could do, not even yourself.
> 
> That's the kind of hero you see in _Deliverance_, _Aliens_ or in _Westworld._  The heroes were not the biggest, strongest, smartest or what have you, they were the ones who succeeded where others did not.
> 
> Or to put it another way, class & stats don't make the hero, ACTIONS do.




I'm never sure how to feel about movie (or TV or novel) comparisons to RPGs. In the former, the writer (or director) having a tight reign on the plot and leading it exactly where it should go is considered a great thing. In an RPG this is usually considered the worst kind of offense. You want the players (through their characters) to be able to write their own story, to make themselves heroes. A good DM should set the possible paths, but too much interference (or even guidance) makes the attainment of the goal near meaningless.

In that vein, you want any character to at least have the potential to be a hero (the scale can certainly vary with the campaign, and obviously I'm talking about heroic games here, not horror etc.). If the DM makes sure the fighter (or the rogue etc.) has the same potential as the wizard (or cleric etc.) and can attain the same heights (I'm not necessarily talking power level here) I think I'm ok with that - I know my players are.


----------



## Hussar

Raven Crowking said:


> If I am using the secondary skills system in 1e AD&D, I have slightly better than a 6% chance of having a farmer/gardener background (slightly higher because on a roll of 86-00 I roll twice, and that chance could come up again on either roll, and I am too lazy to determine the exact odds of that happening).
> 
> I still await the answer to my question:  Is anyone seriously suggesting that my 1st level fighter, with relatively average stats and 6 hp, and a secondary skill of farmer/gardener, cannot have "turnip farmer" as a background?
> 
> I mean, we've dismissed any ground-breaking statistical difference.  My guy now has about a 5% better chance to hit targets, and nothing else better than Joe Farmer down the road could have.
> 
> Anyone still want to claim that my 5% chance elevates me to the superhuman?  Anyone?  Bueller?
> 
> 
> 
> RC




Again, the goalposts shift.

No one, at least not me, is saying you can't have Turnip Farmer as a background.  What is being said is that once you have F1, you are, by virtue of having a PC class, measurably better than any other normal turnip farmer.

Because, let's not forget, the second you slap on that PC level, you now have an Elite array, not a normal array.  That right there makes you measurably better than any other turnip farmer.

In earlier editions, the Turnip Farmer isn't a F1.  Sure, the F1 could, as part of his background, be a F1, but, somewhere between being a Turnip Farmer and being a Fighter 1, something had to happen (like having your parents brutally murdered and spending years on intensive training) that turned you from Turnip Farmer INTO F1.


----------



## Ultimatecalibur

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Dude- what ARE you smoking?  "Pretty Big" doesn't start until you're hitting the mid-teens in stats.
> 
> _ I'M_ a Str 14 in D&D terms,  I'm 5'7", 250, and I don't do the kinds of things my big relatives on the farm in Covington do*.  My first cousin Kev is just a shade over 6'2" and has a bench of 400lbs.  (We're both 43 years old, btw.)  You know what he does?  He's a trucker.
> 
> I didn't even start at Nose Guard on the football team at my _private_ school (total team size, just under 40 guys).  Our average lineman weighed 180lbs, and the guy in front of me benched 300lbs at age 18, 5'7" 175.  I didn't get that beefy a bench until my junior year of college.  One guy on our team was pressured to play because of his size.  He had no talent, but he was big.  I lined up against him one day.  He threw me 5 feet.  For the record, there were running backs at public schools bigger than most of our linemen.
> 
> And my kind of strength wouldn't cut it in college ball.  College linemen routinely average nearly 400lb bench presses, and the linebackers are in the low-300s.  NFL linemen?  Guards and Tackles: 535 lbs, Center: 500 lbs, a typical DE: 440 lbs and your MLBs and OLBs: 370 lbs.
> 
> Fighting men do NOT have the monopoly on being big hunks of humanity.  Not even in D&D.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> * I'm not even the strongest guy_ in my game group._




No one said that Fighters are the only ones who can have 17 strength. He just said that 17 is more than "Pretty Big", its near world record competitor. 

Danny I'm going to call you on that 14. I think you are closer to a 12 _at most_. You may be 250lbs but that does not mean you can get to much more out of your muscles than the average person of your weight. 

Most ability of a persons to lift comes from training, practice and weight rather than natural ability. While I was in the U.S. Army (was in Armor so there was a lot of heavy stuff), I'm 5'2", started at a weight of 140lbs and had practically no strength based training and could barely bench the same, by the height of my time in the army a year and a half in to my contract I was 160lbs and max benching ~200 and I wasn't really focusing my training on that (I was more of a runner and was getting 2 miles in less than 6:30). I would only give myself a 10 strength. Another solider I knew started at roughly the same point as I did but focused on weight training and was able to hit ~240 at 170 lbs.

Scot Mendelson is probably the best example of someone with an 18 strength. He is a pro-powerlifter who can bench 715lbs unequipped or 1030lbs with a bench shirt and he is only 275lbs. 

Using that and I remember someone did the math and proved that Olympic Long jump Medalists were ~5th level experts in 3.5. A +14 bonus in "bench pressing" allows someone to bench ~2.6 times their own weight or ~3.7 with a top of the line item (+6? bonus to the check).*

*If you want to argue against these numbers using the lifting numbers from the d20srd, remember that _you_ said the population demographics were bad.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:


> No one, at least not me, is saying you can't have Turnip Farmer as a background.




Cool.  At last, we are getting somewhere.



> What is being said is that once you have F1, you are, by virtue of having a PC class, measurably better than any other normal turnip farmer.
> 
> Because, let's not forget, the second you slap on that PC level, you now have an Elite array, not a normal array.  That right there makes you measurably better than any other turnip farmer.




Um...No.

Having a PC class doesn't require, in any edition 1st to 3rd, that you have an Elite array.  If you think I am wrong, please specify where in any of those editions it says that.  AFAICT, all of those editions allow for the creation of PCs by rolling the dice, and taking what you get.  So, if that's what you've got...........Can we call it a day yet?



> In earlier editions, the Turnip Farmer isn't a F1.  Sure, the F1 could, as part of his background, be a F1, but, somewhere between being a Turnip Farmer and being a Fighter 1, something had to happen (like having your parents brutally murdered and spending years on intensive training) that turned you from Turnip Farmer INTO F1.




Again, I'm just spitballing here, but the thing that was being argued about was whether or not any F1 could have been a turnip farmer the day before his adventuring career began.  Remember that?  Just off the turnip truck?  Heck, someone even questioned whether or not our F1 could be a *normal human* of any sort.

So, again, I am playing in a 1e AD&D game, not using the UA.  My DM says roll 3d6, in order, no re-rolls.  I roll all average stats, 6 hp, and a secondary skill of farmer/gardener.  

In 1e, an average 0-lvl commoner has average stats, can use weapons, and can wear armour.  A 0-lvl commoner with a physical background has 1-8 hit points, and therefore can match me.  We've dismissed any ground-breaking statistical difference.  My guy now has about a 5% better chance to hit targets, and nothing else better than Joe Farmer down the road could have.

But, hold on!  Let's give me a poor Strength, to eliminate that 5%.  And lets say I rolled 1 hit point.  Certainly things that could happen making a 1e AD&D character.

Now Joe Farmer is statistically superior to me.  Moreover, since I have proficiency with only four weapons, and Joe Farmer is assumed to be proficient with any weapon in his statblock, he is a better fighter than me to boot.

Am I still superhuman?  Am I still too good to be a turnip farmer?  Really?


RC


----------



## Mort

Hussar said:


> Again, the goalposts shift.
> 
> No one, at least not me, is saying you can't have Turnip Farmer as a background.  What is being said is that once you have F1, you are, by virtue of having a PC class, measurably better than any other normal turnip farmer.
> 
> Because, let's not forget, the second you slap on that PC level, you now have an Elite array, not a normal array.  That right there makes you measurably better than any other turnip farmer.
> 
> In earlier editions, the Turnip Farmer isn't a F1.  Sure, the F1 could, as part of his background, be a F1, but, somewhere between being a Turnip Farmer and being a Fighter 1, something had to happen (like having your parents brutally murdered and spending years on intensive training) that turned you from Turnip Farmer INTO F1.




Isn't this a bit needlessly semantic? 
What if you're a turnip farmer, start adventuring as an F1 (you got your training through a turnip farming montage, maybe the plucking motion is perfect for gutting people) but fully intend to go back to turnip farming.   When you retire (as a fighter 20+ no less) you go back to turnip farming (with a profession 23+ farming (specialty: turnips) no less!), by choice because who's going to stop you.

Yes, you're the biggest baddest turnip farmer who ever lived and woe to the goblin or coyote that steps foot on your farm - but to you the fighter 1-20 was a means for you to get back to turnip farming (the big bad prevented you in some way).

So ok, not "just a turnip farmer" but how much into semantics do we want to get?

On the other side though: I don't think anyone is really claiming that an F1 is in anyway superhuman; they are claiming the F1 (and I think specifically the PC F1) is supperior from a narrative perspective - from the potential inherrant for greatness, which really is what PCs *do* aspire for. Then again there have been so many posts in this thread that maybe I simply missed that tangent.

But to yank it back to at least near the OP intent. In literature the fighter and the wizard if they are both protaganists can be equal if the writer paints them as equals from a narrative point of view. In an RPG this falls to the DM, the trick, and the role the system might play, is to make sure it doesn't look forced.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Mort said:


> On the other side though: I don't think anyone is really claiming that an F1 is in anyway superhuman




Maybe not any more (I can only hope!), but if you look upthread, you can see this point argued for more than you probably care to read.  

And, AFAICT, none of the folks who were arguing that our F1 is always superhuman, by sheer province of being an F1, has retracted that statement in any way, shape, or form.

But maybe I missed those concessions.  Crom, I hope so.  Because that way, at least, they were somewhere made.



RC


----------



## Hussar

Mort said:
			
		

> On the other side though: I don't think anyone is really claiming that an F1 is in anyway superhuman; they are claiming the F1 (and I think specifically the PC F1) is supperior from a narrative perspective - from the potential inherrant for greatness, which really is what PCs do aspire for. Then again there have been so many posts in this thread that maybe I simply missed that tangent.




Bingo,  that's what I've been saying all the way along.  Well, I do think that the F1 is actually measurably better than any normal human as defined by the system.  It got bogged down in semantic games about the difference between superhuman and exceptional, but, yeah, that's the basic gist.

RC - I honestly don't know.  Can a Normal Human (as defined by the 1e books) actually wear armor?  Any armor?  I know they gave them a single weapon, but, do they actually get 4 weapon proficiencies?


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:


> Bingo,  that's what I've been saying all the way along.




Really?  Those posts about how any PC is automatically superhuman simply by virtue of being a PC, made on your account, using your user name, and written with your writing style were posted by someone else?

You should let the moderators know!

To paraphrase Imaro in another thread (http://www.enworld.org/forum/5500804-post613.html):  Wow, IMO this is a totally disingenuous comment. You were shown with examples and logic that you were in fact wrong in certain assumptions... but instead of admitting you were wrong and moving forward... you're playing the victim role... really?



> RC - I honestly don't know.




Again, at least we are getting somewhere.



> Can a Normal Human (as defined by the 1e books) actually wear armor?  Any armor?  I know they gave them a single weapon, but, do they actually get 4 weapon proficiencies?




Yes; in 1e a normal human can wear armour.  Crack your 1e MM, which you referred to upthread, and you will see examples.  Likewise, a normal human doesn't gain any weapon proficiencies; they are assumed proficient with whatever weapons the DM chooses to give them.  Again, crack that 1e MM again, and you will see that, yes, normal humans (wonder of wonders) are capable of carrying weapons.

(You could also crack any 1e module that includes an urban component, such as N1 or T1, and you will see the same.)

You may not be aware of it, but it has been common throughout history for normal people to be given weapons training.  Indeed, this training was often _*mandatory*_.  That way, when you had to levy the locals to defend the land, you had someone capable of working in a militia.  The US Constitution's right to bear arms and form a militia is a direct decedent of this practice, as is every posse in every Western movie you've ever seen.

Socrates may be known for his wit and wisdom, but he also served his mandatory stretch in the army, and was considered a good soldier.  There are still countries today where some form of military service is mandatory.  Robert Heinlein once made an argument (Starship Troopers) that military service should be mandatory to gain the rights of citizenship.

That a D&D turnip farmer (even one better known as the Socrates of the Fields) might have weapons training is nothing to be surprised at.  Conversely, if you have not had any weapon training, you are an anomaly relative to the overall trend of human history.


RC


----------



## pawsplay

Hussar said:


> Again, the goalposts shift.
> 
> No one, at least not me, is saying you can't have Turnip Farmer as a background.  What is being said is that once you have F1, you are, by virtue of having a PC class, measurably better than any other normal turnip farmer.
> 
> ... In earlier editions, the Turnip Farmer isn't a F1.  Sure, the F1 could, as part of his background, be a F1, but, somewhere between being a Turnip Farmer and being a Fighter 1, something had to happen (like having your parents brutally murdered and spending years on intensive training) that turned you from Turnip Farmer INTO F1.




Let's see if the Rules Cyclopedia agrees with you.



			
				p.197 said:
			
		

> Normal Human
> Monster Type: Human (Common).
> "Normal human" is the generic term for a human who does not seek adventure. A normal human character does not have a character class, but might (optionally) have General Skills.




That looks good for the notion that most turnip farmers are Normal Humans, which everyone agrees with. However, it appears to conflict with your claim that a turnip farmer who adventures is not a Fighter, since Normal Men are not adventurers. So insofar as you have claimed something different than what other people have said, your position seems greatly weakened by this evidence. This seems to say an adventurer is NOT a Normal Human, even if they are a turnip farmer, because they seek adventure. 




			
				p.193 said:
			
		

> Noble: This is n general term for any member of a social class of rulers...
> Traveling nobles encountered will normally be fighters, clad in fine plate mail armor and shield.




Uh, oh! The Rules Cyclopedia just claimed commonly encountered Nobles are members of a PC class!



> Bnch noble fightn is always accompanied by a suire (2nd level fighter-servant).




...

...

Squires are second level fighters? Well, how do you like that?



> Because, let's not forget, the second you slap on that PC level, you now have an Elite array, not a normal array.  That right there makes you measurably better than any other turnip farmer.




RC just refuted this notion. In case this line of argument was still viable.


----------



## pawsplay

3.5e DMG, on the subject of Warriors:



			
				p.109 said:
			
		

> You can also use the warrior flass for soldiers (*although perhaps not for commanders or career soldiers*), guards, local thugs, toughs, bullies, and even regular people who have learned to defend their homes with some ability.




Emphasis mine. 

And on the subject of Fighters:



			
				p.132 said:
			
		

> Fighter: These characters often serve as mercenaries or officers in the army. The sheriff in a small town might well be a fighter.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> No one, at least not me, is saying you can't have Turnip Farmer as a background. What is being said is that once you have F1, you are, by virtue of having a PC class, measurably better than any other normal turnip farmer.



Actually, KM did, remember?

As for being measurably better, yes- by about 5%.


> He just said that 17 is more than "Pretty Big", its near world record competitor.




No, he said "Pretty Big" started at Strength 11.



> "Pretty Big" is not effectively modeled with a Str of 17. "Pretty Big" might be a Str of 11 instead of 10.




See?  I called shannanegans because I know I'm stronger than that, and I can't touch what people call "really strong."  I can't match _any_ pro male athletes for whom strength is a requirement...and most at the collegiate levels in those sports would still laugh at me.



> Danny I'm going to call you on that 14. I think you are closer to a 12 at most. You may be 250lbs but that does not mean you can get to much more out of your muscles than the average person of your weight.




At my peak, I did multiple benches of 300lbs.  The last time I did leg presses (on a machine), I did 3 sets of 10 reps at 700lbs...because that's all that was in the machine's stack.

I set my peaks at age 22 and 193 lbs.  I'm a 43 year old fat mofo lawyer now and still hit 90% of that.  (Not as many reps, though, due to injuries like an ACL/MCL tear, etc.)



> In earlier editions, the Turnip Farmer isn't a F1. Sure, the F1 could, as part of his background, be a F1, but, somewhere between being a Turnip Farmer and being a Fighter 1, something had to happen (like having your parents brutally murdered and spending years on intensive training) that turned you from Turnip Farmer INTO F1.




So he fought in the the annual Gnoll incursions his land, and once got called up to defend against a land-grab by a neighboring Barony...that doesn't mean he didn't return immediately to farming once the conflicts were over.

Just because one has a level of Fighter, doesn't mean your life's destiny drives you from the farm forever.  It may not even drive you from your farm for more than a few weeks.  You may be trained to fight because your life depends upon it, but you may choose not to elect to be a fighter as your livelihood.



> Because, let's not forget, the second you slap on that PC level, you now have an Elite array, not a normal array.




Nope, that is NOT what the section of the 3.5 DMG I quoted said.  It said that the NPCs on those charts had elite arrays, but that you could do them with average stats if you wanted.



> All PCs and all of the NPCs described in this section are "elite," a cut above the average. Elite characters (whether they are PCs or not) have above average ability scores and automatically get maximum hit points from their first Hit Die. Average characters, on the other hand, have average abilities (rolled on 3d6) and don't get maximum hit points from their first Hit Die...*Likewise, some fighters, wizards, and so on are average people rather than elites; they have fewer hit points and lower ability scores than the NPCs described here.*




(Emphasis mine.)

There it is in B&W in the 3.5 DMG: "Likewise, some fighters, wizards, and so on are average people rather than elites; they have fewer hit points and lower ability scores than the NPCs described here."

Not Fantasy Heroes.  Not Elites.  "Average people."  (And they even dared say it of _wizards!_)


----------



## pawsplay

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Nope, that is NOT what the section of the 3.5 DMG I quoted said.  It said that the NPCs on those charts had elite arrays, but that you could do them with average stats if you wanted.




Thanks for providing the flanking condition. I will now sneak attack!



			
				3.5 DMG said:
			
		

> Likewise, some fighters, wizards, and so on are average people rather than elites; they have fewer hit points and lower ability scores...


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

CRIT!

(I was editing while you were posting...)


----------



## Hussar

pawsplay said:


> Thanks for providing the flanking condition. I will now sneak attack!




To which I counter:



			
				SRD said:
			
		

> Monsters are assumed to have completely average (or standard) ability scores—a 10 or an 11 in each ability, as modified by their racial bonuses.  However, improved monsters are individuals and often have better than normal ability scores, and usually make use of either the elite array or the nonelite array of ability scores. Monsters who improve by adding a template, and monsters who improve by increasing their Hit Dice, may use any of the three arrays (standard, nonelite, or elite). Any monster unique enough to be improved could easily be considered elite.
> 
> Elite Array
> 
> The elite array is 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8. While the monster has one weakness compared to a typical member of its race, it is significantly better overall. The elite array is most appropriate for monsters who add levels in a player character class.
> 
> Nonelite Array
> 
> The nonelite array is 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8. The nonelite array does not necessarily make a monster better than normal, but it does customize the monster as an individual with strengths and weaknesses compared to a typical member of its race. The nonelite array is most appropriate for monsters who add class levels in a NPC class.




Note, there is actually 3 levels here.  There's average as defined by the rules and then there's non-elite and elite.

Which array does the 3.5 DMG say I should use?  Normal, non-elite or elite?  IDHMBIFOM.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> Which array does the 3.5 DMG say I should use? Normal, non-elite or elite? IDHMBIFOM.



It leaves it to the DM.


----------



## Hussar

Pawsplay said:
			
		

> That looks good for the notion that most turnip farmers are Normal Humans, which everyone agrees with. However, it appears to conflict with your claim that a turnip farmer who adventures is not a Fighter, since Normal Men are not adventurers. So insofar as you have claimed something different than what other people have said, your position seems greatly weakened by this evidence. This seems to say an adventurer is NOT a Normal Human, even if they are a turnip farmer, because they seek adventure.




That's backwards though.  The fighter isn't a turnip farmer, because he's a fighter and not a Normal Man.  Once our putative Turnip Farmer turns to adventuring, he stops being a Normal Man and starts being a Fighter by virtue of going on adventures.

So, in other words, Fighters are not Normal Men in that system.  They are different.  They are, dare I say it, better than normal men, not because of their background or anything else, but because they stop being a Normal Man and start being a Fighter.  Other fighters don't get their level worth of attacks on them for one.  

There are systems out there where you are a turnip farmer who goes on adventures.  Chivalry and Sorcery leaps to mind here.  There is no difference between you and the turnip farmer down the road.  But, in D&D, you are qualtitatively different from the Turnip Farmer down the road by the rules.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> That's backwards though. The fighter isn't a turnip farmer, because he's a fighter and not a Normal Man. Once our putative Turnip Farmer turns to adventuring, he stops being a Normal Man and starts being a Fighter by virtue of going on adventures.




There is nothing mandated in the rules that says that the only way one enters or gains a level in a PC class is via adventuring.  Nothing.


----------



## Hussar

Well, considering the Rules Cyclopedia actually distinguishes Normal Human by the fact that he DOESN'T adventure, I'd have to disagree.  At least by what Pawsplay quoted.  Add to that, the fact that it's nobles (unless your turnip farmers are really high class) and not average people that are fighters, I'd say that it does take something to gain a PC class that normal people don't get.

I'd also point out that this conversation has shifted from "Is a PC F1 a normal guy or not" to "Is an NPC F1 a normal guy or not" because the answer to those two questions is pretty important.

Sure, I'll buy you can make an NPC F1 with a normal array (unusual, but not impossible) but, I'm not going to buy that you actually play a PC F1 with a normal array and the rules actually tell you not to do that (see the chargen rules in the PHB for impossible characters or somesuch name, again IDHMBIFOM).

BTW, RC, sorry, my question wasn't clear.  It wasn't, can a Normal Man wear armor, it was how many different armors can a single Normal Man wear proficiently?  How many weapons can the same Normal Man wield proficiently?

I've got a sneaking suspicion that this isn't actually defined.  If it's not, then I suppose it's just as fair to assume that a Normal Man can use any armor a Figher can and can use just as many weaposn as a Fighter can.  Kinda screws over the thief all to hell, but, hey, it's not like Thieves didn't get shafted anyway.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> I'm not going to buy that you actually play a PC F1 with a normal array



I honestly don't know jack about arrays- we still use dice.

Here's someone, though:

Johnny Bones, human Fighter/Thief
Str 15
Dex 15
Con 13
Int 10
Wis 8
Cha 6

Stats rolled on 4d6 drop lowest, _in order_.
Gear: MW Rapier & Dagger; MW Studded Leather.

Aggregate bonuses from stats = +2.  Played him for almost 2 years.  (Would have played him longer, but RW issues made that impossible.)



> I'd also point out that this conversation has shifted from "Is a PC F1 a normal guy or not" to "Is an NPC F1 a normal guy or not" because the answer to those two questions is pretty important.




If a NPC F1 can be a normal guy, so can a PC of the same level.


----------



## Aus_Snow

Dannyalcatraz said:


> I honestly don't know jack about arrays- we still use dice.



Pretty sure the "normal array" is only for NPCs/monsters, and only for some of those, at that. From memory, it's 13,12,11,10,9,8 but you might want to check that. Elite array - again, for some monsters/NPCs, but also one of at least half a dozen alternative chargen options in the 3.5 DMG: 15,13,12,11,10,8 (IIRC).

I don't think normal array or standard issue "three 10s and three 11s" are options at all, for PCs. In fact - once more, IIRC - I believe that, even when using the 3d6 in order option, there's a minimum ability modifier total of -2... or you need at least one 12+. Maybe both. 

Not sure if that helps or hinders any points in particular, but then, for the life of me, I can't tell what's at stake, or even _precisely_ what's being argued (right now), truth to tell.


----------



## fanboy2000

Hussar said:


> Again, the goalposts shift.
> 
> No one, at least not me, is saying you can't have Turnip Farmer as a background.  What is being said is that once you have F1, you are, by virtue of having a PC class, measurably better than any other normal turnip farmer.



If you've never claimed that you can't have turnip farmer as a background, then how is it you got into this tangent? No one's claimed that D&D is about turnip farming. 

Frankly, it seems like you guys are arguing over the definition of normal rather than who is normal.

While I'm at it...

Hey KM, something occurred to me in while reading your last post. Fantasy hero's are often captured and put into death traps that they only escape because the villain doesn't kill them in an efficient manner. In fact, such villains are often named after one of the heroes often cited in this discussion: Bond villains. Batman is also famous for getting captured and being stuck in death traps. Of course, most of Batman's villains are insane. 

Conan, who started all this, has fallen prey to this a couple of times. In the crucifixion scene mentioned by Hussar a while back, Conan was being crucified because he had been captured by the villains and put out die a rather horrible death. Seriously, if you can nail a guy to cross, you can run a sword through him. In early _Hour of the Dragon_, Conan is captured and survives only because the villain thinks Conan might be useful later (or as blackmail). It doesn't work. Lastly, there's a story where Conan admits that if the bad guy hadn't taken the time to gloat, he'd be dead. 

If town guards, army regulars, and the militia _never_ poses a threat, even at early levels, then how does this tope of fantasy literature work? The whole point is that the mooks take out the hero and the big bad finishes them off with the death trap.


----------



## pawsplay

Hussar said:


> That's backwards though.  The fighter isn't a turnip farmer, because he's a fighter and not a Normal Man.  Once our putative Turnip Farmer turns to adventuring, he stops being a Normal Man and starts being a Fighter by virtue of going on adventures.
> 
> So, in other words, Fighters are not Normal Men in that system.  They are different.  They are, dare I say it, better than normal men, not because of their background or anything else, but because they stop being a Normal Man and start being a Fighter.




Except they are not different, if you are comparing them to the town sheriff. PCs are not special; it is simply assumed they begin with competencies they need for rough business. "Not just your average turnip farmer" is not a super power or a divine destiny, it's a trait shared by any number of trained knights, professional soldiers, pirates, constables, in addition to any particularly heroic turnip farmers. Published materials are full of NPC fighters and thieves who are distinguished by only one criterion: they have competencies your average Normal Man does not. A thief/rogue is just a guy who can pick pockets and backstab; a fighter can fight pretty well. A turnip farmer does not become a fighter by some kind of magical evolution; every population of turnip farmers of any size contains a few individuals of exceptional capability. Many of these are Warriors (3e) or 1 HD monsters (OD&D or AD&D) but some are simply Fighters, not by dint of divine parentage, extraordinary training, and so forth, but simply by being proficient with several weapons and having an above average ability to implant them in people who upset them.


----------



## pawsplay

Hussar said:


> Add to that, the fact that it's nobles (unless your turnip farmers are really high class) and not average people that are fighters, I'd say that it does take something to gain a PC class that normal people don't get.




Like becoming a squire?



> I'd also point out that this conversation has shifted from "Is a PC F1 a normal guy or not" to "Is an NPC F1 a normal guy or not" because the answer to those two questions is pretty important.
> 
> Sure, I'll buy you can make an NPC F1 with a normal array (unusual, but not impossible) but, I'm not going to buy that you actually play a PC F1 with a normal array and the rules actually tell you not to do that (see the chargen rules in the PHB for impossible characters or somesuch name, again IDHMBIFOM).




None of that is relevant at all. High, or low ability scores, does not have a direct relationship to being a PC, or to being a member of a class. The relationship is only incidental, or in some cases, practical.

Just to be clear, have you conceded that NPC F1s actually exist, even as mundane beings such as professional soldiers and knights?


----------



## Aus_Snow

pawsplay said:


> Just to be clear, have you conceded that NPC F1s actually exist, even as mundane beings such as professional soldiers and knights?



By no means am I Hussar, but I just wanted to respond to this one anyway.

From the 3.5 DMG, "NPC Classes" section:

Presented in this section are five classes specifically designed for NPCs. None of them, with the possible exceptions of the expert and the aristocrat, stands up as a playable class for PCs. Instead, they represent the rest of the people in the world around the PCs who don't train to go on adventures and explore dungeons.​

A little later:

These NPC classes should provide enough distinction to create anyone the PCs meet who isn't an adventurer.​

However, under "Warrior", there is, among other things, this:

You can also use the warrior class for soldiers (although perhaps not for commanders or career soldiers) [...]​

I'll see if I can turn anything else up, that might be relevant.


edit: Unrelated, but peculiar enough for me to comment on - that whole deal with the Thief in 1e *losing* the ability to wear armour above leather? Bizarre!  Of course, that's only if normal men really can wear all types of armour, whether that's indeed as written, or as interpreted...


----------



## Raven Crowking

Aus_Snow said:


> edit: Unrelated, but peculiar enough for me to comment on - that whole deal with the Thief in 1e *losing* the ability to wear armour above leather? Bizarre!  Of course, that's only if normal men really can wear all types of armour, whether that's indeed as written, or as interpreted...




Yep.  There's no armour "proficiency" until 3e AFAICT.  Thieves can't use their special abilities in armour better than leather.....but this isn't spelled out until UA, where modifiers are given for these abilities when wearing other forms of armour.  So, yes, by strictest reading of "core 3" 1e AD&D, one could potentially discover hidden thieves (and assassins, magic-users, and illusionists) by finding out who is unwilling to try on that chain mail shirt....... 

Interestingly enough, there are at least two 3.x adventures I am aware of that begin with 0-level PCs, and 1e had a system for starting characters as 0-level folks, who gain their first character class level in-game.  It was published in Greyhawk Adventures, if memory serves.

Finally, [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]:  The term "Normal Man" is a game construct, like "Fighter" is a game construct.  No one in their right mind says, "Sorry, Joe, you can't run away.  You're a fighter."  Likewise, no one in their right mind mandates that a character steal from the party because his class is "Thief".

Remember all of those discussions about how 3e classes can represent various things?  How about those discussions about how 4e classes can represent various things?  How about how a "warforged ninja" doesn't have to literally be a warforged, or a ninja?  Remember all of those things?  

Well, "Normal Man" is the same.  There are normal men who don't use the "Normal Man" nomenclature, and there are men who use the "Normal Man" nomenclature that are exceptional (i.e., Joe the Blacksmith, Normal Man, 8 hp, 18 Strength).

And, as already demonstrated, I can not only make a 1e AD&D F1 who is effectively statistically identical to a turnip farmer, but I can make one that is statistically inferior.  

Are you still entrenched in your position that someone who is effectively statistically identical or statistically inferior to a turnip farmer cannot be a turnip farmer?


RC


----------



## Sepulchrave II

The goalposts have been shifted so many times by so many different people in this thread that I can no longer keep up.

I think everyone has a notion - based on their own preferences and expectations - of how the game world should look with regard to class and level. 

I also think that notions of level and class are inseparable in this regard: the status of a Ftr 1 in a world where most people are Com 1s is different to one where most people are Com 2s or Com 3s.

The extent to which the Fighter class is treated as objectively "real" with regard to the game world and the extent to which it is a convenient mechanical shorthand to represent a particular character _within_ the game world also seems to be shifting, often within the same post. 

I would suggest that in editions prior to 3e, ideas of character class had more of an independent existence: 3.x was the first edition to explicitly state that classes should be treated flexibly with regard to characterization; that classes were not objectively "real" with regard to the game world itself.

In the 1e DMG there is an assumption - clearly spelled out on p.35 - that

*1 character in 100 is eligible for level advancement*

This ratio is sufficient for me to characterize PC classes as "unusual". The extent to which one regards them as "exceptional" or "extraordinary" is largely a semantic quibble. But 99% of people don't have classes at all.

In 1e, only 1% of humans even have the *potential* to become _übermenschen_ and gain class levels. Perhaps the elitism implied by this is what makes some people uncomfortable.


I freely concede that many of my own 1e expectations with regard to the game world were transferred to 3e. One of them was that town guards, thugs, soldiers and men-at-arms - typically represented by 0-level characters in 1e - translated to low-level Warriors (NPC class) in 3.x.

Fortunately, you can use whatever you want to represent whatever you want as it's just a bunch of numbers.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> In the 1e DMG there is an assumption - clearly spelled out on p.35 - that
> 
> 1 character in 100 is eligible for level advancement




And given that the very same DMG said it was perfectly OK to have NPCs from all walks of life with PC levels, we can only assume either:

1) When they used the term "level advancement", they meant beyond a certain point- say, Lvls1-3, but not that class levels were barred from ordinary people,

OR

2) They plucked the "1 in 100" number out of the air and then ignored for the rest of the book and subsequent products

As to this:


> The goalposts have been shifted so many times by so many different people in this thread that I can no longer keep up.




The position RC, pawsplay and I (and others I may be forgetting) have been espousing has been consistent: one level of a PC class doesn't make you anything particularly or inherently special in the world, whether NPC or PC, at least pre-4Ed.


----------



## Sepulchrave II

Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> And given that the very same DMG said it was perfectly OK to have NPCs from all walks of life with PC levels




I cannot find this quote, or its context. Perhaps you can help me.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

I'm on my way to Church & won't be back for hours- as I recall, it was mentioned in this thread right when someone called me "flippant".  The relevant section in the DMG, to the best of my recollection, somewhere about pgs 103-112.


----------



## Sepulchrave II

Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> I'm on my way to Church & won't be back for hours- as I recall, it was mentioned in this thread right when someone called me "flippant". The relevant section in the DMG, to the best of my recollection, somewhere about pgs 103-112.




You may be misremembering "flippant." I remarked that it was *glib* to suggest that 1E was consistent in its understanding of the significance of PC class levels.

I think I have found what you mean, though:



			
				1E DMG said:
			
		

> The host of merchants, shopkeepers, guardsmen, soldiers, clerics, magic users, fighters, thieves assassins etc. are likewise all yours to play. Again, this is simply a matter of assuming the station of the NPC and creating characteristics -- formally or informally according to the importance of the non-player character.




Which says nothing to me of the incidence of PC-Class characters in the campaign at all. 

Perhaps you are thinking of a different quote?


----------



## pawsplay

Sepulchrave II said:


> The goalposts have been shifted so many times by so many different people in this thread that I can no longer keep up.
> 
> I think everyone has a notion - based on their own preferences and expectations - of how the game world should look with regard to class and level.




What is happening is that a few of us are trying to settle, once and for all, that previous editions of D&D spelled out the presence of quite average individuals, while other people seem intent on moving the goalposts. Based on what you have just posted, you are unwilling to condede that quotations from three or more editions of D&D are sufficient to settle the matter. To me this is not a question of my own "preferences and expectations" but about settling a misprepresentation of the rules.



> I also think that notions of level and class are inseparable in this regard: the status of a Ftr 1 in a world where most people are Com 1s is different to one where most people are Com 2s or Com 3s.




Only to a degree. In no version of D&D, at least prior to 4e, did he have a "PC glow" by virtue of being classed.



> In the 1e DMG there is an assumption - clearly spelled out on p.35 - that
> 
> *1 character in 100 is eligible for level advancement*
> 
> This ratio is sufficient for me to characterize PC classes as "unusual". The extent to which one regards them as "exceptional" or "extraordinary" is largely a semantic quibble. But 99% of people don't have classes at all.
> 
> In 1e, only 1% of humans even have the *potential* to become _übermenschen_ and gain class levels. Perhaps the elitism implied by this is what makes some people uncomfortable.




That is under the paragraph "Number of Prospective Henchmen." Clearly, not all classed individuals are available for hire. You are stripping away the context. The quote does not "clearly spell out" anything that furthers your argument; it is only a spitball estimate of how many adventurers are "in the business." Further, being eligible for "level advancement" only says that they are not given a fixed number of HD; as clearly spelled out in many places, many martial NPCs are members of the fighter class. The Noble's squire is not an "ubermensch," he's a dangidy-dong squire, and he's a 2nd level fighter. 

Members of PC classes are simply skilled and uncommon, not ubermenschen. They are not living legends. A 1st level fighter is just a guy with weapon proficiencies. In 3e, he is distinguished from his Warrior peers by having a truly professional level of ability, comparable to a working constable, a full-time soldier, or a vocational knight. You can claim how it "should" be or how you would like it to be... you can argue your "personal perferences and expectations"... but by the RAW, what you are saying is not true. Not slightly. Not in bad lighting on a Wednesday is it true.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Sepulchrave II said:


> The goalposts have been shifted so many times by so many different people in this thread that I can no longer keep up.




I think it's pretty simple to keep up.  A claim was made that a Ftr 1 could be a regular guy just off the turnip wagon, and a counter-claim was made that it could not be so, in any edition.

Everything else is an exploration of that counter-claim.

I think, personally, that, because characters start more powerful in 4e than in earlier editions, it was taken as some form of dire insult to suggest (or admit) that some editions might do "turnip-farmer-turned-PC" better (where better is defined only as statistically closer to a turnip farmer).

At this point, rather than say, "Yeah, X is focused on Y, whereas Z was focused on B", all rationality went out the window, and we had more than one claim that a Ftr 1 _*must be*_ superhuman (or words to that effect).

And, AFAICT, that *must be* is the only point of contention.

Therefore, you have people putting forth various counter-examples, and putting forth a counter-example (even if it differs from other counter-examples) isn't shifting the goalposts.

And you have various other people simply ignoring whatever counter-example doesn't fit the framework that *must be*.



> I think everyone has a notion - based on their own preferences and expectations - of how the game world should look with regard to class and level.




Nah.

I have no expectation of how things should look.  In most games that I play, PCs are exceptional simply by being PCs.  In RCFG, I even came up with a term to describe this:  "Champion Class Creature".  

But I know that things do not _*have to be this way*_.  And even the Champion Class Creature nomenclature wouldn't prevent a GM from framing a game in RCFG where the PCs were ex-farmers with mundane abilities just off the turnip truck.  

Heck, as many have pointed out on EN World in the past, even abilities that seem clearly supernatural to me (either in their execution or implications, such as Come and Get It) don't require that the people playing the game think of their characters as superhuman.  They are quite capable of making what might seem a supernatural ability instead conform to the fantasy reality of the campaign setting.

What you *prefer* should have nothing to do with what you concede to be _*possible*_.


RC


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> Which says nothing to me of the incidence of PC-Class characters in the campaign at all.




That's the quote.

And reading the entire section on NPCs, you find them talking about classed characters in all walks of life- more than would make sense at a 1% of the populace.

*Adventurers* may be 1 in 100, but classed individuals are not.


----------



## GSHamster

I haven't read the entire thread, only up to page 20 or so. But the discussion kind of reminds me of a quote from _The Matrix_:


> *Morpheus:* I've seen an agent punch through a concrete wall. Men have emptied entire clips at them and hit nothing but air. Yet their strength and their speed are still based in a world that is built on rules. Because of that, they will never be as strong or as fast as you can be.
> *Neo:* What are you trying to tell me, that I can dodge bullets?
> *Morpheus:* No, Neo. I'm trying to tell you that when you're ready, you won't have to.




Agents = warriors. Neo = wizard.

The world or setting has physical rules. Only magic can break those rules. So by definition, a character without magic is bound by those rules.

In literature, the countering force to this is the Narrative. Warriors defeat wizards because the story demands that they do. 

In a game, you really have four options if you want to keep Warriors on par with Wizards. Otherwise, the wizards end up like Neo: untouchable gods.

1. Give warriors some direct control over the Narrative. This greatly annoys the "simulationist" audience, because for the simulationists, the Narrative falls out of the interaction between rules, player choices, and dice, and should not be controlled directly by the players.

2. Restrict magic greatly. For example, imagine a setting where the only magic is enchantment or illusion. In such a setting, it is easy to imagine that warriors can defeat wizards, if only through sheer force of will. Downside of this is that wizard players greatly dislike being restricted in such a manner, and it goes against the wizard archetype that the game is used to.

3. Give wizards a significant weakness. I.e. they can be killed by a single weapon blow. Or maybe there is an element which nullifies magic. (For example, _a'dam_ in Wheel of Time.) But this is sometimes hard to balance. If the weakness is in play, the wizard is too weak. If the weakness is not in play, the wizard is too powerful. So encounters have the potential to be very swingy for the wizard, as the example of _a'dam_ in WoT illustrates.

4. Give the warriors magic. For example, I think it's much easier for us to imagine a paladin taking down a wizard. The paladin is imbued with the might of her god, and that "magic" allows her to break the physical rules when necessary. But the problem with this is that a lot of people are attracted to warriors and rogues because they specifically do not have magic, and obviously giving them magic would make those players unhappy.


----------



## UngainlyTitan

fanboy2000 said:


> If you've never claimed that you can't have turnip farmer as a background, then how is it you got into this tangent? No one's claimed that D&D is about turnip farming.
> 
> Frankly, it seems like you guys are arguing over the definition of normal rather than who is normal.
> 
> While I'm at it...
> 
> Hey KM, something occurred to me in while reading your last post. Fantasy hero's are often captured and put into death traps that they only escape because the villain doesn't kill them in an efficient manner. In fact, such villains are often named after one of the heroes often cited in this discussion: Bond villains. Batman is also famous for getting captured and being stuck in death traps. Of course, most of Batman's villains are insane.
> 
> Conan, who started all this, has fallen prey to this a couple of times. In the crucifixion scene mentioned by Hussar a while back, Conan was being crucified because he had been captured by the villains and put out die a rather horrible death. Seriously, if you can nail a guy to cross, you can run a sword through him. In early _Hour of the Dragon_, Conan is captured and survives only because the villain thinks Conan might be useful later (or as blackmail). It doesn't work. Lastly, there's a story where Conan admits that if the bad guy hadn't taken the time to gloat, he'd be dead.
> 
> If town guards, army regulars, and the militia _never_ poses a threat, even at early levels, then how does this tope of fantasy literature work? The whole point is that the mooks take out the hero and the big bad finishes them off with the death trap.




I am going to jump in here, because this is germane to the original discussion but capturing the party is pretty problematic in rpgs in the first place and more likely to end in TPK  and pissed off players.

Death traps are pretty much as problematical, given that the players are not really likely to be smart enough to solve it or if they are then it is not likely to come across as a real deathtrap.

That kind of stuff works better in stories, where the author has full authority and complete control of all the variables.

To be honest, in literature the issue of balance is irrelevant, the protagonists drive the story and if they are warriors they use warrior stuff and if wizards they use magic and some are good at both and use both.

Finally, whiile I am pretty sure I could pull off the capture even with minions in 4e, I am not sure I could pull off a convincing deathtrap.

One thing about deathtrtaps, we know how stories work. If we are watching/reading heroic fiction then the protagonist win for a certain value of win. At the very minimun the bad guy is thwarted. So a deattrap that allows the bad guy to win is one that we expect to see overcome. The interested from the reader/viewer is that we do not know how this is going to be accomplished (at least if it is really well done).

Getting that in a game is, I think, impossible. An rpg campaign does not, normally, create a particular type of story from the get go. We may be aiming for heroic fantasy but we could get tragedy, comedy or farce or some unfinished work and we do not know what we have until the campaign is over.


----------



## Ultimatecalibur

GSHamster said:


> I haven't read the entire thread, only up to page 20 or so. But the discussion kind of reminds me of a quote from _The Matrix_:
> 
> 
> Agents = warriors. Neo = wizard.
> 
> The world or setting has physical rules. Only magic can break those rules. So by definition, a character without magic is bound by those rules.




That's a bit wrong. Using some mostly 4e terms: Neo, Trinity and Morpheus started out in the Heroic power tier. The Agents were Paragon tier. After the Lobby battle, in the fight on the roof Neo was also Paragon. In the final confrontation with Smith and the other agents Neo entered the Epic power tier.



> In literature, the countering force to this is the Narrative. Warriors defeat wizards because the story demands that they do.




Nope. Narrative only says that the protagonist overcomes the antagonist unless narrative conventions are being subverted. If an overwhelmingly powerful warrior was the antagonist facing a lowly wizard protagonist, narrative conventions would have the wizard win in the end. The computer game Zork: Grand Inquisitor is a good example of this.



> In a game, you really have four options if you want to keep Warriors on par with Wizards. Otherwise, the wizards end up like Neo: untouchable gods.




Each of these have problems and are not really answers.



> 1. Give warriors some direct control over the Narrative. This greatly annoys the "simulationist" audience, because for the simulationists, the Narrative falls out of the interaction between rules, player choices, and dice, and should not be controlled directly by the players.




The problem with this is that by giving warriors control over the narrative of the campaign you effectively makes players playing warriors sub-GMs.



> 2. Restrict magic greatly. For example, imagine a setting where the only magic is enchantment or illusion. In such a setting, it is easy to imagine that warriors can defeat wizards, if only through sheer force of will. Downside of this is that wizard players greatly dislike being restricted in such a manner, and it goes against the wizard archetype that the game is used to.




Restricting what types of magic are available does not change anything. What is important is how powerful magic is. If a wizard can charm a thousand men at a time and can do so 10 times a day and a warrior can only cut trough 100 men in an hour, its not balanced.  



> 3. Give wizards a significant weakness. I.e. they can be killed by a single weapon blow. Or maybe there is an element which nullifies magic. (For example, _a'dam_ in Wheel of Time.) But this is sometimes hard to balance. If the weakness is in play, the wizard is too weak. If the weakness is not in play, the wizard is too powerful. So encounters have the potential to be very swingy for the wizard, as the example of _a'dam_ in WoT illustrates.




This doesn't really help either. If the weakness is in play: warrior eats wizard and wizard player is not happy. If the weakness is not in play: wizard eats warrior and warrior player isn't happy.



> 4. Give the warriors magic. For example, I think it's much easier for us to imagine a paladin taking down a wizard. The paladin is imbued with the might of her god, and that "magic" allows her to break the physical rules when necessary. But the problem with this is that a lot of people are attracted to warriors and rogues because they specifically do not have magic, and obviously giving them magic would make those players unhappy.




Having "magic" and "not having magic" isn't the problem. Its in the balance of power. If a wizard can blow up 5 guys once an encounter and a warrior can carve through 1 guy a round at will then if an encounter last ~5 rounds things are balanced. If a wizard can blow up only 2 guys a round once per encounter and a warrior can carve through 1 guy a round at will and encounters last ~5 rounds then its imbalanced in the warrior's favor.

It basically comes down to the two having roughly equal in power. If a wizard can create demiplanes then warriors should be able to cut mountains in half with their ability alone.


----------



## pawsplay

GSHamster said:


> In literature, the countering force to this is the Narrative. Warriors defeat wizards because the story demands that they do.




Why does the story demand anything? It's not a person with an agenda of its own. It's not "story" that causes warriors to defeat wizards, it's what happens within that story, events that lead up to the necessary and logical defeat of the wizard. Your premise seems to suggest that without favoritism from the author, it would not happen. Yet in most stories, magic is dangerous, difficult, and often time-consuming. As a baseline assumption, you feel the wizard will outstrip any warrior if unchecked. Many wizards in stories seem to believe this as well, yet time and time again they are proven wrong. There is no reason, inherently, you have to put a series of checks on wizards, any more than you need to write a treatise to stop warriors from dominating wizards. 

The relative dominance of magic and melee depends entirely on the basic assumptions with regard to magic. "Unlimited godlike power, without a cost," is not a standard feature of magic, any more than "easily defeats all casters with a quick sword thrust" is a characteristic of all fighters.


----------



## pemerton

Ultimatecalibur said:


> The problem with this is that by giving warriors control over the narrative of the campaign you effectively makes players playing warriors sub-GMs.



Why is this a problem?


----------



## pemerton

fanboy2000 said:


> Of course, while he says that it doesn't have to be that way, he then says that it is. Which doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but whatever.



Well, it can be true that P without it being true that _necessarily_ P.

For example, it is true that I am typing this right now, but (assuming that no sort of very strong determinist hypothesis is true) it is also _possible_, although not actual, that I'm doing something else. Which is to say, it is not _necessary_ that I be typing this right now. Which is to say, even though it is that way, _it doesn't have to be_.


----------



## pemerton

Raven Crowking said:


> Is anyone seriously suggesting that my 1st level fighter, with relatively average stats and 6 hp, and a secondary skill of farmer/gardener, cannot have "turnip farmer" as a background?



I don't believe so.



Kamikaze Midget said:


> It may be fluffed away as a choice in the background story information, but by the time the story opens, they're already different.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> A PC isn't just some grunt trooper. They are a fantasy hero.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Early D&D varied in this, because early D&D largely didn't really try to emulate a genre, it just tried to give you interesting things to put in a dungeon, to kill PC's in droves.





Kamikaze Midget said:


> I think the problem is actually that if your turnip farmers (or militia members or even town guards) have fighter stats, your fighter doesn't feel like a Fantasy Hero, he feels like a turnip farmer (or a militia member or a town guard).
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Fighter levels are a lousy mechanic to model NPC commoners, which is why mechanics like the commoner NPC class were invented, and why 4e advises you not to bother statting up NPC commoners at all, and gives you rules like Minions for when you do.



These points continue to be very sound ones. It's a pity that a discussion that is mostly about game design and the meta-game has got sucked into a tangent about who is what within the ingame fiction, which furthermore presupposes the soundness of the rules in earlier editions that you are trying to critique.



Celtavian said:


> Isn't that why they created the NPC classes warrior, commoner, aristocrat, expert, and adept? To create NPCs that can have some ability, but at the same time aren't on par with PCs.





Sepulchrave II said:


> Would you consider an "average" farmer in 3.x something like a Com 3 or a Com 5?



Can someone tell me what a level 20 commoner actually means in the gameworld?

This well known blog post argues that Einstein, Aragorn etc are 5th level 3E characters, and that higher levels in D&D represent superhuman characters.

What is the ingame meaning, then of a commoner (or any other NPC class, for that matter) higher than 5th level?


----------



## GSHamster

pawsplay said:


> The relative dominance of magic and melee depends entirely on the basic assumptions with regard to magic. "Unlimited godlike power, without a cost," is not a standard feature of magic, any more than "easily defeats all casters with a quick sword thrust" is a characteristic of all fighters.




Exactly!  That is Option 3 of mine.  Restrictive magic.

But D&D magic is much closer to Neo-Matrix style magic than it is to the other extremes.  And do you honestly see someone who is bound by the rules of the physical world being able to defeat Neo in the Matrix?

Or say Rand Al'Thor in the Wheel of Time. Without _a'dam_ or Mat's fox amulet, can any non-magical individual possibly challenge him or any of the (competent) Aes Sedai?

In D&D, magic, especially at high-levels, is closer to the high-magic extreme than the other.  I'm not saying that you can't change that, but it is a deliberate change, and a lot of people who currently like playing magic users might not be too happy with change of that magnitude.


----------



## GSHamster

Ultimatecalibur said:


> It basically comes down to the two having roughly equal in power. If a wizard can create demiplanes then warriors should be able to cut mountains in half with their ability alone.




Let me outline the opposing argument.

The world has physical rules.
Only someone with magic can break those rules.
Therefore, someone without magic cannot break those rules.

Cutting a mountain in half violates the physical rules of the world.
Therefore, someone without magic cannot cut a mountain in half.

It's not a question of balance. It's a question of verisimilitude. Only magic is allowed to break verisimilitude. That is why people insist that non-magical warriors should not be able to do things like cut mountains in half, _even if it leads to an unbalanced game_. Their desire for balance conflicts with the desire for verisimilitude, and for some people the latter is more important than the former.


----------



## ProfessorCirno

GSHamster said:


> Let me outline the opposing argument.
> 
> The world has physical rules.
> Only someone with magic can break those rules..




Whoh!  Stop there.  Here's the problem.

There is where the logic train derails and loses sight of Fantasy Station.  At this point you are no longer playing a fantasy game - you are playing a _magic_ game.  Which is great for something like Ars Magica, but that's not what D&D is.  This isn't a verisimilitude argument, and god have I grown to hate how that word is slung around.

Here's the thing: the idea of secularized magic is an *incredibly* modern phenomenon.  Magic *was* the supernatural throughout most of human history and mythology.  And not the other way around - there was far more supernatural then just "guy casting a spell," but that guy casting a spell was tied directly to divine or otherworldly power.

Fantasy up until the secularization of mythology was almost entirely about the divine.  Both "wizard" types and "warrior" types were heavily intertwined with otherworldly power and figures.  Wizards weren't wizards, they were clerics.  Even the name wizard has it's origins in the Zoroastrian Magi, the "priests" of a specific religion.

When you say "only magic can alter the rules" you aren't upholding any verisimilitude.  You're only upholding an incredibly bizarre idea that only one specific group of supernatural power can change the rules and the others can't for arbitrary and undefined reasons.  If there are wizards in your game - figures who by definition are imbued with supernatural power - and they are PCs, then you either the non-wizards should also be supernatural, or you should just play Ars Magica, because that's _what you want_.

I'm not slamming on Ars Magica, either!  But that's precisely the style of gameplay you seem to want - where wizards rule the world and non-wizards _aren't really PCs._


----------



## GSHamster

I'm using "magic" as short-form for "clerical, divine, or arcane magic, or other supernatural power".  To me, you can substitute cleric for wizard in the entire argument and get the same results.

To be honest, it's a little bit of a tautology. What is magic? Magic is anything that allows you to break the normal physical rules.


----------



## Ultimatecalibur

GSHamster said:


> Let me outline the opposing argument.
> 
> The world has physical rules.
> Only someone with magic can break those rules.
> Therefore, someone without magic cannot break those rules.




So you are saying that a world's Physics determine what a power source like 4e's Martial can do, and a world's Chemistry determines what something like Alchemy can do. Well in many stories "magic" has its own sets of rules.



> Cutting a mountain in half violates the physical rules of the world.
> Therefore, someone without magic cannot cut a mountain in half.




Funny thing is that the rules of the _real_ world _do_ allow me to cut mountains in half. Circumstances are what prevent me from doing so. All I need is a blade (or a way to create a blade for a limited time) long enough and sharp enough to cut through all that rock and dirt and a way to accelerate the blade so that it traverses through the mountain. Heck get a big enough blade and you can cut planets, stars and even galaxies. 



> It's not a question of balance. It's a question of verisimilitude. Only magic is allowed to break verisimilitude. That is why people insist that non-magical warriors should not be able to do things like cut mountains in half, _even if it leads to an unbalanced game_. Their desire for balance conflicts with the desire for verisimilitude, and for some people the latter is more important than the former.




Verisimilitude is dependent on a lot of things, genre is a big one. Magic does not break verisimilitude in fantasy but it does in other genres. If I had a gritty real world nior detective mystery and the solution at the end of the book was a demon did it, it would break my sense of verisimilitude.

The only thing that makes most Fighters unable to perform fantastic feats when Wizards can do things like kill everyone in 100 feet by saying a single word is a bunch of tropes that have been in the game for 30+ years.


----------



## Hussar

pawsplay said:


> /snip
> 
> Published materials are full of NPC fighters and thieves who are distinguished by only one criterion: they have competencies your average Normal Man does not




So, by your own admission, NPC fighters are outright better than a Normal Man, or, dare I say it, Bob the Turnip Farmer.

Unless, of course, the majority of Turnip Farmers in your world are F1's, then I guess the distinction would be moot.



			
				RC said:
			
		

> I think it's pretty simple to keep up. A claim was made that a Ftr 1 could be a regular guy just off the turnip wagon, and a counter-claim was made that it could not be so, in any edition.




And, as Pawsplay has just point out, it's not true.  The F1 is distinguished from the normal guy just off the turnip wagon.  End of story.  It doesn't matter how much, just that he is.


----------



## ProfessorCirno

GSHamster said:


> I'm using "magic" as short-form for "clerical, divine, or arcane magic, or other supernatural power".  To me, you can substitute cleric for wizard in the entire argument and get the same results.
> 
> To be honest, it's a little bit of a tautology. What is magic? Magic is anything that allows you to break the normal physical rules.




The tautology matters, though, because it goes beyond "Cleric" and "Wizard."

Gandalf?  Gandalf was the archangel Michael.  He was also inspired by Odin, who was, you know, a god.
Merlin?  Merlin was an antichrist.
Circe?  Circe wasn't just a witch, she was also a minor goddess of magic.

When we look at "wizards" that D&D takes after, what we see is a direct connection to the divine.

My problem is when we then exclude the non-wizards from this.  What of Hercules or Gilgamesh or Cu Chulain?  The common response is: "Well, they're related to the gods."  Well, yes, but so are the wizards!

If you have wizards and clerics in your game, you are *already stating* that it is alright for a Playable Character to be _inherently_ supernatural.  The only question now is: are all PCs supernatural, or are some not?  If the answer is B, then the game you want is Ars Magica.  If the answer is A, then it is not a question of verisimilitude, but rather of the ability or lack thereof of non-wizards to be supernatural.  If anything, what destroys verisimilitude is the idea that "only wizards are allowed to be supernatural."  That doesn't fit at all!


----------



## Hussar

On Verisimilitude.

The thing is, people tend to assume that powers are directly related to the user.  And, it makes sense, if I try to pick a lock, I pull out my piece of wire and try to jimmy the lock.  Totally understandable and believable.

But, what if I gave a character a power to do a "Knock" effect 1/day.  Totally non-magical character.  The player states they use their Knock effect and the lock pops open.  Now, if you take the time to examine the lock, you would discover that it actually wasn't locked in the first place, it was swung shut, but, not latched.  Or the lock was broken and the player's "Knock" effect simply exploited that.

Completely flies in the face of sim style play where the state of the lock must be determined up front.  But, if you ignore that style of play for a second and grant meta-game abilities to the non-magical character, it's not that hard to justify most things in a believable way.

If you want to have "Cleave a Mountain" as an ability (ok, not likely, but possible) it's likely at this level the character has made friends with something powerful enough to cause earthquakes.  When he uses this power, Atlas shrugs and the mountain splits in half.

All it really takes is a small bit of effort to link the ability to the game world and it becomes believable.  Well, not sure on the mountain splitting one, but, you get the point.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> So, by your own admission, NPC fighters are outright better than a Normal Man, or, dare I say it, Bob the Turnip Farmer.




You left out the crucial word "average," which modifies the rest.  There is still nothing preventing BtTF from having a level in a PC class and being "Normal" as opposed to a "Fantasy Hero."  Unusual?  Yes.  But not to the point of seeing a zebra when you hear hooves rumbling on a Texas ranch.

Most of a world's NPCs will not have PC levels.  But those that do have one or two, while rare, are also not noteworthy beyond the confines of their little town.


----------



## pemerton

Hussar said:


> The thing is, people tend to assume that powers are directly related to the user.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Completely flies in the face of sim style play



A relevant quote from Ron Edwards:

Metagame mechanics, by definition, entail the interjection of real-people priorities into the system-operation. Now, it is foolish to speak of Simulationist play as lacking metagame; that would only apply if the people at the table were themselves rules-constructs as well as the rules, and that's silly. But compared to Gamist and Narrativist play, Simulationist play may be spoken of as lacking metagame _interpersonal agenda_, like "winning" or "doing well" in Gamism, or addressing a Premise in Narrativism. Its metagame, although fully social, is self-referential, to stay in-game. . .

To clarify for purposes of the essay, compare the following: (1) an in-game essence or metaphysical effect called "Karma," which represents the character's moral status in that game-universe according to (e.g.) a god or principle in that game-world; (2) a score on the sheet which has literally nothing to do with the character's in-game identity, also called "Karma," recognized and applied by the real people with no in-game entity used to justify it. In both systems, Karma is a point-score which goes up and down, and which can be brought into play as, say, a bonus to one's dice roll. But I'd say that #1 is not metagame at all, and #2 is wholly metagame. 

Mechanically, how do they differ? One thing to consider is how the score goes up and down - by player-use, or by in-game effects? Another is whether the score is integrated with the reward/improvement system - does spending a Karma reduce one's bank of improvement points? In fact, is Karma a spent resource at all? Still another issue is whether in-game effects must be in place, or inserted into place, to justify its use. No one of these indicators is hard-and-fast, however; one must consider them all at once, and how they relate to Simulationism (and non-Simulationism) is a fascinating issue. At this point I tend to think that the main issue, basically, is who is considered to "spend" them - character or player.​
So for warriors there are at least two options: (i) give them points to spend which, while not abilities of the PC itself, still correlate to the PC's standing among the supernatural beings of the gameworld ("Atlas shrugs on my behalf"); or (ii) give them points to spend which purely express the agency of the player at the metagame leleve (Come and Get It).

We know that (ii) causes a bit of controversy. I think even (i) might do so as well, even though it's not necessarily at odds with simulationism (for the sorts of reasons Edwards gives).


----------



## KahnyaGnorc

GSHamster said:


> The world has physical rules.
> Only someone with magic can break those rules.
> Therefore, someone without magic cannot break those rules.
> 
> Cutting a mountain in half violates the physical rules of the world.
> Therefore, someone without magic cannot cut a mountain in half.




The counter to that is that the rules of physics need not be the same as in real life.  For example, Hulk is so strong that the normal laws of physics can stop applying to him if he is angry enough (up to and including ripping the fabric of reality with a powerful enough punch).  He wasn't using magic (like Dr Strange would), but the physical rules of the Marvel Universe allows it to someone of sufficient physical strength.

Similarly, in a fantasy world, a warrior of sufficient power could, by the physical rules of that world, cut a mountain in half.


----------



## Odhanan

D&D is not fantasy literature, it's a role playing game. 

Fantasy novels are not role playing games.

Wizards and Fighters are as (un)balanced in my D&D games as the players believe they are. What matters is what the characters (and thus the players) do, and how they do it. The number on the sheet are tools, suggestions of courses of action (I have no strength, so maybe this isn't such a good idea for me to wrestle this guy) - they are not the game itself. The rules are not the game. The game is not the rules.


----------



## pawsplay

GSHamster said:


> Exactly!  That is Option 3 of mine.  Restrictive magic.
> 
> But D&D magic is much closer to Neo-Matrix style magic than it is to the other extremes.




No, it's not.



> And do you honestly see someone who is bound by the rules of the physical world being able to defeat Neo in the Matrix?




That's actually what happens in the third Matrix movie, Neo gets killed by a really buff fighter.


----------



## pawsplay

GSHamster said:


> .
> To be honest, it's a little bit of a tautology. What is magic? Magic is anything that allows you to break the normal physical rules.




No, that's wonder. Once you codify and understand magic, you learn it operates by its own physical rules. Otherwise, how would you cast the same spell in the same way and get the same result each time?


----------



## pawsplay

Hussar said:


> So, by your own admission, NPC fighters are outright better than a Normal Man,




Yes.



> or, dare I say it, Bob the Turnip Farmer.




No. Bob d'Turnippe is a 1st level fighter, and hence is exactly as good as an NPC fighter.


----------



## pawsplay

pemerton said:


> A relevant quote from Ron Edwards:
> 
> Metagame mechanics, by definition, entail the interjection of real-people priorities into the system-operation. Now, it is foolish to speak of Simulationist play as lacking metagame; that would only apply if the people at the table were themselves rules-constructs as well as the rules, and that's silly. But compared to Gamist and Narrativist play, Simulationist play may be spoken of as lacking metagame _interpersonal agenda_, like "winning" or "doing well" in Gamism, or addressing a Premise in Narrativism. Its metagame, although fully social, is self-referential, to stay in-game. . .
> 
> To clarify for purposes of the essay, compare the following: (1) an in-game essence or metaphysical effect called "Karma," which represents the character's moral status in that game-universe according to (e.g.) a god or principle in that game-world; (2) a score on the sheet which has literally nothing to do with the character's in-game identity, also called "Karma," recognized and applied by the real people with no in-game entity used to justify it. In both systems, Karma is a point-score which goes up and down, and which can be brought into play as, say, a bonus to one's dice roll. But I'd say that #1 is not metagame at all, and #2 is wholly metagame.
> 
> Mechanically, how do they differ? One thing to consider is how the score goes up and down - by player-use, or by in-game effects? Another is whether the score is integrated with the reward/improvement system - does spending a Karma reduce one's bank of improvement points? In fact, is Karma a spent resource at all? Still another issue is whether in-game effects must be in place, or inserted into place, to justify its use. No one of these indicators is hard-and-fast, however; one must consider them all at once, and how they relate to Simulationism (and non-Simulationism) is a fascinating issue. At this point I tend to think that the main issue, basically, is who is considered to "spend" them - character or player.​
> So for warriors there are at least two options: (i) give them points to spend which, while not abilities of the PC itself, still correlate to the PC's standing among the supernatural beings of the gameworld ("Atlas shrugs on my behalf"); or (ii) give them points to spend which purely express the agency of the player at the metagame leleve (Come and Get It).
> 
> We know that (ii) causes a bit of controversy. I think even (i) might do so as well, even though it's not necessarily at odds with simulationism (for the sorts of reasons Edwards gives).




Mainly what this demonstrates is that Ron Edwards has still never gotten his head around Torg, or Force Points. 

But moving right along, there is nothing about meta-game resources that violates a simulation; that tension is purely an artifact of his assertion that "coherent" play is superior. "Karma" only violates a simualtion of a probabilistic world, which, guess what?, heroic fiction is not.


----------



## pemerton

pawsplay said:


> there is nothing about meta-game resources that violates a simulation; that tension is purely an artifact of his assertion that "coherent" play is superior. "Karma" only violates a simualtion of a probabilistic world, which, guess what?, heroic fiction is not.



There is a difference here between _karma_ and the hypothesised _karma points_.

There is no issue for simulationist play if fighters have powers like "Cleave Mountain: when you use this power, the top falls off a mountain." This would resemble many traditional D&D spells.

When the fighter starts to have karma points, however, that the player of the fighter may use to start changing the ingame situation in various ways, then it becomes a potentially different matter. If all the karma points do is eg provide a temporary bonus to defence or attack, it's probably not a big deal - and in fact these probably wouldn't be metagame mechanics in the relevant sense, as they would represent the fighter in question exering a heroic effort, or perhaps being the beneficiary of the forces of luck in the universe.

But the more open-ended the karma points, the more the threat to simulation, as they allow the player to control ingame events in a way that fails to respect hitherto-established ingame causal logic. Come and Get It is 4e's poster-child for this.

In practice, Come and Get It has produced widespread calls either to reintroduce ingame causation as modelled via probabilities (the frequently-mooted attack vs Will), or to allow the GM an override in order to preserve the integrity of the ingame situation (so Come and Get It works as written most of the time, but the GM will exempt, for example, the unarmed mage with only ranged attacks, on an ad hoc basis).

I think that even Hussar's mooted idea, in which the resource in question has an ingame rationale (high level fighter's attract the interest of supernatural forces) would be likely to produce widespread hostility. After all, the uniform skill progression in 4e could easily be explained in such terms (although I personally prefer to treat it as primarily a metagame-driven thing), but has nevertheless been widely criticised. Just the same as there are widespread calls to be able to play a wizard who knows nothing about swimming and has no friends among the waterspirits who help out with it, so I would expect there to be widespread calls to be able to play a fighter who has know supernatural allies but relies purely on his/her own mind and body.


----------



## pawsplay

pemerton said:


> But the more open-ended the karma points, the more the threat to simulation, as they allow the player to control ingame events in a way that fails to respect hitherto-established ingame causal logic. Come and Get It is 4e's poster-child for this.
> 
> In practice, Come and Get It has produced widespread calls either to reintroduce ingame causation as modelled via probabilities (the frequently-mooted attack vs Will), or to allow the GM an override in order to preserve the integrity of the ingame situation (so Come and Get It works as written most of the time, but the GM will exempt, for example, the unarmed mage with only ranged attacks, on an ad hoc basis).




The problem is that Come and Get It was conceived as a combination of skill and karma, but was enacted as a spell. That still wouldn't be a problem, except the spell is weakly written. It's not karmic events that harm the simulation, it's powers that don't simulate anything. You can give fighters "powers" in a simulation game; Hero System games do it all the time. Come and Get It is just a very abstract resource. 

You could prevent Come and Get It from rupturing the simulation just by saying the game map shows only relative positions and turn order does not reflect a strictly chronological turn of events. And you're done. Whether or not Come and Get It provides a satisfying play experience of course depends on your expectations.


----------



## Bluenose

pawsplay said:


> The problem is that Come and Get It was conceived as a combination of skill and karma, but was enacted as a spell. That still wouldn't be a problem, except the spell is weakly written. It's not karmic events that harm the simulation, it's powers that don't simulate anything. You can give fighters "powers" in a simulation game; Hero System games do it all the time. Come and Get It is just a very abstract resource.
> 
> You could prevent Come and Get It from rupturing the simulation just by saying the game map shows only relative positions and turn order does not reflect a strictly chronological turn of events. And you're done. Whether or not Come and Get It provides a satisfying play experience of course depends on your expectations.




What is D&D simulating, then? Reality, good luck explaining turn-based movement. Myth, no-one should be looking directly at Medusa (who is a singular creature) directly and surviving. Fantasy literature, where that nice Mister Conan gets knocked unconscious by a single slingshot. If you start with what you want to simulate, that's one thing, but D&D doesn't seem ever to have gone that way. It's a mish-mash of things people thought were cool, on a system chassis which is fundamentally not simulationist.


----------



## pawsplay

Bluenose said:


> What is D&D simulating, then? Reality, good luck explaining turn-based movement. Myth, no-one should be looking directly at Medusa (who is a singular creature) directly and surviving. Fantasy literature, where that nice Mister Conan gets knocked unconscious by a single slingshot. If you start with what you want to simulate, that's one thing, but D&D doesn't seem ever to have gone that way. It's a mish-mash of things people thought were cool, on a system chassis which is fundamentally not simulationist.




D&D is not simulating reality or myth, but an imaginary space in which adventurers confront dire foes, befuddling wondrous puzzles, and legendary challenges. Putting Conan, Medusa, or realistic tactics into that space is an additional bit of work, but that doesn't mean D&D doesn't simulate anything. The presumption that D&D is either a genre-simulating game or a realistical enactment is not justified. Another way of saying mish-mash is "pastiche," which describes exactly the incorporation of elements across media. Since D&D is not a book, it cannot be a Conan story, although it can refer to one.

As for what the imaginary space is supposed to look like, you do pretty well if you cleave closely to Leiber, Vance, Moorcock, and Dunsany.


----------



## ProfessorCirno

pawsplay said:


> As for what the imaginary space is supposed to look like, you do pretty well if you cleave closely to Leiber, Vance, Moorcock, and Dunsany.




You mean "settings in which wizards are incredibly rare, know three, *maybe* four spells max, and rely heavily on magical items?"

Because that doesn't seem to fit the description of D&D in the slightest.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:


> The F1 is distinguished from the normal guy just off the turnip wagon.  End of story.  It doesn't matter how much, just that he is.




[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]:  See, someone is arguing exactly that.

[MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]:  Are you really telling me that you cannot imagine any instance where a Ftr 1, in any edition, regardless of statistics, can be considerd a normal human?  Really?  

Even in the case where the Ftr 1 and turnip farmer are statistically identical (excpept for terminology), or the Ftr 1 is statistically inferior?  

And is that because you are unable to imagine how the Ftr 1 may be considered a normal human?  Or is it wrongbadfun to do so?


RC


----------



## pemerton

Raven Crowking said:


> [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]:  See, someone is arguing exactly that.



From a recent post of his upthread I thought he meant that they are distinguishd at the metagame level - for example, the F1 has prospects, in the game, that the turnip farmer that the game labels Normal Man lacks - even if, in flavour text up to time zero in the gameworld they don't differ.

I agree with you that in some early editions of D&D that difference in prospects is fairly minor - the more this is so, the more I agree with KM that we have discovered a mechanical weakness in that edition.

But anyway, that's enough from me on this issue - the very fact that I just agreed with KM about how it is to be resolved means that, from my point of view, it is really a non-issue, just because its only a historical question about identifying weaknesses in past editions.

And I should let Hussar speak for himself.


----------



## NoWayJose

KahnyaGnorc said:


> The counter to that is that the rules of physics need not be the same as in real life. For example, Hulk is so strong that the normal laws of physics can stop applying to him if he is angry enough (up to and including ripping the fabric of reality with a powerful enough punch). He wasn't using magic (like Dr Strange would), but the physical rules of the Marvel Universe allows it to someone of sufficient physical strength.
> 
> Similarly, in a fantasy world, a warrior of sufficient power could, by the physical rules of that world, cut a mountain in half.



The Hulk's strength is at least explained by gamma-induced mutation. Enough people "buy" into that justification enough to enjoy the comics and movies with some suspension of disbelief.

If a fantasy warrior cut a mountain in half without context or explanation, it would come across as too surreal or mythical.

Taking that point a little further, if a fantasy warrior could summon the herculean strength to smash the peak off a mountain, but he can't smash down a stone door or cut the head off a giant, that kind of glaring inconsistency greatly detracts from believability.

That would be like giving the Hulk a "Hulk Smash: Mountaintop" feat but a strength of 18 for Str checks, or a scenario where he has one "Hulk Smash: Mountaintop" power but already used up his 3 x "Hulk Smash: Earthquake" and "Hulk Smash: Wall". (Permerton and Hussar would say there's always some believable justification for these gross inconsistencies -- I'd say that's bending over backwards to point of snapping your spine in half to claim that Hulk can smash the top of a mountain but he can't smash the wall because he already smashed 3 walls that day.)

So if a fantasy character is going to violate the laws of physics as we're comfortable believing in a fantasy world, it helps to have an explanation/justification, and it helps to be somewhat consistent when applying that explanation.


----------



## pawsplay

ProfessorCirno said:


> You mean "settings in which wizards are incredibly rare, know three, *maybe* four spells max, and rely heavily on magical items?"
> 
> Because that doesn't seem to fit the description of D&D in the slightest.




So wizards are common and don't rely on magical items in D&D? Ironically enough, the characters I am referring to actually own only a handful of magical items, with the possible exception of Turjan.

I'm less familiar with Dunsany, but Vance, Leiber, and Moorcock all cast spellcasters in protagonist roles. Turjan, from Vance, knows over a hundred spells. Leiber's Grey Mouser is a magic-user/thief; I don't know how many spells he knows, exactly. The Lankhmar stories in which he appears virtually defined the D&D urban environment. Moorcock had several fighter/magic-user protagonists, including Elric and Corum. One of Elric's adversaries was a powerful sorcerer who used no magical items, and could cast a startling variety of spells by bending reality, at the snap of a finger. I'm not sure what you're using for reference, but those stories are clearly some of the most infulential stories which inspired D&D, and have been stated as such by Gary Gygax. Maybe you know better than Gary what D&D is.


----------



## Hussar

Raven Crowking said:


> [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]:  See, someone is arguing exactly that.
> 
> [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]:  Are you really telling me that you cannot imagine any instance where a Ftr 1, in any edition, regardless of statistics, can be considerd a normal human?  Really?
> 
> Even in the case where the Ftr 1 and turnip farmer are statistically identical (excpept for terminology), or the Ftr 1 is statistically inferior?
> 
> And is that because you are unable to imagine how the Ftr 1 may be considered a normal human?  Or is it wrongbadfun to do so?
> 
> 
> RC




Actually, there is another area you're ignoring - saving throws.  The F1 actually has better saves than the Normal Man.  See, in any edition of the game, by the mechanics, a F1 is incapable of being statistically inferior, because the Normal Man either has no stats (other than Int, I suppose) or has straight 10's and 11's across the board. 

Question:  When you say "normal human" are you defining that in a real world sense of someone with the right number of chromosomes, or do you mean the game defined meaning of normal human?  Because, throughout this, I've been speaking to the second and not the first.

Question Number 2:  Are we speaking about PC's or NPC's?  There is a difference.


----------



## pawsplay

Hussar said:


> Actually, there is another area you're ignoring - saving throws.  The F1 actually has better saves than the Normal Man.  See, in any edition of the game, by the mechanics, a F1 is incapable of being statistically inferior, because the Normal Man either has no stats (other than Int, I suppose) or has straight 10's and 11's across the board.




Actually, since the F1 has abilities, his saving throws could be tanked below what the Normal Man deals with. Not that I really see where you're going with this.



> Question:  When you say "normal human" are you defining that in a real world sense of someone with the right number of chromosomes, or do you mean the game defined meaning of normal human?  Because, throughout this, I've been speaking to the second and not the first.




As in humanoid (Human)?



> Question Number 2:  Are we speaking about PC's or NPC's?  There is a difference.




Before 4e, no edition of D&D distinguishes between the capabilities of PCs and NPCs, as far as I am aware. 4e has moved to the model of having only "monsters" and no PC-style NPCs.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> the Normal Man either has no stats (other than Int, I suppose) or has straight 10's and 11's across the board.




According to the 1Ed DMG, 2Ed DMG, and 3.5DMG, this is simply not true, as I _have previously pointed out._

In 1Ed, they tell you what mods you make to rolled stats for all NPCs with PC classes AND for laborers, merchants, etc.  If they had no stats, there would be no need for stat modifiers.

For 2Ed, they are DM's discretion.

For 3.5Ed, you have a choice of arrays or rolling 3d6.

In each case, this means NPCs are capable of having positive or negative modifiers for their saves.


----------



## Neonchameleon

pawsplay said:


> Before 4e, no edition of D&D distinguishes between the capabilities of PCs and NPCs, as far as I am aware. 4e has moved to the model of having only "monsters" and no PC-style NPCs.




1st ed had the Sage for a high functioning NPC and most NPCs were level 0.  A clear and distinct difference from the Fighter 1 of a starting PC fighter.

3rd ed had specific NPC classes.

As far as I know it was only 2e that didn't.  (And 3e tried to sweep it under the carpet).


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:


> Actually, there is another area you're ignoring - saving throws.  The F1 actually has better saves than the Normal Man.




Stat modifiers can change that, easily enough.



> See, in any edition of the game, by the mechanics, a F1 is incapable of being statistically inferior, because the Normal Man either has no stats (other than Int, I suppose) or has straight 10's and 11's across the board.




Already addressed, and disproven.  A Normal Man is assumed to have 10's and 11's unless there is something different, as a convenience for the DM.  Likewise, the DM can choose to give anyone any stats he thinks appropriate (so that the local Smith can have greater Strength, for example, or some local urchin can have better Dexterity).  He can even choose to have them save as a Fighter 1, or give them some subset of thief abilities, or allow them to cast minimal spells.  Again, see T1 and N1 for examples.



> Question:  When you say "normal human" are you defining that in a real world sense of someone with the right number of chromosomes, or do you mean the game defined meaning of normal human?  Because, throughout this, I've been speaking to the second and not the first.




Answer:  I mean a human being, which could potentially exist without supernatural effect within the real world or the fictional analogue thereof.

As far as stats go, I could write out a 1e statblock, leaving out class, but including THAC0 and save numbers required, and I feel relatively certain that you wouldn't know if it was a Normal Man Turnip Farmer or a Fighter 1.  



> Question Number 2:  Are we speaking about PC's or NPC's?  There is a difference.




There _*must be *_a difference, or there is a difference _*when you are playing*_?


RC


----------



## Raven Crowking

[MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]: Tell you what, pal.  I'll answer some more of your questions if, and only if, you answer mine.  Crom knows I've asked you them over and over again, and I suspect the only reason you've ignored them are because the answers tank your position:

1.  Are you really telling me that you cannot imagine any instance where a Ftr 1, in any edition, regardless of statistics, can be considerd a normal human? 

2.  Even in the case where the Ftr 1 and turnip farmer are statistically identical (excpept for terminology), or the Ftr 1 is statistically inferior? 

3.  And is that because you are unable to imagine how the Ftr 1 may be considered a normal human? Or is it wrongbadfun to do so?


RC


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Neonchameleon said:


> 1st ed had the Sage for a high functioning NPC and most NPCs were level 0.  A clear and distinct difference from the Fighter 1 of a starting PC fighter.
> 
> 3rd ed had specific NPC classes.




As pointed out upthread, 1Ed through 3.5Ed explicitly allowed NPCs to have levels in PC classes, and the 3.5DMG even provided a breakdown of the demographics for a town of 200 that included low-level Monks, Clerics, Druids, Wizards and Fighters*.




* with page references in the relevant DMGs provided.


----------



## Mort

Is it just me or has the thread completely morphed into: How do current and past edditions of D&D model the fiction - specifically how do traditionally PC classes play a roll in that modeling?

If that's the case - maybe a new thread so people aren't intimidated slogging through close through 600 posts of shifting topic?

thoughts?


----------



## pawsplay

Mort said:


> Is it just me or has the thread completely morphed into: How do current and past edditions of D&D model the fiction - specifically how do traditionally PC classes play a roll in that modeling?
> 
> If that's the case - maybe a new thread so people aren't intimidated slogging through close through 600 posts of shifting topic?
> 
> thoughts?




You could probably split out "how many PC-type NPCs are there in a campaign world?" as a topic, but the whole wizard v. warrior thing seems to really hang on whether you think someone can become a wizard by reading a book, or become a fighter by pulling a sword off of a battlefield. The gravity field of the topic is such that despite several attempts to re-address the OP we always seem to be back in orbit.

I think this is one of those topics that is going to go in, in this thread, and other threads, until hearts and minds are changed. I've seen stuff like this go on for months before.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

It would probably be quicker & easier to restart the convo on the OP in a new thread than wrench this one back on track.

...although I'm not sure there were any unanswered questions regarding the initial query after the first 5 pages.


----------



## Mort

pawsplay said:


> You could probably split out "how many PC-type NPCs are there in a campaign world?" as a topic, but the whole wizard v. warrior thing seems to really hang on whether you think someone can become a wizard by reading a book, or become a fighter by pulling a sword off of a battlefield. The gravity field of the topic is such that despite several attempts to re-address the OP we always seem to be back in orbit.
> 
> I think this is one of those topics that is going to go in, in this thread, and other threads, until hearts and minds are changed. I've seen stuff like this go on for months before.




It seems the main gist of the current tangent is: are PCs inherrently different from the NPCs of the game world?

It just seems to me that the obvious answer is: From a metagame perspective of course they are, but from a system-mechanical perspective there is no reason they have to be (though there are very good efficiency reasons for having most NPCs be simpler, I can't imagine stating every NPC as a PC).


----------



## ProfessorCirno

pawsplay said:


> So wizards are common and don't rely on magical items in D&D? Ironically enough, the characters I am referring to actually own only a handful of magical items, with the possible exception of Turjan.
> 
> I'm less familiar with Dunsany, but Vance, Leiber, and Moorcock all cast spellcasters in protagonist roles. Turjan, from Vance, knows over a hundred spells. Leiber's Grey Mouser is a magic-user/thief; I don't know how many spells he knows, exactly. The Lankhmar stories in which he appears virtually defined the D&D urban environment. Moorcock had several fighter/magic-user protagonists, including Elric and Corum. One of Elric's adversaries was a powerful sorcerer who used no magical items, and could cast a startling variety of spells by bending reality, at the snap of a finger. I'm not sure what you're using for reference, but those stories are clearly some of the most infulential stories which inspired D&D, and have been stated as such by Gary Gygax.




Turjan knew *four* spells.  Certainly he had a wealth of them in his library, but he could memorize *four* of them.  The vast majority of Vance's books were on swashbuckling and magic items and people who had just enough power to get themselves into enough trouble that they couldn't get out of.

Grey Mouser was a thief who also knew a handful of spells.  The emphasis was never on the spellcasting.

Elric never cast fireball.  He could do a grand and powerful ritual that was hilariously draining to do magic, certainly!  But he was never anywhere close to a D&D wizard.  Oh sure, his *antagonists* could cast plenty of spells with no magic items, but _they weren't PCs, were they?_

I never read Lankhmar, so you have me there!



> Maybe you know better than Gary what D&D is.




You were doing better when you were using the tragic death of a NASCAR racer as an example.


----------



## Aldarron

The whole idea of the OP is wacked.  There is no balance or character parity.  Period.  Why would any author even attempt such a deterministic idea!?!?


----------



## pawsplay

ProfessorCirno said:


> Turjan knew *four* spells.  Certainly he had a wealth of them in his library, but he could memorize *four* of them.  The vast majority of Vance's books were on swashbuckling and magic items and people who had just enough power to get themselves into enough trouble that they couldn't get out of.




So you've just demonstrated that the term "Vancian" is often stretched beyond what it should properly denote. Not sure I'm seeing your point.



> Grey Mouser was a thief who also knew a handful of spells.  The emphasis was never on the spellcasting.




I know, right? Makes it all the more remarkable that a PC who is basically a fighter-thief just so happens, casually casually, to know a few spells. Suddenly being a wizard doesn't seem all that special. 



> Elric never cast fireball.  He could do a grand and powerful ritual that was hilariously draining to do magic, certainly!  But he was never anywhere close to a D&D wizard.  Oh sure, his *antagonists* could cast plenty of spells with no magic items, but _they weren't PCs, were they?_




So... you're belittling the magical power of a guy who gets really tired summoning _gods_. Okay, then. According to the BECMI rules, summoning an Immortal Demon requires magical knowledge beyond even the mightiest mortal magicians, coveted by the most powerful and the most mad.



> You were doing better when you were using the tragic death of a NASCAR racer as an example.




That's a hard one to top, I'll admit.

As the saying goes: "Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh." - G.B. Shaw

I sincerely hope none of the man's family post to this board. Beyond that, I hope the point was succinctly made.


----------



## Sepulchrave II

I will contradict my previous statement based on a different interpretation of 1e DMG, p.35 - in case anyone needs reminding:



> Human and half-orc characters *suitable for level advancement* are found in a ratio of 1 in 100




The emphasis is mine, as this quote says nothing about the _level_ of characters who are unsuitable for advancement - i.e. it does not mention '0-level.'

In fact, sergeants, captains etc. are characters with levels who are _incapable of advancement_. This represents a third category between Normal Men and "PC-Types" - for want of a better term - which muddies things. It is also explicitly gamist, as it is not saying "this character has reached 2nd level," it is saying "we are using a 2nd level fighter to model a lieutenant."

I think, for me, it comes back to the notion of _potential_ (to become a superman) in 1e. All PCs have it; NPCs determined to be "special" enough by the DM also might have it. But the default assumption is that _regular people don't have it_.

I think 3e diluted the meaning of levels too much; it gave them a "reality" which extended them to all and sundry, and made it tempting to link them to the evolution of specific NPCs (historically, within the context of the game world). I remember reading posts about how many xp a farmer would gain every year from dealing with poor crops, hop weevil and droughts ("overcoming challenges"), and what level he'd be when he reached 40 years old. (IIRC, the consensus was about 5th). In any event, this exercise seems silly to me: oversimulation gone mad, I say.

And what *is* a 20th-level commoner? I mean. Really. Or 10th? Honestly, I even struggle with 5th.


----------



## the Jester

A lot of the talk in the last couple of pages about how you can justify high-level fighters cleaving mountains in half completely misses the point.

It doesn't matter how much mythic history there is supporting it, nor does it matter how much genre support there is. _Some people don't like to play that way._ Some guys want to play a fighter that fights, who is a bad ass with a sword and wears bitchin' +5 plate mail once he's high level. But who doesn't jump across the Grand Canyon, leap up and hit the dragon flying 100' above his head, hurl a weapon thirty miles or wrestle a river.

It matters not at all that myth and fiction have lots of this. Some people really do want their fighters to be as cool as Batman or Captain America, and not as strong as Thor and as fast as the Flash. Some people don't find the over the top stuff believable, no matter how many times it has happened in Greek or Norse or Sumerian mythology. 

Tastes vary. I don't want my non-supernatural fighter to be able to cleave mountains, _no matter how much some of you might want me to._ There are a lot of other guys out there that feel the way I do, too. And while there's nothing wrong with a game where the fighter cleaves mountains, there is something wrong with insisting that everyone play that way.

Edit: And asserting that anyone that wants to play that way should go play Ars Magica is pretty one-true-wayish and insulting. Come on now, D&D _always_ had the fighter as a non-supernatural character until very recently. If you want to go cleave mountains, why don't you go play _Mutants and Masterminds_ or something?


----------



## the Jester

Sepulchrave II said:


> And what *is* a 20th-level commoner? I mean. Really. Or 10th? Honestly, I even struggle with 5th.




In a low-magic campaign I ran during 3.5, I fully detailed the pcs' starting area and the town's eldest elder (who was either a half-elf or a dwarf- there were no elves) was IIRC a12th level commoner.

She was a font of knowledge and skills, but very frail, with a very low Con and pretty close to 1 hp/die.


----------



## ProfessorCirno

the Jester said:


> A lot of the talk in the last couple of pages  about how you can justify high-level fighters cleaving mountains in half  completely misses the point.
> 
> It doesn't matter how much mythic history there is supporting it, nor does it matter how much genre support there is. _Some people don't like to play that way._  Some guys want to play a fighter that fights, who is a bad ass with a  sword and wears bitchin' +5 plate mail once he's high level. But who  doesn't jump across the Grand Canyon, leap up and hit the dragon flying  100' above his head, hurl a weapon thirty miles or wrestle a river.
> 
> It matters not at all that myth and fiction have lots of this. Some  people really do want their fighters to be as cool as Batman or Captain  America, and not as strong as Thor and as fast as the Flash. Some people  don't find the over the top stuff believable, no matter how many times  it has happened in Greek or Norse or Sumerian mythology.
> 
> Tastes vary. I don't want my non-supernatural fighter to be able to cleave mountains, _no matter how much some of you might want me to._  There are a lot of other guys out there that feel the way I do, too.  And while there's nothing wrong with a game where the fighter cleaves  mountains, there is something wrong with insisting that everyone play  that way.




 My rebuttal is that this is fine and, frankly, a sometimes awesome way  to play.  Low magic, sword and sandals, bronze age games can be tons of  fun.

 ...If everyone is on board.

 The problem with D&D is that fighters are playing a low magic, sword  and sandals, bronze age game, and the wizards are playing a high  fantasy, everything is flying, magic is regular game, and the two don't  mesh well together.  You want to be a non-supernatural fighter that  grits his teeth and slices apart an orc, in a daring fight, and that's really cool, but the wizard is playing a  game where he's a flying teleporting dragon that can wave his hand and  kill All The Orcs.



pawsplay said:


> So you've just demonstrated that the term "Vancian" is often stretched beyond what it should properly denote. Not sure I'm seeing your point.




I don't even know where the goalposts went.  You claimed "No see in this fiction wizards are D&D wizards!"  Are you admitting you are wrong?



> I know, right? Makes it all the more remarkable that a PC who is basically a fighter-thief just so happens, casually casually, to know a few spells. Suddenly being a wizard doesn't seem all that special.




Wherever the goalposts went, they just got farther away.



> So... you're belittling the magical power of a guy who gets really tired summoning _gods_. Okay, then. According to the BECMI rules, summoning an Immortal Demon requires magical knowledge beyond even the mightiest mortal magicians, coveted by the most powerful and the most mad.




Goalposts have now ceased to exist.

I'm not belittling anyone.  I'm saying that Elric's magic is a one time super draining ritual.  He doesn't throw magic missiles and fly as an invisible teleporting dragon.  He can on occasion summon horrible spirits and elder gods with unspeakable names.  That's not a D&D character.


----------



## ProfessorCirno

the Jester said:


> Edit: And asserting that anyone that wants to play that way should go play Ars Magica is pretty one-true-wayish and insulting. Come on now, D&D _always_ had the fighter as a non-supernatural character until very recently. If you want to go cleave mountains, why don't you go play _Mutants and Masterminds_ or something?




What D&D *is* and what D&D *calls itself* are two different things.

D&D calls itself the game where you can be - and I will quote directly from the 2e PHB here - "Hercules, Perseus, Hiawatha, Beowulf, Siegfried, Cuchulain, Little John, Tristan, and Sinbad...El Cid, Hannibal, Alexander the Great, Charlemagne, Spartacus, Richard the Lionheart, and Belisarius"

 The problem is that when you actually try to be almost any of the above, you find _you can't be after all_.  You can't be Hercules, or Beowulf, or Siegfried.

It sounds like your conflating D&D's _failure_ to be what it wants to be with what it actually wants to be.  Certainly D&D has for a long time been about very boring fighters who are mortal men and can't actually do a whole lot.  But that's not a feature, it's a bug.  And it's not what D&D has wanted to be, nor what it's advertised itself to be.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Elric WAS a D&D caster* in one book...for which TSR got in a little trouble.







* and was both powerful and of little resemblance to the Elric of Moorcock's stories...


----------



## pawsplay

ProfessorCirno said:


> My rebuttal is that this is fine and, frankly, a sometimes awesome way  to play.  Low magic, sword and sandals, bronze age games can be tons of  fun.
> 
> ...If everyone is on board.
> 
> The problem with D&D is that fighters are playing a low magic, sword  and sandals, bronze age game, and the wizards are playing a high  fantasy, everything is flying, magic is regular game, and the two don't  mesh well together.  You want to be a non-supernatural fighter that  grits his teeth and slices apart an orc, in a daring fight, and that's really cool, but the wizard is playing a  game where he's a flying teleporting dragon that can wave his hand and  kill All The Orcs.




And high action, flying swordsmen, mountain-cleaving stuff can be lots of fun... if everyone is on board. 



> I don't even know where the goalposts went.  You claimed "No see in this fiction wizards are D&D wizards!"  Are you admitting you are wrong?
> 
> Wherever the goalposts went, they just got farther away.
> 
> Goalposts have now ceased to exist.
> 
> I'm not belittling anyone.  I'm saying that Elric's magic is a one time super draining ritual.  He doesn't throw magic missiles and fly as an invisible teleporting dragon.  He can on occasion summon horrible spirits and elder gods with unspeakable names.  That's not a D&D character.




You seem to be claiming that each of those sources must map to specific D&D tropes. Obviously, D&D is a pastiche of various sources, and a little something of its own. Don't ask me to defend a point I didn't make. I never claimed Elric was a level N wizard, so don't act like I did. In return, I'll politely not inquire what specific 4e power allow's a fighter's hallowed touch to burn the flesh of the Grendel.

I was simply offering examples of a very specific point: that D&D is based heavily on sources where PC magicians are relatively common. The saga of Beowulf is not something on which D&D is heavily based.


----------



## Sepulchrave II

the Jester said:


> In a low-magic campaign I ran during 3.5, I fully detailed the pcs' starting area and the town's eldest elder (who was either a half-elf or a dwarf- there were no elves) was IIRC a12th level commoner.
> 
> She was a font of knowledge and skills, but very frail, with a very low Con and pretty close to 1 hp/die.




I'm also very fond of this archetype, but usually I find a 3rd-5th level expert with a couple a good feats and the "heroic" aging bonuses: the ones which model gaining a keen mind, great wisdom and an aura of charisma, rather than drooling senility.

The low Con is useful for modeling frailty. But a 20th level commoner with a Constitution of 18 (Nothing special: nonelite array, all level bumps to Con) has 130 hit points.

What manner of beast is this?


----------



## pawsplay

I remember once someone posited that a 20th level Commoner made sense for one kind of character: a member of some extremely long-lived race, like an elf, who is a useless sack, diong virtually nothing noteworthy and surviving the centuries due to a lack of the adventurous spirit and a little bit of luck.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> The low Con is useful for modeling frailty. But a 20th level commoner with a Constitution of 18 (Nothing special: nonelite array, all level bumps to Con) has 130 hit points.
> 
> What manner of beast is this?




A hearty slab of humanity who has seen strife and war and wants none of it- all he wants is his turnip field, some cider, a good hunting dog, and the love of his plump wife & strapping lads.

Also, someone who could probably kick the ass of a young fighter who thinks he's some kind of Child of Destiny and didn't respect his elders in the process of mouthed off in the local inn.


----------



## Sepulchrave II

dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> a hearty slab of humanity...






			
				pawsplay said:
			
		

> an elf, who is a useless sack,




q.e.d.


----------



## the Jester

ProfessorCirno said:


> What D&D *is* and what D&D *calls itself* are two different things.
> 
> D&D calls itself the game where you can be - and I will quote directly from the 2e PHB here - "Hercules, Perseus, Hiawatha, Beowulf, Siegfried, Cuchulain, Little John, Tristan, and Sinbad...El Cid, Hannibal, Alexander the Great, Charlemagne, Spartacus, Richard the Lionheart, and Belisarius"
> 
> The problem is that when you actually try to be almost any of the above, you find _you can't be after all_.  You can't be Hercules, or Beowulf, or Siegfried.
> 
> It sounds like your conflating D&D's _failure_ to be what it wants to be with what it actually wants to be.  Certainly D&D has for a long time been about very boring fighters who are mortal men and can't actually do a whole lot.  But that's not a feature, it's a bug.  And it's not what D&D has wanted to be, nor what it's advertised itself to be.




You're continuing to assert that I should play the way you prefer.

I find that it actually is a feature that fighters in 1e and 2e (and largely in 3e) are mundane. It isn't a bug. It's fine. 

You don't like it that way? Okay, play differently. But why do you insist I'm doing it wrong?


----------



## the Jester

Sepulchrave II said:


> The low Con is useful for modeling frailty. But a 20th level commoner with a Constitution of 18 (Nothing special: nonelite array, all level bumps to Con) has 130 hit points.
> 
> What manner of beast is this?





Hmm... perhaps the gnarled old veteran who has fought in the rabble under several kings and somehow lived through it, who has survived plagues and famine and is basically unkillable, albeit perhaps not a good fighter or anything.


----------



## Ultimatecalibur

Jester, Cirno, you are both right on somethings and wrong on others.

Jester, you are right that you should be able to have high-level Fighters be purely mundane warriors, and Cirno you are right that that you should be able to make high-level Fighters superheroic demigods. Where you are wrong is that D&D and other RPGs potentially have room for both. The problem is that most are not designed to handle both. 4th edition can handle both but not at the same level.

If you think about it characters (PCs, NPCs and even monsters) can fit into roughly 5 power tiers. They are the following:

Common - This is the tier of ordinary people. The place where the common human farmhand, half-orc dockworker, orc warrior, elven merchant, and common wolf exists. If a character of this tier has any magic it is on the level of the 0-level cantrips of 1 and 2 editions.

Heroic - This is the tier where people and creatures star standing out. People on the Common tier look up to those on this tier with fear or respect. Knight-errants, orc chiefs, tribal champions and the tigers all live of this tier. Magic of this tier is similar to that of 1, 2 and 3 level spells.

Paragon - Who is a hero to a hero? A Paragon. This is the place where beings such as Lancelot, Warchief Thrall, Achilles and Beowulf face giants, dragons, angels and demons on equal terms. Magic tends to be in the realm of 4-6 level D&D spells.

Epic - This is the land of Gods, Demigods and the divine. Thor, Heracles and Gilgamesh ride out to do glorious deeds such fishing up the world serpent, beating up demon lords and cutting valleys in to mountain ranges. Magic of this tier is on the level of the 7-9 level spells such as wish.

Overgod - Beyond all else. Practically unplayable.

Prior to 4th edition, Fighters hung out in the Heroic tier for all 20 levels while Wizards progressed from Common to Epic tier based on the number and level of spells they had.

4e attempted to use the Heroic, Paragon and Epic tiers, but due to tying level to tier progression they only used 1/3rd of the available design space.


----------



## Hussar

Raven Crowking said:


> [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]: Tell you what, pal.  I'll answer some more of your questions if, and only if, you answer mine.  Crom knows I've asked you them over and over again, and I suspect the only reason you've ignored them are because the answers tank your position:
> 
> 1.  Are you really telling me that you cannot imagine any instance where a Ftr 1, in any edition, regardless of statistics, can be considerd a normal human?




Since I don't know how you are defining "normal" then it's difficult to answer.  I do think that a F1 in any edition, is better than a common individual AS DEFINED BY THE SYSTEM.



> 2.  Even in the case where the Ftr 1 and turnip farmer are statistically identical (excpept for terminology), or the Ftr 1 is statistically inferior?




Not possible unless the turnip farmer is actually a F1.  Even if they have the same stats, same hp, same AC, the Fighter still has better saving throws.  The fighter still has more skills.  The fighter most certainly still has way more potential as well.



> 3.  And is that because you are unable to imagine how the Ftr 1 may be considered a normal human? Or is it wrongbadfun to do so?
> 
> 
> RC




What's with the snark?  When did I tell anyone they were having fun wrong?  I did say that the point is not mechancally supported and I'll stand by that, but, where did I say that someone was having badwrongfun?



the Jester said:


> You're continuing to assert that I should play the way you prefer.
> 
> I find that it actually is a feature that fighters in 1e and 2e (and largely in 3e) are mundane. It isn't a bug. It's fine.
> 
> You don't like it that way? Okay, play differently. But why do you insist I'm doing it wrong?




Again with the badwrongfun shots.  Why?  What is this adding?

See, the problem is, sure, you can play D&D the way you are talking about, but, how do YOU deal with the power level disparity?  Ignore it?  Deal with it?  How?

Just as a question, how much higher level D&D have you played?  Again, not snark, just a question.  I often find that in these conversations, people who don't see the issue generally play low to mid level campaigns where this really isn't much of an issue.

Or, they play with players who have a tacit agreement at the table not to make it an issue.  The cleric relagates himself to healbot and doesn't show the firepower that he could.  The wizard stays with direct damage spells for the most part and doesn't dominate the game.

And that's certainly one way to maintain balance.  Let the group do it.  And that's fantastic if everyone's on board.  But, all it takes is someone to go, "Hrm, if I combine this spell with that spell, I can devastate the opposition to a degree that a non-caster can't even dream of."


----------



## Hussar

the Jester said:


> Hmm... perhaps the gnarled old veteran who has fought in the rabble under several kings and somehow lived through it, who has survived plagues and famine and is basically unkillable, albeit perhaps not a good fighter or anything.




Wasn't it the Epic Level Handbook that got pretty much universally slammed for having epic level commoners and guards in its city?  Because, if an epic level commoner is still a normal man, then why aren't there more of them around?


----------



## pawsplay

Hussar said:


> Wasn't it the Epic Level Handbook that got pretty much universally slammed for having epic level commoners and guards in its city?  Because, if an epic level commoner is still a normal man, then why aren't there more of them around?




The ELH was slammed for epic fail. It's a whole sourcebook on epic characters that is _worse_ than the quickie rules in the original 3e FR campaign book.


----------



## Celtavian

*re*



Sepulchrave II said:


> I'm also very fond of this archetype, but usually I find a 3rd-5th level expert with a couple a good feats and the "heroic" aging bonuses: the ones which model gaining a keen mind, great wisdom and an aura of charisma, rather than drooling senility.
> 
> The low Con is useful for modeling frailty. But a 20th level commoner with a Constitution of 18 (Nothing special: nonelite array, all level bumps to Con) has 130 hit points.
> 
> What manner of beast is this?




Oh, what a hilarious encounter you could run with a lvl 20 commoner with 130 hit points. He could probably beat the hell out of a lvl 7or 8 party. Boy, that would be fun. 


Farmer Joe that survived several wars and monster attacks on the village. Don't mess with Farmer Joe, he'll clean your clock.


----------



## Celtavian

ProfessorCirno said:


> My rebuttal is that this is fine and, frankly, a sometimes awesome way  to play.  Low magic, sword and sandals, bronze age games can be tons of  fun.
> 
> ...If everyone is on board.
> 
> The problem with D&D is that fighters are playing a low magic, sword  and sandals, bronze age game, and the wizards are playing a high  fantasy, everything is flying, magic is regular game, and the two don't  mesh well together.  You want to be a non-supernatural fighter that  grits his teeth and slices apart an orc, in a daring fight, and that's really cool, but the wizard is playing a  game where he's a flying teleporting dragon that can wave his hand and  kill All The Orcs.




How are fighters playing low magic? Are you telling me the fighters in your 3.x campaigns were so weak and underequipped, they were merely the wizards chump Igor type?

I have had more trouble in my campaigns challenging melee and physical damage types than any other type of character.

If I want to challenge a wizard, I give a creature high saves. Challenging a figther-type and I have to give the creature a mountain of hit points they do so much damage. And you call that sword and sandals bronze age?

This is why I can't take your opinion seriously. It is so far out of touch with the games I played in, I don't even know where to begin.

A high lvl fighter, say 15 or so. With a weapon and armor appropriate to his level and a well-designed feat scheme could mow down an army of giants, was untouchable against an or army, and could crush a gang of demons in a few rounds. And this isn't supernatural or strong enough for you? What game were you playing?

A well-designed fighter archer was a vicious damage dealer that could take down a wizard in one round if that wizard lost initiative, which was quite possible given the archer was dex-based.

A well-designed fighter could do an average of 30 to 40 damage or more a hit and get their crit rating to insane levels pre-3.5 They would ruin fights with a lucky series of crits that would annihilate your average dragon.

Yet these guys are your standard, low power chumps being outdone by the wizard?

You couldn't prove that to my players. The fighter-types knew how to make their characters dangerous. If they were common, sword and sandal fighters, I don't know what supernatural fighters you were talking about. They were more like Hercules or Conan than Joe Blow gladiator from the Bronze Age.








> I'm not belittling anyone.  I'm saying that Elric's magic is a one time super draining ritual.  He doesn't throw magic missiles and fly as an invisible teleporting dragon.  He can on occasion summon horrible spirits and elder gods with unspeakable names.  That's not a D&D character.




Elric obliterated armies with a few words, easily. No, he wasn't throwing magic missiles all the time. And some of his abilities were ritual magic. Some of it was simple "I obliterate all the lowly mortals with a few words because I'm that damn bad to the bone".


----------



## pemerton

pawsplay said:


> Before 4e, no edition of D&D distinguishes between the capabilities of PCs and NPCs, as far as I am aware.



The 1st ed AD&D DMG treats stats for NPCs with PC classes differently. In some cases NPCs have lower minimums. In other cases they have stat adjustments rather than minimums.

The same book also has NPC fighters who are incapable of gaining levels (in the rules for  hiring mercenaries).

I don't know 2nd ed AD&D so well, but I suspect that it abandoned these rules.


----------



## Bluenose

Reported


----------



## Ultimatecalibur

Celtavian said:


> A high lvl fighter, say 15 or so. With a weapon and armor appropriate to his level and a well-designed feat scheme could mow down an army of giants, was untouchable against an or army, and could crush a gang of demons in a few rounds. And this isn't supernatural or strong enough for you? What game were you playing?
> 
> A well-designed fighter archer was a vicious damage dealer that could take down a wizard in one round if that wizard lost initiative, which was quite possible given the archer was dex-based.
> 
> A well-designed fighter could do an average of 30 to 40 damage or more a hit and get their crit rating to insane levels pre-3.5 They would ruin fights with a lucky series of crits that would annihilate your average dragon.
> 
> Yet these guys are your standard, low power chumps being outdone by the wizard?




There is a synonym for "well-designed" that is used more often now: Optimized. And that is what those 2 fighters you described are. Those were not builds you could generate in 10 minutes. They also had weakness out the wazoo. So they were not standard run of the mill characters, they were hyper-focused specialists built out stuff from a dozen different books.

At the same point your average wizard had been granting limited wishes for 2 levels already.



> You couldn't prove that to my players. The fighter-types knew how to make their characters dangerous. If they were common, sword and sandal fighters, I don't know what supernatural fighters you were talking about. They were more like Hercules or Conan than Joe Blow gladiator from the Bronze Age.




What you are describing is system mastery. Your players had enough system mastery that they could make fighters effective, but if they had used an equivalent level of mastery on a cleric, druid, wizard or sorcerer they would have ended up with characters who far outstripped them in power often with fewer vulnerabilities.


----------



## Neonchameleon

ProfessorCirno said:


> Grey Mouser was a thief who also knew a handful of spells. The emphasis was never on the spellcasting.




Grey Mouser is, as is so common, almost impossible to represent in older editions of D&D but trivial in 4e.  He didn't have six-second combat magic that was mandatory of old spellcasters.  He had enough training to be a ritual caster and was therefore a spellcaster.  But he fought as a thief.



> Elric never cast fireball. He could do a grand and powerful ritual that was hilariously draining to do magic, certainly! But he was never anywhere close to a D&D wizard.




One more ritual caster.  Something that simply didn't work in classic D&D.



> Oh sure, his *antagonists* could cast plenty of spells with no magic items, but _they weren't PCs, were they?_




Yup.  Getting back to the thread title, _the normal way the Wizard/Warrior Balance Problem is handled in Fantasy Literature is the same way the Warrior/Dragon Balance Problem is handled in Fantasy Literature.  Wizards are antagonists or support NPCs not PCs._



> I never read Lankhmar, so you have me there!




I thought that was Fafhrd/Grey Mouser.



pawsplay said:


> So you've just demonstrated that the term "Vancian" is often stretched beyond what it should properly denote. Not sure I'm seeing your point.




That D&D spellcasting is D&D spellcasting and has precious little to do with non D&D fantasy literature.



> I know, right? Makes it all the more remarkable that a PC who is basically a fighter-thief just so happens, casually casually, to know a few spells. Suddenly being a wizard doesn't seem all that special.




Except he always screws them up...  Also he's a 4e Ritual Caster, not any form of classic D&D (i.e. OD&D/AD&D/3.X) Caster. 



> So... you're belittling the magical power of a guy who gets really tired summoning _gods_.




Can he pull it off (or indeed any real combat magic) in 6 seconds?  If not, classic D&D casting is not a good model.



the Jester said:


> A lot of the talk in the last couple of pages about how you can justify high-level fighters cleaving mountains in half completely misses the point.
> 
> It doesn't matter how much mythic history there is supporting it, nor does it matter how much genre support there is. _Some people don't like to play that way._




_And no one is disputing that_.  The problem isn't whether the game is gritty or high magic.  It's in the thread title.  The Wizard vs Warrior Balance problem.  WHFRP doesn't have this issue; fighters are gritty - but magic will blow back in your face.  Exalted doesn't have this problem; magic is powerful, but so are fighters.  The problem is *The Wizard vs Warrior Balance*.  You want warriors to play gritty and wizards to play near-effortlessly.



> Tastes vary. I don't want my non-supernatural fighter to be able to cleave mountains, _no matter how much some of you might want me to._




_And I don't care_.  Low magic is fun.  *The problem is the mix of the low magic fighter and the high magic wizard.*  Play WHFRP 2e for a bit.  Wizards there don't like casting spells because they backfire and have side effects.  Or open yourself to demonic posession.



Ultimatecalibur said:


> Jester, you are right that you should be able to have high-level Fighters be purely mundane warriors, and Cirno you are right that that you should be able to make high-level Fighters superheroic demigods. Where you are wrong is that D&D and other RPGs potentially have room for both. The problem is that most are not designed to handle both. 4th edition can handle both but not at the same level.




Mundane fighter who is just that good: Knight.  Super-heroic demigod: Fighter.



Celtavian said:


> How are fighters playing low magic? Are you telling me the fighters in your 3.x campaigns were so weak and underequipped, they were merely the wizards chump Igor type?
> 
> I have had more trouble in my campaigns challenging melee and physical damage types than any other type of character.
> 
> If I want to challenge a wizard, I give a creature high saves.




And a good one makes this irrelevant.



> Challenging a figther-type and I have to give the creature a mountain of hit points they do so much damage. And you call that sword and sandals bronze age?




Now I see your problem.  Your wizards were thinking like fighters.  High saves don't even win in combat.



> A high lvl fighter, say 15 or so. With a weapon and armor appropriate to his level and a well-designed feat scheme could mow down an army of giants, was untouchable against an or army, and could crush a gang of demons in a few rounds. And this isn't supernatural or strong enough for you? What game were you playing?




You mean a fighter that was entirely twinked out, right?  Because at level 15 they had 8 feats from being a fighter.   Assume weapon spec/greater weapon spec/weapon focus/greater weapon focus, and an exotic weapon as 5.  Iron Will as a 6th to have a chance with the will save.  That's two spare feats - unless you used a lot of non-core material (when wizards should be running complete rings round non-casters).



> A well-designed fighter archer was a vicious damage dealer that could take down a wizard in one round if that wizard lost initiative, which was quite possible given the archer was dex-based.




Simple question: Why was the wizard rolling straight initiative against the fighter archer?  Not simply ensorcelling him in the surprise round?  (And if you say it was more likely that the fighter got surprise, the wizard's hat needs painting with a D).



> A well-designed fighter could do an average of 30 to 40 damage or more a hit and get their crit rating to insane levels pre-3.5 They would ruin fights with a lucky series of crits that would annihilate your average dragon.




Why were the dragons letting them get that close?  And pre-3.5.  15th level.  _Hasted_ spellcasters?



> Yet these guys are your standard, low power chumps being outdone by the wizard?




If the wizards knew what they were doing, *yes.*



> You couldn't prove that to my players. The fighter-types knew how to make their characters dangerous.




So you yourself admit that your fighters were good at min/max.  And from everything you've said, your wizards _weren't_.  From everything you've said, your wizards were trying to play the fighters' game.  Not their own.  (Just as well; wizards can do useful things in the fighters' game - but fighters can't compete with wizards at theirs).


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:


> Since I don't know how you are defining "normal" then it's difficult to answer.




That tells me quite a bit, thank you.  It tells me that you are not actually reading all of the responses to your posts.  For example, the post directly above the one to which you replied.



Raven Crowking said:


> Answer:  I mean a human being, which could potentially exist without supernatural effect within the real world or the fictional analogue thereof.




I am not sure if you simply didn't read, or if, reading, you didn't understand, but either way, that tells me something about your position.



> I do think that a F1 in any edition, is better than a common individual AS DEFINED BY THE SYSTEM.




Yes, I know that you think that.



> Not possible unless the turnip farmer is actually a F1.  Even if they have the same stats, same hp, same AC, the Fighter still has better saving throws.  The fighter still has more skills.  The fighter most certainly still has way more potential as well.




Let's take a look at the post you either didn't read or didn't understand again, shall we?



Raven Crowking said:


> Stat modifiers can change that, easily enough.
> 
> Already addressed, and disproven.  A Normal Man is assumed to have 10's and 11's unless there is something different, as a convenience for the DM.  Likewise, the DM can choose to give anyone any stats he thinks appropriate (so that the local Smith can have greater Strength, for example, or some local urchin can have better Dexterity).  He can even choose to have them save as a Fighter 1, or give them some subset of thief abilities, or allow them to cast minimal spells.  Again, see T1 and N1 for examples.




It is also blindingly obvious that the DM can choose to have that turnip farmer, at any time in the future, become a FTR 1 as a result of in-game events, and progress as far, or farther, than the PC FTR 1.

So, again, no, the system doesn't determine his potential.  The DM, and the logic of the shared fictional space do.



> What's with the snark?  When did I tell anyone they were having fun wrong?  I did say that the point is not mechancally supported and I'll stand by that, but, where did I say that someone was having badwrongfun?




Snark?  That was benefit of the doubt!  

There _*must be *_a difference, or there is a difference _*when you are playing*_?  Are you really unable to imagine a game in which a Ftr 1 might be a turnip farmer, or are you stating a preference?  It certainly seems, still, when I go back and read your earlier posts, that you were saying that having a PC Ftr 1 be a farmer fresh off the turnip wagon was _*playing the game wrong*_.  And you still seem to think it is *objectively* wrong.

I was trying to figure out some rational reason why, after all those posts you ignored responding to, you were still clinging to the idea that a Ftr 1 cannot be a turnip farmer (or vice versa).

Now I have another answer:  You either failed to read or failed to understand those posts.  

Now, since you've answered my questions, let me return the favour.



> how do YOU deal with the power level disparity?  Ignore it?  Deal with it?  How?




In 1e, it never came up.  The highest level character in our group was a 16th level wizard; the second highest, a 14th level fighter.  They were both played by the same player.  The player had his fighter murder his wizard because, when it came down to it, he didn't need him, and the fighter was more fun to play.

In 2e, it never came up.

In 3e, IMHO, the game is designed to make you prefer getting your eyes gouged out with hot pokers rather than play in a campaign over 6th level.  As a consequence, it never came up.

2e and 3e were systems that made me drop D&D, though, because (again, IMHO, YMMV) they proved less fun to play.  As a result, my high-level experience is pretty weak with those systems.

But, from the playtests, I can tell you something about how this issue was handled in RCFG, and how it plays out, if you are interested.  Fighters and rogues predominate in the playtests because, apparently, they are viewed as the most powerful and/or interesting characters.  I rewrote the Tomb of Horrors using RCFG materials, and bumped it up to 10th level.  Even in that module, the mundane characters had as much to contribute as the magical ones. 



> Just as a question, how much higher level D&D have you played?  Again, not snark, just a question.  I often find that in these conversations, people who don't see the issue generally play low to mid level campaigns where this really isn't much of an issue.




Obviously, if you want to have a lower-magic world, confining yourself to lower levels is a good idea.  That said, though, you'd have to tell me exactly what you mean by high-level.

I've played a high-level 1e wizard with a DM who didn't understand the rules, and let anything go.  Because he'd frontloaded information into his intended epic campaign, we were able to resolve the entire mess in a single session.  It was fun, but I think it was a bit of a shock to him to see how effective high-level characters could be.  Admittedly, we almost all died, too, in order to achieve our goal.  And we had a lot of fun doing it.



> Or, they play with players who have a tacit agreement at the table not to make it an issue.  The cleric relagates himself to healbot and doesn't show the firepower that he could.  The wizard stays with direct damage spells for the most part and doesn't dominate the game.




In 1e, different characters dominate different scenes, IME.  I don't think that you quite appreciate how few spells a caster might have, and how much might get accomplished in a game session.  I also think that you don't understand the limitations of spells in a 1e game.  

On another thread, as I recall, we went through the T1 Moathouse, and I listed all of the encounters, and where the magic-user's _sleep_ spell would, and would not, work, and what the outcome for our magic-user would be in all the encounters where _sleep_ would be partially effective, using the EN World die roller.

And in the end, after our magic-user was demonstably folded, spindled, and mutilated far more often than not, you were still unable to admit that _sleep_ wasn't an auto-win button.

But, no, I've never had to tell the players, in any version of D&D, to hold back.



pemerton said:


> The 1st ed AD&D DMG treats stats for NPCs with PC classes differently. In some cases NPCs have lower minimums. In other cases they have stat adjustments rather than minimums.
> 
> The same book also has NPC fighters who are incapable of gaining levels (in the rules for  hiring mercenaries).




And in some cases, higher stats, and in other cases, NPCs can reach higher levels than PCs (see demi-human level limits for examples).



Neonchameleon said:


> Grey Mouser is, as is so common, almost impossible to represent in older editions of D&D but trivial in 4e.  He didn't have six-second combat magic that was mandatory of old spellcasters.  He had enough training to be a ritual caster and was therefore a spellcaster.  But he fought as a thief.




Ritual casting appears in 3e.

Six-second combat magic is not a feature of 1e.  I think you really need to go back and take a look at casting times in that edition.  Also, the standard round is 1 minute.

2e included rules for devising thief characters with mixed abilities, specifically so that one could make a Mouser-like character.  Moreso if you used the Players Option books.

_*The Dragon*_ used to include a column (Giants in the Earth), where the D&D (1e) counterparts of fictional characters were presented.  Of course, these were never exact replicas of the characters in question.....largely due to differences in magic systems.  For example, the magic system in _*A Wizard of Earthsea*_ makes for great reading, but it would be cumbersome to list all of the possible side effects that occur in addition to the spell effect you desire, and to then administer them.  At least, with 1e, there was a sense of risk involved with casting many of the more powerful spells.

RC


----------



## Neonchameleon

Raven Crowking said:


> In 1e, different characters dominate different scenes, IME. I don't think that you quite appreciate how few spells a caster might have, and how much might get accomplished in a game session. I also think that you don't understand the limitations of spells in a 1e game.




A good point here.  What the wizard can do is almost down to DM fiat. 



> Ritual casting appears in 3e.




Out of curiosity, where?  (I'm not saying I don't believe you - simply that 3e is too big for me to know it all and that's not a part I know.)



> Six-second combat magic is not a feature of 1e. I think you really need to go back and take a look at casting times in that edition. Also, the standard round is 1 minute.




6 seconds is indeed 3.x.  But 1e combat timescales just confuse me.  Most people are able to only attack 1 person in a minute.  That's not gritty (indeed my double specialised dagger-throwing fighter in OSRIC probably wasn't doing enough damage to be even gritty despite causing absolute carnage at 1st level*).  So it's long, it's intense, and your part is over in a couple of rolls.

*  Daggers because I planned to dual class into rogue.  I didn't know they would be _that_ deadly...


----------



## Sepulchrave II

Celtavian said:
			
		

> Farmer Joe that survived several wars and monster attacks on the village. Don't mess with Farmer Joe, he'll clean your clock.




Except that a 10th-level warrior would model this better. 

Are the 23 ranks in Profession (turnip farmer) really necessary? Isn't 13 ranks with Skill Focus (Profession: turnip farming) enough?


----------



## Raven Crowking

Neonchameleon said:


> Out of curiosity, where?  (I'm not saying I don't believe you - simply that 3e is too big for me to know it all and that's not a part I know.)




I am first aware of them from Unearthed Arcana, as an option (along with many, many other options, some of which are good, and some less so).  They may have appeared elsewhere first.  In any event, they are OGC.

You can also find more than one type of "ritual casting" as varient systems in 2e, esp. in the historical reference series.  I was particularly fond of the "Rune Magic" system from the Viking sourcebook.



> 6 seconds is indeed 3.x.  But 1e combat timescales just confuse me.  Most people are able to only attack 1 person in a minute.  That's not gritty (indeed my double specialised dagger-throwing fighter in OSRIC probably wasn't doing enough damage to be even gritty despite causing absolute carnage at 1st level*).  So it's long, it's intense, and your part is over in a couple of rolls.




In 1e, it is intended that the combat actually includes much more back-and-forth, but that only the significant parts are rolled for.  I.e., in that minute, our fighter generally has only one chance to land a solid blow.

Which leads to a weird effect:  1e fights take longer in game time than 3e fights, but 3e fights take far, far longer in real time.  I chose to go with 6-second rounds with RCFG, and combat is fast, but I don't know that this form of micomanagement is actually _*better*_ in any real sense.


RC


----------



## Ranes

Raven Crowking said:


> And in the end, after our magic-user was demonstrably folded, spindled, and mutilated far more often than not...



  Sorry for the tangent but are you by chance a fan of Frank Zappa?

I've been using Unearthed Arcana's excellent incantations (ritual) rules for years and they're excellent for, among other things, cultist villagers.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Ranes said:


> Sorry for the tangent but are you by chance a fan of Frank Zappa?




I wouldn't call myself one, although I am aware of him.

I used to work for the government, both in the US Army and the US Census Bureau.  The back of the cheques reads:  "Do Not Fold, Spindle, or Mutilate".

(Like you were going to do that to your paycheque!)



RC


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> Except that a 10th-level warrior would model this better.




Which is one reason why 1Ed-3.5Ed DMGs left the possibility of NPCs having PC levels open to DM discretion and did not link those levels perforce to being an adventurer.

And why several of us have been saying that having PC class levels don't neccessarily mean you're automatically some kind of "Fantasy Hero."


----------



## Hussar

RC said:
			
		

> It is also blindingly obvious that the DM can choose to have that turnip farmer, at any time in the future, become a FTR 1 as a result of in-game events, and progress as far, or farther, than the PC FTR 1.
> 
> So, again, no, the system doesn't determine his potential. The DM, and the logic of the shared fictional space do.




This is only blindingly obvious if you choose to ignore the mechanics.  Silly things like the fact that NPC's don't actually gain XP, saving throw differences, the fact that NPC normal people don't have stats, proficiencies, and that sort of thing.  

I see where this is headed and I'm not going down this road.  If you want to actually discuss the system, fine.  But, I'm not about to go around, yet again, on trying to pin the tail on the houserule that RC thinks makes better D&D.

Sorry, I thought we were discussing the actual mechanics.  I was very clear and repeated myself frequently that I was talking about how the game actually defines a normal man, not:



			
				RC said:
			
		

> Answer: I mean a human being, which could potentially exist without supernatural effect within the real world or the fictional analogue thereof.




See, that's a whole 'nother discussion and one I have never once actually engaged in in this thread.  Which, I think, has been the problem from the start.  Everyone wants to apply this to some sort of simulationist think and argue from that POV.  

My point is simple.  The game, whichever edition you wish to choose, DEFINES NORMAL HUMANS as a part of the game mechanics.  This definition is not based on any real world analogue, but, on how the mechanics of the various systems work.  In 1e, a Normal Man has a d6 (IIRC) hp and no other stats than Int.  In 3e, a Normal Man is defined by that system, as having 10's in every stat and being a Commoner 1.  

Thus, by the definitions of Normal Man that exist in the system, when you move beyond those constructs, your character is no longer a Normal Man, again, as defined by the system.

I've been very careful about this all the way along.  I might have mis stepped a few times, and I've been known to be incoherent on occasion, but, I've very much tried to stick to the point that Joe Average as defined by the system is inferior to an PC classed individual.  The PC classed individual has abilities that Joe Average simply can never have, no matter what he does.

Does that make the PC classed individual superhuman?  Frankly I don't care.  He is superior though.  No amount of massaging the situation, delving into NPC vs NPC comparisons and clouding the issue with all sorts of real world and fictional character examples that really only reinforce my point changes the fact that Joe Average, again, as defined by the system, is inferior to a PC.

Which, in a game of Heroic Fantasy is exactly as it should be in my mind.


----------



## Sepulchrave II

> And why several of us have been saying that having PC class levels don't neccessarily mean you're automatically some kind of "Fantasy Hero."




Er..yes...that's the point.

The DM should use what he thinks best models what he wants to achieve.

What I have a problem with is the notion that "leveling up" is assumed to have some kind of in-game reality; that NPCs choose to "take" a level of warrior or "choose" a particular feat.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:


> This is only blindingly obvious if you choose to ignore the mechanics.




Or read them and understand both what the mechanics are, and their intent, both as expressed in the orignal work and in the only samples (published modules) of how that original work was intended to be used that have been provided by the publisher.

But, I am sure you understand the rules, and the intent behind the rules, more than the writers of the 1e modules (including, apparently, Gary Gygax).

As for your participation in the thread, and what you have or have not argued, anyone who wishes to scroll back through this monster is free to do so.  


Game On!



RC


----------



## Hussar

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Which is one reason why 1Ed-3.5Ed DMGs left the possibility of NPCs having PC levels open to DM discretion and did not link those levels perforce to being an adventurer.
> 
> And why several of us have been saying that having PC class levels don't neccessarily mean you're automatically some kind of "Fantasy Hero."




But, it does make you better than a normal man.


----------



## Hussar

RC said:
			
		

> But, I am sure you understand the rules, and the intent behind the rules, more than the writers of the 1e modules (including, apparently, Gary Gygax).




Nice appeal to authority there.  Pretty soon you'll be breaking out the Tolkien quotes too.

Of course, the fact that you've ignored all the bits that Sepulchrave has quoted to you about 1e's demographics, the fact that NPC's don't gain XP, and the, oh, I don't know, actual words in the DMG.

I mean, heck, you talked about modules where the PC's start off as zero level commoners.  (I remember these rules, Unearthed Arcana?  2e?  Been way too long).  Funny thing that.  The PC's start off with a single weapon proficiency and a d4 hit points.  They don't actually gain real hit dice until they hit level 1 with whatever class they are taking.  Heck, they don't even start off with experience, they start with NEGATIVE experience.

So, basically, a normal man, again, as defined by the system, is far, far weaker than any character class.

Although, AIR, I loved those rules since they worked so well with Con bonuses.  Nothing like a 1st level fighter with d10+2d4+2XCon bonus at 1st level.  18 Con and you started out with something like 20 hit points at 1st level.  Nice.  

((BTW, I'm almost 100% sure we were screwing those rules up.  I know.  ))


----------



## the Jester

Neonchameleon said:


> _And no one is disputing that_.  The problem isn't whether the game is gritty or high magic.  It's in the thread title.  The Wizard vs Warrior Balance problem.  WHFRP doesn't have this issue; fighters are gritty - but magic will blow back in your face.  Exalted doesn't have this problem; magic is powerful, but so are fighters.  The problem is *The Wizard vs Warrior Balance*.  You want warriors to play gritty and wizards to play near-effortlessly.




Whoa there Tex, you're assuming an awful lot about my playstyle here. I'm neither advocating gritty nor high magic (and in my experience it IS possible to have both with a good dm and any edition of the rules as your skeleton).

The thread title addresses the wizard vs. warrior balance in novels, not in games. This whole discussion has moved pretty far afield- which is fine- but let's not get all rowdy about the topic unless we are actually talking about the thread topic. (To summarize my thoughts on the actual thread topic in a sentence: You don't have balance problems in a novel, because it is a novel.)

I want both warriors and wizards to play fairly gritty, even when the wizards do have awesome reality-warping spells. And somehow for the last 30 years, I've pulled it off. 



Neonchameleon said:


> Low magic is fun.  *The problem is the mix of the low magic fighter and the high magic wizard.*  Play WHFRP 2e for a bit.  Wizards there don't like casting spells because they backfire and have side effects.  Or open yourself to demonic posession.




Again, you can do it with a good dm. My campaign has had fun fighter-types from 1e through 2e through 3e and 4e; I have never had a fighter player feel like he doesn't get his chance to shine. 3e was where the balance was most precariously tilted, but even then the party's fighter really shone quite often. 

I'm not trying to tell anyone else how to play. I'll repeat my question from upthread: why are there those who insist that I'm doing it wrong? It works for me, it works for my players, and it works well enough that I always have a waiting list of players longer than the actual list of players in my game at any given time. Clearly asserting that it cannot possibly work to have the mix of high magic and gritty is simply false, as my own experiences demonstrate, so perhaps rather than telling me that I can't possibly have a working campaign that's fun for fighter players and wizard players, it would be more constructive to ask how I pull it off.

Which, frankly, I wouldn't know how to answer, since I appear to have been always doing it. I think the wizard's weaknesses balance his strengths very well in 2e and earlier and in 4e. I understand the whole "narrative control" issue some people have, but I think they underestimate the ability of a high level fighter to throw his weight around the campaign. (Or maybe a lot of dms just don't let them play with armies?) A lot of old sandbox campaigns culminated in a fighter becoming a king or warlord, with an army of followers and a massive castle ready to withstand assaults. Just as the wizard can, albeit very differently in style, a fighter can change the campaign world map for all time (at least in a persistent, lasting campaign).


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:


> Nice appeal to authority there.




Do you understand what you are referring to?

Logical Fallacies Appeal to Authority

An appeal to authority is an argument from the fact that a person judged to be an authority affirms a proposition to the claim that the proposition is true.

Appeals to authority are always deductively fallacious; even a legitimate authority speaking on his area of expertise may affirm a falsehood, so no testimony of any authority is guaranteed to be true.

However, the informal fallacy occurs only when the authority cited either (a) is not an authority, or (b) is not an authority on the subject on which he is being cited. If someone either isn’t an authority at all, or isn’t an authority on the subject about which they’re speaking, then that undermines the value of their testimony.​
See also Argument from authority - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

I am not arguing that Gygax's (etc.) statements are correct statements about his intent, or that his examples are correct examples of his intent, because the statement is made by a person or source that is commonly regarded as authoritative, but because those individuals, making statements about their intent, or their use of said material, are authoratitive.

This is true in the same way that it is true that Hussar is the foremost authority on what Hussar thinks.

I can quote Gygax as an authority on Gygax's intent without falling into logical error (although he still might make false statements about his intent, and thus lead me to a false conclusion), but I cannot quote Gygax about what is possible in Danny Alcatraz's campaign (a subject on which he is not an authority) without falling into error.

IOW, the "Appeal to Authority" may lead to a false conclusion, if Gygax etc. affirms a falsehood within said body of work, but so long as I remain in an area where Gygax has authority (i.e., his thoughts, works, and intent), I am on pretty safe ground.  

OTOH, you are not, because (1) the body of Gygax's work (and other TSR 1e work) undermines the value of your testimony, and (2) you are attempting to appeal to the authority of the DMG on a subject which, not only is Gygax not an authority, but on which *he expressly states that he is not an authority within the body of the quoted work*.  IOW, you are committing the very fallacy you erroneously claimed I was.  Ironic, eh?



> I mean, heck, you talked about modules where the PC's start off as zero level commoners.  (I remember these rules, Unearthed Arcana?  2e?  Been way too long).




Funny thing that.  You remember these rules, but don't remember where they came from so you can reference them, and somehow missed the references upthread (which you are now, apparently, aware of) to where they came from.

In 1e, you are looking at *Greyhawk Adventures*.

For 3e, you need Goodman Games' _*Heroes are Made, Not Born*_, and a module published in *Dragon Roots* #1 or #2 by C.E. Rocco (but I'd have to look up the name and issue to give you more information; it is on my shelf at home).



> ((BTW, I'm almost 100% sure we were screwing those rules up.  I know.  ))




And yet you are almost 100% sure that you are not screwing up the rules about normal men, despite examples to the contrary of your firmly held position?  

Again, ironic, eh?



RC


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Hussar said:


> But, it does make you better than a normal man.




"Normal" in the statistical sense only, as in the mode.  He may not be beyond the median or mean, and he really isn't anything all that special.  No low-level PC really is...yet.



> So, basically, a normal man, again, as defined by the system, is far, far weaker than any character class.



and


> The 1st ed AD&D DMG treats stats for NPCs with PC classes differently. In some cases NPCs have lower minimums. In other cases they have stat adjustments rather than minimums.



Not really.



> 1Ed DMG p11
> *Non-Player Characters
> Special characters including Henchmen*
> 
> ...Roll 3d6 as for general characters, but allow the full range (3-18) except in the abilitiy or the abilities which are germaine to his or her profession, i.e. Strength for Fighters, etc.  For all such abilities, either use one of the determination methods used for player characters or add +1 to each die of the 3 rolled which scores under 6.




Not only do NPCs like normal henchmen have classes- even PC classes- they are not gimped within those classes merely because of being NPCs.

As a coda from the 2Ed DMG (p34) about new classes, "What is the logic of saying a NPC can be such-and-such, but a player character cannot?  None.  This is a false restriction.  Every character class you create should be open to PCs and NPCs alike." 



> Of course, the fact that you've ignored all the bits that Sepulchrave has quoted to you about 1e's demographics, the fact that NPC's don't gain XP, and the, oh, I don't know, actual words in the DMG.



and


> The [1ED DMG] also has NPC fighters who are incapable of gaining levels (in the rules for hiring mercenaries).



This is not true- NPCs can and do gain XP.  They just do it more slowly in order to keep NPCs from outshining PCs (IOW, its purely meta).  This is mentioned in several places- usually in passing or in examples, so it's easy to miss- but it's in there.

2Ed DMG (p152), "Among the things a player should keep track of is a henchman's experience point total.  Henchmen do earn experience points from adventures and can advance in levels."  it later says they get half XP.

I know- that's 2Ed.  But surprise, surprise, the same rule exists in 1Ed.



> *1Ed DMG p85
> Division of Experience Points*
> ...A party of 12 characters encounters monsters; in the ensuing battle, all characters fight, w are slain, and the XP for monsters killed total 4,300, so each survivor gains 430- adjusted for difficulty and for being actual PCs or _halved for henchman characters._



(emphasis mine)
Again, this explicitly runs afoul of that quoted "1 in 100" demographic, which again means the demographic must either mean the demographic is meaningless, or that they meant only 1 in 100 are *adventurers*.


----------



## Neonchameleon

the Jester said:


> Again, you can do it with a good dm.




I'm pretty sure with a good DM you could have a fun game with FATAL.  (Step 1: remove the setting.  Step 2: remove most of the rules).



> 3e was where the balance was most precariously tilted, but even then the party's fighter really shone quite often.




3e was where wizards were let off the leash.



> I'm not trying to tell anyone else how to play. I'll repeat my question from upthread: why are there those who insist that I'm doing it wrong?




There's how to play and how to design games.  You can play a very fun game with RIFTS.  That doesn't make the design not suck.



> Which, frankly, I wouldn't know how to answer, since I appear to have been always doing it. I think the wizard's weaknesses balance his strengths very well in 2e and earlier and in 4e. I understand the whole "narrative control" issue some people have, but I think they underestimate the ability of a high level fighter to throw his weight around the campaign.




Are you playing 2e or 3e here.  Because it's very different.



> (Or maybe a lot of dms just don't let them play with armies?)




This.



> A lot of old sandbox campaigns culminated in a fighter becoming a king or warlord, with an army of followers and a massive castle ready to withstand assaults.




And this.  In 1e and 2e the fighter gets a castle and followers as a _class feature_.  The fighter's career path starts at veteran and ends at noble or warlord with political power and troops.  Which is very different from 3e's progression from man with armour and a sharpened bit of metal to man with _magical_ armour and a _magical_ sharpened bit of metal.  In 3e there is no reason a fighter should be a better leader than a wizard, and every reason he should be worse at commanding troops than a bard.  And why should the army go to the fighter?  The wizard's smarter and the bard and sorceror are more charismatic.  The cleric provides more support for his troops.  Why the fighter?

If you are tacitly keeping the arbitrary class features from 2e then yes I see why the fighter stays relevant.  That's because you have an unwritten houserule in there that keeps him relevant in 3.X.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

Neonchameleon said:


> (Step 1: remove the setting.  Step 2: remove most of the rules).



Wait ... I thought Step Two was putting my junk in the box?  (Since it's F.A.T.A.L., presumably for measurement purposes.)


----------



## pawsplay

pemerton said:


> The 1st ed AD&D DMG treats stats for NPCs with PC classes differently. In some cases NPCs have lower minimums. In other cases they have stat adjustments rather than minimums.
> 
> The same book also has NPC fighters who are incapable of gaining levels (in the rules for  hiring mercenaries).
> 
> I don't know 2nd ed AD&D so well, but I suspect that it abandoned these rules.




Actually, other than addressing some alternatives for adjusting ability scores on p.11, 1e has no special rules for NPCS _at all_, outside of rules specific to hirelings, mercenaries, etc. Unless you found some section of rules of which I am unaware.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Let's not forget how often a henchman or hireling might become a PC when a player's character dies or becomes incapacitated.  It kinda puts a damper on "NPCs have less potential than PCs" when you realize that many of those NPCS *are* potential PCs!


----------



## pawsplay

Hussar said:


> Sorry, I thought we were discussing the actual mechanics.  I was very clear and repeated myself frequently that I was talking about how the game actually defines a normal man, not:...
> 
> My point is simple.  The game, whichever edition you wish to choose, DEFINES NORMAL HUMANS as a part of the game mechanics.  This definition is not based on any real world analogue, but, on how the mechanics of the various systems work.  In 1e, a Normal Man has a d6 (IIRC) hp and no other stats than Int.  In 3e, a Normal Man is defined by that system, as having 10's in every stat and being a Commoner 1...
> 
> Thus, by the definitions of Normal Man that exist in the system, when you move beyond those constructs, your character is no longer a Normal Man, again, as defined by the system.




Look, you've already been shown ample quotes that demonstrate how common non-heroic, PC-class NPCs are. The Normal Man entry does not "define normal humans" any more than the Elf entry "defines normal elves." The Normal Man entry refers specifically to a non-adventuring person. You are equivocating on two meanings of "normal." Suppose I said, "Guilliam is a Normal Man, and he has stolen a piece of bread," would you counter with, "Guilliam is not a Normal Man, a Thief is already defined by the system?"

I don't know if you are simply unwilling to give ground in what I would think could be a reasonable discussion, or if you are genuinely confused why other people do not think you are making sense. I am certainly done countering your assertion that all non-adventurers have 1-6 hp and poor saving throws. The rules say you are wrong, and if you cannot admit that, then you are not having the same discussion everyone else is. "You are entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts."


----------



## Raven Crowking

Can someone XP pawsplay for me?


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> What I have a problem with is the notion that "leveling up" is assumed to have some kind of in-game reality; that NPCs choose to "take" a level of warrior or "choose" a particular feat.




Why?  That's how the game models skills & experience.  That there is more than one way to model a particular set of skills & experience is a sign of the system's strengths.

Somewhere in the 3.5 DMG's section on NPCs- I believe on the same page as the demographic breakdown of the town of 200 souls- they talk about a blacksmith.  A smith could be a lot of different level 1 things- a Commoner, most likely, but we've seen how he could also be a Fighter, an Expert, a Warrior, or whatever, depending on the background you want him to have.  But the "Best Blacksmith in the World" it said, was probably a 20th level Expert.


----------



## SkidAce

ProfessorCirno said:


> [/SIZE][/FONT] The problem is that when you actually try to be almost any of the above, you find _you can't be after all_.  You can't be Hercules, or Beowulf, or Siegfried.




I don't disagree with you totally even if I am on the other side of the "fence", but I can't agree with this.

On several occasions since the 80s fighters in our campaigns have played a Hercules style character.  On one occasion he was the son of Girru, god of fire, on another she was the daughter of Istus, goddess of fate and magic. (Istus was pissed that her daughter wanted to be a fighter by the way.)

To re-iterate, and bring back on topic...it still boils down to the story.  Both in game and literature.  Wizards can cast spells and alter reality, got it.  Fighters do heroic deeds, and sometimes mythic ones.  Both within constraints understood by the parties involved. (writer and reader, DM and players).


----------



## KahnyaGnorc

To counter the "Fighters were mundane pre-4e" argument, someone mundane would simply be squished under a boot when facing someone who is 26' tall, especially a 26' tall trained combatant, not someone who can take a full-blown hit and say "That all ya got?!"


----------



## pemerton

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Not really.



Yes really. You are quoting from the henchmen rules. I don't have my DMG here, but if you go to the pages which have the tables for determining NPC personalities etc (a bunch of d8, d10 and in one case at least d24 rolls) you will see what I am talking about.

The bottom line is that trying to construct a coherent treatment of NPCs relative to PCs from the 1st ed DMG is a fruitless task.

NPC mercenaries and sailors are in many cases statted up as fighters, but unable to gain levels. Nothing is said about how to generate their stats. (Do these fighters who are unable to level nevertheless get a share of the XP for fights in which they participate, which then dissipates into the aether? I think the implication is probably yes, but the rules don't actually say).

NPC henchmen are presumably generated and gain levels as PCs (subject to the half-experience rule). This is consistent with my impression of how single player but mutiple character play worked in the early days (eg Gygax GMing Kuntz's PC + henchmen).

NPC assassins, monks, thieves and the like, who are attracted as followers by high level PCs, presumably gain levels normally - there are references to this under the relevant PHB class entries, but no indication is given as to whether or not they are burdened by the half XP rule.

Fighter followers are a tricky thing. The DMG tables suggest that some of the followers attracted are standard 0-level mercenaries, but some are levelled fighters. Whether those levelled fighters are able to gain further levels (as are monk, thief and assassin followers) or whether they are fixed in level (as are the mercenary officers discussed in the hireling rules) is left unstated.

Exactly which NPCs the rules I referred to upthread - ie the rules which set variant stat minimums and/or stat modifier - are meant to apply to is not stated. Presumably not henchmen, but it is all left as an exercise for the reader.

Even 0-level humans aren't treated consistently across the rules. The Monster Manual entries tend to imply that hit points for a 0-level human are 1d6, but the DMG gives a varying range, with women having fewer hit points than men and both sexes having their hit point range depend upon how sedentary their occupation is. And according to the DMG mercenary hirelings have hit points of 1d4+3 (4 to 7), not 1d6.

And then we have sages (which have been mentioned upthread) who (I think) have their own rules for stat generation, have (I think) 8d4 hit points, and have access to a mix of clerical and magic-user spells depending on their fields of knowledge, but get spell slots at a rate that don't correspond to any PC class spell tables (they're closer to the way that 1st ed AD&D allocates spells to dragons).

And none of this tackles the issue of how all the above-mentioned rules are meant to fit into the design of NPC random encounters discussed in Appendix C, some of which are with adventuring parties, some with the soldiers of NPC landholders, etc.

What should we infer from all this? Well, one fairly clear conclusion seems to be that Gygax et al didn't feel especially constrained by any pre-given ruleset in statting up NPCs; that they sometime were prepared to use PC class mechanics, or elements thereof, as a device for statting up NPCs, but were happy to treat the relationship between stat minimums, class abilities, earning of XP and level progression, etc as all pretty flexible; and that trying to state in some definitive sense what it means, mechanically, to be an NPC in 1st ed AD&D is - as I said at the outset of this post - a fruitless task.



pawsplay said:


> Actually, other than addressing some alternatives for adjusting ability scores on p.11, 1e has no special rules for NPCS _at all_, outside of rules specific to hirelings, mercenaries, etc. Unless you found some section of rules of which I am unaware.



Apparently I have. I can't give you the page, because my book isn't ready to hand, but as I said earlier in this post it's in the same section of the book as that setting out the many tables for NPC personality etc.

I can't remember everything that's there, but it says that NPC fighers, clerics, thieves and wizards be given a +2 to their prime stat (which presumably has been rolled on 3d6, although I think this is not expressly stated), preserves the 17 minimum CHA for NPC paladins but I think reduces some of the other stat requirements, and reduces the stat requirements for druids and ranges (for PCs these are 12 WIs + 15 CHA, and (I think) 13/13/14/14 STR/INT/WIS/CON for rangers - for NPCs these are lessened, maybe 13 or 14 CHA for druids? maybe 12/12/13/13 for rangers? I don't have it all memorised anymore.)



Raven Crowking said:


> Let's not forget how often a henchman or hireling might become a PC when a player's character dies or becomes incapacitated.



Yes. And what happens if a player wants to pick up an NPC mercenary officer as a PC. Can that NPC suddenly start gaining levels? The rules don't say, although presumably the intended answer to the question would be Yes.


----------



## Raven Crowking

KahnyaGnorc said:


> To counter the "Fighters were mundane pre-4e" argument, someone mundane would simply be squished under a boot when facing someone who is 26' tall, especially a 26' tall trained combatant, not someone who can take a full-blown hit and say "That all ya got?!"




And, indeed, some were squished under-boot.

A 1st level 1e Ftr facing a 26-foot tall giant had what chance of survival, exactly?

i.e., the argument is not "ALL fighters were mundane" but that fighters, at the start of the careers, could reasonably be considered so.


----------



## Raven Crowking

pemerton said:


> What should we infer from all this? Well, one fairly clear conclusion seems to be that Gygax et al didn't feel especially constrained by any pre-given ruleset in statting up NPCs; that they sometime were prepared to use PC class mechanics, or elements thereof, as a device for statting up NPCs, but were happy to treat the relationship between stat minimums, class abilities, earning of XP and level progression, etc as all pretty flexible; and that trying to state in some definitive sense what it means, mechanically, to be an NPC in 1st ed AD&D is - as I said at the outset of this post - a fruitless task.




This hews so close to the truth as to be largely indistinguishable.

The statistics, progression, etc. for an NPC is always what makes sense to the DM in terms of the overall fictional space.  PCs require rules (including constraints that NPCs do not have) because they are focused on in game play, and because they are the "avatars" if you will of the players in the game.

IOW, we need to know more about the PCs than we do about NPCs.  And we need the rules for PCs to be at least somewhat consistent, so as to allow the players to rationally contribute to the game.

NPC normal people can be the same as the PCs, worse than the PCs, better than the PCs.....whatever the campaign milieu demands.  To claim that this makes the PCs special (with regards to the campaign milieu, as opposed to the needs of the metagame) is.........well, adjectives fail me.  I am sure you can think of your own.


RC


----------



## pemerton

Sepulchrave II said:


> What I have a problem with is the notion that "leveling up" is assumed to have some kind of in-game reality; that NPCs choose to "take" a level of warrior or "choose" a particular feat.



Fully fully agreed.

Of various level-based games, I think Rolemaster comes closest to making the ultra-simulationist reading of levels workable. But even Rolemaster doesn't take the view that spending development points (RM's equivalent of choosing skills and feats) reflects an ingame choice by the character in question. Of course, it might on some occasions for some DP expenditure reflect training, or some other chosen course of self-cultivation. But sometimes it just reflects what the character happened to get better at.

And of course, you still have to squint a bit and look at RM's XP rules from a funny angle for them to make perfect sense. Subject to that proviso, however, they can be seen as suggesting that the principal method of gaining experience - at least for adventurers - is "hard field training" ie using what you know in real conditions. How excatly we should conceive of farmers, blacksmiths etc levelling is left unstated. But I have participated in threads on the ICE forums where (i) it is presumed that some alternative XP system, like story/roleplaying XP, is in use, and (ii) it is suggestd non-ironically that NPCs should get plenty of XP because they never stray out of character! So even Rolemaster has managed to create a community of players who can't grasp the difference beteen game and metagame when it comes to XP gain and level advancement.

But at least what Rolemaster has going for it is that the power differential between low and high levels is relatively modest compared to D&D, so that a simulationist reading of the improvements in fighting skill, hit points etc is half-tenable. For practically any version of D&D I think this doesn't work (and Gygax's tortured discussion of hit point in the DMG (or is it the PHB) where he compares a 10th level fighter to multiple warhorses is evidence for this). Level in that game has always, in my view, had a metagame as well as an ingame significance (as reflected by the fact that in the 1st ed DMG there are signficant NPCs, like sages and mercenary officers, who have levels but can't gain levels).

The other reason I agree with you about rejecting the "choice" notion is that it makes it hard to develop a character - PC or NPC - whose 5 levels in cleric or warlock represent not a choice but (for example) an ensnarement by a dark power. I remember this issue coming up in a practical way back in the early days of the 4e debates, when it was suggested that a warlock PC must tend towards evil because every level s/he chooses to reinforce her warlock-ism. For some posters, at least, the notion that the gaining of levels might _not_ represent a choice being made by the character wasn't even on the table.



Dannyalcatraz said:


> Why?  That's how the game models skills & experience.



Sometimes, although not always (cf the AD&D 1st ed sage). But anyway, the use of levels to model skills and experience is distinct from the questions of (i) whether level can change - for some 1st ed NPCs, like mercenary officers, it can't change except via GM fiat - and (ii) whether the consequences of level acquistion (which in 3E include class, skill and sometimes feat selection) are to be understood as choices made in the gameworld by the character who is gaining the level.


----------



## pemerton

Raven Crowking said:


> To claim that this makes the PCs special (with regards to the campaign milieu, as opposed to the needs of the metagame) is.........well, adjectives fail me.  I am sure you can think of your own.



Well, in my post about the minutiae of 1st ed AD&D NPC rules I deliberately avoided addressing this more controversial question!

My feeling is that way back in the day there were probably different approaches to play, in relation to this issue, just as there are now. That some groups regarded PCs as special - not just in the metagame sense of needing more rigid and complete mechanical definition, but as occupying some special place in the gameworld - from the get go. But that others didn't.

I find it hard to be much more precise in part because "special" can cover such a wide range of possibilities. Predestined? Mentioned in prophecy? Or just, like the Hardy Boys and Dr Who, always and only the ones at the centre of the most salient interesting happenings in the gameworld?

But I think we can probably stake out two extremes. When a player takes a group of first level classed characters and mercenaries through a dungeon, all but one is killed, and the one character that emerges has enough XP to be second level, plus all the loot - and simply in virtue of this fact goes on to become that players primary PC - I think we can say that the PC didn't start out as very special. (On the other hand, Crazy Jerome either on this or one of its sister threads posted the interesting notion that this eliminiation-by-dungeon-of-potential-PCs-superfluous-to-requirement can actually be seen as part of the PC creation process - resembling the survival rolls in Traveller, only actually playing them out! Under this reading, the PC _is_ the special one who survived to second level.)

Conversely, when a PC is introduced as an above-first level character, who is already understood to have some sort of significance in the gameworld (and I think Mordenkainen fits this description, although perhaps I'm wrong about that - and I think some henchmen can also fit this description even though they're technically NPCs) then I think the PC clearly has started as special in some fashion.

Of published D&D material, one of the earlier examples that comes to mind of applying the second outlook to PCs introduced as 1st level characters is Dragonlance. And, because of the unforgiving nature of AD&D to 1st level characters, special death rules were required to make it work.

I don't know that any general moral flows from all this, except that AD&D was played in a variety of ways, with a variety of tweakings of the mechanics to help out. If some people played using the approach of the first of my two extremes, except that instead of the elimination pool consisting of mercenaries and classed characters it consisted of turnip farmers, then Hussar would be definitively refuted. As it is, I'm sympathetic to what I take to be the general thrust of his point - that mainstream AD&D play tended to assume that even if PCs weren't special from the get-go, and were to earn their specialness by being culled from a low-level elimination pool, turnip farmers really weren't on the radar as singificant participants in the elimination pool.

I think that turnip farmers turned fighters are more likely to turn up in Dragonlance-ish play, where the turnip farming is part of the backstory of a PC who is understood to be destined for greater things. Of course, absent the adoption of a Dragonlance-style death override, that destiny might be cut short by a goblin's shortsword. But in most cases - not all - I would hypothesis that this tells us more about the clash between desired feel of play and the grim mechanical reality of 1st level AD&D play than about the relationship between the specialness of PCs and NPCs in those players' gameworlds.


----------



## FireLance

KahnyaGnorc said:


> To counter the "Fighters were mundane pre-4e" argument, someone mundane would simply be squished under a boot when facing someone who is 26' tall, especially a 26' tall trained combatant, not someone who can take a full-blown hit and say "That all ya got?!"



Well, arguably, given the way that hit points were defined from the earliest days of the game, even a high-level fighter wouldn't have survived a direct hit from a giant's weapon. The loss of hit points simply means that he managed to dodge, twist aside, or otherwise evade the full force of the blow at the last second, and converted a fatal injury into a minor cut or a mild bruise. 

I think a lot of the confusion in this thread has arisen from the fact that there seem to be two definitions of "normal" floating around. There is, as Dannyalcatraz puts it, the "statistical" normal - the mode (what the largest number of humans are) or possibly the mean (what the statistical average human is) or the median (what the human at the 50th percentile of all humanity is). This type of "normal" is "not exceptional". Then, there is "normal" as in "not supernatural".

Most humans with class levels are not "normal" in the statistical sense. Depending on game assumptions about how many people even have class levels in the first place, they could be superior to 99% of the population. Furthermore, PCs (and elite NPCs) also tend to have above-average ability scores. They are thus exceptional. 

However, "martial" PCs (to use a 4E term), especially low-level ones, are usually still "normal" in the "non-supernatual" sense. They might hit harder, dodge faster and endure more than a "normal" (non-exceptional) human, but the difference is quantitative, not qualitative. 

To illustrate:

A 0-level human, "normal" in both senses of the word, gets hit by a giant and dies.

A high-level fighter, exceptional but not supernatural, loses hit points to the blow, but this is supposed to represent the fighter evading it or minimizing its effects at the last second through skill or luck. 

A demigod such as Hercules, or someone endowed with a magical ability such as Achilles, is both exceptional and supernatural. The giant could indeed have landed a solid blow on them, but their supernatural nature allows them to survive what a normal human, or even an exceptional one, could not.


----------



## GSHamster

the Jester said:


> It doesn't matter how much mythic history there is supporting it, nor does it matter how much genre support there is. _Some people don't like to play that way._ Some guys want to play a fighter that fights, who is a bad ass with a sword and wears bitchin' +5 plate mail once he's high level. But who doesn't jump across the Grand Canyon, leap up and hit the dragon flying 100' above his head, hurl a weapon thirty miles or wrestle a river.




I completely agree with this. But the question is: can you balance that mundane fighter against a D&D magic-user?

I think you can't. You have to give the fighter extra control of the story, or reduce the power of magic, or give the magic-user a fatal weakness, or give the fighter magic is some manner in order to balance.

Traditionally, D&D has gone with making the magic-users physically weaker than normal and giving the fighter magic via items. But it hasn't always worked out.


----------



## KahnyaGnorc

Raven Crowking said:


> And, indeed, some were squished under-boot.
> 
> A 1st level 1e Ftr facing a 26-foot tall giant had what chance of survival, exactly?
> 
> i.e., the argument is not "ALL fighters were mundane" but that fighters, at the start of the careers, could reasonably be considered so.





True, low level fighters were fairly mundane, but also typically much more powerful than low-level mages (cast one spell, then use crossbow, hoping that the monsters don't even sneeze in their direction).  By the time magic-using characters started becoming more powerful than fighters, those fighters have advanced beyond "mundane."  Maybe not taunting a 26-footer, but substituting a 12-footer works.  (or even a 9-footer, pre-4e ogres were typically fairly low level)


----------



## Sepulchrave II

pemerton said:
			
		

> (All of the above...)




I'd xp you if I could. I'm also grateful that you expressed it so eloquently; my brain is shot.

Fundamentally, levels and xp are a poor way of modeling the way real humans acquire experience; to be constrained in understanding the game world in this way can - for me - be detrimental to creativity.

That is not to say that I don't strive to have mechanics which consistently represent a particular NPC - I'm actually extraordinarily anal about this - but it is not the same as saying that the NPC took a level in _this_ and then gained _this_ feat and then multiclassed to _this_, as if these metagame categories had some independent existence.

Aging is a similar problematic mechanic in 3.x. Of course, heroes become wiser and deeper and more profound as they age; they're heroes, and this models a particular archetype - _Senex_ or the Crone. 

But real humans sometimes lose their memory, suffer strokes and poop themselves - detrimentally affecting their Charisma score. To extend the aging rules to NPCs is absurd - sometimes I do it, but I know damn well it's absurd. I do it because it satisfies an internal aesthetic which requires achieving a balance between the RAW and what I'm trying to describe. To find a "solution" in mechanical terms to the problem of "what am I trying to represent?" is fascinating to me; it is in no way indicative of the way the game world _actually works_, however.



			
				Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> Why? That's how the game models skills & experience. That there is more than one way to model a particular set of skills & experience is a sign of the system's strengths.




Because it leads to the absurdity of the 20th-level commoner above:


This character is as good with a hoe as a 6th-level fighter is with a _+1 longsword_, Weapon Focus and 15 Str. That's even without Weapon Focus (hoe). Why?
This character can fall any distance with no risk of dying. Why?
A _blasphemy_ spoken by a pit fiend cannot harm this character. Why?

etc. etc.

Now, you can state that the character is supernaturally lucky, protected by deities or whatever in order to justify it. But as soon as you do that, he is heroic - and you should be using a PC class, anyway. IMHO.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> The 1st ed AD&D DMG treats stats for NPCs with PC classes differently. In some cases NPCs have lower minimums. In other cases they have stat adjustments rather than minimums.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Not really.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Yes really. You are quoting from the henchmen rules. I don't have my DMG here, but if you go to the pages which have the tables for determining NPC personalities etc (a bunch of d8, d10 and in one case at least d24 rolls) you will see what I am talking about.
Click to expand...



Before I turn to those pages- because I do have my DMG on hand- I'll point out that literally just above the quote regarding Henchmen (quoted in particular to point out that NPCs with PC class levels don't get screwed vis a vis their class level) is the paragraphs dealing with general NPC stats:



> *1Ed DMG p11
> Non-Player Characters:* You should, of course, set the ability scores of those NPCs you will use as parts of the milieu, particularly those of high level and power.  Scores for hight level NPCs must be high- how else could these figures have risen so high?  Determine the ability scores of other non-player characters as follows:
> 
> General Characters: Roll 3d6 for each ability as usual, but use average scoring by considering any 1 as a 3 and any 6 as a 4.




The next paragraph is what I quoted previously regarding henchmen.

So, while normal, presumably non-PC classed NPCs aren't getting any 18s, any stat from 6-15 is perfectly possible, even all 15s, before modification.  This is a far cry from other posters' assertions that they had "no stats" or had "all 10s."  Those assertions seem to be derived from HRs or an incomplete reading of the rules.

Now, onto the NPC traits charts you mentioned.  They start on p.100.

*There are no rules here that do away with what was presented on page 11.*  What is supplied is a list of adjustments to those rolls by race and by class- the PC classes are listed with minimums, just as for PCs on the characteristic charts in the PHC- or occupation (Laborer, Mercenary, or Merchant/Trader).  With them, you can get plain, ordinary NPCs with stats as high as 18.

Sages get their own separate stat generation rules on page 32, designed to ensure that NPCs of that ilk were extremely competent.  In that, they presaged (_*ahem*_) the introduction of class-specific stat generation rules for all classes by Unearthed Arcana.


----------



## pemerton

Dannyalcatraz said:


> the PC classes are listed with minimums



The minimums are not the same as in the PHB - in some cases, at least (druids, rangers, maybe monks?, and paladins other than CHA) they are more forgiving.

How is this relevant? It shows that any attempt to find a systematic set of rules governing NPCs in 1st ed, or establishing the resemblances/differences between NPCs and PCs, is fruitless.

And two questions - do henchmen get the benefit of the more forgiving minimums? And if so, does this affect whether or not a player whose PC dies can convert a hencman into a PC? (My assumption was always that henchmen have to abide by the PHB minimums, meaning that the second question becomes moot. But I didn't get this from the rulebooks, which are silent on the matter. I'm sure there were other more-or-less coherent ways to work it out.)


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## Hussar

RC said:
			
		

> .e., the argument is not "ALL fighters were mundane" but that fighters, at the start of the careers, could reasonably be considered so.




This was the arguement?  I thought the argument was that fighters, at the start of their career were normal as in average, not exceptional, what you would expect to find, that sort of thing.

Are fighters mundane, as in non-magical?  Sure.  Totally agree with that.

Of course, since that's never been the point of contention, I'm not really sure what that proves.

OTOH, since the game defines about 95% of the population as either a Normal Man or 1st level commoner (depending on edition) I'd say that someone who fits into that other 5% is no longer normal.

See, the way I look at it, I can say that a fighter is not normal or average, and satisfy both the game definition of normal (0 level or 1st level commoner) and the dictionary definition (not exceptional) at the same time.  I don't have to reinvent definitions and ignore the rule books to do so.


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## Dannyalcatraz

> Because it leads to the absurdity of the 20th-level commoner above:
> This character is as good with a hoe as a 6th-level fighter is with a +1 longsword, Weapon Focus and 15 Str. That's even without Weapon Focus (hoe). Why?




Because he's been fighting with hoes for 30 years against orcs, kobolds, gnolls and even dandelions, while the 6th level fighter's been at it for what- a couple of years?



> This character can fall any distance with no risk of dying. Why?



Because EVERY character with that many HP has that ability.  This could have been avoided by saying Commoner was limited to 5th level.  Or 10th.  But they didn't.



> A blasphemy spoken by a pit fiend cannot harm this character. Why?




See above.  If you MUST have a reason, ask your DM.  Perhaps he has literally led a blessed life and is protected by the gods.  Or perhaps the pit fiend is sniggering so much at the idea of speaking blasphemy at a Commoner he stumbles over the words of his own curse..."Klaatu...Berada..._NGIGGLESNORT!_"


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## Dannyalcatraz

pemerton said:


> The minimums are not the same as in the PHB - in some cases, at least (druids, rangers, maybe monks?, and paladins other than CHA) they are more forgiving.




True.


> How is this relevant? It shows that any attempt to find a systematic set of rules governing NPCs in 1st ed _<snip>_




No, absolutely not- the rules _are_ systematic: generate the base stats as per page 11 and modify them as per page 100.  End of story.

It is _relevant_ because several posters have repeatedly asserted that NPCs either have no stats but Int or that they have all 10s.  The rules of p11 and p100 show this is completely false.



> or establishing the resemblances/differences between NPCs and PCs, is fruitless.




The rules quoted establish that NPCs with PC classes are NOT gimped within those classes as compared to PCs, again, as some have asserted repeatedly.



> And two questions - do henchmen get the benefit of the more forgiving minimums?




Yes.  Those minimums on p100 apply to all NPCs with those races/classes/occupation.  Henchmen are just a subset of NPCs, and especially since they're more likely than other NPCs to have levels in those classes. 



> And if so, does this affect whether or not a player whose PC dies can convert a hencman into a PC?




Sure, but clearly not to the negative, since the NPC minimums are, as you noted, more generous than for PCs.  The reason is that no DM needs to waste time rolling up NPC stats for a Druid only to have the NPC be statistically ineligible...to be followed by another NPC who fails to qualify for his role, etc.  Its a time saver.  Just like not listing most of the NPC stats in published adventures.


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## Dannyalcatraz

> This was the arguement? I thought the argument was that fighters, at the start of their career were normal as in average, not exceptional, what you would expect to find, that sort of thing.
> 
> Are fighters mundane, as in non-magical? Sure. Totally agree with that.
> 
> Of course, since that's never been the point of contention, I'm not really sure what that proves.




_You_ may not have asserted otherwise, but at least one poster in this thread has repeatedly insisted that Fighter 1 was, by rule, by necessity, a "Fantasy Hero."  A man set apart by destiny.

If that wasn't your position, don't worry about it.


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## Sepulchrave II

> Because he's been fighting with hoes for 30 years against orcs, kobolds, gnolls and even dandelions, while the 6th level fighter's been at it for what- a couple of years?




Well, I guess that depends on your vision of a 6th-level fighter. He's had 67 or more CR-equivalent encounters. That's a couple of months in a fast-paced campaign. Or he's the Castellan of the Keep on the Borderlands. Or he's a mercenary captain in 1E. Yes, I know I'm mixing my editions, but isn't everyone else?



> Because EVERY character with that many HP has that ability. This could have been avoided by saying Commoner was limited to 5th level. Or 10th. But they didn't.




Which suggests to me that leveling is a poor way to model experience outside of the PC's space.



> Perhaps he has literally led a blessed life and is protected by the gods.




Supernatural protection is always a good excuse. See my previous post.



> Or perhaps the pit fiend is sniggering so much at the idea of speaking blasphemy at a Commoner he stumbles over the words of his own curse..."Klaatu...Berada...NGIGGLESNORT!"




How about the next pit fiend, and the next, and the one after that?

We are not talking about a single moment in time when a particular pit fiend targets this particular commoner: that would be a gamist solution. In the game reality, Joe the Turnip farmer can jump off of 1000-foot cliffs, defy powerful devils, laugh at _power word: kill_ AND gains a +26 bonus to his Profession (turnip farming) checks (with the relevant Skill Focus feat). Maybe he's a brawler - with Improved Grapple. He likes to wrestle ogres.

How can this possibly model anything meaningful?


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## Dannyalcatraz

> Which suggests to me that leveling is a poor way to model experience outside of the PC's space.




Some would reject leveling entirely...after all, it boosts ALL skills your PC has even if you never use them.  Other systems only let you boost skills you actually use.  Typically systems without levels.

The point remains- that's how the system handles it.  You don't like it, HR it or play something else.  Don't agonize.



> How about the next pit fiend, and the next, and the one after that?




You think any of them AREN'T going to be laughing their pointed tails off after the first one?


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## Sepulchrave II

> Don't agonize.




I don't 

The interface between the game and metagame - where information flows in both directions, and each informs the other - fascinates me. 

I play 3.5 precisely because, for me, the balance - on balance - is _just right_. I'll take the warts.


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## Dannyalcatraz

For the record, I've yet to use a "Commoner" class.  Warrior?  Yes.  Expert?  Yes.  But Commoner is just useless to me.


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## pemerton

Sepulchrave II said:


> How about the next pit fiend, and the next, and the one after that?
> 
> We are not talking about a single moment in time when a particular pit fiend targets this particular commoner: that would be a gamist solution. In the game reality, Joe the Turnip farmer can jump off of 1000-foot cliffs, defy powerful devils, laugh at _power word: kill_ AND gains a +26 bonus to his Profession (turnip farming) checks (with the relevant Skill Focus feat). Maybe he's a brawler - with Improved Grapple. He likes to wrestle ogres.
> 
> How can this possibly model anything meaningful?



I agree with your rhetorical question.


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## Dannyalcatraz

All games have rules that become silly at some point:

MURPHY'S RULES HOME PAGE

On this sample page, they note that the odds of a domestic housecat killing a 1st level Wizard in AD&D is roughly 50%.  (Kinda the diametrically opposite point of the 20th level Commoner.)  On their order page, they note another one from AD&D- that a specialized Dart fighter does more DPR than one with a broadsword.

Or try to coup de grace yourself to represent an attempt at an "honorable suicide."  Assuming you count holding a blade to your vitals as "being at your mercy", you still have to fail a Fort save.  And AFAIK, the "voluntarily failing a save" rules only apply to magic, which means that the higher your PC's level, the harder a time he is going to have killing himself.

Bob the Fightin' Turnip Farmer will probably get it right the first time, but Sir Killcrazy the Destroyer is going to make a bloody mess before landing the final blow!


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## Hussar

Dannyalcatraz said:


> For the record, I've yet to use a "Commoner" class.  Warrior?  Yes.  Expert?  Yes.  But Commoner is just useless to me.




Isn't this kinda directly in contradiction to the 3e rules which tell us that about 95% of the population is exactly that?

Is a 1st level fighter a "fantasy hero"?  Maybe not.  A 1st level PC fighter is, IMO, a fantasy hero, simply because 99% of the game is directed at that player and not about how to model Joe Average.  Certainly the expectation of the game is that the PC's are not just Average Joe's.  

Or, at least, not Average Joe's for very long.


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## Dannyalcatraz

Hussar said:


> Isn't this kinda directly in contradiction to the 3e rules which tell us that about 95% of the population is exactly that?



Niggle- 91%, 3.5DMG p 139.



> Is a 1st level fighter a "fantasy hero"?  Maybe not.  A 1st level PC fighter is, IMO, a fantasy hero, simply because 99% of the game is directed at that player and not about how to model Joe Average.  Certainly the expectation of the game is that the PC's are not just Average Joe's.
> 
> Or, at least, not Average Joe's for very long.




I can't really think of PCs as any better than _potential_ fantasy heroes until they get past 5th.  Until that point, they're simply too fragile and incompetent, too close to moderately competent NPCs to be thought of that way.


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## pawsplay

Sepulchrave II said:


> Because it leads to the absurdity of the 20th-level commoner above:
> 
> 
> This character is as good with a hoe as a 6th-level fighter is with a _+1 longsword_, Weapon Focus and 15 Str. That's even without Weapon Focus (hoe). Why?






"I hoe. I hoe well."



> A _blasphemy_ spoken by a pit fiend cannot harm this character. Why?




"Foolish mortal! Phtagn! Nikto! Hokey pokey! Zuuul!!!!"
...
"You ain't from around here, are ya?"

And if you think he's tough... you should meet his grandkids.


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## Celtavian

*re*



Ultimatecalibur said:


> There is a synonym for "well-designed" that is used more often now: Optimized. And that is what those 2 fighters you described are. Those were not builds you could generate in 10 minutes. They also had weakness out the wazoo. So they were not standard run of the mill characters, they were hyper-focused specialists built out stuff from a dozen different books.
> 
> At the same point your average wizard had been granting limited wishes for 2 levels already.




Have you even played 3.x editions? I'm beginning to doubt it by your statements.

_Limited Wish_ was not a spell used often. It had an xp cost.





> What you are describing is system mastery. Your players had enough system mastery that they could make fighters effective, but if they had used an equivalent level of mastery on a cleric, druid, wizard or sorcerer they would have ended up with characters who far outstripped them in power often with fewer vulnerabilities.




No. They were not outstripped in power. Your standard fighter with Power Attack and the most basic of weapon specialization feats could output huge damage.

If you're implying that system mastery isn't necessary to make a hyperpowerful wizard, I'll take a player that knows how to make an optimized fighter against a player that doesn't know how to optimize a wizard any day of the week as far as betting money.

It takes as much system mastery to create a powerful wizard as it does to make an optimized fighter. Once again prove what you say. Don't make statements I know to be false. I'm talking take two classes in a regular combat where there is no real preparation time other than initiative, see who has more of an impact on a given encounter. I'll bet that 90% of the time, an optimized fighter will have a greater impact on the encounter than an inexperienced wizard at almost all levels. 

Encounters usually develop like this:

1. Roll Initiative

2. Fighter rush in and do damage. Wizard will either self-buff for defense or launch an attack. If the creature saves, wizard's turn over. Fighter rushes in hits for 30 to 40 points. If he crits, usually a 60 to 100 points on creature. In full attack range.

3. Creature goes. Dishes out damage according to its ability. Perhaps mounts it's own defenses depending on its options.

4. Next round wizard launches another attack. Creature saves, attack fails. Creature doesn't save, effect takes place. Fighter full attack. Creature takes 120 to 160 points of damage. Far more if a crit.


These false statements that attempt to make it seem as though the fighter's capability is based on a prepared wizard vs the fighter in a one on one situation or D&D occurring in a vacuum where the fighter is somehow on his own and the wizard is on his own are false examples of what occurred in D&D 3.x Not to say there were never instances where a wizard shined by unleashing a spell where the main creature didn't save and an encounter was ended quickly. It certainly happens and should happen. But I've had as many instances or more where a fighter unleashed a series of vicious crits that ended a fight as well.

D&D does not happen in a compartmentalized world where the fighter and wizard fight alone, either one does everything, or is even capable of doing everything. There are plenty of fights where wizards are effectively useless. And many of these fights are against the toughest monsters in the game like dragons, demons, and enemy NPCs. Where if they stick their head out, their low fort saves and hit points are going to get them killed.

Speaking from experience having played several campaigns of high level D&D, fighters are not useless. Wizards that don't take the time optimize or learn how to play their characters are as useless as a fighter who doesn't take the time to build his character correctly. Knowing how spells work is especially important to being a successful wizard or cleric.

In my experience playing high level D&D, a wizard or cleric lacking system experience and the ability to optimize has gotten more parties killed than any fighter or melee-type combined. Why? Because a lack of system experience by a player going against a DM with a great deal of system experience usually leads to the death of the wizard and/or cleric. Which often leads to the death of the party unless the fighters dish some serious pain quickly, especially if the healer is lacking experience. That has been the main culprit of party death more than the wizard or fighter combined. But I guess no one thinks the healers are overpowered.

For example, just last week my party went into an encounter against an NPC group in a _Pathfinder_ game. There was a _wind wall_ making the zen archer monk/ranger inert. 

The wizard PC did not take the time to dispel the _wind wall_. Instead he launched a take out the NPC spell _baleful polymorph_ against an NPC in range hoping to use this "destroy the encounter" spell scenario no decent DM falls for. The NPC he cast at saved, his turn is over. He's done nothing.

Now the so called weak barbarian NPC motored through the hit points of both the PC fighters and they hammered him for insane damage. In the entire round, they did something like 400 points of damage between them. And the healer for the NPCs healed the barbarian. The PC healer healed the fighters.

The fight continued and Mr. overpowered wizard did not dispel the _wind wall_ effectively eliminating one of his own offensive options from the fight, while attempting to cast encounter destroying spells against NPCs that were well-protected against such attacks.

What does that illustrate?

That D&D is a team game. No class can do it alone. Not the wizard, not the fighter, not the cleric, not the rogue. 

Now one on one, which is not how D&D is played on average, the wizard is the strongest due to magic being inherently stronger than melee. But not invincible. In fact, a well-designed archer can kill a wizard or caster if both are starting at zero in a one on one combat. Even a regular fighter might kill a wizard if close enough. 

But that is irrelevant. The game of D&D is not played in that fashion on average.

And if you decide you want to simulate something of that kind, you can do it and I have done it. If you and your player want to simulate say Hercules or Gilgamesh, you can do it. In fact, you can do it in 3.x better than you can do it in any edition of D&D including 4E.

Why?

Because 3.x doesn't use the at will, encounter, and daily power allotment.

If you want to say simulate Hercules. You give him super strength and write an ability that says "Hercules is the son of a god. He can lift nearly impossible to lift items like rivers or immovable objects because of his divine strength." 

Hercules has DR 10/- due to his divine nature. And then you toss him an SR.

There is your Hercules simulation.

Same with Arthur and Excalibur.

Or any number of heroic characters.

Standard D&D, sure, you can't make that son of a god fighter. But you can't make Raistlin or Elric as your wizard either. Both would require the DM to work with you to create such characters.

Because contrary to the statements on here, real D&D wizards aren't prepared for every eventuality and can be killed. They have weak saves, in fact fort and reflex are both weak. They get hit by some harsh effect targeting fort or ref, and they may well die. They can't obliterate armies because AoE spells only effect so much area.

Sure, they might be able to have a spell-prepared to deal with it if they know what's coming, which isn't the case most of the time. And if they let their fighters, rogues, and clerics get taken out because they're trying to be Mr. Do-it-all-yourself, chances are all they're going to do is get themselves killed. If a powerful demon or dragon gets up on them in melee, chances are they are dead. No dragon or demon is going to fall for simple parlor tricks like _mirror image_, _fly_, or _invsibility_. Not going to happen.

And a wizard doesn't have enough defenses to withstand a concentrated melee attack by a monster of that magnitude easily. If your primary contention is that a prepared wizard can defeat a fighter, sure, you're right. I don't see anything wrong with that.

If you're contention is that a fighter is useless in 3.x. Or has no chance against a wizard whether he is prepared or optimized or not. I don't agree with that. I can absolutely prove that wrong empirically.


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## Celtavian

Sepulchrave II said:


> Except that a 10th-level warrior would model this better.
> 
> Are the 23 ranks in Profession (turnip farmer) really necessary? Isn't 13 ranks with Skill Focus (Profession: turnip farming) enough?




Never designed a lvl 20 commoner. I doubt I would ever create one save if I wanted to create some strange comedic encounter where my PCs were beat up by Farmer Joe the Turnip Farmer for my own amusement.

I'm of the same mind as you that the rules are there for DMs to model ideas meant to challenge PCs of a certain power. A lot of encounter creation including NPCs is intuitive and experimental, and not meant at all to be based in real world thinking other than at a very basic level in that fighters swing swords.

I never even considered this odd discussion you all are having. PCs are extraordinary because I the DM am making them extraordinary by putting them in circumstances that allow them to become extraordinary. 

All this hypothetical talk is a little odd to me. It makes you want to ask questions like:

"What if a commoner who was secretly the son of a fallen king with all 18s was never put into a situation where he might choose a class level or advance past lvl 1 commoner? Is he less or more extraordinary than a PC who was a turnip farmer that has straight 12s, yet has fighter levels and has had the good fortune to have fate place him on the path to greatness? What an awful waste of extraordinary stats if that lvl 1 commoner, fortunate enough to have straight 18s and be a secret prince, is never able to develop due to circumstances."

Such a commoner would fall far outside the statistical average for raw ability. He would be quite extraordinary compared to even a leveled PC. But because circumstances (aka no DM to make him the star) didn't permit, he is an extraordinary, gifted human being outdone by Joe the Turnip Farmer.

It seems like an awful travesty that this could possibly happen. I never realized how many NPC commoners were just like PC fighters, but simply hadn't been given the opportunity to shine.


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## ProfessorCirno

Celtavian said:


> Have you even played 3.x editions? I'm beginning to doubt it by your statements.
> 
> _Limited Wish_ was not a spell used often. It had an xp cost.




Did you?

Limited Wish is cast *all the time* for the same reason magical items are made.  The XP cost is laughably small, and XP is like a river - you get it back faster then you can spend it.  

And looking at the "tactics" your spellcasters use, it's painfully obvious they're _really bad at playing their characters_.  They obviously read somewhere online that "save or die" spells are good and *read no further!*  Like, ok, I'll agree that 3e is _more_ balanced when your wizard is really bad at being a wizard and your martial characters are really optimized, but you aren't proving crap there.

In fact, that's what all these examples end up coming down to.

"Look, 3e is balanced.  See, my fighter is incredibly optimized and my wizard just derps out whatever spell looks pretty.  See!  Balance!"


----------



## Neonchameleon

Celtavian said:


> Have you even played 3.x editions? I'm beginning to doubt it by your statements.
> 
> _Limited Wish_ was not a spell used often. It had an xp cost.




So?  So did crafting.  Look up "XP is a river" for why this didn't matter.  The question with Limited Wish was would you gain more than the XP cost.



> If you're implying that system mastery isn't necessary to make a hyperpowerful wizard, I'll take a player that knows how to make an optimized fighter against a player that doesn't know how to optimize a wizard any day of the week as far as betting money.




I don't know who was implying that.  But an optimised wizard beats an optimised fighter.  (If the wizard is using mostly evocation, I'll grant the weak fighter beats the weak wizard).



> It takes as much system mastery to create a powerful wizard as it does to make an optimized fighter.




Uh-uh.  All it takes to make a good wizard is a smart use of a spellbook.  A fighter takes a lot of planning and knowledge of the build in advance.  Start with Int as your dump stat?  You're locked out of Expertise.  Wizards don't have this sort of problem.



> I'm talking take two classes in a regular combat where there is no real preparation time other than initiative, see who has more of an impact on a given encounter.




So you're already handicapping the wizard.  Right there.  By reducing the game to a hack and slash fest you are arbitrarily favouring the class that does hack and slash and almost nothing else.



> I'll bet that 90% of the time, an optimized fighter will have a greater impact on the encounter than an inexperienced wizard at almost all levels.




Oh, I'll agree with that.  Mostly because you've effectively hogtied the wizard before you've started.  Wizards take skill to dominate with.  With skill they beat the fighters in combat and make them look completely and utterly pointless out of combat.  Your rules are someone who doesn't know how to play well against someone who does on his best territory.  You'd need an anti-magic sphere to rig things much harder in favour of the fighter.



> Encounters usually develop like this:
> 
> 1. Roll Initiative




Apparently you are as combat centric as some people accuse 4th ed of being.  Try the following steps first if the wizard is semi-competent.

-4: Long term buffs
-3: Scrying
-2: Monster knowledge
-1: Short duration buffs
0: Surprise round.



> 2. Fighter rush in and do damage.




Well, yes.



> Wizard will either self-buff for defense or launch an attack.  If the creature saves, wizard's turn over.




What are they doing without self-buffs already up?  There are _few_ combat self-buffs worth casting (Haste, possibly).  Because time is critical.  And if the attack was, for instance, Evard's Black Tentacles or Glitterdust then the turn might be over but the spell isn't.  And remember both those spells get an area of effect, so the more the merrier.



> Fighter rushes in hits for 30 to 40 points. If he crits, usually a 60 to 100 points on creature. In full attack range.




Or Fighter misses.  Fighter's turn over.  Once more you aren't comparing like with like.



> 3. Creature goes. Dishes out damage according to its ability. Perhaps mounts it's own defenses depending on its options.




Yes...  Assuming it's not blinded for the next ten rounds or grappled or ...



> 4. Next round wizard launches another attack. Creature saves, attack fails. Creature doesn't save, effect takes place. Fighter full attack. Creature takes 120 to 160 points of damage. Far more if a crit.




So he should.  After two rounds of spells, his target should be a punchbag.



> Speaking from experience having played several campaigns of high level D&D, fighters are not useless. Wizards that don't take the time optimize or learn how to play their characters are as useless as a fighter who doesn't take the time to build his character correctly. Knowing how spells work is especially important to being a successful wizard or cleric.




Indeed.  System mastery is necessary for 3.X.  But the wizard and the cleric with system mastery are going to make the fighter look silly.



> That has been the main culprit of party death more than the wizard or fighter combined. But I guess no one thinks the healers are overpowered.




You've never heard the term "CoDzilla"?  Clerics and druids are absolutely overpowered.  Top tier with the wizard and artificer.  They just aren't overpowered if they play as healbots rather than healing after the combat using crafted Wands of Cure Light Wounds.



> The wizard PC did not take the time to dispel the _wind wall_. Instead he launched a take out the NPC spell _baleful polymorph_ against an NPC in range hoping to use this "destroy the encounter" spell scenario no decent DM falls for.




What do you mean "No decent DM falls for"?  That you arbitrarily give monsters high saves in order to nerf wizards?  It's not a matter of _falling for_ the spells.  Save or die spells are not traps.  They are open abilities - and if you're talking about "falling for" them you're deliberately screwing over the wizard.  You might as well talk about monsters falling for three feet of steel in the gut.

If you are taking steps to nerf the wizard against the RAW by deliberately jacking up the monster's saves even when you have inexperienced wizards, that's a clear demonstration that even in your games the wizards are overpowered.



> The fight continued and Mr. overpowered wizard did not dispel the _wind wall_ effectively eliminating one of his own offensive options from the fight, while attempting to cast encounter destroying spells against NPCs that were well-protected against such attacks.
> 
> What does that illustrate?




That if the DM rigs a scenario that it can be best done one way and you don't do it that way you aren't going to get very far.  You deliberately gave the monsters high saves so the wizard couldn't do what he wanted to.  And something else arbitrary to do.



> Because 3.x doesn't use the at will, encounter, and daily power allotment.




What has that got to do with anything?



> If you want to say simulate Hercules. You give him super strength and write an ability that says "Hercules is the son of a god. He can lift nearly impossible to lift items like rivers or immovable objects because of his divine strength."




Oh!  I get it!  You can simulate Hercules _if you house rule_.  And mysteriously can not house rule other games.



> Hercules has DR 10/- due to his divine nature. And then you toss him an SR.
> 
> There is your Hercules simulation.
> 
> Same with Arthur and Excalibur.
> 
> Or any number of heroic characters.




So you can't actually play them under the rules of 3.X - you need to make stuff up.  And can't in other games.  Special pleading at its finest.  Especially as supposed flexibility is meant to be a strength of 3.X



> And a wizard doesn't have enough defenses to withstand a concentrated melee attack by a monster of that magnitude easily.




Whereas a fighter can't withstand a spell vs will.  And can't heal himself either - but should be taking damage because he's on the front lines.


----------



## Bluenose

Celtavian said:


> No. They were not outstripped in power. Your standard fighter with Power Attack and the most basic of weapon specialization feats could output huge damage.




What do they do when the encounter isn't about how much damage you can do?


----------



## Thanael

Huh? When did this thread derail into an NPC vs PC thread? 

The different rules have very different takes on this. If you run 1E or 2E you have those 0-level people which to me do not make much sense. 4E has reintroduced them via the mooks rules. In effect when you need an NPCs to have an ability you  cheat or make him a solo/PC. This makes the PCs and villains (even more) superheroes. 3E introduced NPC classes for this so that PCs and NPCs can use the same rules and can have skill ranks and advance in their craft.

Of all these I like the 3E/PF system the best. Yes I'm simulationist.

Anybody remember MavrickWeirdo's NPC over a lifetime threads? I loved those. In fact here's my little NPC-classes-are-cool-rant with lots of juicy links:

[sblock]IMO 1st level (N)PCs are children or adolescents. This is supported by the starting ages for PC classes. Level 1 Commmoners have to be either very young or very inexperienced IMO. A level 1 warrior is a newb, a green recruit or the local school bully. Barely older than 15.

NPCs gain XP too! I think that the NPC classes were invented for exactly that. 

In 2E you had all those 0-lvl humans running around who would die if you so much as looked at them. 3e takes nice care of that. A commoner will advance to level 2 or 3 at least, perhaps level 6 when he dies of old age. Age modifiers will do their part to keep some of his abilities like hps and fighting ability stagnating (or even deteriorating) between levels 3 to 6 while his life experience increases his skills and abilities (feats).  Check out the examples in the links below. 



See also SKR's Theory about peasants and the great Level advancement over a lifetime, and the Common Commoner discussions on ENWorld.

Here are some threads with interesting NPCs

MavrickWeirdo's:
NPC Commoner over a lifetime 
NPC guard over lifetime
Commoner 2: Elf Farmer, over a lifetime
NPC Expert Horseman over a lifetime
Commoner vs. Expert over a lifetime 
Commoners 1: Runners
Ellie May, Farmer's daugher
Goblin-a-day

Blackdirge's:
The rise and fall of an Orc Chieftain (Orc warrior NPC throughout his life)
Myrgle, Adept of Yeenoghu (Gnoll NPC adept throughout his life and beyond)
Urg the Unlikely, Half-Ogre Wizard NPC throughout a lifetime.
Grummok Gargoyle Assassin throughout a lifetime
Nithrekel, Earth Mephit Fighter NPC through 50 years of servitude
Stats from Metamorphosis - From Dretch to Demon Lord.
Suped up Monsters

Turanil's 
D100 NPC thread has lots of very interesting  Everyday NPCs
, among them:
Very high level basic NPCs
Toothless Joe, high level commoner
... and many many others. Send him a mail or post in the thread to get the compiled document with all 100 NPCs.

Farmer Tobias, an Epic level Commoner

Check out the excellent Commoner Campaign thread on WotC boards for an actual solo campaign log with a commoner PC. (including 3E statblocks)[/sblock]


----------



## Neonchameleon

Thanael said:


> The different rules have very different takes on this. If you run 1E or 2E you have those 0-level people which to me do not make much sense. 4E has reintroduced them via the mooks rules.




To me, mook combat rules make perfect sense.  They are for people who aren't trained fighters and are going to break or fold.  Wielding a weapon and so are dangerous, but have never been in a real fight in their lives.  That surgeon over there is fast, precise, and knows exactly where to cut.  But one punch and he's on the floor crying.  He's a mook.  So are those people with pitchforks and torches.  All dangerous when together, but are going to run like buggery if they get hurt and this ceases to be fun.  (0th level NPCs on the other hand make no sense at all to me).  And her ladyship barely knows one end of a sword from the other and would just either run screaming or faint at the sight of blood.  No combat ability at all.  Doesn't stop her being incredibly sharp, able to talk her way round anyone, and having an encyclopaedic knowledge of the kingdom.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:


> This was the arguement?  I thought the argument was that fighters, at the start of their career were normal as in average, not exceptional, what you would expect to find, that sort of thing.
> 
> Are fighters mundane, as in non-magical?  Sure.  Totally agree with that.




Cool.  So, then, fighters (or, at least, low-level fighters) are not superhuman?  Glad to hear it.  I guess that would make anyone arguing that they had to be, well, wrong in your eyes?

Because I would agree to that.  


RC


----------



## Jeff Wilder

Hussar said:


> This was the arguement?  I thought the argument was that fighters, at the start of their career were normal as in average, not exceptional, what you would expect to find, that sort of thing.



When I was involved, the people on the other side were arguing that fighters (e.g., Batman) were "superhuman," and "not a normal human."  I, and several others, went out of our way to express that we knew that Batman was exceptional, extraordinary, and a superhero, but we disputed "superhuman."

As far as I'm aware, the people arguing that Batman -- and fighters, by extension -- was automatically "superhuman" simply because he's an exceptional human never conceded the point.

I personally think that the idea that _any_ PC in D&D isn't exceptional is dumb, but it's not dumb because they can't have been "normal turnip farmers" (they can have been).  It's dumb because it's exceptional that from that background they have the potential to shape the world.

And I don't see the "fighters are normal guys" people arguing against that idea.


----------



## KahnyaGnorc

Compare a top-level Navy SEAL (an actual exceptional but not super-human, high-level fighter) versus a high-level fighter from any version of D&D.

SEAL gets hit by a club wielded by a giant . . . SPLAT
Fighter gets hit by a club wielded by a giant . . . "That all ya got?!"

SEAL gets caught in a red dragon's breath weapon . . . cooked.
Fighter gets caught in red dragon's breath weapon . . . "You singed my hair!"

etc., etc.

High level fighters in every version of D&D are super-human, just not super-human in the flashy, mass destruction way of wizards.


----------



## fanboy2000

KahnyaGnorc said:


> Compare a top-level Navy SEAL (an actual exceptional but not super-human, high-level fighter) versus a high-level fighter from any version of D&D.
> 
> SEAL gets hit by a club wielded by a giant . . . SPLAT
> Fighter gets hit by a club wielded by a giant . . . "That all ya got?!"
> 
> SEAL gets caught in a red dragon's breath weapon . . . cooked.
> Fighter gets caught in red dragon's breath weapon . . . "You singed my hair!"
> 
> etc., etc.
> 
> High level fighters in every version of D&D are super-human, just not super-human in the flashy, mass destruction way of wizards.



To be fair, those are things that _only_ a high level fighter are going to face. I think you're shortchanging the SEAL a bit. (Of course, I'm biased, being former a sailor in the U.S. Navy.)

Also, few people here or elsewhere are making the claim that *high-level* fighters aren't, well, better than what a normal human can do in real life. I think it's part of D&D's charm.

If you're going to have players play bother warriors and magic-users, then you need a way to balance them out. We've pretty much covered how that's handled in fiction. Either it's not, or the writer uses a variety of plot devices or limitations on the magic user's power to give them parity.

But in D&D, it's always been a point of contention. A lot of this has to do with person play style and experience. Also, a fighter needs a way to survive an encounter with a dragon in a game called Dungeons & Dragons. Otherwise, there's no point.


----------



## KahnyaGnorc

fanboy2000 said:


> To be fair, those are things that _only_ a high level fighter are going to face. I think you're shortchanging the SEAL a bit. (Of course, I'm biased, being former a sailor in the U.S. Navy.)
> 
> Also, few people here or elsewhere are making the claim that *high-level* fighters aren't, well, better than what a normal human can do in real life. I think it's part of D&D's charm.
> 
> If you're going to have players play bother warriors and magic-users, then you need a way to balance them out. We've pretty much covered how that's handled in fiction. Either it's not, or the writer uses a variety of plot devices or limitations on the magic user's power to give them parity.
> 
> But in D&D, it's always been a point of contention. A lot of this has to do with person play style and experience. Also, a fighter needs a way to survive an encounter with a dragon in a game called Dungeons & Dragons. Otherwise, there's no point.




The SEAL would more likely be missed by the giant or avoid the dragon (as they are more agile than the typical plate-wearing D&D fighter), but hit dead-on?  That is a simple matter of physics, which the SEAL cannot violate, but the D&D fighter can.  The human body cannot withstand as much force and pressure that a giant's club would bear.  Similarly, the heat of a red dragon's breath weapon would cook human flesh.

In the vast majority of fantasy fiction with fighter-types as main characters, they violate the laws of physics in the amount of punishment they can take without dying at the very least.  Often, they violate it with the offensive capabilities or their agility, as well.  That makes them super-human, which is counter to the "Fighters are exceptional, but mundane" line.  Even non-fantasy fiction with a fighter-like main character (like Die Hard) have them be super-human by defying the laws of physics in that regard.


----------



## Hussar

Raven Crowking said:


> Cool.  So, then, fighters (or, at least, low-level fighters) are not superhuman?  Glad to hear it.  I guess that would make anyone arguing that they had to be, well, wrong in your eyes?
> 
> Because I would agree to that.
> 
> 
> RC




Well, if you insist that superhuman must be defined by being supernatural, then fine.  If, otoh, you simply use the term to mean what it says, as in more than normal, better than normal, exceptional, then no.

To me, Batman is so far beyond a normal human that he is, for all intents and purposes, superhuman.  Not in the, "I got bitten by a radioactive spider" sense, but in the, "I am just that much better than any normal human that I'm not even in the same zip code" sense.

But, whatever floats your boat.  I honestly don't see a huge difference between exceptional and superhuman, other than maybe special effects (as in the high budget movie sense, not the game definition sense, just to be clear).  Both are better than normal human.

Which is what I have been arguing all the way along.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> Well, if you insist that superhuman must be defined by being supernatural, then fine.



Go look it up in the dictionary, and you'll find the primary definition in virtually every source uses words & phrases like "preternatural" or "beyond those of mankind."  It isn't until you look at the later definitions accounting for colloquial watering down of the word that you see it as a mere superlative.

superhuman - definition of superhuman by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.

"Exceptional," OTOH, is not nearly as strong a word.  "Uncommon" and "Well above average" are typical of what you'll find.  Not quite the same.

exceptional - definition of exceptional by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.


----------



## Thanael

KahnyaGnorc said:


> Compare a top-level Navy SEAL (an actual exceptional but not super-human, high-level fighter) versus a high-level fighter from any version of D&D.
> 
> SEAL gets hit by a club wielded by a giant . . . SPLAT
> Fighter gets hit by a club wielded by a giant . . . "That all ya got?!"
> 
> SEAL gets caught in a red dragon's breath weapon . . . cooked.
> Fighter gets caught in red dragon's breath weapon . . . "You singed my hair!"
> 
> etc., etc.
> 
> High level fighters in every version of D&D are super-human, just not super-human in the flashy, mass destruction way of wizards.




I think you define "get hit" differently for the real SEAL and the fantasy Fighter. Hitpoints != wound points

Also how about comparing the fantasy fighter to Bruce Willis in Die Hard ?

The main difference between realistic real world characters and fantasy characters is that the fantasy characters get to higher levels. The real world plays E6 or E5 or E4. ;-) (EDIT: and used a wound point/vitality system)


----------



## Thanael

KahnyaGnorc said:


> The SEAL would more likely be missed by the giant or avoid the dragon (as they are more agile than the typical plate-wearing D&D fighter), but hit dead-on?  That is a simple matter of physics, which the SEAL cannot violate, but the D&D fighter can.  The human body cannot withstand as much force and pressure that a giant's club would bear.  Similarly, the heat of a red dragon's breath weapon would cook human flesh.
> 
> In the vast majority of fantasy fiction with fighter-types as main characters, they violate the laws of physics in the amount of punishment they can take without dying at the very least.  Often, they violate it with the offensive capabilities or their agility, as well.  That makes them super-human, which is counter to the "Fighters are exceptional, but mundane" line.  Even non-fantasy fiction with a fighter-like main character (like Die Hard) have them be super-human by defying the laws of physics in that regard.




Ah you're interpreting hitpoints wrong. A hit in D&D != a dead on hit. Hitpoints do not represent wound points. 



> What Hit Points Represent
> 
> Hit points mean two things in the game world: the ability to take physical punishment and keep going, and the ability to turn a serious blow into a less serious one.



from D20srd.org



> Hit points are a figure that can represent anything that prevents a character or creature from being seriously injured by an otherwise successful attack. HP doesn’t always measure physical wounds, but rather can represent stamina, morale, easily treated minor wounds, and even abstract things like luck or divine protection.



from Hit Points And You  Jonathan Drain’s D20 Source: Dungeons & Dragons Blog


What you are talking about should be compared to a Fighter using the wound/vitality system.

Also instead of using real world examples I think comparing to Action Movies is called for.


----------



## Thanael

KahnyaGnorc said:


> TIn the vast majority of fantasy fiction with fighter-types as main characters, they violate the laws of physics in the amount of punishment they can take without dying at the very least.  Often, they violate it with the offensive capabilities or their agility, as well.  That makes them super-human, which is counter to the "Fighters are exceptional, but mundane" line.  Even non-fantasy fiction with a fighter-like main character (like Die Hard) have them be super-human by defying the laws of physics in that regard.





No they don't violate the laws of physics. An Action films physics work differently than real world physics. (Though often there are mook rules in place so the protagonist is superhuman compared to mooks)

In a fantasy world there are completely different "physics" at work. In 3.5 there are no mooks rules and a fighter 10 will take a lot of punishment. But so would a commoner 10 with a very high CON (even if not to the same extent). Both are exceptional in that they are higher level than most other people, but neither is really superhuman in the context of the laws of their world.

Perhaps mundane should also be redefined for most fantasy rules sets. I.e. many non- casting classes still get quasi magical/mythical abilities.


----------



## I'm A Banana

> Perhaps mundane should also be redefined for most fantasy rules sets. I.e. many non- casting classes still get quasi magical/mythical abilities.




Full.

Frickin'.

Circle.

This is exactly how the wizard/warrior balance problem is handled in fantasy literature, and it would be a good model to handle it in D&D. This is how Batman can beat up Superman and the Joker.

Which is where this whole thing began.

"Martial" characters should get quasimagical/mythical abilities. 

Like Batman's or Odysseus's wits.

Like Conan's strength.

Like Himura Kenshin's speed.

Things that no real person could ever really do should be the domain of the D&D warriors, since the D&D spellcasters already do things that no real person could ever really do.


----------



## KahnyaGnorc

Thanael said:


> I think you define "get hit" differently for the real SEAL and the fantasy Fighter. Hitpoints != wound points




Okay, how about getting CRIT by a giant?  That'd be a full-on hit, AND the fighter would still say "That all ya got?!"



> Also how about comparing the fantasy fighter to Bruce Willis in Die Hard ?



John McClane certainly has superhuman toughness.  So, it is comparing superhuman to superhuman.




Thanael said:


> No they don't violate the laws of physics. An Action films physics work differently than real world physics. (Though often there are mook rules in place so the protagonist is superhuman compared to mooks)




That appears to me as redefining what superhuman means for the sole purpose of excluding action heroes and fantasy fighters.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Double Post.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> That appears to me as redefining what superhuman means for the sole purpose of excluding action heroes and fantasy fighters.



And back we go into discussing RW human capabilities and fictionverse human capabilities...

No, that's not what is going on.  It is a recognition that action heroes in various genres can be distinguished between by whether they are exceptional but not superhuman or truly superhuman within the fictional worlds they inhabit.

John McClane is certainly tough.  Perhaps the toughest cop on the force; maybe the USA; the world.  But his toughness is due to his training regimen, not from some super-serum, alien DNA or what have you.  By the terms of the fictionverse he inhabits, others who train like he does could achieve analogous results.


----------



## ProfessorCirno

Dannyalcatraz said:


> And back we go into discussing RW human capabilities and fictionverse human capabilities...
> 
> No, that's not what is going on.  It is a recognition that action heroes in various genres can be distinguished between by whether they are exceptional but not superhuman or truly superhuman within the fictional worlds they inhabit.
> 
> John McClane is certainly tough.  Perhaps the toughest cop on the force; maybe the USA; the world.  But his toughness is due to his training regimen, not from some super-serum, alien DNA or what have you.  By the terms of the fictionverse he inhabits, others who train like he does could achieve analogous results.




Full circle indeed, as once again we are ignoring the difference between in-world and in-narrative.

Seriously just close the thread, this is like the third time it's looped now.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Kamikaze Midget said:


> Full.
> 
> Frickin'.
> 
> Circle.




And still no closer to resolution.  A wheel goes full circle, but it keeps on turning.



KahnyaGnorc said:


> Okay, how about getting CRIT by a giant?  That'd be a full-on hit, AND the fighter would still say "That all ya got?!"




IF the fighter took a full-on hit, THEN he is dead.  The measure of his remaining hit points, and not what the giant rolled to hit, is the sole determinant of whether or not he took a full-on hit in D&D.



> That appears to me as redefining what superhuman means for the sole purpose of excluding action heroes and fantasy fighters.




Or redefining what human means to exclude fictional heroic characters who fall within human capability, right?



RC


----------



## Raven Crowking

ProfessorCirno said:


> Full circle indeed, as once again we are ignoring the difference between in-world and in-narrative.
> 
> Seriously just close the thread, this is like the third time it's looped now.






Folks disagree with you and you can't disengage on your own, so the solution is to shut down the thread?


----------



## Jeff Wilder

Kamikaze Midget said:


> "Martial" characters should get quasimagical/mythical abilities.
> 
> Like Batman's or Odysseus's wits.
> 
> Like Conan's strength.



Okay.  Let's see it.

Let's see your Batman, Conan, and Odysseus in D&D terms with their "quasimagical/mythical" abilities.

I'm serious.  I'm truly interested in how you're going to (a) give them abilities that _you_ feel can "compete" with a wizard's, while (b) keeping them "normal" enough that people like me, who aren't interested in a magical Batman or Conan _at all_, playing the game.

My guess is that you don't care about (b).  Which is fine, and will save a lot of time if you just say it outright.


----------



## Mort

Dannyalcatraz said:


> And back we go into discussing RW human capabilities and fictionverse human capabilities...
> 
> No, that's not what is going on.  It is a recognition that action heroes in various genres can be distinguished between by whether they are exceptional but not superhuman or truly superhuman within the fictional worlds they inhabit.
> 
> John McClane is certainly tough.  Perhaps the toughest cop on the force; maybe the USA; the world.  But his toughness is due to his training regimen, not from some super-serum, alien DNA or what have you.  By the terms of the fictionverse he inhabits, others who train like he does could achieve analogous results.




I have to say I like this argument (liked it the first time you made it, which is why I dropped the batman as "superhuman" angle). In any dicussion you have to take in to account the "rules of the universe" you are discussing - so in the DC universe Batman is exceptional but not superhuman. It's actually a useful distinction.



Jeff Wilder said:


> Okay.  Let's see it.
> 
> Let's see your Batman, Conan, and Odysseus in D&D terms with their "quasimagical/mythical" abilities.
> 
> I'm serious.  I'm truly interested in how you're going to (a) give them abilities that _you_ feel can "compete" with a wizard's, while (b) keeping them "normal" enough that people like me, who aren't interested in a magical Batman or Conan _at all_, playing the game.
> 
> My guess is that you don't care about (b).  Which is fine, and will save a lot of time if you just say it outright.




With Batman this is not so tough, as he has access to ridiculous technology that essentially mimics magic in many respects. in D&D terms (though D&D is a lousy model for him) he would be a gestalt fighter/artificer. in GURPS I can't remember the exact things he would spend points on but it would be something like martial arts, massive wealth and gizmoteer abilities - which means while he's human, his point level is basically the same as Superman and he can compete on that level.

With Conan - you need some kind of fate/luck mechanic - he's reidiculously strong and tough, but he also has a knack for fate/luck (whatever) to intervene in the right place (after making him  thoroughly miserable first of course). in Deadlands, for example, he would have several gold fate chips - which would alow a "yeah, I should be dead but this is actually to my advantage" type play.


----------



## KahnyaGnorc

Raven Crowking said:


> IF the fighter took a full-on hit, THEN he is dead.  The measure of his remaining hit points, and not what the giant rolled to hit, is the sole determinant of whether or not he took a full-on hit in D&D.




That would mean that it would be impossible for the giant to ever get a full-on hit with his/her first attack, since the top crit would still not exceed the fighter's hit points.  There are death by massive blow optional rules, but a high-level fighter can breeze through the required Fort Saves.



> Or redefining what human means to exclude fictional heroic characters who fall within human capability, right?




No one in the Die Hard setting can withstand the punishment that John McClane can.  That is superhuman to me.


----------



## Raven Crowking

KahnyaGnorc said:


> That would mean that it would be impossible for the giant to ever get a full-on hit with his/her first attack, since the top crit would still not exceed the fighter's hit points.




And.........?

If the fighter is not in top form, he won't be at top hit points, and may well take a full-on hit with the first attack.  Likewise, the giant might have the opportunity to do something akin to a _coup de grace_, which may well translate into a full-on hit.



> No one in the Die Hard setting can withstand the punishment that John McClane can.  That is superhuman to me.




Which movie are we talking about?

It seems to me that McClane is human in _Die Hard_, but I would agree that he seems superhuman in the later movies.  Especially the last one.  Frankly, that damages my enjoyment of those films.


RC


----------



## Harlekin

Jeff Wilder said:


> Okay.  Let's see it.
> 
> Let's see your Batman, Conan, and Odysseus in D&D terms with their "quasimagical/mythical" abilities.
> 
> I'm serious.  I'm truly interested in how you're going to (a) give them abilities that _you_ feel can "compete" with a wizard's, while (b) keeping them "normal" enough that people like me, who aren't interested in a magical Batman or Conan _at all_, playing the game.
> 
> My guess is that you don't care about (b).  Which is fine, and will save a lot of time if you just say it outright.




Narrative control by their player? A couple of times, the player gets to say "And next, X happens". For example, "The Dragon when trying to gain height fast tears open an old injury in a wing and has to land". Of course you need to limit what exactly X could be, to make sure this ability is useful but not overpowered. Nevertheless, it should be easy to set up so that in the game world, things just happen to work out for the fighter. 

If you wanted to draw a further distinction between Batman an John McLane, you could say that things work out for Batman, because he planned them that way, while JML just got lucky.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> No one in the Die Hard setting can withstand the punishment that John McClane can. That is superhuman to me.




So...there's a _Die Hard_ movie in which it is revealed that he is indeed tougher than each and every one of the other 6.5 billion people in that version of the world?

I don't think so- at best, all we know is that he's the toughest guy on the screen.


----------



## ProfessorCirno

Dannyalcatraz said:


> So...there's a _Die Hard_ movie in which it is revealed that he is indeed tougher than each and every one of the other 6.5 billion people in that version of the world?
> 
> I don't think so- at best, all we know is that he's the toughest guy on the screen.




You really and sincerely do not understand what narrative is, do you?  I don't mean that as an insult, I mean I honestly don't think you know.

That would explain a whole lot.


----------



## CuRoi

I have only been paying half attention to this thread, so apologies if I throw in soemthing thats been beat to death, animated, ressurrected, beat to death again, animated and further pummled.

I dropped out somewhere along the lines of the neverending batman debate : ) But here is something tagnetially related and a fun read:

_*WARNING* this is a link to a very tongue in cheek "top ten" list which includes some off-color language. Please don't click if you might be offended by juvenile humor peppered with obscneities. If you have a completely childish sense of humor like myself, its worth the read, and I think adds some perspective to the whole "super human" versus "normal" debate._

Real Life Heroes

THATS super human. And despite the tongue in cheek, snarky story telling, it's all based on actual human abilities.

IMO - Discussing whether someone is superhuman or not regardless of a setting or  fiction level for that matter is a moot point. A good story requires characters doing fantastic things, whether a fictional account or something based plainly in fact. That's what makes the story good to begin with. 

To the topic at hand - 

There is no "balance" issue in fantasy literature simply because the supreme and ultimate decider of what is "balanced" is the story. If the actions create a good story, then its "balanced". Just ignore the rules when they make your story suck and you'll be fine.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> You really and sincerely do not understand what narrative is, do you? I don't mean that as an insult, I mean I honestly don't think you know.




What + Ever.

The narrative of Die Hard does not require that John is the toughest man in the world, merely tougher than anyone else in the movie.  There is no larger context in which to place him, as there is with Bats & the whole DC universe.

For all we know, John is in approximately the same relation to his world as James Bond is to his.  Bond has encountered several opponents tougher than he is...he just found other ways to defeat them.


----------



## ProfessorCirno

The problem is that people are getting extremely caught up in the "world" and they either ignore or don't understand the "narrative."

In the "world" of Die Hard, JMC is a normal man.  He has no magical powers.  He has no mutant abilities.  He can't cast any spells.  He is an "average human."

In the "narrative" of Die Hard, JMC is the _protagonist_, which _in of itself_ imbues him with ability that *no* other person in the "world" of Die Hard has.  You cannot compare JMC to the 6.5 billion other people in the world because they don't exist in the narrative.  The narrative is not on "the planet Earth," the narrative is on one part of New York City.  Asking if John McClane is better then those 6.5 billion people isn't just missing the point, it's a nonsense question.  Those people _don't exist_.

Although JMC is a "normal human," because he is the protagonist, he can take more pain, shoot with better accuracy, and is just plain smarter, faster, and more versatile then the cops and SWAT are.  By being the protagonist, JMC is inherently _extraordinary_ because the narrative is focused on him.  In the narrative, that level of being extraordinary is focused through his ability to take more punishment, outsmart a man who has just about everything fully planned, and go from standard detective to a one man terrorist murdering army.


----------



## ProfessorCirno

CuRoi said:


> I have only been paying half attention to this thread, so apologies if I throw in soemthing thats been beat to death, animated, ressurrected, beat to death again, animated and further pummled.
> 
> I dropped out somewhere along the lines of the neverending batman debate : ) But here is something tagnetially related and a fun read:
> 
> _*WARNING* this is a link to a very tongue in cheek "top ten" list which includes some off-color language. Please don't click if you might be offended by juvenile humor peppered with obscneities. If you have a completely childish sense of humor like myself, its worth the read, and I think adds some perspective to the whole "super human" versus "normal" debate._
> 
> Real Life Heroes
> 
> THATS super human. And despite the tongue in cheek, snarky story telling, it's all based on actual human abilities.




No but you see literally any single person, even those posting at EN World right now, could do any of those things because they're just human beings and not extraordinary at all and rjrgndkjfgnjfng I can't even do this in jest.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> In the "narrative" of Die Hard, JMC is the protagonist, which in of itself imbues him with ability that no other person in the "world" of Die Hard has. You cannot compare JMC to the 6.5 billion other people in the world because they don't exist in the narrative. The narrative is not on "the planet Earth," the narrative is on one part of New York City. Asking if John McClane is better then those 6.5 billion people isn't just missing the point, it's a nonsense question. Those people don't exist.




Your statement is overbroad.

The narrative only demands that the protagonist be able to do what is asked of him, not that he is uniquely qualified to do so.  Others within the world may be equal or even superior in capability, but they will not be the ones to act as the protagonist does.  Those other competent individuals may be incapacitated, dead, secretly the antagonist or a myriad of other things.

In _Westworld_, he protagonist is weaker, less robust and generally less "manly" than his buddy...but he's possibly the only person who survives.  (His buddy did not.)

In _Deliverance_, the protagonist is, at best, the second best archer in his foursome, and is nearly incapable at being a hunter.  Yet despite his incompetence, it is he who delivers the killing shot that saves his friends.

We cannot say that, as the protagonist, John is the baddest dude in _Die Hard_- at best, we can say he is the baddest dude in a position to act.


----------



## LostSoul

I don't know, DA.  The protagonist is the one who drives the plot; it doesn't ask anything of him.  It just throws things in his way and sees how he will deal with it.

All Die Hard means is that a guy, down on his luck, can beat tremendous odds (with no help or thanks to those in authority) when he's trying to win back his wife.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> I don't know, DA. The protagonist is the one who drives the plot; it doesn't ask anything of him. It just throws things in his way and sees how he will deal with it.




Right, but nothing in "The Narrative" says that a protagonist be the ne plus ultra of humanity- except in those rare cases when it does- just that he or she be _good enough_.

To put it differently, he doesn't have to be the strongest if he's smart enough to beat the strongest with his wits.  He doesn't have to be the smartest if he can use a surprising bit of strength and brutality to win the day.

When they fought, Hercules was not stronger than Antaeus.  Despite not known for his wit, it was nonetheless Hercules' reasoning skills that let him carry the day.  He deduced Antaeus' weakness and defeated him.  Had he not used his mind, reliance on his muscles would have left him defeated...and given Antaeus' proclivities, dead.


----------



## LostSoul

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Right, but nothing in "The Narrative" says that a protagonist be the ne plus ultra of humanity- except in those rare cases when it does- just that he or she be _good enough_.




Yeah, I agree, when we're talking about heroic fiction.

Hmm...

What does this have to do with RPGs again?


----------



## Celtavian

*re*



ProfessorCirno said:


> Did you?
> 
> Limited Wish is cast *all the time* for the same reason magical items are made.  The XP cost is laughably small, and XP is like a river - you get it back faster then you can spend it.




Not in campaigns where  a DM controls xp flow. I don't imagine you were in many campaigns of this kind where the DM did this kind of planning. In my campaigns my players were reluctant to expend xp to make magic items or expend it on spells because they would fall behind in levels. You know, like the 3.x system intended.



> And looking at the "tactics" your spellcasters use, it's painfully obvious they're _really bad at playing their characters_.  They obviously read somewhere online that "save or die" spells are good and *read no further!*  Like, ok, I'll agree that 3e is _more_ balanced when your wizard is really bad at being a wizard and your martial characters are really optimized, but you aren't proving crap there.




I've already proved what I've said over twenty plus years of gaming. I can prove you wrong over and over and over again. I've done it as both a DM and player. Things are not as you claim they are, never have been, never will be.

D&D is a team game. You are trying to boil it down to "wizards do everything because their overpowered and fighters can't do anything because the wizard ends the fight". 

My contention was never a prepared fighter can stand toe to toe with a prepared wizard. They can't.

My contention is that fighters are an equally integral part of the game in the 3.x system.

They are not overshadowed by wizards.

The fighter does not need to be able to take on a wizard one on one for the game to be balanced. Doesn't need to be that way at all. 

In fact a fighter should not be able to take on  a wizard one on one. It is a common trope of fantasy that a wizard will generally be stronger than the fighter in a one on one situation.

D&D is a group game in which multiple character types are expected to interact to make the whole is stronger than its parts.

It is up to the DM to ensure that challenges take into account this group structure without letting one part overshadow the others.




> In fact, that's what all these examples end up coming down to.
> 
> "Look, 3e is balanced.  See, my fighter is incredibly optimized and my wizard just derps out whatever spell looks pretty.  See!  Balance!"




Is that your ignorant interpretation? I gave you real game examples of a wizard doing nothing useful while the fighter butchers what they're fighting.

And I can show you examples of the wizard landing a spell to end a fight.

And it could go on and on.

3.x is balanced. Fighters and melee-types were a useful part of the game. My players enjoyed playing them.

I see no reason why one class should be balanced against another in terms of one on one combat. Is that the only type of balance you're concerned with? 

I'm far more concerned about flavor and simulating the fantasy fiction I enjoy. I find 3.x does a far superior job of modeling fictional archetypes. I don't need a game system where the fighter is balanced in a one on one fight against the wizard. That would seem inappropriate to the fantasy genre.

I don't play these games to have the wizard go one on one versus the warrior. I play these games to tell a story. I have never in all my years of DMing and play found a campaign where the fighter was not present.

If as you say the fighter was vastly overshadowed by the wizard and didn't feel like an integral and exciting part of the game, then no one would play the class. That is the type of balance I'm looking for.


----------



## Celtavian

Neonchameleon said:


> So?  So did crafting.  Look up "XP is a river" for why this didn't matter.  The question with Limited Wish was would you gain more than the XP cost.




Not a river at all if your DM is doing his job. I guess you keep forgetting the DM involved in the campaign who controls the encounter flow. I guess the DMs you were with handed out endless xp well above and beyond what was needed so that wizards spending xp on spells weren't falling behind in level.

Is that so? 




> I don't know who was implying that.  But an optimised wizard beats an optimised fighter.  (If the wizard is using mostly evocation, I'll grant the weak fighter beats the weak wizard).




Yeah. An optimized, prepared wizard beats an optimized fighter. So?

And an optimized fighter and optimized wizard rolling initiative in the same round close enough for the warrior to close might kill the wizard before he gets a spell off. And?





> Uh-uh.  All it takes to make a good wizard is a smart use of a spellbook.  A fighter takes a lot of planning and knowledge of the build in advance.  Start with Int as your dump stat?  You're locked out of Expertise.  Wizards don't have this sort of problem.




How is this a problem? A warrior doesn't need expertise to beat a wizard. Raw weapon damage will do it against most creatures faced.

And there is no save against weapon damage.  




> So you're already handicapping the wizard.  Right there.  By reducing the game to a hack and slash fest you are arbitrarily favouring the class that does hack and slash and almost nothing else.





What are you even talking about? The game is combat-based.



> Oh, I'll agree with that.  Mostly because you've effectively hogtied the wizard before you've started.  Wizards take skill to dominate with.  With skill they beat the fighters in combat and make them look completely and utterly pointless out of combat.  Your rules are someone who doesn't know how to play well against someone who does on his best territory.  You'd need an anti-magic sphere to rig things much harder in favour of the fighter.




You're the ones handicapping the fighter by assuming he can't prepare, right? He has no resources to prepare at all, right?





> Apparently you are as combat centric as some people accuse 4th ed of being.  Try the following steps first if the wizard is semi-competent.
> 
> -4: Long term buffs
> -3: Scrying
> -2: Monster knowledge
> -1: Short duration buffs
> 0: Surprise round.




Who is he scrying on? So now every wizard goes into the dungeon knowing exactly who and what is in the dungeon and gets to scry on them? And they always know in advance exactly who is there and when to buff for them? None of the enemies ever prepare against such things in your world eh?

It's always Mr. Wizard is always ten steps ahead of his enemies. They can't possibly do anything but wait for Mr. Wizard to destroy them.

What campaigns are you playing in?





> What are they doing without self-buffs already up?  There are _few_ combat self-buffs worth casting (Haste, possibly).  Because time is critical.  And if the attack was, for instance, Evard's Black Tentacles or Glitterdust then the turn might be over but the spell isn't.  And remember both those spells get an area of effect, so the more the merrier.




What does a dragon care about either of those spells? Does the evil lich care about either of those spells? Does the Horde of high level demons even notice those spells? No. They don't.

What lvl D&D do you usually play?





> Or Fighter misses.  Fighter's turn over.  Once more you aren't comparing like with like.




Fighter usually gets three or more attacks at higher level. And does insane damage where even one round can kill almost anything he faces including Mr. Wizard. 

Mr. Wizard better pray he never lets Mr. Fighter get near him because _stoneskin_ isn't very effective against Mr. Fighter.





> Indeed.  System mastery is necessary for 3.X.  But the wizard and the cleric with system mastery are going to make the fighter look silly.




Maybe a fighter they are prepared for, I can agree with that.

But a fighter they come upon in the dungeon that they have no idea what magic items he has or what he is capable of, not so much. And Mr. Wizard has very little room for error. He makes an error in tactics and Mr. Fighter wil have him dead right quick.

And the gods help the wizard that is faced with an archer fighter. Dead wizard walking unless he is very well prepared, especially in _Pathfinder_.





> You've never heard the term "CoDzilla"?  Clerics and druids are absolutely overpowered.  Top tier with the wizard and artificer.  They just aren't overpowered if they play as healbots rather than healing after the combat using crafted Wands of Cure Light Wounds.




I tried this CoDzilla thing. Didn't work in my campaigns. Too many spells to cast to power up. 

Our powerful enemies rarely gave me enough time and/or stripped me of all my power with one _dispel magic_ or the fighter had annihilated the enemy by the time I was buffed up.

The DMs I'm used to playing with don't have their bad buys sit in their room waiting for everyone to buff up, scry on them, and then teleport in. They are usually played as though they are intelligent and capable, not pinatas with hit points that the PCs get to break open for magic items.





> What do you mean "No decent DM falls for"?  That you arbitrarily give monsters high saves in order to nerf wizards?  It's not a matter of _falling for_ the spells.  Save or die spells are not traps.  They are open abilities - and if you're talking about "falling for" them you're deliberately screwing over the wizard.  You might as well talk about monsters falling for three feet of steel in the gut.
> 
> If you are taking steps to nerf the wizard against the RAW by deliberately jacking up the monster's saves even when you have inexperienced wizards, that's a clear demonstration that even in your games the wizards are overpowered.




I create challenges for my players. That's my job as a DM, right? I jack up ACs too because fighters hit too easily doing too much damage. What of it?

I certainly don't discriminate when creating challenges.

What do you do when you DM? Run the module exactly as the module was designed without regard for the players ability? Even though a module is designed as a framework for you to run an adventure. And you as a DM are expected to customize it to challenge your players?

I don't artificially jack up saves. I use the RAW to raise their saves. Give an outsider a resistance item and his saves are already jacked up. Toss a feat here or there to an NPC enemy to raise their saves.

The only artificial non-RAW item I increase is hit points. That's it.

I'm a 20 year plus DM. I know how to challenge my players using the rules. Probably a major reason I had no trouble with any system challenging my players including 4E when I ran it.

And even in 4E my players were trying to game the system, min-maxing to make solo's a cake walk. So I jacked up numbers and custom made encounters to challenge my players running 4E because it was necessary. 

It will always be necessary for a DM to plan for the players he deals with. 




> That if the DM rigs a scenario that it can be best done one way and you don't do it that way you aren't going to get very far.  You deliberately gave the monsters high saves so the wizard couldn't do what he wanted to.  And something else arbitrary to do.




No. I did not give them high saves. They had high saves.

"Rig"? You mean plan an encounter to challenge the capabilities of my players. Yes, I did.

Do you seriously consider that wrong? Seriously?





> Oh!  I get it!  You can simulate Hercules _if you house rule_.  And mysteriously can not house rule other games.




Yeah. To simulate Hercules or anything of the kind, I would have to house rule. The game does not allow for it innately. 




> So you can't actually play them under the rules of 3.X - you need to make stuff up.  And can't in other games.  Special pleading at its finest.  Especially as supposed flexibility is meant to be a strength of 3.X




Yes. I would have to make stuff up. I would have to make stuff up 4E to play Hercules. I would have to make stuff up to play Hercules in 1E and 2E as well.

What are you even saying?




> Whereas a fighter can't withstand a spell vs will.  And can't heal himself either - but should be taking damage because he's on the front lines.




He can take the most damage hands down. The barbarian in our group is nearly 250 hit points. The strongest wizard has 110. The fighter has 211.

Or do the wizards in your campaigns along with high intelligence have high cons and enormous hit points too? Is that it? 

They're so omnipotent that the fighter is a little lap dog to them? Same hit points. These wizards make fort saves easily against death attacks, poisons, and the like. And they get to scry in advance of every fight. And get at least 4 rounds to buff or it just isn't fair.

Is that it?


----------



## ProfessorCirno

For someone who talks about how others don't get how 3e works, you aren't so hot at the rules.

If you are a lower level then anyone else, you actually gain more XP.  That's how experience is like a river.  You outright get free experience for being a lower level.

I won't go down your list bit by bit because that's really tiresome, but you really, really don't understand 3.5 rules or optimization.  Like, at all.  Point in fact: an optimized wizard _isn't rolling initiative the same round the fighter is_, and even if he was, he has access to things like Nerveskitter.  

You aren't _dumb_ or somehow _less_ for it, and I'm not trying to insult you, but you're honestly arguing something you don't fully understand.


----------



## Celtavian

Bluenose said:


> What do they do when the encounter isn't about how much damage you can do?




Since 90% of D&D experience is based on how much damage you can do aka killing things, never really came up.

If some skill-based or trap challenge came up, usually they left it to rogue.

If someone required magic, they left it to the wizard.

Same with cleric.

I'll reiterate. D&D is a team game. So whichever class had something to use to shine with, they were allowed to do it.

And the fighter shined butchering things. He did that a whole lot.

I was never in these games like Professor Cirno speaks of where the wizard always had the right spell, always had hours to scry and tons of rounds to buff, and was able to buff himself up into a melee monster while maintaing the spell diversity to handle other types of problems at the same time.

In my campaigns, spell slots were limited. We did not always know what we're fighting. The BBEGs plotted agianst us including using their own wizardly power and what not. The enemy encounters were designed to challenge our specific group whether that group was made up of one of each class, four wizards, four fighters, a single wizard, or a single fighter.

Any system is only as good as the DM running it, even 4E. I DMed 4E. My players tore that system up too with their group tactics same as 3E and 2E and 1E. I prefer the 3.x system because it best fits my narrative style and my opinion of what D&D is, not because it is an inherently better system.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Celtavian said:


> Not a river at all if your DM is doing his job. I guess you keep forgetting the DM involved in the campaign who controls the encounter flow. I guess the DMs you were with handed out endless xp well above and beyond what was needed so that wizards spending xp on spells weren't falling behind in level.
> 
> Is that so?




Did you even read "XP is a river."  Crafters fall 1 level behind.  At which point they gain more XP which they turn into items.  So they just sit that 1 level behind.  And more powerful.



> Yeah. An optimized, prepared wizard beats an optimized fighter. So?
> 
> And an optimized fighter and optimized wizard rolling initiative in the same round close enough for the warrior to close might kill the wizard before he gets a spell off. And?




And what was the wizard doing to let the fighter get that close?



> How is this a problem? A warrior doesn't need expertise to beat a wizard. Raw weapon damage will do it against most creatures faced.




Look at the PHB.  Look at the feats you can grab without Expertise.  Stupid trap.



> And there is no save against weapon damage.




Sure there is.  AC.  Mirror Image.  Being out of range.



> What are you even talking about? The game is combat-based.




Depends on your edition.  In Gygaxian D&D, combat is what happens when you  up.



> You're the ones handicapping the fighter by assuming he can't prepare, right? He has no resources to prepare at all, right?




Nothing the wizard doesn't have.  He has money.  Less than the wizard because the wizard is a crafter.  The wizard has a spellbook, and money.  And more useful skills.



> Who is he scrying on?




Why is he in the dungeon?



> None of the enemies ever prepare against such things in your world eh?




Of course they do.  It's the arms race.



> What does a dragon care about either of those spells?




Seriously?  What does a dragon care about being blinded?  Um... a lot.



> Does the evil lich care about either of those spells?




Yes.  Liches have poor grapple skills and again, blinding screws over the lich.  Oh, and spells are hard to cast when grappled.



> Does the Horde of high level demons even notice those spells? No. They don't.




You're facing a horde of high level demons?  Depends what sort of demon.  And how many.  Black Tentacles doesn't do well against big guys.  But Glitterdust - 10ft radius, blind, no SR.  That works.



> What lvl D&D do you usually play?




I don't go above e6 in 3.X due to actually understanding how to use the system and giving the DM nightmares.



> Fighter usually gets three or more attacks at higher level. And does insane damage where even one round can kill almost anything he faces including Mr. Wizard.
> 
> Mr. Wizard better pray he never lets Mr. Fighter get near him because _stoneskin_ isn't very effective against Mr. Fighter.




Mr. Wizard better pray he never lets Mr. Fighter get near him because even if Mr Fighter likes him, Mr Fighter's will defence is crap.



> Maybe a fighter they are prepared for, I can agree with that.
> 
> But a fighter they come upon in the dungeon that they have no idea what magic items he has or what he is capable of, not so much. And Mr. Wizard has very little room for error. He makes an error in tactics and Mr. Fighter wil have him dead right quick.




Fighters have low will defence.  Means you don't need much in the way of tactics.



> I tried this CoDzilla thing. Didn't work in my campaigns. Too many spells to cast to power up.




Druids don't need many.  And Czilla works best with Persistent Spell.



> And even in 4E my players were trying to game the system, min-maxing to make solo's a cake walk. So I jacked up numbers and custom made encounters to challenge my players running 4E because it was necessary.




They've fixed solos.  And bumped up monster damage.  With good reason.



> They're so omnipotent that the fighter is a little lap dog to them? Same hit points. These wizards make fort saves easily against death attacks, poisons, and the like.




As easily as the fighter makes his will save against mind control.  But mysteriously you don't do that to fighters.  And the fighter is nearer the bad guys so is easier to hit.



> And they get to scry in advance of every fight. And get at least 4 rounds to buff or it just isn't fair.




Your men, they are made of straw.  Bypassing fights and bringing down dungeons is far more effective at high level than actually fighting your way through.

As for what your comments about what you claim to do say, they differ from your specifics.  You apparently challenge the players - but mysteriously kill off parties with new mages.  Dungeons may not be bypassed.  Wizards don't cast smartly.


----------



## Hussar

The biggest eye opener I got for how weak fighters were at high levels came a while back.  The group had a bard with some pretty good feats for buffing (from Eberron IIRC) and a orc barbarian who was death on toast. 

Then, one fight, the barbarian gets mind controlled and turns on the party.  The bard drops the buffs.  Suddenly, the barbarian can no longer hit anything with his maxed out power attack.  So, he switches to just straight attacks.  Now, to be fair, he'd hit with his primary attack, maybe his secondary, but his third attack?  Not gonna connect.

The cleric then turned around and beat the orc barbarian silly.  

I had thought the barbarian was really keeping up with the other characters.  He wasn't.  It was two characters combined that was keeping up with the cleric.  Never mind that the cleric was getting most of those buffs too.

Personally, I think the most telling point is this:  Which would your players rather face, a 16th level fighter, a 16th level cleric or a 16th level wizard in a straight up combat encounter?


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar, I assume you are talking 3e?  I agree that 3e is blech at higher levels.


----------



## pawsplay

ProfessorCirno said:


> The problem is that people are getting extremely caught up in the "world" and they either ignore or don't understand the "narrative."




Is that "the problem?" Who is "people?" What is your evidence for this assertion?



> In the "world" of Die Hard, JMC is a normal man.  He has no magical powers.  He has no mutant abilities.  He can't cast any spells.  He is an "average human."
> 
> In the "narrative" of Die Hard, JMC is the _protagonist_, which _in of itself_ imbues him with ability that *no* other person in the "world" of Die Hard has.  You cannot compare JMC to the 6.5 billion other people in the world because they don't exist in the narrative.  The narrative is not on "the planet Earth," the narrative is on one part of New York City.  Asking if John McClane is better then those 6.5 billion people isn't just missing the point, it's a nonsense question.  Those people _don't exist_.
> 
> Although JMC is a "normal human," because he is the protagonist, he can take more pain, shoot with better accuracy, and is just plain smarter, faster, and more versatile then the cops and SWAT are.  By being the protagonist, JMC is inherently _extraordinary_ because the narrative is focused on him.  In the narrative, that level of being extraordinary is focused through his ability to take more punishment, outsmart a man who has just about everything fully planned, and go from standard detective to a one man terrorist murdering army.




Of course, none of that's true in D&D. One 1st level fighter has as much chance as another.

And really, it's not true in Die Hard, either. Those are conventions, but authors can and do fool their audiences.


----------



## I'm A Banana

> I'm serious. I'm truly interested in how you're going to (a) give them abilities that you feel can "compete" with a wizard's, while (b) keeping them "normal" enough that people like me, who aren't interested in a magical Batman or Conan at all, playing the game.




There's some really interesting and effective ideas upthread by others, though to see how this can be done, you don't even need to see what I or others on this board can come up with. You just need to look at 4e.

4e's powers are essentially all spells. A fighter's powers are no different. Martial powers in particular are mostly done with the "martial is not magical" motif in mind. With a few unfortunate exceptions like _Come And Get It_ (which is heavily criticized for it), a fighter's martial spells are competitive with what a wizard's arcane spells can do.

Part of that is, of course, that 4e limits what a wizard can do. There's fireball and lightning bolt, but there's not travel teleportation, scrying, instant death, action-granting spells or summons, nothing plot-affecting.

I think this is a step in the right direction. For combat abilities, this is pretty much the ideal solution. We could use some calibration, but the principle is sound: warrior abilities and spellcasting abilities are on the same scale of how they can affect the world. 

If you take it out of context of the powers system, it's clear that there's a lot of places that principle could apply.



> My guess is that you don't care about (b). Which is fine, and will save a lot of time if you just say it outright.




If you'd like to have this discussion with yourself, you're more than welcome to. If you'd like to have it with *me*, don't presume that you can read minds.

Listen.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

Kamikaze Midget said:


> You just need to look at 4e.
> 
> 4e's powers are essentially all spells. A fighter's ... martial spells are competitive with what a wizard's arcane spells can do.



Yes.  One of several reasons I don't like 4E, and that we didn't play it beyond 3rd level.



> If you'd like to have this discussion with yourself, you're more than welcome to. If you'd like to have it with *me*, don't presume that you can read minds.



My bad, I did forget a choice: "or (c) just make all the classes play exactly alike."

You choose (c).  That's cool.  It's not what I want from D&D, though.  Y'all can continue to insist that those of us who enjoy playing fighters in 3E have been doing it wrong -- or, alternatively, y'all can continue to insist that when we play wizards, we play them as if we have mental deficiencies -- and I'll continue to insist that the real problem isn't the _system_.


----------



## I'm A Banana

> My bad, I did forget a choice: "or (c) just make all the classes play exactly alike."




No, you forgot "None of the above."



> You choose (c). That's cool.




Also, you forgot to stop telling me what I think.

There's a reason I'm a big fan of Essentials. Part of the reason? One of my huge criticisms of 4e was that the powers system was a samey mess.

A Slayer is a far, far different beast than a Sorcerer, but they're pretty much on equal footing, without the Slayer doing anything more magical than swinging a sword (and dealing ROCKSTAR damage).

There's much more you can do with this, too. I said 4e was a step in the right direction, not The Best Solution For Everyone.



> It's not what I want from D&D, though. Y'all can continue to insist that those of us who enjoy playing fighters in 3E have been doing it wrong -- or, alternatively, y'all can continue to insist that when we play wizards, we play them as if we have mental deficiencies -- and I'll continue to insist that the real problem isn't the system.




You're lumping everyone together, you're oversimplifying, and you're not listening to what I'm actually saying.

This makes it very, very difficult to have a constructive conversation. 

You can put spellcasters and warriors on even footing without making them play the same. But that's not what you asked me to post about. You asked me how they could be on equal footing. If you want to wade into the intricacies of how 4e in particular handles this, I'm more than willing to engage that thread (as I have many times in defending Essentials already!).


----------



## Jeff Wilder

Kamikaze Midget said:


> There's much more you can do with this, too. I said 4e was a step in the right direction, not The Best Solution For Everyone.
> 
> You're lumping everyone together, you're oversimplifying, and you're not listening to what I'm actually saying.



You continue to insist that _I_ am not listening to _you_.  Yet I have said, over and over, that I have not seen any evidence that the problem some people seem to be having is with the system, and that I have never -- ever -- seen the problem described.

And yet you continue to say things like, "A step in the right direction," as if it is settled that that step is actually needed or desirable.



> This makes it very, very difficult to have a constructive conversation.



Yes.  Yes, it does.

I am willing to concede that some people have experienced a lack of fun playing fighters because wizards were too powerful by comparison in their game.

Are you willing to concede that some people have _not_ experienced that lack of fun?  Are you willing to concede that some people have not experienced the difference between wizards and warriors as a problem?  And are you willing to concede that it's _possible_ that the reason some people do have the problem, and some people don't, is because of the players and/or DM involved, and not because of the system?

If so -- God knows i don't want to assume anything -- can you understand why those of us who don't have the problem object to others who insist that "the problem must be fixed"?  Especially when that "fix" destroys something we actively, affirmatively _like_ about D&D?


----------



## Mort

Jeff Wilder said:


> Yes.  One of several reasons I don't like 4E, and that we didn't play it beyond 3rd level.
> 
> My bad, I did forget a choice: "or (c) just make all the classes play exactly alike."




I've seen this argument leveled at 4e before and to me it seems misplaced. There's a big difference between "all classes play exactly alike" (which is, of course, bad) and all classes play using the same mechanic but play very differently (which is good and extremely laudible from a system perspective). From what I've seen in 4e (both in cons and my own game): the wizard plays nothing like the fighter which plays nothing like the ranger which though he has the same role plays nothing like the rogue. In other words, same mechanic - very different play experience.




Jeff Wilder said:


> Yes. Yes, it does.
> 
> I am willing to concede that some people have experienced a lack of fun playing fighters because wizards were too powerful by comparison in their game.
> 
> Are you willing to concede that some people have not experienced that lack of fun? Are you willing to concede that some people have not experienced the difference between wizards and warriors as a problem? And are you willing to concede that it's possible that the reason some people do have the problem, and some people don't, is because of the players and/or DM involved, and not because of the system?
> 
> If so -- God knows i don't want to assume anything -- can you understand why those of us who don't have the problem object to others who insist that "the problem must be fixed"? Especially when that "fix" destroys something we actively, affirmatively like about D&D?




As you said yourself players and DM involved can certainly mitigate/eliminate the problem.  I ran a game from 1st to epic level without any player in my campaign complaining of imbalance or seeming to show a lack of fun. But, I know the issue is there because when I let go of the reigns for a bit and played a wizard I had to constantly restrain myself from actively outsripping the rest of the group, in and out of combat, and that annoyed the heck out of me.

That said, we're in a situation where you can have your cake and eat it to. 4e exists (as do other systems) right along side 3.5 and pathfinder bith receiving good levels of support (well pathfinder is anyway 4e support seems to be floundering quite a bit in recent months, hope it finds it's way).


----------



## Fifth Element

Mort said:


> I've seen this argument leveled at 4e before and to me it seems misplaced.



Indeed. 4E classes _read _very samey. But they don't play that way.


----------



## I'm A Banana

> Yet I have said, over and over, that I have not seen any evidence that the problem some people seem to be having is with the system, and that I have never -- ever -- seen the problem described.




You didn't ask me to describe the problem, you asked me to give an example of a system that I saw as not having the problem, yet still had martial characters that didn't feel "magical." 

Several posters, including me, gave you such a system. 

Would you like me also to describe the problem? Because you haven't asked anyone to do that yet. 

I've also conceded that not everyone has the problem. *I* haven't had the problem. That doesn't mean that there isn't a problem, though. The world's full of problems that I don't personally have. 



> I am willing to concede that some people have experienced a lack of fun playing fighters because wizards were too powerful by comparison in their game.




Great! You  understand the problem!



> Are you willing to concede that some people have not experienced that lack of fun? Are you willing to concede that some people have not experienced the difference between wizards and warriors as a problem? And are you willing to concede that it's possible that the reason some people do have the problem, and some people don't, is because of the players and/or DM involved, and not because of the system?




Absolutely. I've never had the problem (and I don't think my players have, either). Tables differ, good DMs can solve anything, everyone's D&D is different, etc, etc,.



> If so -- God knows i don't want to assume anything -- can you understand why those of us who don't have the problem object to others who insist that "the problem must be fixed"? Especially when that "fix" destroys something we actively, affirmatively like about D&D?




I don't understand why you are so against a middle ground that doesn't destroy what you like about D&D.

4e currently has a system that _almost_ meets that. Why not take a closer system, and tweak it until it fits what you want?

Or rather, why shouldn't *The Dungeons and Dragons Game* do that? You're free to play your game however you want, but given that this is a problem for some players, why shouldn't *D&D* try to solve the problem? You don't need to.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

Kamikaze Midget said:


> Or rather, why shouldn't *The Dungeons and Dragons Game* do that? You're free to play your game however you want, but given that this is a problem for some players, why shouldn't *D&D* try to solve the problem?



Because I don't believe that the problem is with D&D, nobody has demonstrated that the problem is with D&D, and the fix that got "close" that you're talking about (4E) damaged D&D in my opinion (and in the opinion of a big chunk of players who left the brand).

No, nobody's forcing me to play 4E, or forcing me to play whatever "fix" you feel would be ideal in the next D&D, but I still really wish that people would take a step back and honestly question whether the problem is caused by something other than the game.  It makes me sad that, because some players and DMs have issues, D&D is being Harrison-Bergeroned.


----------



## CuRoi

Fifth Element said:


> Indeed. 4E classes _read _very samey. But they don't play that way.




I think I see both sides of the issue here - they do look rather vanilla on reading and from my experience (albeit limited compared to many others here), I know they do play very differently. They all however interact with the game world / story in the same way now and the difference is in how they play on a tactical level.

Something got lost in translation IMO that some people really liked and some people really disliked. It was a bigger deal than any one designer could really anticipate a reaction to. If it were possible to honestly discuss what was lost, we might get somewhere, but people get too touchy and irrational about it for whatever reason.

At any rate, for the topic at hand - I think it boils down to whether someone's version of "fantasy literature" does indeed support a sorcery element that can be wholly different from the swords element and the story actually benefits from this difference. For others, I think they want the two aspects to be essentially the same thing for comparison sake and they'll work the story around it.


----------



## pemerton

CuRoi said:


> They all however interact with the game world / story in the same way now and the difference is in how they play on a tactical level.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I think it boils down to whether someone's version of "fantasy literature" does indeed support a sorcery element that can be wholly different from the swords element and the story actually benefits from this difference.



I'm curious as to what you have in mind here.

In every version of D&D, both wizard spells and weapon attacks deal hit points of damage. So 4e is not special in this respect.

In every version of D&D, both wizards spells and ranged weapons have ranges specified in more-or-less the same fashion (feet in Basic, battlemap inches in AD&D 1st ed, yards (I seem to recall) in AD&D 2nd ed), feet again in 3E). So 4e is not special in this respect.

In AD&D both physical attacks (I've got in mind pummelling as per the appendix to Unearthed Arcana, or various martial arts manoeuvres in Oriental Adventures) and spells (eg Power Word Stun) could deliver various status effects (such as stun). So 4e is not special in this respect.

In 3E both physical attakcs and some spell attacks used to-hit rolls to determine whether or not damage was dealt.

The only significant departues I can see in 4e compared to earlier editions are (i) layout of class features/abilities, (ii) the encounter/daily structure (although even this is not really that different from 3E, where various Exceptional - which is to say non-supernatural - abilities, including some available to PCs, still had daily limits), and (iii) the granting of metagame powers to martial PCs in order to balance them differently against spell-using PCs.

I don't see at all, though, how this means that they all interact in the same way with the gameworld/story. Just to pick a couple of simple examples: in combat, the archer-ranger in my game deals with foes by peppering them with arrows, whereas the wizard does things like grab them with giant conjured hands or teleport them to disadvantageous locations on the battelfied; out of combat, the archer-ranger tracks and sneaks and spies and does wood-crafty things, whereas the wizard cogitates and draws on his great learning and performs arcane rituals. Where is the same-ness?


----------



## I'm A Banana

> Because I don't believe that the problem is with D&D, nobody has demonstrated that the problem is with D&D, and the fix that got "close" that you're talking about (4E) damaged D&D in my opinion (and in the opinion of a big chunk of players who left the brand).




From what I understand, your problem with the 4e powers system is largely reserved to the idea that it makes everything play the same. I basically agree with that, but this is a problem that you can fix. Essentials and Psionics already show that the design team is indeed aware of it, and prepared to create classes that actually play differently. 

The idea is to make progress toward a system that supports a solution for the problems that some groups have. If not something resembling the 4e powers system, what would you do?



> No, nobody's forcing me to play 4E, or forcing me to play whatever "fix" you feel would be ideal in the next D&D, but I still really wish that people would take a step back and honestly question whether the problem is caused by something other than the game. It makes me sad that, because some players and DMs have issues, D&D is being Harrison-Bergeroned.




Looking at the rules myself, I can see it. Spellcasters get a cool sub-system to use, warriors don't. Spellcasters can be supernatural, warriors can't. Spellcasters get to control the plot with spells, warriors don't. 

This isn't inherently a problem for every group. A good DM, a fun group, can solve any problem. A good DM and a fun group can run *FATAL*, and make it the most fun thing to do on a weekend. 

"Make the DM better" isn't a very constructive solution, since WotC can't personally come to your house and give you DMing lessons, can't personally give you a better gaming group. The game's rules need to address this out of the box, as well as they can, in the structure of the thing itself. 

Something resembling "fighter spells" is a pretty decent rules-based solution. I'm not entirely sure why there's such hostility toward the idea, especially when tweaked to keep fighters looking "normal" (which 4e mostly already does) and when tweaked to keep different types of characters playing differently (which Essentials strongly goes toward, through a forest of criticism from those who think that an identical structure is the only thing keeping the classes mechanically equal). WotC isn't saying you're playing the game wrong, they're saying that this is a way we might be able to bring along those who don't have a great DM and an ideal group that makes play fun even when the fighter doesn't have as many neat toys as the wizard. And it might give you a few toys that are fun to use, too, even if you were fine without them.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

My fundamental- but not only- issue with the A/E/D/U format for martial powers is that they make things that seem like they should be combat maneuvers open to any skilled combatant (as they are in most systems I've played in) into powers unique to sole classes.  That really rubs me wrong.


----------



## pemerton

Dannyalcatraz said:


> My fundamental- but not only- issue with the A/E/D/U format for martial powers is that they make things that seem like they should be combat maneuvers open to any skilled combatant (as they are in most systems I've played in) into powers unique to sole classes.



Well, this is the flipside of the fighter's metagame powers - every time your paladin (for example) tries a shield push while striking, s/he just does the damage but never pushes the foe far enough to count as a change of square (because you doesn't have access to Tide of Iron as a power).

How big a problem that is probably depens in part on more general attitudes towards the ingame/metagame divide, as well as other more practical questions like (i) how often did your paladin try shield push + attack in other systems? (ii) did it both you that only fighter's could train in weapon specialisation in older editions? (iii) did you ever find it unrealistic that only thieves got to do bonus damage when striking unseen from behind? etc etc. The more that someone put up with these oddities in prior editions, then presumably the more they'll cope with 4e. And vice versa.


----------



## KahnyaGnorc

pemerton said:


> Well, this is the flipside of the fighter's metagame powers - every time your paladin (for example) tries a shield push while striking, s/he just does the damage but never pushes the foe far enough to count as a change of square (because you doesn't have access to Tide of Iron as a power).




You could work it conversely.  Both the Fighter and Paladin Bull Rush the foe, but the Fighter's specialized training allows him/her to also get in a weapon hit as well (as shown with the 1[W] damage).


----------



## ProfessorCirno

Hilariously enough, when 3e was coming out, I saw plenty of complaints that moving everything to a simple d20 meant that there'd be no difference between classes, except that some would cast spells.

Funny how the same complaints get repeated at every change.


----------



## Harlekin

Jeff Wilder said:


> Because I don't believe that the problem is with D&D, nobody has demonstrated that the problem is with D&D, and the fix that got "close" that you're talking about (4E) damaged D&D in my opinion (and in the opinion of a big chunk of players who left the brand).
> 
> No, nobody's forcing me to play 4E, or forcing me to play whatever "fix" you feel would be ideal in the next D&D, but I still really wish that people would take a step back and honestly question whether the problem is caused by something other than the game.  It makes me sad that, because some players and DMs have issues, D&D is being Harrison-Bergeroned.




So, just out of curiosity, how many players and DMs need to have a problem with the imbalance of spellcasters and warriors for it to be a problem with D&D rather than a problem of the individuals? 

I don't think anybody claims that it is a universal problem or an unsolvable problem, but claiming that an issue that comes up again and again and that clearly affect many groups is not (maybe among other things) a problem  with the system may be a little onesided.


----------



## Abraxas

Harlekin said:


> So, just out of curiosity, how many players and DMs need to have a problem with the imbalance of spellcasters and warriors for it to be a problem with D&D rather than a problem of the individuals?
> 
> I don't think anybody claims that it is a universal problem or an unsolvable problem, but claiming that an issue that comes up again and again and that clearly affect many groups is not (maybe among other things) a problem  with the system may be a little onesided.



How many is many? I think that may be what JW is getting at.

I know that I haven't seen this problem and honestly, other than on message boards, hadn't heard of this being a problem.
Message boards tend to be self selecting and people gravitate towards experiences that mirror their own. So you get a thread with what seems like a lot of people having problem X, but that number of people is really relatively small compared to the whole - they're just all in one place. One of the things that keeps being trotted out around here is the idea of a vocal minority making a lot of noise about something - perhaps that's what's happening.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> So, just out of curiosity, how many players and DMs need to have a problem with the imbalance of spellcasters and warriors for it to be a problem with D&D rather than a problem of the individuals?



And


> I know that I haven't seen this problem and honestly, other than on message boards, hadn't heard of this being a problem.




I have to say that's my experience as well- player since '77, played in Aurora, CO; Manhattan, KS, and in Austin, San Antonio and the D/FW Metroplex, TX- and I've never seen it happen in person after all those years and I don't know how many groups.

Not saying it doesn't happen, just saying I haven't seen it, which suggests to me it may be an issue of playstyle

...but what I've seen in the complaints is so well detailed that I can see its one that is amply supported by the mechanics.

IOW, despite the utter lack of it in my personal experience, my gut is telling me it's probably caused 50/50 split between mechanics & playstyle.


----------



## Icyshadowlord

ProfessorCirno said:


> Hilariously enough, when 3e was coming out, I saw plenty of complaints that moving everything to a simple d20 meant that there'd be no difference between classes, except that some would cast spells.
> 
> Funny how the same complaints get repeated at every change.




I know actual 2nd edition players who never really complained that way. Besides, when editions change, there will ALWAYS be people who will complain, and some of those complaints will be justified. This applies to 4e as well.

Anyway, getting back on topic. This topic seems to be a rather popular one, but despite it being rolled around time and again, people just can't seem to find a final answer. If I were to respond to the question in the thread's name, I would say that the balance problem is handled either with the Wizard being frail and sometimes just unable to cast defensive spells or it's not even bothered to deal with.

In some stories, no matter how good of a melee fighter you are, magic is just better...in EVERY WAY. Of course, in other settings the wizards look like they would be the ultimate power in that world, but they still get pounded to the ground over and over. But, like I said, it tends to vary a lot. I would provide actual examples, but I'm sure you can think of ones faster than I can (I'm suffering from a lack of sleep)


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## Fifth Element

Dannyalcatraz said:


> IOW, despite the utter lack of it in my personal experience, my gut is telling me it's probably caused 50/50 split between mechanics & playstyle.



That's a fair statement, I think. The problem is clearly influenced by playstyle.

It's perfectly reasonable for the designers to address a problem that certain players with certain playstyles have with the rules, assuming that set of players is significant. They have to find a balance, of course, in order to not "hurt" the game from other players' perspectives. It's impossible to get it right for everyone.


----------



## Fifth Element

Jeff Wilder said:


> Because I don't believe that the problem is with D&D, nobody has demonstrated that the problem is with D&D



If someone says "I have a problem with D&D" and you respond with "the problem's with you, not D&D", that's not much of a conversation.

I could just as easily say that the problems you claim to have with 4E are actually all about you, and not about D&D. I could assume that you're wrong about your own gaming preferences, and assume any perceived problems lie within yourself, not the game system. That's what you seem to be doing here.

You have problems with 4E that many people don't. That doesn't mean you don't actually have problems with it. It just means you have different tastes in gaming, which shouldn't be too surprising.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

Dannyalcatraz said:


> ...but what I've seen in the complaints is so well detailed that I can see its one that is amply supported by the mechanics.



See, what I keep seeing is descriptions of the "problem" that assume absolutely unfettered access to every possible spell.

That's simply not how we have always played the game.

I can see how, if you play the game that way, things could become imbalanced.  I can also see that it would then be tempting to advocate either (a) removing every possible spell that can combine to cause problems, or (b) give fighters unfettered access to some equivalent resource.

I am against both "solutions" to the "problem."

The problem I have with (a) is that it throws the baby (the wizard having access to truly spectacular magic, and I like that about D&D) out with the bathwater (the wizard being allowed to abuse that power by operating without limits).

The problem I have with (b) is that I like playing the guy who _doesn't_ rely on truly spectacular magic.  I'm not interested in being a fighter who can pick up a bridge and hit someone with it, or who can leap a quarter-mile at a time.  (Or, to be more precise, I am often interested in being that kind of fighter; I enjoy Mutants & Masterminds.)  I also really dislike "arms race" situations in RPGs.

This complaint is similar to the complaints about optimization, except that (IMO) optimization is a real, actual, in-play issue.  Optimization can be a pain in the ass, and it can ruin the fun for some people.  In our games, on the rare occasion it happens, the GM handles it by saying, "Uh, no," sometimes after having mistakenly allowing it.  

For whatever reason, nobody in our games even attempts to create or run wizards in the way described in this thread.  I don't know for sure why, or why it differs from optimization in that respect, but maybe at some level it simply comes down to respect for the other players' fun.  I don't think it would succeed, if anybody _did_ attempt it, but it hasn't happened.

Kamikaze Midget seems to assume that I'm talking about control by the GM, but I'm not.  I'm talking about the playstyle of the entire group.  If nothing else, this thread is valuable to me as insight into a certain type of player and GM that I am extremely grateful I don't experience locally.

So here's your fix to the "problem": Play with better people.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

Fifth Element said:


> If someone says "I have a problem with D&D" and you respond with "the problem's with you, not D&D", that's not much of a conversation.



No, it becomes "not much of a conversation" when the other side refuses to even consider the possibility that I'm correct.



> I could just as easily say that the problems you claim to have with 4E are actually all about you, and not about D&D.



Uh, they _are_ all about me.  Can you find a post from me in the last year advocating that those folks who play 4E must make changes to the game that I insist on, because the game can't be fun for them as is?

If this discussion had been framed as, "I prefer my fantasy RPG to have warriors and wizards capable of doing pretty much the same stuff at the same power level," I never would have even bothered to chime in.  Instead, it was, "Your D&D is broken and unfun, because wizards are _awesome_, _unstoppable_, _gods_!"  (Starting, NFK, at 1st level, according to one post!)


----------



## CuRoi

pemerton said:


> I'm curious as to what you have in mind here.
> 
> In every version of D&D, both wizard spells and weapon attacks deal hit points of damage. So 4e is not special in this respect.
> 
> ...
> 
> In every version of D&D, both wizards spells and ranged weapons have ranges specified in more-or-less the same fashion (feet in Basic, battlemap inches in AD&D 1st ed, yards (I seem to recall) in AD&D 2nd ed), feet again in 3E).
> 
> ...
> 
> In 3E both physical attakcs and some spell attacks used to-hit rolls to determine whether or not damage was dealt.




Now I know you're pulling my leg! Yes, you've described the basics for a huge swath of RPGs in the above and those statements could apply to really any of them. 

If you are rushing to the defense of whichever system you feel was affronted, keep in mind, its really unnecessary. I like and dislike both systems in some respects and I am only interested in discussing what each succeeded in doing and what each failed in doing on a constructive level. 



> The only significant departues I can see in 4e compared to earlier editions are (i) layout of class features/abilities, (ii) the encounter/daily structure (although even this is not really that different from 3E, where various Exceptional - which is to say non-supernatural - abilities, including some available to PCs, still had daily limits), and (iii) the granting of metagame powers to martial PCs in order to balance them differently against spell-using PCs.
> 
> I don't see at all, though, how this means that they all interact in the same way with the gameworld/story.




Just in case, again, to avoid offending anyone, I am not making a qualitative statement here. One way is not necessarily better and one way may work better for one group of people than another. I do feel though that each tends to more support a different style of play, thus the big raging inconsolable debate people keep having.

By story, I am not referring just to "flavor text" of an attack. A Fighter can push back a foe with his shield while a Wizard pushes back a foe with thunder or something. Or in 3.5 a Wizard can stun a foe by waggling fingers while a monk can punch them in the head for the same effect. What I am referring to are the underlying assumptions of how these characters have arrived at, exercise, and deploy these powers whcih consequently is a part of the underlying story. 

In one version, IMO, Swords and Sorcery are very different things at this level, in the other the line is not so clear. 

In 3.5, it is more clear that the Spellcaster is engaging in a studied art for which there are clear means of practice that define it as specifically *NOT* being a martial concept. You study spells, they belong to schools, these spells can persist and be analyzed with various other spells, many can be utilized in a number of creative ways whether inside or outside combat, there is an internal strategy to use of these spells that does tend to exclude martial classes, the spells are by definition not like persistent feats which you can use at will - they are specifically "fire and forget". Spellcasting in 3.5, for better or for worse, is more clearly a realm of its own mechanically and what is required of a caster to interact with the game world. 

For 4e, "Powers" are a broad description of what everyone can do. There is less feel for a solid difference between say a magic missile and an arrow fired from a bow - both do all the things you mentioned (attack rolls - which were not the norm for 2e/3e DnD spellcasters; damage; possible special conditions; the same usage rate and limitations; the same actions to exercise these abilities, etc. etc.) All classes now, for better or for worse, utilize one uniform system in order to accomplish their effects.  The biggest separation is the flavor text and the class "role" that helps define how these effects interact with the game world. 

Again, is it a problem or an EVIL thing? No. Its just a very plain difference and consequently, IMO, it has an effect on how these characters will interact on a story level and even what the story will require of each.  

Whether you find one way more mechanically sound or more mechanically pleasing is a moot point IMO. Ive come to the conclusion that all the raging debate on mechanics is just a smokescreen for the underlying issue. The real debate, from what I can see, rests at how these things fundamentally interact with the imagined world around them. Some people just -want- spellcasters to be a classification unto themselves who do happen to have abilities that are more...supernatural let's call it (don't read too much into this)...than a fighter's tactical command of the battlefield.  

I personally, IMO, have found that I prefer the solid separation of the two concepts and it supports the way I tell stories best.


----------



## CuRoi

Dannyalcatraz said:


> And
> 
> IOW, despite the utter lack of it in my personal experience, my gut is telling me it's probably caused 50/50 split between mechanics & playstyle.




I would agree here. I seem to have encountered this less than most in my games as well. But I intentionally run low magic campaigns and I also mainly (and have always) used only SRD material. I've houseruled the spell or two that stresses the system, but for the most part casters don't completely outshine melee classes nor do I hear complaints. Everyone gets to interact with the combats and the story on a pretty equal level. Sure wizards can sometimes wiggle their fingers and change the landscape of things with a single spell, but I've had fighters cause the surrender of entire groups of monsters through sheer terrifying displays of combat prowess or change the course of a story by handily defeating enemy commanders on the field of battle in single combat. Its not always about the mechanics really whether Wizards or Warriors are balanced, but the DM giving the players the opportunities to do monumental things.

The games where I have seen the biggest mechanical power disparity develop usually include every sourcebook available, severe cherry picking of abilities/feats/monsters and players using some sort of ultra-heroic stat generation from the start coupled with gratuitous magical gear. These all of course assume a DM that has willingly (or unknowingly) put things on full throttle as their play style. IMO, in those siutations, the system does buckle severely under the stress, and class disparity will increase in magnitude, but some people enjoy playing that way!


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Re: This comment


> IOW, despite the utter lack of it in my personal experience, my gut is telling me it's probably caused 50/50 split between mechanics & playstyle.




Several posters have pointed out one of the key playstyle sources of the problem, IMHO, namely cherry-picking all the best spells.*  I _think_ I mentioned it in this thread that we always used the spell rarity/randomizer rules as written in 1Ed-2Ed, and pointed out it's a decent sim of the way people learn things, esp. if they are self-taught or their learning depends on independent research.

But some think it's stupid to sim that way.

I'm forced to wonder, though, what is the statistical correlation between those who don't use some sort of spell rarity and those who see über-wizards?

In a related note, there is also the idea of building PCs who are meta "optimized" and PCs who are more organic.

Even though I play a lot of PCs with spellcasting ability, I never have a PC with all the top spells, even in games with all the limiters off.  This is not because I want to ensure I don't overshadow the game, but rather because I try to assemble the PCs spell list according to that PC's personality.  IOW, I always ask "What spells would this guy be interested in learning?"  Note- this does not preclude designing a PC with an optimized spell-list, just makes it unlikely that all my spellcasters will have that same list.

To illustrate: my PC who was based in Indiana Jones had levels in Wiz, but wasn't optimized for combat.  He had a couple of offensive spells, sure, but his list focused on information gathering, navigating caves & buried habitations and the like.  He was a Diviner.  I retired that PC when both of the guys playing divine casters left the group, leaving a void in the "medic" role, and replaced him with a Geomancer.  That PCs arcane spells are predominantly "naturey."

And my Mage-brute Adragon Von Basten has a fetish for electrical spells due to his blue-dragon heritage...even to the point of only using Energy subbed versions of standard spells.






* Although it's also clearly not the _entirety_ of it: I've been gaming with one particular guy since 1985 now who plays Wizards 85% of the time.  And even though his PCs spellbooks always look like the optimized lists you see online, he still does not dominate the game, because he does not cast spells each and every round...for a very good reason.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Jeff Wilder said:


> See, what I keep seeing is descriptions of the "problem" that assume absolutely unfettered access to every possible spell.




That isn't what I see.  What I see is a game where the wizard gets to pick two spells per level and a lot of spells are significantly unbalancing, even (or perhaps especially) in the PHB.  Just off the top of my head, at second level Alter Self is a scary, scary good spell and Glitterdust is a fight ender (if you can't kill someone with three rounds of blindness you aren't trying).  You don't need absolute free choice - just some choice and some ability to pick your spells.  And I've yet to see a DM put serious bans on non-polymorph core spells.



> The problem I have with (a) is that it throws the baby (the wizard having access to truly spectacular magic, and I like that about D&D)




The issue is one of level here.  What can everyone else do while the wizard is tossing spectacular spells around?  (1e solved it by giving the fighter a castle and the thief a guild, 4e solves it by making spectacular magic cost time and resources).



> out with the bathwater (the wizard being allowed to abuse that power by operating without limits).




Or even trivialising the limits.



> The problem I have with (b) is that I like playing the guy who _doesn't_ rely on truly spectacular magic.




Tell me when the 4e fighter gets truly spectacular magic.  Rather than being somewhere around James Bond level


> I also really dislike "arms race" situations in RPGs.




And in my experience the only two RPGs with bigger arms races than 3.X are Exalted and Rifts.



> This complaint is similar to the complaints about optimization, except that (IMO) optimization is a real, actual, in-play issue. Optimization can be a pain in the ass, and it can ruin the fun for some people.




And a complete lack of optimisation indicates that you are not actually interested in roleplaying.  You are meant to be roleplaying characters who routinely fight for their lives.  If you don't make IC optimisation choices (equipment for instance - metachoices like feat and build are another matter) you are roleplaying someone who's about as concerned with their life, the lives of their friends, and the lives of those they are protecting as they would be if they were going on a schoolgirl's picnic.

And yes, logistics can be a pain in the ass and they are tedious.  Which is one of many reasons I dislike high level 3.X - there are too many edges to gain and too much detail in the unfun part of the game.  But a part that IC you know keeps you alive longer and therefore you do to an extent if you are staying in character.



> So here's your fix to the "problem": Play with better people.




The problem is that your so-called "better people" are people who have been together a long time, have a shared and unwritten code of conduct, and know each others' gaming likes and dislikes.  A group like that is good - but not everyone is lucky enough to have one and you need luck to find one (I have the fortune to have done so I think).


----------



## Raven Crowking

Neonchameleon said:


> Tell me when the 4e fighter gets truly spectacular magic.  Rather than being somewhere around James Bond level





When Bond faces an army of mooks, he requires......his own army of mooks.  A common climactic-scene Bond trope.

When Bond faces an enemy in an entrenched position.....he needs to figure out how to deal with it.  They don't all run out just because he asks them to!

So, no, the 4e fighter is better than Bond.  (Mind you, in 1e terms, Bond is only about a 5th level fighter tops, based on the extra attacks he gets on mooks in the movies).


RC


----------



## Mort

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Re: This comment
> 
> 
> Several posters have pointed out one of the key playstyle sources of the problem, IMHO, namely cherry-picking all the best spells.*  I _think_ I mentioned it in this thread that we always used the spell rarity/randomizer rules as written in 1Ed-2Ed, and pointed out it's a decent sim of the way people learn things, esp. if they are self-taught or their learning depends on independent research.
> 
> But some think it's stupid to sim that way.
> 
> I'm forced to wonder, though, what is the statistical correlation between those who don't use some sort of spell rarity and those who see über-wizards?




I'm sure that's part of it. For example, allow unfettered use of the  the Spell Compendium in your game? Prepare for a massive ramp up in power. One problem here is with only a few exceptions (Book of 9 Swords, Players Handbook II that I can think of) the power creep for wizards greatly exceeded the power creep for fighters, so allowing access to "all books" is much more beneficial to the wizard.

Another part is player mentality to scrolls, wands etc, especially with easy spell access. I've noticed games where the wizard's player has time and/inclination to scribe scrolls and craft wands greatly increase their power level.

Also DM attitude to skills vs. magic. I've seen more than a few DMs greatly limit skill use by "real world" limitations (even though 1/2 the time they have no idea of actual real world limitations) but at the same time never say a word re: magic because, well, it's "magic." Easy example: never a word with the spell knock, yet all sorts of minuses and nitpicking with the rogue picking a lock. Same with invisibility vs. hide, move silently (stealth) etc. I think a more permissive attitude toward skills (especially really high skills) mitigates this considerably. For example, the fighter intimidating an army - this is a great use of intimidate. Too few DMs allow it as it "rubs them the wrong way" etc., yet have no problems with fear/mass charm etc.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

Neonchameleon said:


> The problem is that your so-called "better people" are people who have been together a long time, have a shared and unwritten code of conduct, and know each others' gaming likes and dislikes.



See, not so much.  In our current Pathfinder game, we have two core players, one player who has been playing M&M with us for about a year (but no D&D), and three players who are new to the group.  (They've been around less than three months.)

No problems so far.  (One of the new guys might end up being a bit of a problem: in M&M, he went unerringly for about ten different unbalancing power/feat combos, and in Pathfinder he chose the very strong Inquisitor class.  But he'll dial back his tendencies -- if they are tendencies -- or he won't make it in our group.)


----------



## Raven Crowking

Mort said:


> I'm sure that's part of it. For example, allow unfettered use of the  the Spell Compendium in your game? Prepare for a massive ramp up in power.





But.....but.....but......"Say Yes!"


----------



## Argyle King

If I may be so bold, I think of the problems with this conversation is that it focuses too much on D&D.  There are other games which -in my opinion- do a fairly good job of allowing non-mages to shine on the same level as mages.


----------



## billd91

pemerton said:


> How big a problem that is probably depens in part on more general attitudes towards the ingame/metagame divide, as well as other more practical questions like (i) how often did your paladin try shield push + attack in other systems? (ii) did it both you that only fighter's could train in weapon specialisation in older editions? (iii) did you ever find it unrealistic that only thieves got to do bonus damage when striking unseen from behind? etc etc. The more that someone put up with these oddities in prior editions, then presumably the more they'll cope with 4e. And vice versa.




You may not see that much of a difference in these "oddities", but I do. Fighters got specialization and most other classes did not (rangers also did in 1e), but that's more of a question of degree of results not ability to get *some* result. The same is true for the thief's bonus damage with a backstab. Other characters could attack from behind (or flank) and get some benefit depending on the target. In earlier editions, the target would lose their Dex bonus to AC, shield bonus, and give up a +2 to hit and under 3e, without facing, they'd still probably give up a +2 to hit for flanking. That some character class was able to do even better wasn't a problem because my character would still get some benefit from the action, something the 4e class power system discourages.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> Another part is player mentality to scrolls, wands etc, especially with easy spell access. I've noticed games where the wizard's player has time and/inclination to scribe scrolls and craft wands greatly increase their power level.




Yep- and I almost never see PC created Scrolls or Wands.  Rings, Weapons and Staves are more common.


----------



## Harlekin

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Several posters have pointed out one of the key playstyle sources of the problem, IMHO, namely cherry-picking all the best spells.*  I _think_ I mentioned it in this thread that we always used the spell rarity/randomizer rules as written in 1Ed-2Ed, and pointed out it's a decent sim of the way people learn things, esp. if they are self-taught or their learning depends on independent research.




This fits pretty well with my pet theory: Many GMs that play/played D&D for a long time had to deal with this problem (in much smaller form) since 1st edition and they learned how to adapt. At this point  they have multiple tricks/table rules/ unwritten agreements that control the problem. Many of these solutions are applied without thinking too much, for example Danny houseruling in spell access from earlier editions. 

And clearly it is possible to fix the problem in a home game, especially when staying under lvl 12 or so. In my home game I handled this by forcing sorcerors to take of-class levels and making the wizards spellbook disappear. But those solutions require a lot of trust between GM and players and they also require a lot of system mastery (or trial and error) by the GM.


----------



## Mort

Raven Crowking said:


> But.....but.....but......"Say Yes!"




Not "always say yes"  - "try to say yes" as in not a knee jerk no. For me this is much more applicable to in game situations (swing on the chandalier - sure, throw the table at 2 mooks to nock them over - try it and quite likely - etc.). 

When I ran 3e/3.5 my general policy for allowing spells etc. was - core assume it's ok unless I say otherwise, non-core get my permission to use it.


----------



## billd91

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Yep- and I almost never see PC created Scrolls or Wands.  Rings, Weapons and Staves are more common.




I actually do and I don't follow any kind of randomized scarcity to the spells a spellcaster can pick up as he levels up. And I still don't see significant problems with casters being super-powerful compared to melee characters... with one exception. And that exception is a player who pushes at the boundaries of power while the rest don't. So I'm totally on board with the issue mainly being one of play style.

When my players make wands and scrolls but do so from a support character point of view (making healing, general buffing, or protecting wands and scrolls), they're not being a problem. When the player starts to view the item creation/buying rules as being a rudimentary point-buy system for personal power-ups, then we start to run into problems, particularly if that player views the game as competition between himself and other players.


----------



## Harlekin

Jeff Wilder said:


> See, not so much.  In our current Pathfinder game, we have two core players, one player who has been playing M&M with us for about a year (but no D&D), and three players who are new to the group.  (They've been around less than three months.)
> 
> No problems so far.  (One of the new guys might end up being a bit of a problem: in M&M, he went unerringly for about ten different unbalancing power/feat combos, and in Pathfinder he chose the very strong Inquisitor class.  But he'll dial back his tendencies -- if they are tendencies -- or he won't make it in our group.)




You are right, most gamers are not douchebags and will not intentionally ruin other people's fun. However, you may have to boot one in five players, because it is possible for him to overshadow everybody else. I would say that is enough of an issue to call it a problem.


----------



## Fifth Element

Jeff Wilder said:


> If this discussion had been framed as, "I prefer my fantasy RPG to have warriors and wizards capable of doing pretty much the same stuff at the same power level," I never would have even bothered to chime in.  Instead, it was, "Your D&D is broken and unfun, because wizards are _awesome_, _unstoppable_, _gods_!"  (Starting, NFK, at 1st level, according to one post!)



Well, you seem to be framing the discussion not only as "3E is fine" but also as "4E is bad." That seems like the same attitude you're attacking here.

I guess what I'm asking is, if you just want to explain why you find 3E fine in this regard, why do you have to attack 4E to do so? Unless, of course, you mean "Harrison-Bergeroned" to be a compliment, which I assume you don't.

3E is clearly not broken or unfun in any meaningful way. It can be ill-suited to certain people's playstyles, just as 4E can be. But neither is it broken or dumbed down, as you seem to imply with your comments.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Mort said:


> Not "always say yes"  - "try to say yes" as in not a knee jerk no. For me this is much more applicable to in game situations (swing on the chandalier - sure, throw the table at 2 mooks to nock them over - try it and quite likely - etc.).




This I agree with; but I don't think that the WotC advice reads like that at all, at all.  Nor do I think that everyone who reads the WotC advice comes to this conclusion.

"Say Yes" in the WotC books is, IMHO, as much (or more) about selling splats as it is about DMing/GMing.  If the DM is going to say No to your splat, there is no reason to buy it.  If the DM is going to say Yes, you can "win the game" with your wallet.

(Actually, on further reflection, it is very, very suprising that TSR kept with the "Check with your DM first" line in the 2e era.)



RC


----------



## Jeff Wilder

Fifth Element said:


> Well, you seem to be framing the discussion not only as "3E is fine" but also as "4E is bad." That seems like the same attitude you're attacking here.



Dude, I wasn't the one that even _brought up_ 4E.  I didn't even mention it, until I was asked to explain why I didn't like the "solution" it provided.

I do not like 4E, but I have not been an edition warrior for a long, _long_ time.  You don't get to ask me why I dislike 4E and then feign indignation when I explain why I dislike 4E.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> This fits pretty well with my pet theory: Many GMs that play/played D&D for a long time had to deal with this problem (in much smaller form) since 1st edition and they learned how to adapt. At this point they have multiple tricks/table rules/ unwritten agreements that control the problem. Many of these solutions are applied without thinking too much, for example Danny houseruling in spell access from earlier editions.




Just a point of clarification: we haven't actually HRed the old acess rules into 3.5 in any active campaign.  _*I*_ have a campign I've been designing for a few years in which such rules will not just be used, but are actually derived from the state of the world- IOW, essential to the fabric of the setting.

What has actually restricted spell access has been: 1) the fact that most of the guys running games have limited sourcebook access and 2) personal PC design choices.

Of the latter, some are non-optimized because of matching concept & mechanics (like me), others due to inexperience or lack of an impulse to optimize...despite everyone in the group having more than a decade's experience in the hobby (and D&D in particular).


----------



## Raven Crowking

Jeff Wilder said:


> You don't get to ask me why I dislike 4E and then feign indignation when I explain why I dislike 4E.




Um.....You do know this is the InterWeb, don't you?


----------



## Fifth Element

Jeff Wilder said:


> I do not like 4E, but I have not been an edition warrior for a long, _long_ time.  You don't get to ask me why I dislike 4E and then feign indignation when I explain why I dislike 4E.



I didn't ask.

I'm not feigning anything, I'm asking you to explain why, if you don't like people calling your game unfun, can you not see why others would not like you calling their game dumbed-down?


----------



## Mort

billd91 said:


> I actually do and I don't follow any kind of randomized scarcity to the spells a spellcaster can pick up as he levels up. And I still don't see significant problems with casters being super-powerful compared to melee characters... with one exception. And that exception is a player who pushes at the boundaries of power while the rest don't. So I'm totally on board with the issue mainly being one of play style.
> 
> When my players make wands and scrolls but do so from a support character point of view (making healing, general buffing, or protecting wands and scrolls), they're not being a problem. When the player starts to view the item creation/buying rules as being a rudimentary point-buy system for personal power-ups, then we start to run into problems, particularly if that player views the game as competition between himself and other players.




But this is not a play style issue - not really. What you've essentially said is: the casters don't step on others toes because they don't want to be rude/unfun. You and your players are seeing a system issue and consciouly playing around it. My players and I were much the same - we saw the potential issue but it did not get in the way because we knew how to get around it and frankly I have a great laid back group. 3e/3.5 is a good system but left unchecked there can be large problems with spellcasters as levels get higher, I don't think this statement is that controversial.

On this same vein: One of the best campaigns I've ever played in (lasted 5 years and I only stopped when I moved away) was a RIFTS game. I will proclaim loudly how much fun I had with the DM, the players and the campaign - it was great. Does not in anyway change the fact that the RIFTS rules system is (IMO opinion of course) absolutely awful.


----------



## billd91

Mort said:


> But this is not a play style issue - not really. What you've essentially said is: the casters don't step on others toes because they don't want to be rude/unfun. You and your players are seeing a system issue and consciouly playing around it. My players and I were much the same - we saw the potential issue but it did not get in the way because we knew how to get around it and frankly I have a great laid back group. 3e/3.5 is a good system but left unchecked there can be large problems with spellcasters as levels get higher, I don't think this statement is that controversial.




I don't think the game *needs* to do much, as a system, to discourage that behavior or, perhaps more accurately, *shouldn't* do too much. But then, I've played a number of more open point-based character generation games like Champions and Mutants and Masterminds as well as other widely varying character build games like Villains and Vigilantes. I prefer to have the flexibility and variation that can then be used as tools in the game rather than try to do away with them systematically.

In other words, while it may be a part of the system to have the potential for disparity, that's a *feature* of the system should I choose to use it, not a bug.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

Fifth Element said:


> I'm not feigning anything, I'm asking you to explain why, if you don't like people calling your game unfun, can you not see why others would not like you calling their game dumbed-down?



I didn't call it dumbed down.  I called it  "equalized" -- recognized it, actually, as I was responding to a post that pointed out its equalized nature -- and used a literary allusion to why I feel that "equalized" is not always a good thing.

Personally speaking, I think there's only one thing truly "dumbed down" in 4E (diagonal movement).  I think lots of stuff has been "padded for safety" to the point at which I don't recognize what's under the padding, but I don't think it's any less complex than 3E.


----------



## Mort

billd91 said:


> I don't think the game *needs* to do much, as a system, to discourage that behavior or, perhaps more accurately, *shouldn't* do too much. But then, I've played a number of more open point-based character generation games like Champions and Mutants and Masterminds as well as other widely varying character build games like Villains and Vigilantes. I prefer to have the flexibility and variation that can then be used as tools in the game rather than try to do away with them systematically.
> 
> In other words, while it may be a part of the system to have the potential for disparity, that's a *feature* of the system should I choose to use it, not a bug.




I only see it as a feature if everyone has access to it. Point based systems are like this, they can have massive disparity between powers etc. But since everyone has access this can work itself out. The problem with this comparison in 3e is that most of the truly gamebreabing stuff is there for the casters but not there for the non-casters - as such I'd go much more with bug than feature. 

I will say that some late 3e supplements (Bo9s and PHB II for example) closed the gap quite a bit (though reaction was at best mixed) and Pathfinder has also gotten on the bandwagon that fighter feats are not required to suck - which has also been a big help.


----------



## Fifth Element

Jeff Wilder said:


> I didn't call it dumbed down.  I called it  "equalized" -- recognized it, actually, as I was responding to a post that pointed out its equalized nature -- and used a literary allusion to why I feel that "equalized" is not always a good thing.



Your literary reference explicitly refers to intentioanlly bringing great things down in order for them to be on "equal footing" with lesser things. You didn't use the words dumbed down, but the implication is clear. How else would we interpret that reference?


----------



## Jeff Wilder

Fifth Element said:


> Your literary reference explicitly refers to intentioanlly bringing great things down in order for them to be on "equal footing" with lesser things.



You have successfully puzzled out, despite what I thought were heroic efforts to maintain secrecy, that I think 4E isn't as good as 3E.  Congratulations.

And, once again, I made that clear _after being asked_ why the 4E "solution" didn't work for me.  I did not bring up 4E.  Someone else did.

Now please take your edition warring somewhere else.  I'm _really_ not interested.


----------



## ProfessorCirno

While Spell Compendium had a lot of broken spells, it just made the balance "worse," not "bad."

PHB has Time Stop, Alter Self, the entire Polymorph line, Glitterdust, and a huge range of laughably powerful spells.  It also has the Natural Spell feat that makes druids become the scions of power, and Divine Power which lets clerics literally become fighters along with their already present spellcasting.

Blaming books after the fact is dodging the issue.  The problem was present in the core books.

Besides, it doesn't take a douchebag player to ruin things.  People here seem to think "imbalance" lies at the hand of Pun-Pun or the wizard that purposefully steals everyone else's role.  It's not.  Imbalance starts when a player says "I think I'll make a druid, and Natural Spell looks useful."  Or when a wizard says "Well I want the highest intelligence I can get, and this Color Spray spell sounds really cool!"

3.x imbalance is at it's highest when the _accidental_ allows for horrendous disparity.


----------



## Mort

ProfessorCirno said:


> While Spell Compendium had a lot of broken spells, it just made the balance "worse," not "bad."
> 
> PHB has Time Stop, Alter Self, the entire Polymorph line, Glitterdust, and a huge range of laughably powerful spells.  It also has the Natural Spell feat that makes druids become the scions of power, and Divine Power which lets clerics literally become fighters along with their already present spellcasting.
> 
> Blaming books after the fact is dodging the issue.  The problem was present in the core books.
> 
> Besides, it doesn't take a douchebag player to ruin things.  People here seem to think "imbalance" lies at the hand of Pun-Pun or the wizard that purposefully steals everyone else's role.  It's not.  Imbalance starts when a player says "I think I'll make a druid, and Natural Spell looks useful."  Or when a wizard says "Well I want the highest intelligence I can get, and this Color Spray spell sounds really cool!"
> 
> 3.x imbalance is at it's highest when the _accidental_ allows for horrendous disparity.




In the campaign I played a wizard (fighter/wizard/eldritch knight actually but the fighter part stopped mattering much) most of the big stuff that worked well was core:

1) knock - before the pathfinder (and similar 4e) fix this spell made lockpicking secondary. It was 100% effective and we never ran into so many locked doors that a few scrolls didn't do the trick.

2) Prying eyes - scout a location thoroughly with little chance of detection! coming in prepared with little to no risk is huge.

3) Evard's black tentackles - completely locked down several key fights making everyone's job essentially a mop up excercise. Even when the NPCs got wise to the tactic the combats were 10 times easier if this spell was used.

4) teleport - obvious one.

There were many others but those are the ones that come to me on very short notice.

Also, keep in mind - the true strength of a properly played wizard is not dominating in combat. The true strength is ridiculous versatility that makes everyone else's job much, much easier - it's about dominating but in a very subtle way (kind of an oxymoron but there it is).


----------



## Diamond Cross

You guys are getting way off topic here.


----------



## Sorrowdusk

pawsplay said:


> ... who soloed a Balor.




But you know he had to get mad expeez for that.
Unless the GM used that dumb rule that you cant lvl more than once from any one encounter.


----------



## UngainlyTitan

Diamond Cross said:


> You guys are getting way off topic here.



We have been way off topic for quite a while, basically in the literature it is not an issue.
To be honest, pc balance was never my issue with D&D 3.x but that is another conversation.


----------



## pemerton

Neonchameleon said:


> And a complete lack of optimisation indicates that you are not actually interested in roleplaying.  You are meant to be roleplaying characters who routinely fight for their lives.  If you don't make IC optimisation choices (equipment for instance - metachoices like feat and build are another matter) you are roleplaying someone who's about as concerned with their life, the lives of their friends, and the lives of those they are protecting as they would be if they were going on a schoolgirl's picnic.



Well, that's only one way of approaching the game and the characterisation of one's PC. Not all PCs are conceived of in this way.

This approach to optimisation-as-roleplaying also presupposes that a player's build choices correspond to a PC's personal development choices. But that is by no means a given. At least some people take the view that a player's build choices happen to a significant extent in the metagame (eg I may choose weapon proficiencies XYZ for my PC not because the PC made those choices, but because circumstances brought it about that that's what my PC knows about; I may choose spells ABC for my PC on level up not because these are the spells my wizard opted to borrow from the guild library, but because these are the spells that my wizard's patron - or perhaps his/her fevered brain - wrote down in the spellbook).

I think 4e retraining, for example, only makes sense if we assume (i) that a character sheet is nothing like a _total _description of the PC in question, and (ii) that build choices are at least to some singificant extent choices made by a player to highlight some or other feature of the PC as a character (ie metagame choices), rather than choices made in the gameworld by that character.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> If you don't make IC optimisation choices (equipment for instance - metachoices like feat and build are another matter) you are roleplaying someone who's about as concerned with their life, the lives of their friends, and the lives of those they are protecting as they would be if they were going on a schoolgirl's picnic.




There ARE people in the world like this.

One pair I think of to this day were Miami Hurricane football linemen, both slated to be drafted into the NFL with high draft picks- probable first-rounders, both of them.  That translates into $1m signing bonuses _at a minimum._  The month before the draft, the two of them were caught burglarizing a camera & video equipment store.  They didn't get drafted, and went to prison.

I know one of the most powerful and feared attorneys in Texas- he wouldn't let his own partnership's tax experts handle his stuff, preferring to do it himself...until he found out he'd been paying more in taxes than Bill Gates.

There is video of a cop doing a gun safety demo in a classroom- I beleive it was in Atlanta- using live rounds.  The dummy shot himself in the foot.  What if he'd accidentally discharged it in a different direction?   What if he had been on the second floor?

People make poor decisions- how many they make and how serious they are is part of what defines them.



> I think 4e retraining, for example, only makes sense..._<snip>_




It's very metagamey to me.


----------



## pemerton

billd91 said:


> You may not see that much of a difference in these "oddities", but I do. Fighters got specialization and most other classes did not (rangers also did in 1e), but that's more of a question of degree of results not ability to get *some* result. The same is true for the thief's bonus damage with a backstab. Other characters could attack from behind (or flank) and get some benefit depending on the target. In earlier editions, the target would lose their Dex bonus to AC, shield bonus, and give up a +2 to hit and under 3e, without facing, they'd still probably give up a +2 to hit for flanking. That some character class was able to do even better wasn't a problem because my character would still get some benefit from the action, something the 4e class power system discourages.



I guess I just don't see the discouragement. All sorts of PCs can get benefits from bull rushing, grabbing, flanking, charging, sneaking and the like. Some PCs just get greater benefits due to particular powers and/or class features.

Or is the issue particularly about tripping and disarming? In which case yes, these are more closely confined in 4e, and debate rages periodically on the 4e forums about whether or not these (or at least disarming) should be achievable outside the power framework.



CuRoi said:


> I am only interested in discussing what each succeeded in doing and what each failed in doing on a constructive level.



Likewise. My curiosity arose in relation to your observation that "They all however interact with the game world / story in the same way now and the difference is in how they play on a tactical level." 



CuRoi said:


> By story, I am not referring just to "flavor text" of an attack. A Fighter can push back a foe with his shield while a Wizard pushes back a foe with thunder or something. Or in 3.5 a Wizard can stun a foe by waggling fingers while a monk can punch them in the head for the same effect. What I am referring to are the underlying assumptions of how these characters have arrived at, exercise, and deploy these powers whcih consequently is a part of the underlying story.



This still leaves me curious. The underlying assumption is that a fighter punched hard - like stunning by way of pummelling in AD&D 1st ed. The underlying assumption is that a wizard conjured might magical forces - like stunning by way of Power Word in AD&D 1st ed.



CuRoi said:


> In one version, IMO, Swords and Sorcery are very different things at this level, in the other the line is not so clear.



Are you talking about the story, or the game mechanics?



CuRoi said:


> In 3.5, it is more clear that the Spellcaster is engaging in a studied art for which there are clear means of practice that define it as specifically *NOT* being a martial concept. You study spells, they belong to schools, these spells can persist and be analyzed with various other spells, many can be utilized in a number of creative ways whether inside or outside combat, there is an internal strategy to use of these spells that does tend to exclude martial classes, the spells are by definition not like persistent feats which you can use at will - they are specifically "fire and forget". Spellcasting in 3.5, for better or for worse, is more clearly a realm of its own mechanically and what is required of a caster to interact with the game world.



This suggests to me that you are talking about mechanics, and the way in which players leverage those mechanics to change the fiction. (Which I wouldn't myself describe as "interacting with the gameworld" - that's what I would describe the PCs as doing _within the context of_ the fiction. A minor terminological difference between us, but it is what made me curious about your earlier post.)

I also think you're underestimating the contribution to the fiction made by the 4e wizard's mechanical features of spellbook and rituals. Warlocks also have their pacts, analogous in certain respects to wizard schools. And wizards themselves have their implement variations, analogous also in some respects to schools. But these are probably relatively minor points.



CuRoi said:


> For 4e, "Powers" are a broad description of what everyone can do. There is less feel for a solid difference between say a magic missile and an arrow fired from a bow - both do all the things you mentioned (attack rolls - which were not the norm for 2e/3e DnD spellcasters; damage; possible special conditions; the same usage rate and limitations; the same actions to exercise these abilities, etc. etc.) All classes now, for better or for worse, utilize one uniform system in order to accomplish their effects.  The biggest separation is the flavor text and the class "role" that helps define how these effects interact with the game world.



If by "flavour text" you mean the italicised line in the power description underneath the header and above the mechanical information, then I strongly disagree - at least in my game, this is of little importance and for many powers the players use I've never even looked at it. If, on the other hand, by "flavour text" you mean the description by player and/or GM of what is happening in the ficitonal world when a power is used, then I think I agree - this is a big contributor to what makes different classes different.

But as to powers all being the same - I am really coming to think that this is more and more a _layout_ issue. After all, a 4e martial power has the same info that a 3E martial feat or class feature had (martial power source, use with a ranged or melee weapon, useage restrictions - various martial prestige classes in 3E, for example, have X per day abilities). An arcane power has the same info that a 3E spell had (arcane power source, range, targets and effect, energy keywords, etc). And arcane powers often conjure things or create zones - clear markers of magic at work within the fiction!

Various PC abilities in 4e are not formatted as powers but could be, and would in some cases be easier to read and apply if done in such a fashion (eg hunter's quarry; fighter's abilities with opportunity attacks and for dealing with marked targets). Would formatting them as powers have a dramtic effect on whether they felt more like spells than like martial talents?

And in Pathfinder, I believe that wizards and clerics have at-will powers (orisons/cantrips), just as fighters etc have at will attacks. But I've never heard it suggested that because of this Pathfinder is tending towards a 4e "sameness of class" feeling.

Even in traditional 3E, many SU and EX abilities are identically formatted, relying on nothing but the SU or EX tag to indicate how they are happening in the gameworld, but I don't remember it being suggested that this undercut the fictional contrast between magical and non-magical abilities.



CuRoi said:


> Its just a very plain difference and consequently, IMO, it has an effect on how these characters will interact on a story level and even what the story will require of each.



This is what I am still curious about. Why would a common layout and rules terminology for class abilities and features, that nevertheless preserves a number of key distinctions within the fiction (what is the source of the ability,  what happens when it is used - both to the PC and to the target, etc), have this effect?



CuRoi said:


> The real debate, from what I can see, rests at how these things fundamentally interact with the imagined world around them. Some people just -want- spellcasters to be a classification unto themselves who do happen to have abilities that are more...supernatural let's call it (don't read too much into this)...than a fighter's tactical command of the battlefield.
> 
> I personally, IMO, have found that I prefer the solid separation of the two concepts and it supports the way I tell stories best.



And in my view the real debate is about whether class abilities X and Y can be understood as resolving differently in the fiction, even if in the rules text they are formatted in the same way, and expressed using some shared and regimented terminology governing frequency of use, effects, etc. I just don't find this to be an issue - not in the sense that it's not an issue because I can compensate for it, but because at my table it has never even occurred to anyone to suppose that the fighter who belts people up with a polearm is doing the same thing as the magic user who summons Bigby's hand or the sorcerer who calls down blasts of starlight and transforms himself into spark form. The differences are so obvious, to us at least, that the idea that they would not matter to the fiction is almost self-evidently absurd.

I also want to be clear - this is _not the same question_ as to whether or not one prefers that martial and magical powers have their differences represented by different mechanics. Rather, this is about whether or not the fictional differences can survive regimentation in rules layout and terminology. The claim that it _can't_ is one that I find very strange. If the fiction can't be prised off the mechanics even to this extent, then implementing any change to the way that warriors are handled in the game - for example, as various posters have suggested, giving players of warriors metagame tokens of some sort or another - is going to be very difficult.


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## Icyshadowlord

Diamond Cross said:


> You guys are getting way off topic here.




I assume that was the idea of what Professor Cirno had posted. His post immediately went back to how 3.x was imbalanced/broken, though there was an argument between two guys just a few pages ago. I've already given my views concerning the actual topic, so I do not feel like repeating myself. I do hope that this does not get locked just because someone has to go bash 3.x AGAIN. *Sigh*


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## Bluenose

Jeff Wilder said:


> If this discussion had been framed as, "*I prefer my fantasy RPG to have warriors and wizards capable of doing pretty much the same stuff at the same power level*," I never would have even bothered to chime in. Instead, it was, "Your D&D is broken and unfun, because wizards are _awesome_, _unstoppable_, _gods_!" (Starting, NFK, at 1st level, according to one post!)




Do you think that's the case with 3rd edition? Because it's equally true if wizards are weaker at low levels and stronger at high levels as it is if they're stronger at all levels. 

I'd actually take issue with "pretty much the same stuff", as well. Different_, equally useful_ stuff, would be more my thing.


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## I'm A Banana

Jeff Wilder said:
			
		

> If this discussion had been framed as, "I prefer my fantasy RPG to have warriors and wizards capable of doing pretty much the same stuff at the same power level," I never would have even bothered to chime in. Instead, it was, "Your D&D is broken and unfun, because wizards are awesome, unstoppable, gods!" (Starting, NFK, at 1st level, according to one post!)




FWIW, the reason 4e came up was because it has a way of ensuring that a fantasy RPG has warriors and spellcasters capable of doing pretty much the same stuff at the same power level. 

Earlier editions don't have such a system, and so you get some people who experienced the problem of supermage/lamefighter calling it broken and unfun because for them, maybe it was. And maybe 4e fixes it, since it ensures that warriors and spellcasters are on equal footing. This, of course, didn't always happen to every table. 

I personally think the 4e system is flawed, in a few ways, but I think it's a useful starting point going forward, and an example of a system that takes into account the problem that some groups had with warriors being conceived of on a "normal mortal" level of power, and Wizards being able to be powerful fantasy heroes from Day 1. 

But you could have use another system, too: others were suggested. The important features of the system are similar to what they are in 4e: no one has any unique "plot-control" effects (spells and combat attacks are pretty strictly combat-related, OR everyone gets to tell the DM that they just made friends with the villain a la _Charm Person_), and they all pretty much are spent and recharge at a similar rate (so that everyone is playing the same resource management game). This isn't even a strict limit, more of a guideline to avoid extremes. 

I don't think saying "PLAY WITH BETTER PEOPLE" is constructive at all, because, well, if you played with better people, it wouldn't matter if you're playing *FATAL* or just making stuff up in a group or rolling dice for *D&D* or even playing a videogame together. Better people are awesome, but there's no factory to make them, and sometimes no place to find them, and sometimes you're content with the people you have and you just want to pretend to be an elf for a few hours with them, and the game MANDATING that you find skilled people who are already players is a problem.

The game needs to work with the people in the middle of the bellcurve. Some of whom are experiencing the "wizards are awesome and fighters suck" effect. So the rules need to address it. _Somehow_.


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## triqui

Stormonu said:


> vulnerability and rarity tends to do it.
> 
> The typical wizard is a greybeard whose spent most of his life studying musty old tomes (I don't remember "young" wizards coming along until the introduction of Raistlin, really - I mean, the starting age for a wizard in 1E was about 55 years old).  This, and other factors tend to present wizards as frail.
> 
> Also, characters such as Conan may face hundreds of warriors in a given story, but likely only face one wizard in that same story.  Wizards seem to be like ninjas; if you face one, they're a badass - if its a cabal, they die cheap (and are rarely ppowerful).




Belgarion is actually a child when he starts to cast magic in Chronicles of Belgarath.

In some books, there is no real difference between the warrior and the mage, they are the same person. Wheel of Time main character, Belgarion, or Elric of Melniboné are examples.

However, when there is a big difference in power between casters and warriors, it's becouse of level, not "magic". Gandalf is much better than Aragon, but that's becouse Aragon is just a man (lvl 6 or so) and Gandalf is a demi-god. However, some of the elven "warriors", like Glorfindel, are a match for Gandalf. Elron could had defeated the Balrog just like Gandalf did.

In Oddissey, Ulisses defeats Circe just fine, becouse they are similar "level".


----------



## Hussar

On the scarcity model of balance.

This is an extremely difficult way to keep wizards in check.  It doesn't work at all for clerics and druids because they automatically get all their spells, but, even for wizards it's not all that cut and dried.

For one, every enemy spell caster the party defeats should have a chance of having a spell book.  Presuming that you apply the same rules for NPC spell books, that means that there will be a fair number of randomly generated spells in that book - and at the very least, all the spells that that enemy MU had memorized.

Additionally, in 1e and 2e, scrolls were a pretty commonly rolled treasure.  Many treasure types actually gave bonus scrolls as well, and randomly generated scrolls could easily have multiple spells.

By the book, it didn't actually take all that much for wizards to amass a fairly decent library of spells.  A bit random true, but, then again, there weren't that many spells on the list on any given level.  The odds of getting those really cherry spells were pretty high.

I've recently been replaying Baldur's Gate and I noticed that the casters really don't dominate in those games.  And it's easy to see why - by and large they only have direct damage spells.  Polymorph is very, very limited, charms last only a very short while and there are no divination spells to speak of.  And transportation spells are absent completely.

This would certianly work to limit casters - direct damage only with some very, very limited utility type spells.

---------

Side note - DannyA - the fact that your group didn't use wands or scrolls I think really, really changes how 3e is played.  I know that one of the biggest shifts in play I saw was when my bunch started using healing wands.  Freeing up the druids and clerics from any out of combat healing duty meant they could go to town on other spells which REALLY jacks up their power level.


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## billd91

Hussar said:


> I've recently been replaying Baldur's Gate and I noticed that the casters really don't dominate in those games.  And it's easy to see why - by and large they only have direct damage spells.  Polymorph is very, very limited, charms last only a very short while and there are no divination spells to speak of.  And transportation spells are absent completely.




Most of those would be very difficult to adjudicate by the computer DM. Damage spells (and other short term limited effect spells) are easy to handle by comparison. It's the difference between being limited to an algorithm to adjudicate a game event and using genuine human intelligence. The former's easier to balance because it's extremely limited in scope compared to the latter.


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## KahnyaGnorc

billd91 said:


> You may not see that much of a difference in these "oddities", but I do. Fighters got specialization and most other classes did not (rangers also did in 1e), but that's more of a question of degree of results not ability to get *some* result. The same is true for the thief's bonus damage with a backstab. Other characters could attack from behind (or flank) and get some benefit depending on the target. In earlier editions, the target would lose their Dex bonus to AC, shield bonus, and give up a +2 to hit and under 3e, without facing, they'd still probably give up a +2 to hit for flanking. That some character class was able to do even better wasn't a problem because my character would still get some benefit from the action, something the 4e class power system discourages.




Both the paladin and fighter can push a target (Bull Rush), but the fighter can do it better (Tide of Iron, can get an attack in as well).


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## Mort

Hussar said:


> I've recently been replaying Baldur's Gate and I noticed that the casters really don't dominate in those games.  And it's easy to see why - by and large they only have direct damage spells.  Polymorph is very, very limited, charms last only a very short while and there are no divination spells to speak of.  And transportation spells are absent completely.
> 
> This would certianly work to limit casters - direct damage only with some very, very limited utility type spells.




Another, less drastic option: turn most utility spells into rituals (the 4e approach but it could very easily be added to 3e, just make casting times for certain spells much longer). This gives the caster versatility but at the expense of time and other resources. Knock as a ritual, for example (takes 10 minutes costs 50 gold or equivilant materials and fatigues the caster) means the wizard *can* open the door, but the rogue can do it faster and with less use of resources - a fair tradeoff. Eliminating what I and my players started calling the "six second solution" to most problems is IMO quite a good idea. And to actually go back to the OP, much of literature shows that magic has a cost, sometimes tangible, sometimes not, why not actually give it one?


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## Raven Crowking

[MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]:

You forget that, in 1e at least, you had a maximum # of spells per level, and had only a % chance of learning any spell that you attempted to write in your book.  On top of that, if the DM decided he had been overgenerous, a single fire (magical or not) or the lowly bookworm could restore the balance.

In 2e, they had magical maladies that could also be used to balance casters if needed.

But, both of these are only part of how those editions sought to achieve the desired balance in play (which is a far different desired balance than that sought by, say, 4e).  Balance by scarcity (in 1e at least) is also reinforced by a high rate of turnover for low-level magic-users and illusionists.

Also, as a point of fact, in 1e, clerics and druids do not "automatically get all their spells", as it is explicit in the rules that the DM (acting as agent of the deity) may swap out any spells he likes for those he feels are more appropriate/will be needed more.  This sounds very heavy-handed, and might not be to the tastes of all, but it usually works to the cleric's favour.  If the DM (and hence the cleric's deity) knows that the party is heading to the Forest of Many Troll Encounters, the deity may very well swap out a few chosen spells for fire-based ones, and the cleric ought to take it as a sign that fire will be needed.

(As with any other system, a well-run campaign is a different beast from a poorly-run, or even mediocre, one!)

A lot of the best spells were also balanced by long casting times, casting requirements, expensive components, and real risks (including some that may well result in the death of the caster).



RC


----------



## triqui

Hussar said:


> I've recently been replaying Baldur's Gate and I noticed that the casters really don't dominate in those games.  And it's easy to see why - by and large they only have direct damage spells.  Polymorph is very, very limited, charms last only a very short while and there are no divination spells to speak of.  And transportation spells are absent completely.
> 
> This would certianly work to limit casters - direct damage only with some very, very limited utility type spells.




It's not only Baldur's Gate. Almost every videogame has the same, one way or another. Casters get combat spells. Not necesarelly "direct damage" only spells, on Dragon Age you get several "paralyze" kind of spells, as well as buffs, defenses, debuffs, etc. But spells that completelly change the way of the fight (such as fly vs a melee monster), never see the light.

However, the plot-busting spells is what completelly and uterly DESTROY ... well... you know.... plot. If "divination" spells, "clairvoyance" spell and "teleport" spell is allowed, 90% of the videogames would last 5 minutes or so.

Just think on Lord of the Ring with Gandalf being a lvl 20 caster in a system where casting is not on par with "martial" (be it 3.5, or Rolemaster, just to avoid edition wars). The 3 tomes of awesomeness would be reduced to "i cast a divination spell, i get frodo and "protection from elements", and then i cast "teleport other" on him directly into the lava. Yeah, great plot...

Non-combat utility should be just that: UTILITIES. And that should judge out every single way to bust the plot, avoid the story, or shortcut to the end.

Judging from what I have read, assuming equal level of power between the "caster type" and the "fighter type" in the fiction, they are both balanced in power. Beowulf, Achilles, or Drizzt Do'Urden are on par with any similar level caster they can find.


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## Mort

Raven Crowking said:


> A lot of the best spells were also balanced by long casting times, casting requirements, expensive components, and real risks (including some that may well result in the death of the caster).
> 
> RC




Quite correct. Haste and Polymorph for example had *real* costs in prior editions (certain aging and small but real posibility of death respectively) making the caster actually have to think twice before casting them on himself or anyone else.


----------



## triqui

Mort said:


> Quite correct. Haste and Polymorph for example had *real* costs in prior editions (certain aging and small but real posibility of death respectively) making the caster actually have to think twice before casting them on himself or anyone else.




That, however, does not make it any more balanced. Just like having fallout does not make a nuclear weapon balanced out compared to a shotgun.


----------



## Mort

triqui said:


> That, however, does not make it any more balanced. Just like having fallout does not make a nuclear weapon balanced out compared to a shotgun.




Knowing you will destroy yourself as wel as your enemy is indead a form of balance, when he's 30 feet away most would rather have the shotgun. Having a weapon you are reluctant to use (like haste) means you will likely go with less powerful, but also less dangerous options. In other words the balancing factor (between party members) is the reluctance to use and costs involved. 

That said, I don't think it's the best option, or always appropriate, and frankly I wasn't even approacing RCs post from a balance perspective. I was approaching it with: powerful magic should have powerful costs, as it does in literature.


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## Raven Crowking

triqui said:


> The 3 tomes of awesomeness would be reduced to "i cast a divination spell, i get frodo and "protection from elements", and then i cast "teleport other" on him directly into the lava. Yeah, great plot...




"But Sauron is a Maia, and would detect and counter such uses of magic.  Not only would we not appear on Mount Doom, but we may well appear before his black throne in Barad Dur.  Worse, the attempt might well alert him to what we plan, and then all chances of success would fail."

and

"If you think lighting a little fire to keep us from freezing to death is going to draw unwanted attention, what do you imagine attempting to teleport is going to do?"

The plot of LotR is predicated in no small amount on its magic system, and vice versa.  That this is true doesn't mean that another magic system will prevent all other plots....or even a LotR-like plot, with a bit of work.



> Non-combat utility should be just that: UTILITIES. And that should judge out every single way to bust the plot, avoid the story, or shortcut to the end.




I suppose that rather depends upon what you want from the game, doesn't it?



> Judging from what I have read, assuming equal level of power between the "caster type" and the "fighter type" in the fiction, they are both balanced in power. Beowulf, Achilles, or Drizzt Do'Urden are on par with any similar level caster they can find.




Curiosity compels me to ask, which castersa are you referring to with Beowulf and Achilles, and how do you know their levels?



triqui said:


> Mort said:
> 
> 
> 
> Quite correct. Haste and Polymorph for example had *real* costs in prior editions (certain aging and small but real posibility of death respectively) making the caster actually have to think twice before casting them on himself or anyone else.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> That, however, does not make it any more balanced. Just like having fallout does not make a nuclear weapon balanced out compared to a shotgun.
Click to expand...



I suppose that rather depends upon what sort of balance you want from the game, and whether or not using the nuke and/or shotgun kills me as well as you, doesn't it?


----------



## Patryn of Elvenshae

Raven Crowking said:


> [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]:
> 
> You forget that, in 1e at least, you had a maximum # of spells per level, and had only a % chance of learning any spell that you attempted to write in your book.  On top of that, if the DM decided he had been overgenerous, a single fire (magical or not) or the lowly bookworm could restore the balance.




This keeps getting trotted out in these discussions, but I'm not really sure I buy it.

1) How many people really, _really_ played Wizards with less than a meaningful intelligence score?  (And by that I mean, "On this messageboard, I will totally claim that I played an Int 12 Wizard," as distinct from, "Yeah, I rolled him up, he died in the second room of the first adventure, and then I rolled up another one who just happened to have a 17 starting Int score.")  Once you hit, what, 16 or 17 Intelligence your failure chance to learn spells and your limit on spells per level were rendered fairly meaningless.

2) Yes, you *could* make the Wizard absolutely useless.  You could also put the fighters into dugeons filled with Rust Monsters and take away everything.  I don't think that arguing that older editions included "Oops - press the reset button!" rules is a particularly powerful way of claiming that they were somehow "more balanced."

Also, _bookworms_?  Man, that would be proof positive that you were just being a jerk.


----------



## billd91

Patryn of Elvenshae said:


> This keeps getting trotted out in these discussions, but I'm not really sure I buy it.
> 
> 1) How many people really, _really_ played Wizards with less than a meaningful intelligence score?  (And by that I mean, "On this messageboard, I will totally claim that I played an Int 12 Wizard," as distinct from, "Yeah, I rolled him up, he died in the second room of the first adventure, and then I rolled up another one who just happened to have a 17 starting Int score.")  Once you hit, what, 16 or 17 Intelligence your failure chance to learn spells and your limit on spells per level were rendered fairly meaningless.




Fairly meaningless? I'm going to guess you haven't refreshed your memory by looking up the 1e tables. A character with a highly respectable 16 Intelligence had a 35% chance to be unable to understand a given spell and was limited to 7 per level. With a 17, his chance to be unable to understand a spell was 25% and he got at most 8 per level. 

Those figures allow for a lot of flexibility, it's true. But that 17 Int character had a 25% to be unable to cast fireball, charm monster, fly, invisibility, and a whole lot of very useful spells. That's a substantial failure rate, not meaningless at all.


----------



## Patryn of Elvenshae

Actually, no - I don't own any 1E rulebooks, I've only got 2E.

And, assuming your numbers are correct, while there's a 25% chance he won't be able to cast any individual spell from that list, the chance that he won't be able to cast any of them is rather minute.

Moreover, you aren't accounting for the ability to pump up your prime requisite by reducing less important stats.  I'd say starting with a 16 Int for your wizard - at least, one you meant to play for awhile - was pretty rare in practice (especially given the numerous chances to reroll, create new characters, etc., that I've run into across the years).


----------



## billd91

Patryn of Elvenshae said:


> Moreover, you aren't accounting for the ability to pump up your prime requisite by reducing less important stats.  I'd say starting with a 16 Int for your wizard - at least, one you meant to play for awhile - was pretty rare in practice (especially given the numerous chances to reroll, create new characters, etc., that I've run into across the years).




That's assuming I *have* the ability to pump up my prime stat. I saw quite a few wizards in my day with 16s and 17s for Intelligence. As scores, they're quite respectable.

But you can't really expect one balancing tool to work at its full effectiveness if another one its related to is relaxed. If you thought the limits on spell knowledge were too weak, it may have been because you were in games that were too lax on having high stats. In other words, it's hard to credibly complain that the fence was ineffective at keeping the horses in when you left the door to the barn wide open.


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## Raven Crowking

Patryn of Elvenshae said:


> Actually, no - I don't own any 1E rulebooks, I've only got 2E.
> 
> And, assuming your numbers are correct, while there's a 25% chance he won't be able to cast any individual spell from that list, the chance that he won't be able to cast any of them is rather minute.
> 
> Moreover, you aren't accounting for the ability to pump up your prime requisite by reducing less important stats.  I'd say starting with a 16 Int for your wizard - at least, one you meant to play for awhile - was pretty rare in practice (especially given the numerous chances to reroll, create new characters, etc., that I've run into across the years).




Nah, my best 1e magic-user had a 15 Intelligence.

Once you got your starting spells (random ala the DMG), you were stuck learning what you could find.  If you topped out before you found the spells you wanted, too bad.  If you didn't learn the spells you found, then you could save the spots for the spells you wanted, but there was no guarantee of ever finding them.  And even if you found them, you might not be able to learn them.

The method by which PCs were made could make a difference, sure.  I always allowed 4d6, subtract the lowest die, arrange as desired.  That's the method I allowed in 1e.  And in 2e.  And in 3e.  And in RCFG.  So you can tell it has resonance with me!

The DM could make a real difference.  There is a world of difference between a well-run campaign and a mediocre one, and an even greater difference when one takes the possibility of a craptacular DM into the mix.

Oh, yeah, and you didn't have the huge number of castings per day that you got in 3e, so most casters had to marshal their spell resources carefully, IME.  When I was playing a magic-user, the ability to give intelligent advice during exploration + whatever uncast spells I had left were always of greater value than whatever spells had already been cast.

IOW, it wasn't what _*I had already done*_ that I had to be prepared for, it was what was *yet to come*.  With wandering monsters and the potential for wilderness encounters en route home, it was always wise to have a few spells reserved.

Which is another thing -- in 1e, a magic-user had to have access to his spellbooks to regain spells, and regaining spells took a loooonnnngggggg time.  The more spells you had, the longer it took.  The NPC wizard who was also exploring the dungeon probably didn't have his spellbook with him for the same reason you didn't -- carrying it around was foolish, and there was almost no chance to regain spells until you reached a base of operations anyway.

The need for *uninterrupted rest* meant that a single wandering monster spelled doom for our spellslinger's recovery, too.  For the magic-user, that allotment of spells was most often what you had for the adventure.  If you were lucky, you could replenish some of your lower-level spells the next day.

Counting on being able to do so was a good way to get yourself killed.



RC


----------



## CuRoi

Well, I should probably just not respond - we keep talking over each other and I think there is a very clear hang up on "minor terminological differences", to which I can only say I am not speaking about theory but actual gaming experience. Terminology be damned . 



pemerton said:


> I also think you're underestimating the contribution to the fiction made by the 4e wizard's mechanical features of spellbook and rituals.




It's entirely possible that I am. However, it reinforces the point. Rituals IMO, is where they shunted actual Magic aside from zapping stuff (yes, I know the powers include Utility stuff, but many of those seem very focused on being tactical powers. Bad thing? Possibly - if you don't want to define magic in that way in your game. )

And before you say I'm just knocking 4e - I had a problem with 3.5e when they decided to reinterpret several spells by applying a "how powerful are these spells in combat" measuring stick and killing duration of spells that could be very useful in a non-combat sense. As a 2e DM, I had absolutely no problem with Invisibility lasting 24 hours or until you attacked. Players could actually use the spell for detailed reconnaissance and not just ambushing for instance. 4e takes that forcing everything to fit the "tactical measuring stick" even further IMO which just irks me.



> But as to powers all being the same - I am really coming to think that this is more and more a _layout_ issue.




I don't buy it. I don't think simple placement would have fractured a community for years on end. 



> And in Pathfinder, I believe that wizards and clerics have at-will powers (orisons/cantrips)




I don't play Pathfinder but the example you give feels flawed though. Does pathfinder say "these are at will, standard action powers"? or does it say "these spells can be cast unlimited times using the standard 3.5 spellcasting rules?" 



> This is what I am still curious about. Why would a common layout and rules terminology for class abilities and features, that nevertheless preserves a number of key distinctions within the fiction (what is the source of the ability, what happens when it is used - both to the PC and to the target, etc), have this effect?




I think you are right. And I think as you describe it, it would not have that effect. However, clearly it did have some sort of effect on how people can tell their stories and how they play the game, thus the obvious divide. Therefore I think "common layout and rules terminology" isn't the only problem. I have no problem recognizing there is a clear difference, but you seem less interested in recognizing it for whatever reason.



> The differences are so obvious, to us at least, that the idea that they would not matter to the fiction is almost self-evidently absurd.




Great, again, whatever works for your group. However, the differences between what a fighter does and a wizard does in 3.5 are not just obvious to the players watching the story unfold. Those differences are also coded into the system in such a way that allow players to interact differently and at a different level with the game world. That works better for my group. 

Bottom line is - my game thrives with Magic defined as more separate from melee abilities. It thrives when magic is not limited by a system seeking mainly to provide mechanical balance which I had really little issue with to begin with.

In a big nutshell - 
[sblock]I don't want a system to define a list of powers for casters that focuses on tactical movement and the like and shunts much of the "magic" to a separate ritual system.

I don't need a system to "save me" from "I win DnD" spells like divinations, and high level summonings cause I can spin a whole session or even campaign around those spells (whether cast by PCs or NPCs). They keep me on my toes and provide for a good game where players feel they can take some ownership and power over the fiction.

I don't need a system to save me from Illusions which allow players to be wildly creative (beyond using simple tactical creativity). 

If a player wants to summon a mount and feed it to a Giant Beetle as a distraction, sounds disturbing, but ten years later, I still remember it. 

If my players want to band together and memorize a host of earth churning, creation bending, craftsmanship focused spells and create an impormptu fortress in the middle of enemy territory, more power to them.

If a player wants to be a cleric and trademark the summoning of multi-armed monkeys as his MO, thats annoying, but memorable. If an ape demon takes exception to the constant "borrowing" of his minions, hey, all the better.

If a player wants to "Wish" the party back to town with the Dragon's horde so they don't have to walk back through the frozen wastelands with it all and then the giant shelf of ice all the treasure was frozen into is transported along with them, arriving at said town at the same altitude it was previously at, it then falls, crushing part of a city block forcing a whole bunch of compensation claims, fines, etc. I am more than happy to oblige.

If the players want to try a blind teleport to shortcut the main quest, for the love of Pelor, PLEASE try it. Cause when they fail said roll and find themselves in a "similar" location - a location "similar" to the lost continent overrun by insidious evil which they were aiming for, the gloves are off.[/sblock]​Could a great DM work all the above into a 4e game? Absolutely. But not without expanding "magic" beyond what is given in the system as presented. However, in previous editions, from my experience, all the above examples are par for the course and there's no need to work the system around any of those events. The rules automatically suggest these situations and encourage players to think outside the box through broad spell definitions and a broader magic system with capabilities to interact with the game world that simply dwarf those found in 4e.

Sitting down thinking "can I recreate the same experience I have at my table right now using 4e" my answer is an unequivocal, No. So I won't play it (though to be fair, have tried). For others, I'm sure they can answer yes or they can make stories that fit their group playstyle even better using 4e. Great, awesome, enjoy your game!



> Rather, this is about whether or not the fictional differences can survive regimentation in rules layout and terminology. The claim that it _can't_ is one that I find very strange..




I never said it can't survive, obviously it does but it works to provide a very different experience which some people enjoy and others very obviously reject. These differences are obviously so fundamental that YEARS later people are still drawing the line and not "crossing over" to the new edition. Again, simply arguing the differences don't exist doesn't make them go away.


----------



## CuRoi

Patryn of Elvenshae said:


> Moreover, you aren't accounting for the ability to pump up your prime requisite by reducing less important stats. I'd say starting with a 16 Int for your wizard - at least, one you meant to play for awhile - was pretty rare in practice (especially given the numerous chances to reroll, create new characters, etc., that I've run into across the years).




Just to understand - are you saying starting with a 16 Int for a wizard is poor? A 16 anything is pretty impressive from my experience. I know everyone says "mileage may vary" but assuming gameplay by the vanilla rules, a 16 is fairly uncommon from 3d6. Sure, house rules will usually be in play for stat generation, and I have seen quite a few that generate some very high stats to start. Perfectly legit way to play, but the only issue is people forget to differentiate their game is a "high powered" game and we hear balance complaints and such...


----------



## Patryn of Elvenshae

billd91 said:


> But you can't really expect one balancing tool to work at its full effectiveness if another one its related to is relaxed.




I absolutely agree with that.  However, I'm just offering additional support for my overall position, which is "Yes, _in theory_ the spell learning % chance and the maximum number of spells known per level served to balance wizards; _in practice_, I don't believe they did as much as many people are claiming they did, for the reasons stated."



			
				RC said:
			
		

> Oh, yeah, and you didn't have the huge number of castings per day that you got in 3e, so most casters had to marshal their spell resources carefully, IME. When I was playing a magic-user, the ability to give intelligent advice during exploration + whatever uncast spells I had left were always of greater value than whatever spells had already been cast.




Walk with me a moment ... 

The difference between a 1st-level Wizard in 3E and a 1st-level Wizard in 2E (the non-3E+ version I'm most familiar with) is: 1 1st-level spell (due to bonus from Int) and 3 Cantrips.  

Now, for some reason, I don't have the 2E spell progression tables memorized (  ), but I do recall that, like in 3E, I got 1 2nd-level spell at level 3, and 1 3rd-level spell at 5, so I don't imagine that it's all that different.  (I'm open to being wrong here, though, if someone has their book in front of them.)  So, at those levels, anyway, the difference will, again, be the +1 additional spell due to a high Int.

Accepting that cantrips aren't particularly useful spells most of the time, I don't see that there's all that many spells more in 3E than in 2E ...

... until you start counting self-crafted scrolls.

That's where I really see the difference showing up - the well-prepared 3E wizard has a lot more triicks up his sleeve, simply because he can, with a relatively modest amount of gold and XP expenditure, ensure that his "useable once in a blue moon spells" are always availble, and fill his memorized slots with "needed on a daily basis" stuff - like combat spells.

The real problem with scrolls is that D&D's always had a bit of a psychosis in regards to them (and most other magic items, too).  The previous editions of the rules made them out to be ridiculously rare and nigh-impossible to create (requiring basilisk blood ink and cockatrice feather quills to scribe a simple scroll of Sleep), but then tossed them around willy-nilly in treasure troves.  This is one of those things that never made sense to me - and 3E's solution (even low-level wizards can scribe low-level scrolls) has created its own problems.

As far as the traveling mage and spellbooks go, isn't that why people created traveling spellbooks?


----------



## Raven Crowking

Walk with me for a moment.....

Your 1st level 1e magic-user?  He has one spell.  When he uses it, it is gone.

And he selects that from four spells, one of which is _read magic_, and the other three of which are determined randomly.

I repeat.  When he uses it, it is gone.

As for travelling spellbooks, 1e has a little something called "item saving throws", which mean that, come fireball or fall, equipment can and will be destroyed.  Even a little dip in the underground pool at the end of that chute can mean the end of your travelling books.  And why do you carry them into the dungeon, anyway?  The best thing to do is leave them at your base camp, with your full set at home, hidden and guarded.  It isn't as though you are likely to gain 8 hours of uninterrupted rest, or the chance to memorize them afterwards (or, at least, not once you become a level where they are affordable).


RC


----------



## Patryn of Elvenshae

CuRoi said:


> Just to understand - are you saying starting with a 16 Int for a wizard is poor? A 16 anything is pretty impressive from my experience. I know everyone says "mileage may vary" but assuming gameplay by the vanilla rules, a 16 is fairly uncommon from 3d6. Sure, house rules will usually be in play for stat generation, and I have seen quite a few that generate some very high stats to start. Perfectly legit way to play, but the only issue is people forget to differentiate their game is a "high powered" game and we hear balance complaints and such...




I had a longer post here, but ENWorld ate it.  In summary:

1) I meant "less than 16" but forgot the "less than" part.  I'll fix it.  I suspect that most long-running wizards had 16+ Int, and I bet 17+ was more likely - but that's just a suspicion.

2) I further suspect that long-running characters had better stats than 3d6-in-order would indicate because of player preferences, very common house-rules obviating 3d6-in-order, and higher-lethality of earlier versions killing off weaker characters disproportionately.  This is backed up by personal experience at multiple gaming tables across the country, but it's just an anecdote.


----------



## Patryn of Elvenshae

Raven Crowking said:


> Walk with me for a moment.....
> 
> Your 1st level 1e magic-user?  He has one spell.  When he uses it, it is gone.
> 
> And he selects that from four spells, one of which is _read magic_, and the other three of which are determined randomly.
> 
> I repeat.  When he uses it, it is gone.




What do you mean, "gone"?

It's only gone until he sleeps and memorizes it again.  Just like the 3E wizard.  Except the 3E wizard has 2 Sleep spells memorized - which means he isn't useless in two combats, instead of 1.



> And why do you carry them into the dungeon, anyway?  The best thing to do is leave them at your base camp, with your full set at home, hidden and guarded.  It isn't as though you are likely to gain 8 hours of uninterrupted rest, or the chance to memorize them afterwards (or, at least, not once you become a level where they are affordable).




You never spiked a room shut and took a nap while exploring a megadungeon?  Or left the dungeon and retreated to your fortified camp an hour's march away?

I mean, maybe I'm way off base here, but we did that _all the time_ while playing 2E.


----------



## billd91

Patryn of Elvenshae said:


> The real problem with scrolls is that D&D's always had a bit of a psychosis in regards to them (and most other magic items, too).  The previous editions of the rules made them out to be ridiculously rare and nigh-impossible to create (requiring basilisk blood ink and cockatrice feather quills to scribe a simple scroll of Sleep), but then tossed them around willy-nilly in treasure troves.  This is one of those things that never made sense to me - and 3E's solution (even low-level wizards can scribe low-level scrolls) has created its own problems.




3e's approach - making magic items easy to make and/or get - does lead to some problems including the Big 6 and wizards with utility items out the wazoo. But I think you're overstating the dichotomies of 1e/2e. Yes, scrolls were odd to make, based mostly on DM poetic fiat (and at least being a 7th level caster) but I'm not sure I'd say they were tossed about willy-nilly. They made up 15% of your random treasure hoard and only 60% of those were actually spell scrolls (the rest were cursed or protection scrolls). And 30% of those, in turn, were clerical. That's some fair moderation, I'd say.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Patryn of Elvenshae said:


> What do you mean, "gone"?
> 
> It's only gone until he sleeps and memorizes it again.




The time requirements in 1e were, let us say, _*tougher*_ than in any later edition.  Now, I don't have my books on me, but I am sure I will be corrected if I misspeak:  Our magic-user needs 8 hours of uninterrupted rest followed by 1 hour of uninterrupted study in order to regain his single spell.

Imagine our same wizard with two first and one second level spells.  He now needs eight hours of sleep followed by four hours of study to regain his spells.

1e also has a base 1 in 6 chance of a wandering monster every 10 minutes (mileage varying by location).

Your fortified base camp 1 hour from the dungeon?  Well, you'd better hope that nothing followed you home, and that there were no wilderness encounters, or that you hired man-at-arms enough to prevent the lowly magic-user from being disturbed.

And that uninterrupted rest?  It means that your casters cannot be counted on for a turn at watch.

These were strictures that 2e loosened up on, and 3e moreso.  Not only that, but the 1e DM was told to roll those wandering monsters unless the players had been damn careful about where they camped, whereas the 2e DM was told to try to keep the players alive regardless.

And, frankly, just spiking a room shut and taking a nap is a good way to die.  I've done it, sure.  As an act of desperation, or when I found a place waaaayyyyy off the beaten track.  But, more often than not, it was a foolish act.

(I once had a paladin who "cleared" a dungeon.  And then, wounded and thinking I was safe, I chose to take a nap.  Too bad I didn't discover that secret door.......)


RC


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## billd91

Raven Crowking said:


> The time requirements in 1e were, let us say, _*tougher*_ than in any later edition.  Now, I don't have my books on me, but I am sure I will be corrected if I misspeak:  Our magic-user needs 8 hours of uninterrupted rest followed by 1 hour of uninterrupted study in order to regain his single spell.




Ask and ye shall receive...
I have my 1e DMG right nearby. And it's not entirely as bleak as that.
The spellcaster needs a certain amount of rest to regain spells based on the highest level of spells he wants to regain. It starts at 4 hours for 1st and 2nd level spells, 6 hours for 3-4th level, 8 hours for 5-6th levels, 10 hours for 7-8th, and 12 whopping hours for 9th level spells.

And that's not all. Each spell level to be recovered requires 15 minutes. For first level spells, that's 15 minutes each. Second level spells 30 minutes each, etc.

I can't find anything about interruptions but I think I've looked long enough to make the point that recovering spells in 1e takes a LOT longer than 3e. Fire off a bunch of spells and you'll be spending substantial amounts of time recovering them.

EDIT: This is one reason, for those following these rules, that spellcasters were a bit more careful to conserve their resources in 1e.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Thanks.  Must spread XP around and all that.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

And that's where I and a lot of the guys I play with cut our teeth in gaming.  That playstyle tends to stick with you...


----------



## triqui

Raven Crowking said:


> "But Sauron is a Maia, and would detect and counter such uses of magic.  Not only would we not appear on Mount Doom, but we may well appear before his black throne in Barad Dur.  Worse, the attempt might well alert him to what we plan, and then all chances of success would fail."
> 
> and
> 
> "If you think lighting a little fire to keep us from freezing to death is going to draw unwanted attention, what do you imagine attempting to teleport is going to do?"
> 
> The plot of LotR is predicated in no small amount on its magic system, and vice versa.  That this is true doesn't mean that another magic system will prevent all other plots....or even a LotR-like plot, with a bit of work.




"not really, Sauron was aware of it's surrounding pretty much only at the end of the story, when he was closer to reform, and only around Mordor. Prior to that, he wasn't able to pinpoint Gandalf even if he used great powerful spells. For example, in the Battle against the Balrog, or comunicating with the Eagle Lord, and the Fellowship actually DID light more than a few fires in their run through most of Middle earth, when outside of Mordor"

and 
"don't really worry, he won't be able to react. Just like when he was aware of Frodo in Mount Doom, he wasn't really able to do anything, but setting the alarms on and calling the Nazguls back. So if I, Gandalf, start a teleport in, say, Bree's Tavern, long before the Nazguls came to me, we'll be into Mount Doom"

and 
"don't really worry, I'm a high level Wizard. I know "teleport without error" 

comes to mind to counter your "handweave DM fiat". 



> I suppose that rather depends upon what you want from the game, doesn't it?



I want a game that can't have it's plot busted, the story avoided, or the narration shortcut to the end, which is exactly what I said. Going from chapter 1 "The Story Begins" to chapter 19 "Fall of the Bad Guy" without even touching any of the wonderful 2 to 18 chapters suck in my opinion, from a narrative standpoint. YMMV, of course.



> Curiosity compels me to ask, which castersa are you referring to with Beowulf and Achilles, and how do you know their levels?



Beowulf defeated a magic demon (Grendel) with magic powers, and Grendel's Mother, which is a Hag. Beowulf level isn't set on stone (just like Aragorn's level isn't), but it's quite epic level (being able to singlehandlely defeat a Dragon, where Aragorn needed a full group of Adventureres to defeat a baby troll). 

Same goes with Achilles (or Perseus, or Jason, or any other of the Greek Heroes). My point is, regarding to the OP, that when in fiction the spellcaster is much more powerful than the martial guy, it's not becouse of magic being more powerful than martial training, but becouse of the comparative levels of
the Characters. Yes, both Merlin and Gandalf have power beyond Arthur or Aragorn, but that's becouse of the comparative levels of them. Merlin and Gandalf are plot devices, not "player characters", and thus aren't comparable to the main casting. However, Morgana isn't really much more powerful than Lancelot, and there are several first age warrior-type elves that can surpase Gandalf ability. Glorfindel defeats a Balrog using a club and a dagger, and Feanor or Fingolfin used to fight BATALLIONS of Balrogs.




> I suppose that rather depends upon what sort of balance you want from the game, and whether or not using the nuke and/or shotgun kills me as well as you, doesn't it?



That would be true, IF the only weapon I have is the nuke, which is not the case. When one of the war contendants have only a shotgun, and the other one has an array of weapons that go from a knife (which is silent, and also useful for out of combat stuff like skinning), a pistol (which is almost as good as a shotgun, plus can be concealed), a shotgun, PLUS a nuclear weapon (which has some big hindrances, of course, but you _dont have_ to use if you _dont want_, there is no balance. I, the mage, can downgrade my level of effectiveness to fighter level if I want, or in the fights that I dont really care or cant be arsed to employ my real potential. However, when the real danger appears, I *do* have a nuclear weapon, while the other guy *does not*

And that happens mostly in RPG (and only in D&D-style RPG, for that matter). Fiction never (or almost never) has uber-powerful plot-ending spells. More often than not, they don't even have "teleport". Same goes with other non-D&D style RPG: A Legend of the Five Rings Shugenja isn't really more powerful than a LoFR Bushi.


----------



## pemerton

billd91 said:


> A character with a highly respectable 16 Intelligence had a 35% chance to be unable to understand a given spell and was limited to 7 per level. With a 17, his chance to be unable to understand a spell was 25% and he got at most 8 per level.



I don't think your figures here are correct - perhaps you're citing the _minimums_ rather than the _maximums_. Max spells known for 18 Int was 18, and I think for 17 Int may have been 14 (I haven't got my PHB here, but this is the number given in a letter to the Forum in Dragon #122).



Raven Crowking said:


> The time requirements in 1e were, let us say, _*tougher*_ than in any later edition.  Now, I don't have my books on me, but I am sure I will be corrected if I misspeak:  Our magic-user needs 8 hours of uninterrupted rest followed by 1 hour of uninterrupted study in order to regain his single spell.





billd91 said:


> The spellcaster needs a certain amount of rest to regain spells based on the highest level of spells he wants to regain. It starts at 4 hours for 1st and 2nd level spells, 6 hours for 3-4th level, 8 hours for 5-6th levels, 10 hours for 7-8th, and 12 whopping hours for 9th level spells.
> 
> And that's not all. Each spell level to be recovered requires 15 minutes. For first level spells, that's 15 minutes each. Second level spells 30 minutes each, etc.
> 
> I can't find anything about interruptions but I think I've looked long enough to make the point that recovering spells in 1e takes a LOT longer than 3e. Fire off a bunch of spells and you'll be spending substantial amounts of time recovering them.



Billd91, you pre-empted my reply to RC.


But I don't entirely agree with your last paragraph. As a 4th level wizard in 1st ed AD&D I have 3 first and 2 second level spells. At 5th level I get a new 3rd level spell. So time to rest and memorise all spells at 4th level is 4 hours + 7*15 minutes is a bit less than 6 hours. I think that's less than 3E, which I believe for arcane casters requires 8 hours (though I think RC is right that it's less harsh as far as interruption is concerned). At 5th level it's 6 hours + 10*15 minutes which is eight-and-a-half hours. That's not very much more than 3E. I can't remember the spell table past this level - but even supposing that 6th level adds both a 2nd and a 3rd level spell, that's still a little less than 10 hours, which isn't hugely more onerous than 3E.

And once we get above 6th level, we're getting into the zone where 1st ed MUs are pretty strong - multiple fireballs or lightning bolts, stinking clouds or webs, and multi-target magic missiles, and often a wand or two to use in combat as well. Plus the utility options available. In my experience 7th+ level AD&D MUs were pretty potent characters regardless of the % chance to learn mechanics.


----------



## triqui

Raven Crowking said:


> Walk with me for a moment.....
> 
> Your 1st level 1e magic-user?  He has one spell.  When he uses it, it is gone.
> 
> And he selects that from four spells, one of which is _read magic_, and the other three of which are determined randomly.
> 
> I repeat.  When he uses it, it is gone.
> 
> As for travelling spellbooks, 1e has a little something called "item saving throws", which mean that, come fireball or fall, equipment can and will be destroyed.  Even a little dip in the underground pool at the end of that chute can mean the end of your travelling books.  And why do you carry them into the dungeon, anyway?  The best thing to do is leave them at your base camp, with your full set at home, hidden and guarded.  It isn't as though you are likely to gain 8 hours of uninterrupted rest, or the chance to memorize them afterwards (or, at least, not once you become a level where they are affordable).
> 
> 
> RC



I agree with you, (didn't play 1e, but played 2e extensively), 2e magic was much controled than 3e. To begin with, high level spells ussually had high initiative, and there was a real chance to interrupt them.

However, sleeping in the dungeons was a staple for the era. (It was for us, at the very least). I won't blame the casters, though. I remember sleeping in a dungeon in a "all martial types" campaign, becouse we were trapped on it, and had very low hp. So we took a rest (2 days of rest, actually), to recover a little bit. Spellcasters were the main offender of the dungeon-sleeping absurdity, but not the only ones.

And sleeping in the dungeon is not a pre-4 edition only issue. I also have seen extended rests inside a dungeon. Some 4e official adventures even have "sleeping spots", or places in the dungeon that are described as "this would be a safe place to have an extended rest"


----------



## pemerton

CuRoi said:


> Rituals IMO, is where they shunted actual Magic aside from zapping stuff (yes, I know the powers include Utility stuff, but many of those seem very focused on being tactical powers. Bad thing? Possibly - if you don't want to define magic in that way in your game. )



Actually about half the Warlock and Wizard utilities in the PHB are non-tactical combat spells (I make it 10 non-combat, 8 combat for Warlocks and 10, 11 for Wizards, counting small-distance single-target teleport effects as combat and counting invisibility as useful outside combat).

But that probably is not the main issue.



CuRoi said:


> As a 2e DM, I had absolutely no problem with Invisibility lasting 24 hours or until you attacked. Players could actually use the spell for detailed reconnaissance and not just ambushing for instance. 4e takes that forcing everything to fit the "tactical measuring stick" even further IMO which just irks me.



As a Rolemaster GM one thing that I did, in the transition from our first long-running campaign to our second, and with the agreement of my players, was to significantly reduce the duration of Invisibility from 24 hours, on the grounds that our group had found it brokenly overpowered, completely dominating over other interesting options.

I think this is getting closer to the main issue.



CuRoi said:


> I don't play Pathfinder but the example you give feels flawed though. Does pathfinder say "these are at will, standard action powers"? or does it say "these spells can be cast unlimited times using the standard 3.5 spellcasting rules?"



As far as I'm concerned this _is_ mere terminology, unless you mean by "standard spellcasting rules" to include the need for Conentration checks if hit while casting. If _that_ is what differentiates spellcasting from martial prowess, in my view it's not a lot of difference that is being drawn. (And 3E has SU powers as well as SP ones, and SU ones can't be disrupted - so even in 3E disruption is not inherent to magic-use.)



CuRoi said:


> Bottom line is - my game thrives with Magic defined as more separate from melee abilities. It thrives when magic is not limited by a system seeking mainly to provide mechanical balance which I had really little issue with to begin with.
> 
> In a big nutshell -
> [sblock]I don't want a system to define a list of powers for casters that focuses on tactical movement and the like and shunts much of the "magic" to a separate ritual system.
> 
> I don't need a system to "save me" from "I win DnD" spells like divinations, and high level summonings cause I can spin a whole session or even campaign around those spells (whether cast by PCs or NPCs). They keep me on my toes and provide for a good game where players feel they can take some ownership and power over the fiction.
> 
> I don't need a system to save me from Illusions which allow players to be wildly creative (beyond using simple tactical creativity).
> 
> If a player wants to summon a mount and feed it to a Giant Beetle as a distraction, sounds disturbing, but ten years later, I still remember it.
> 
> If my players want to band together and memorize a host of earth churning, creation bending, craftsmanship focused spells and create an impormptu fortress in the middle of enemy territory, more power to them.
> 
> If a player wants to be a cleric and trademark the summoning of multi-armed monkeys as his MO, thats annoying, but memorable. If an ape demon takes exception to the constant "borrowing" of his minions, hey, all the better.
> 
> If a player wants to "Wish" the party back to town with the Dragon's horde so they don't have to walk back through the frozen wastelands with it all and then the giant shelf of ice all the treasure was frozen into is transported along with them, arriving at said town at the same altitude it was previously at, it then falls, crushing part of a city block forcing a whole bunch of compensation claims, fines, etc. I am more than happy to oblige.
> 
> If the players want to try a blind teleport to shortcut the main quest, for the love of Pelor, PLEASE try it. Cause when they fail said roll and find themselves in a "similar" location - a location "similar" to the lost continent overrun by insidious evil which they were aiming for, the gloves are off.[/sblock]​



Well, in your list of things that magic does in your game that it can't do in 4e, I don't see anything that turns on issues like the different way that 3E presents martial powers compared to the scholarly way in which a wizard learns magic (as you suggested in your post upthread).

What I tend to see is the use of magic as narrative control which is the whole premise for this thread - in a game where magic is doing those sorts of things, _and in this respect is different from martial prowess_, how are warriors to avoid being overshadowed?



CuRoi said:


> Sitting down thinking "can I recreate the same experience I have at my table right now using 4e" my answer is an unequivocal, No.



And that's fine. And probably true. Because in 4e no PC can exercise the sort of control over narrative exhibited by most of your examples. All I'm contesting is that this shows that 4e has collapsed the distinction between magic and martial capabilities. In my view, at least, what makes magical abilities magic _isn't_ the fact that they give wizard PCs a degree of narrative control that warrior PC's can't match. And as evidence for this I'll offer LotR - as is frequently noted (eg by triqui in this very thread), Gandalf _doesn't_ use narrative-control magic to get the ring to Mount Doom, but nevertheless there is a manifest difference in the story between (for example) Gandalf fighting Nazgul by (in 4e terms) blasting them with radiance, and Eowyn and Merry fighting them by stabbing them with swords.​


----------



## triqui

CuRoi said:


> It's entirely possible that I am. However, it reinforces the point. Rituals IMO, is where they shunted actual Magic aside from zapping stuff (yes, I know the powers include Utility stuff, but many of those seem very focused on being tactical powers. Bad thing? Possibly - if you don't want to define magic in that way in your game. )
> 
> And before you say I'm just knocking 4e - I had a problem with 3.5e when they decided to reinterpret several spells by applying a "how powerful are these spells in combat" measuring stick and killing duration of spells that could be very useful in a non-combat sense. As a 2e DM, I had absolutely no problem with Invisibility lasting 24 hours or until you attacked. Players could actually use the spell for detailed reconnaissance and not just ambushing for instance. 4e takes that forcing everything to fit the "tactical measuring stick" even further IMO which just irks me.



I did have a problem with Invisibility as a rogue, back in the 2e, though. Not only with invisibility, but with Knock too. It completely step on my toes as the "party explorer". Sure, I can still get a cookie here and there, and get a chance to infiltrate in places _when it doesnt matter_ or if stakes aren´t high. But if it is something really important, then the real character (also known as the wizard) step in and do the real job. That was frustrating for me (although made the wizard player very happy). YMMV, though.

I guess this makes to a fundamental aspect of the situation. When in a "magic can do everything" style of play/fiction, there are some players that don't like the situation, becouse the spotlight is never on them, except when it doesn't matter, and they feel themselves as second-grade characters or guest starrings. Those players can't really do anything about it, except rolling a character that has the qualities needed to be the one who shines (so, a spellcaster). Other players, though, are just fine with it. They either like to play spellcasters, or are confortable with a co-starring. Not all the players want the same from the game, lot of them just want to meet, chat with friends, take pizza, laugh a lot and have fun (which is really a great stance, btw), and aren't really involved in creating the fiction, moving the plot or starring the game. 

4e has a design that contain a clear flaw. It's fundamental stone is that all the players *want* balance, and all the players *want* to share the spot light. And that's simply not true. Some players doesn't really want to get involved that much (either in the narrativity, or rules-wise, or both), and are perfectly fine with being surpassed by other character's power. And that's 3e (and specially 2e) real power: it can acommodate such players much better. In 4e, those "casual players" have a tough time. Even if they become fighters, they still have options. They have powers, feats, and utilities just as much as everyother guy (or close to. Wizards still have more, becouse of rituals). And that can be frustrating for them. 

On the other hand, 3e had a problem for players that wanted balance, or a fair share of spotlight, *and didnt want to roll a spellcaster* for whatever reasons (like simply liking Arthur more than Merlin as an archetype). So it bassically sums it up as: "what are the majority of your players up to?" If your group is fine with having 2 separated levels of importance (ie: "bob is the one that stealths into orc's camp, but when you plan to stealth into the Orc King Throne Hall you need Mike's invisibility spell", or "bob rolls gather info, but if the matter is really important, then Jack cast Commune"), then 3e, or Rolemaster, is your game. However, if you want all the players to share the spotlight and/or being balanced, then 4e, or Legends of the Five Rings, are better choices.


----------



## Raven Crowking

triqui said:


> "not really, Sauron was aware of it's surrounding pretty much only at the end of the story, when he was closer to reform, and only around Mordor.




It should be noted that, within the novel, both the forces of Saruman and Mordor converge on the Fellowship shortly after the battle with the Balrog.  The Fellowship gets a respite in Lorien, but then the orcs of the Red Eye, of the White Hand, and of Moria all know the rough area they are in.

So, one could say that Gandalf's magic did, indeed, alert both Sauron and Saruman as to his whereabouts.

I could go into the string of coincidences that prevents Sauron from noticing Frodo creeping into Mordor.....certainly the film version screwed these up.  Once the Fellowship parted, Gandalf was freer with the magic because he wanted to draw Sauron's attention, rather than avoid it.  He wanted the Eye looking where he was at.  The whole point of the last march to the Black Gate was to prevent Sauron from paying attention to his own back yard.



> "don't really worry, he won't be able to react. Just like when he was aware of Frodo in Mount Doom, he wasn't really able to do anything, but setting the alarms on and calling the Nazguls back. So if I, Gandalf, start a teleport in, say, Bree's Tavern, long before the Nazguls came to me, we'll be into Mount Doom"




We know that Sauron's power is greatly increased within the confines of Mordor.  I am not at all certain that, should Gandalf even know "teleport without error", that Sauron could not bend it to his will.



> I want a game that can't have it's plot busted, the story avoided, or the narration shortcut to the end, which is exactly what I said.




Yeah.  And that's fine.

For my tastes, though, I'm not writing a novel when I play a role-playing game.  There is no Chapter 1 or Chapter 19, or Chapters 2 to 18 in between.  The narrative is what happens in the game, how the players choose to interact with the situations I (or they) have set up.

Success, failure, life, death, wealth by level .... None of these is known until it happens.



triqui said:


> I agree with you, (didn't play 1e, but played 2e extensively), 2e magic was much controled than 3e. To begin with, high level spells ussually had high initiative, and there was a real chance to interrupt them.




There are days, as I am working on my own version, when I wonder why I don't just go back to 1e.  



> And sleeping in the dungeon is not a pre-4 edition only issue.




No.  There have been modules going back to 1e that suggested there was a place nearby (or even hidden within the dungeon) that was safe.  But, of course, the DM knowing it is safe =/= the players knowing it is safe.

There is a major difference (IMHO; YMMV) between sleeping in a dungeon as a tactical decision ("Guys, we might get eaten by a grue, but I think we're going to have to take our chances") and sleeping in a dungeon as the only smart thing to do ("We take an extended rest.  Guards?  Why would we set guards?  We're not in an encounter area, are we?")

And I don't blame 4e for the latter; the blame lies squarely with 3e.

Once a game's combat system takes so long to resolve anything that GMs are being advised to drop wandering monsters and other "unimportant" combats, there is no real decision involved.  There's no reason not to burn everything in every encounter, then sleep it off/reset before the next.

In turn, this means that to be "challenging" an encounter must be "challenging to PCs at full strength", which further reinforces the nuke-sleep-nuke style of gameplay.

(And if I am not careful, I am going to begin to discuss in great detail how this gives rise to the "lets-control-all-variables-of-encounters-because-balance-and-challenge-are-otherwise-difficult-to-achieve" Delve format that arose in 3e and continues into 4e.)

Actually, how well balanced is something, if it cannot survive large changes of its variables and remain intact?  I.e., would something really open like Keep on the Borderland or Steading of the Hill Giant Chief work in 4e without massive changes?  Has anyone tried?  Want to fork a thread about your experiences?


RC


----------



## billd91

pemerton said:


> I don't think your figures here are correct - perhaps you're citing the _minimums_ rather than the _maximums_. Max spells known for 18 Int was 18, and I think for 17 Int may have been 14 (I haven't got my PHB here, but this is the number given in a letter to the Forum in Dragon #122).




Whoops. Wrong column. My mistake. Note however that the maximums are still fairly modest 11 spells for 16 Int, 14 for 17. 
And the learning mechanic still limits the wizard's assurance that he'll have the right spell for all occasions. A lot of 3e-era theorycrafting becomes a lot more theoretical.



pemerton said:


> And once we get above 6th level, we're getting into the zone where 1st ed MUs are pretty strong - multiple fireballs or lightning bolts, stinking clouds or webs, and multi-target magic missiles, and often a wand or two to use in combat as well. Plus the utility options available. In my experience 7th+ level AD&D MUs were pretty potent characters regardless of the % chance to learn mechanics.




And that's right at the time when re-memorizing all those spells, by the rules, becomes a serious chore. A wizard's got a lot of potential power, true. But in order to have an effect on the game, he has to *use* it, and that comes with a cost.

All this said about the rules used to balance wizards and other spellcasters in 1e, 3e did change a lot of them. But I think, realistically speaking, a lot of those changes reflected how people were actually playing the game. I played in 1e campaigns in which we largely ignored the chance to learn based on Intelligence. We simply weren't that worried about it and we really weren't particularly bit by unbalanced spellcasters - within the bounds of what we considered balanced to be. It was perfectly reasonable for a wizard to have strange, reality altering powers that other characters didn't have because that's an inherent property of magic. We simply made sure that fighters and thieves had plenty of things to do as well.


----------



## Neonchameleon

triqui said:


> 4e has a design that contain a clear flaw. It's fundamental stone is that all the players *want* balance, and all the players *want* to share the spot light. And that's simply not true. ... In 4e, those "casual players" have a tough time. Even if they become fighters, they still have options.




This has been changed a _lot_ by Essentials. The Slayer and the Knight deliberately have few enough options that in play they can be put onto auto-pilot, and the thief is little different.


----------



## triqui

Raven Crowking said:


> It should be noted that, within the novel, both the forces of Saruman and Mordor converge on the Fellowship shortly after the battle with the Balrog.  The Fellowship gets a respite in Lorien, but then the orcs of the Red Eye, of the White Hand, and of Moria all know the rough area they are in.
> 
> So, one could say that Gandalf's magic did, indeed, alert both Sauron and Saruman as to his whereabouts.



 As I said, so what? Sauron wasn't able to do nothing at that range, other than sending minions. Gandalf start to cast Teleport without error. Sauron notice it. Sauron sends Nazguls. 6 seconds later, Gandalf has cast the spell, and Frodo is sent into the lava, with his "protection from elements" on. End of a wonderful story 



> We know that Sauron's power is greatly increased within the confines of Mordor.  I am not at all certain that, should Gandalf even know "teleport without error", that Sauron could not bend it to his will.



Which leaves us to "the only way to avoid magic completelly overshadowing story, is through the use of more magic". Specifically, hand weaving magic.

Even if you cant "shortcut" it to Mordor, spells like "mass flight" or "mass teleport" to Gondor would render useless 85% of the books. And the only way to avoid it, is avoiding magic enterelly. That's why, in fictions, Magic does not really play a large factor with "plotbusting" spells that D&D do have (such as teleport, scry, detect alignment, etc). We don't know if Gandalf is unable to cast "D&D pre 4e" style magic, or if he is theoritecally able, but can't do due to plot design (ie: Sauron's will). In any case, the story itself does not have magic. Becouse if it does have, then the story loses steam. Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli awesomeness would be dwarfed completelly. There would be no adventuring through Moria, no skirmishes near Lorien, no diplomacy with Rohirrim. Just an Arcane Gate from Rivendel to Gondor.





> Yeah.  And that's fine.
> 
> For my tastes, though, I'm not writing a novel when I play a role-playing game.  There is no Chapter 1 or Chapter 19, or Chapters 2 to 18 in between.  The narrative is what happens in the game, how the players choose to interact with the situations I (or they) have set up.



So do I. Chapter 3, 7 and 10 aren't writen. They don't need to happen as I wrote them (actually, I never write it before hand). But that does not mean you should be able to jump from 1 to 19. You can solve (or fail) chapter 3 as you wish. But you (the players) should *build* a chapter 3, not just skipping it. 

I remember a game with a murderer. We were investigating who killed a countess inside his chariot. There were a lot of betrayal, diplomacy and investigation involved. However, our druid just Speak with animal, asked the horse in the charriot, and the count was caught. Quite anticlimatic. Yes, there are ways to make those spells not work. But what's the point to have them, if you have to hand-weave to counter them? When you start needing to give every single hidden spy/traitor a talisman of non-detection, a headband to avoid mind-probing ESP, and "nystul auras" to avoid such magic items being detected, then you have flawed magic system. Sames goes when every single assasin in the world needs some magic way to avoid magic ressurection, or is fired from his guild: Anyone worth killing, has enough money to pay for raise dead. Anyone worth poisoning, can pay for a Neutralize Poison.

Remember once too, (I was DM) that players were doing a "run" against a pirate ship to find the spot where a sunken city lied. The players choose to cast some Clairvoyance on the pirate ship, then teleport into it, and sunken it, and teleport back. I really wasn't able to avoid it, other than adding the pirate unreasonable countermeasures that they, story wise, shouldn't have. So there you go, anti-climatic sunk of the pirate vessel, and half of the story shortcut. Where did it end? When the drow wizard, who was paying the pirate, did the same to players unsuspecting ship. And next day, when they were in a beach, nearly defenseless, the wizard cast scry-teleport, and killed most of them. 

Magic is like nuclear weapons. If it's allowed, then everything is built around it. There's no point to buy ships, tanks, airplanes.... Once the nukes start flying, only the nukes matter. And that's quite sad.

Back to the OP, I have seen few, or none, fiction where magic is omnipressent, everything is done with magic, and all problems are solved with spells. Gandalf still needs to go to Gondor *walking*,  and needs to learn about the ring, *reading in a library*


----------



## Kerranin

This might already have been mentioned on this thread, my apologies if it has.

One of my favourite ways of limiting spell-casters is to have some form of backlash rules built into spell casting.  The more powerful the spell, the more likely and more severe the backlash could be, perhaps sending them unconcious, insane or possibly even killing them outright.  Increasing experience might allow you to reduce chances of backlash on weaker spells...

I suspect this sort of rule has already been implemented somewhere.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Kerranin said:


> This might already have been mentioned on this thread, my apologies if it has.
> 
> One of my favourite ways of limiting spell-casters is to have some form of backlash rules built into spell casting. The more powerful the spell, the more likely and more severe the backlash could be, perhaps sending them unconcious, insane or possibly even killing them outright. Increasing experience might allow you to reduce chances of backlash on weaker spells...
> 
> I suspect this sort of rule has already been implemented somewhere.




Two systems I've seen used do this - the second works really well even if you give wizards plotbusting magic.

1: Gurps Unlimited Mana. You get a pool of X mana recovering at a rate of Y and if you go above that value you start taking backlash based on your total amount over (so after that big spell, _everything_ gets risky). Blow waaay through it and yu could die or worse. This is designed to _allow_ big spells. If the wizards want to risk it...

2: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2e. You get a number of magic dice equal to your magic stat (1-4) and can roll any or all of them when trying to cast, aiming the total at a static target number. If all the dice roll 1 you burn out for a while. On a double you take a minor but obnoxious backlash irrespective of whether the casting succeeded. A triple is a major backlash. And a quadruple does things like accidently summoning a greater demon. (The exact effect is based on the number you rolled with all 1s not being as bad as all 10s). Being a WHFRP wizard may be powerful, but it's also _scary_.


----------



## Raven Crowking

triqui said:


> As I said, so what? Sauron wasn't able to do nothing at that range, other than sending minions.




We actually have no clear idea of what Sauron can and cannot do.

Your point is taken, though; now let me counter:

You have a murder mystery, where the Count is the killer.  The horse says so, to the druid.  According to the druid, who may also be the killer, or in league with the killer to frame the Count, as far as any of the NPCs know.  For that matter, for all the druid knows, the Count may whip the horse from time to time, and the horse has it in for him.  Or the killer may have been wearing the Count's cloak, thus carrying his scent.

Sure, the adventure changes with the horse's testimony.  But it also changes with the stable boy's testimony.

The problem with magic is that it offers "revealed knowledge", and while the value of that knowledge might be greater than that which is mundanely gathered, the mundane knowledge is perhaps more sure.  I mean, do we actually expect the King to hang the Count because a druid told him a horse said he was the murderer?  What makes the horse's testimony so special?  What makes the druid's?

In such a world, the villians need say nothing more than "A pigeon saw the PCs conspiring against the King!" and every hand will be against them!


RC


----------



## Raven Crowking

triqui said:


> Remember once too, (I was DM) that players were doing a "run" against a pirate ship to find the spot where a sunken city lied. The players choose to cast some Clairvoyance on the pirate ship, then teleport into it, and sunken it, and teleport back. I really wasn't able to avoid it, other than adding the pirate unreasonable countermeasures that they, story wise, shouldn't have. So there you go, anti-climatic sunk of the pirate vessel, and half of the story shortcut. Where did it end? When the drow wizard, who was paying the pirate, did the same to players unsuspecting ship. And next day, when they were in a beach, nearly defenseless, the wizard cast scry-teleport, and killed most of them.




There isn't enough information to go on here, but let us discuss.  

I am assuming that this was a Teleport Without Error?  Otherwise, so sad to end up in another ship's bilge (perchance, for without actually going topside, how does the teleporter know what ship he is on?).

You left out how he sunk the pirate ship.  Did it sink instantly?  Were there no bilge pumps, and no materials for emergency repairs?  Was there no chance of a pirate discovering our caster augering out the bilge?  Was there no time for the pirate ship to turn and try to capture the PC's ship to replace their own?



RC


----------



## Hussar

billd91 said:


> Fairly meaningless? I'm going to guess you haven't refreshed your memory by looking up the 1e tables. A character with a highly respectable 16 Intelligence had a 35% chance to be unable to understand a given spell and was limited to 7 per level. With a 17, his chance to be unable to understand a spell was 25% and he got at most 8 per level.
> 
> Those figures allow for a lot of flexibility, it's true. But that 17 Int character had a 25% to be unable to cast fireball, charm monster, fly, invisibility, and a whole lot of very useful spells. That's a substantial failure rate, not meaningless at all.




Swimming a bit upthread, but, a minor nitpick.

That chance of being unable to cast a particular spell can be rerolled every level.  It's quite possible that you might not get the spell this level, but, get it a couple of levels later.



CuRoi said:


> Just to understand - are you saying starting with a 16 Int for a wizard is poor? A 16 anything is pretty impressive from my experience. I know everyone says "mileage may vary" but assuming gameplay by the vanilla rules, a 16 is fairly uncommon from 3d6. Sure, house rules will usually be in play for stat generation, and I have seen quite a few that generate some very high stats to start. Perfectly legit way to play, but the only issue is people forget to differentiate their game is a "high powered" game and we hear balance complaints and such...




Another minor nitpick.  The standard method of stat generation in 1e was 4d6 drop the lowest, arrange to taste, not 3d6.


----------



## Hussar

Raven Crowking said:


> We actually have no clear idea of what Sauron can and cannot do.
> 
> Your point is taken, though; now let me counter:
> 
> You have a murder mystery, where the Count is the killer.  The horse says so, to the druid.  According to the druid, who may also be the killer, or in league with the killer to frame the Count, as far as any of the NPCs know.  For that matter, for all the druid knows, the Count may whip the horse from time to time, and the horse has it in for him.  Or the killer may have been wearing the Count's cloak, thus carrying his scent.
> 
> Sure, the adventure changes with the horse's testimony.  But it also changes with the stable boy's testimony.
> 
> The problem with magic is that it offers "revealed knowledge", and while the value of that knowledge might be greater than that which is mundanely gathered, the mundane knowledge is perhaps more sure.  I mean, do we actually expect the King to hang the Count because a druid told him a horse said he was the murderer?  What makes the horse's testimony so special?  What makes the druid's?
> 
> In such a world, the villians need say nothing more than "A pigeon saw the PCs conspiring against the King!" and every hand will be against them!
> 
> 
> RC




The problem isn't when the horse says the count did it because, you are absolutely right, the horse is simply another actor in the ongoing story.

However, when I hit the Divination button, because I'm a 7th level cleric, and my GOD tells me that the Count did it, that's a bit stronger.  Or various mind reading spells.  Or, Zone of Truth and simply ask everyone.  Or or or.  

There's a million and one different plot asploding spells out there.  Speak with animals is a pretty minor one.  Commune is a tad stronger.



			
				Bill91 said:
			
		

> Whoops. Wrong column. My mistake. Note however that the maximums are still fairly modest 11 spells for 16 Int, 14 for 17.
> And the learning mechanic still limits the wizard's assurance that he'll have the right spell for all occasions. A lot of 3e-era theorycrafting becomes a lot more theoretical.




Sort of.  Look at the actual list of MU spells in the PHB.  11 spells covers nearly the entire list for anything over 4th level.  1st level has what, 20 ish spells?  With a 16 Int, I've got most of the bases covered and anything more than that is gravy.

But, that does speak a lot to your second point.  A lot of the 3e era spells simply don't exist in 1e D&D.  They're not an issue.

But, as far as DM's dictating the cleric's spells, doesn't that cut both ways?  If the DM knows that they are heading into a murder mystery situation, shouldn't he tailor the cleric's list to be the most useful?  Isn't that actually worse than letting the player pick his spell list?  Unless, of course, the DM is being a bit of a dick and deliberately withholding spells that would be the most useful.


----------



## billd91

Hussar said:


> Swimming a bit upthread, but, a minor nitpick.
> 
> That chance of being unable to cast a particular spell can be rerolled every level.  It's quite possible that you might not get the spell this level, but, get it a couple of levels later.




That was not the case in 1st edition. In that edition, there's no provision for being able to retry unless you end up being able to understand fewer than your minimum number of spells for that level.


----------



## Mort

Raven Crowking said:


> We actually have no clear idea of what Sauron can and cannot do.
> 
> Your point is taken, though; now let me counter:
> 
> You have a murder mystery, where the Count is the killer.  The horse says so, to the druid.  According to the druid, who may also be the killer, or in league with the killer to frame the Count, as far as any of the NPCs know.  For that matter, for all the druid knows, the Count may whip the horse from time to time, and the horse has it in for him.  Or the killer may have been wearing the Count's cloak, thus carrying his scent.
> 
> Sure, the adventure changes with the horse's testimony.  But it also changes with the stable boy's testimony.
> 
> The problem with magic is that it offers "revealed knowledge", and while the value of that knowledge might be greater than that which is mundanely gathered, the mundane knowledge is perhaps more sure.  I mean, do we actually expect the King to hang the Count because a druid told him a horse said he was the murderer?  What makes the horse's testimony so special?  What makes the druid's?
> 
> In such a world, the villians need say nothing more than "A pigeon saw the PCs conspiring against the King!" and every hand will be against them!
> 
> RC




Your point depends on the view of the society in question. If magic is not trusted, then the testimony is going to be a bad idea at best; if talking to animals is a known quantity (and maybe even has precedent in the legal system) then procedures are in place and it's just another form of testimony.

Same for Druids. If they're shadowy figures not trusted by society - one situation; If they are advisors, scholers and counselors then another one entirely.

I think it can be reasonably certain though: high access to divination magic will make significant impact on a campaign - making the DM at the very least have to consider it when designing scenarios.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:


> The problem isn't when the horse says the count did it because, you are absolutely right, the horse is simply another actor in the ongoing story.
> 
> However, when I hit the Divination button, because I'm a 7th level cleric, and my GOD tells me that the Count did it, that's a bit stronger.  Or various mind reading spells.  Or, Zone of Truth and simply ask everyone.  Or or or.
> 
> There's a million and one different plot asploding spells out there.  Speak with animals is a pretty minor one.  Commune is a tad stronger.




If you have a chance, watch the second episode of *Medium*.  It deals directly with the question "Yes, I understand that you *know*....but are you *sure*?"

Yes, those things make it easy for the PCs to know the truth.  For them to *prove* what they know?  That's a different kettle of fish.

Ex.  Bob the Devotee of Asmodeus pretends to be a cleric of the One True Faith, then, after chanting and praying, says the Count did it.  Did the Count do it?  Do you know?

A cleric's god might not be wearing blinders (like the horse), but the Court isn't being asked to take the god's word; it is being asked to take the cleric's.

Zone of Truth is powerful, but it is possible to lie in the Zone.  Is it possible to be Cursed to always lie in a Zone of Truth?  When the Count claims that the PC caster made him somehow lie, and is trying to frame him, is that beyond what magic can do?  Does the King know?  Does the Court know?

Using magic raises as many problems as it resolves, unless that magic is used to help in the grunt work of finding actual evidence.  And even then.......There's an Astro City story where a mobster gets off because, hey, he has enemies, and can the court _*prove*_ that a shapeshifting alien or rival supervillian wasn't setting him up?  If the defense works for the good guys, it should work for the bad guys as well.



> But, as far as DM's dictating the cleric's spells, doesn't that cut both ways?  If the DM knows that they are heading into a murder mystery situation, shouldn't he tailor the cleric's list to be the most useful?




Yes!



> Isn't that actually worse than letting the player pick his spell list?




No!

Because those spells only tell the PCs what they should be looking for.  They know the Count did it, now how do they convince everyone else that the Count did it?



Mort said:


> Your point depends on the view of the society in question. If magic is not trusted, then the testimony is going to be a bad idea at best; if talking to animals is a known quantity (and maybe even has precedent in the legal system) then procedures are in place and it's just another form of testimony.




Nah.  It just presumes that the society has no way to say "Treat PCs different than NPCs".

IF "a horse told me" works for the PCs, THEN it also works for their enemies.

IF their enemies cannot just say "My god told me the PCs are guilty", THEN neither can the PCs simply say "My god told me that the Count is guilty."

Knowing that Dracula is a vampire changes where Van Helsing stands, but unless Van Helsing can convince Victorian London that Dracula is a vampire, it is not a "I Win" button.  A lot of novel happens after Van Helsing is convinced.

In the same light, DNA evidence doesn't always result in a conviction.


RC


----------



## Mort

Raven Crowking said:


> Nah.  It just presumes that the society has no way to say "Treat PCs different than NPCs".




How is this relevant? if there is an NPC druid who is highly regarded by the community and the druid says "Bob the horse saw the PCs kill this man!" the PCs may well be in seriously hot water.



Raven Crowking said:


> IF "a horse told me" works for the PCs, THEN it also works for their enemies."




Of course. Magic changes the way things work; both in the PCs favor and against them. I personally would find it a bit humorous if the PCs were witnessed doing something bad by a donkey and it came back to bite them in the appropriate organ.



Raven Crowking said:


> IF their enemies cannot just say "My god told me the PCs are guilty", THEN neither can the PCs simply say "My god told me that the Count is guilty."




But their enemies *can*. How seriously this is taken depends on the society in question. Heck, could lead to some very interesting adventure  possibilities. Wouldn't it be interesting if the PCs finally confront the main villain and learn that the reason he has been hounding them through the levels is "because my god told me?" Perfect inversion of the usual scenario in my book.



Raven Crowking said:


> Knowing that Dracula is a vampire changes where Van Helsing stands, but unless Van Helsing can convince Victorian London that Dracula is a vampire, it is not a "I Win" button.  A lot of novel happens after Van Helsing is convinced.




But just knowing Dracula is a vampire is valuable information, how valuable depends on the situation but it's certainly better than not knowing.



Raven Crowking said:


> In the same light, DNA evidence doesn't always result in a conviction
> RC




Perhaps not, but it can certainly narrow the field of suspects.

I'm really not seeing your point here. While magic may not be an "I Win" button in all or even most situations, it certainly changes the playing field (both for and against the PCs).


----------



## triqui

Raven Crowking said:


> We actually have no clear idea of what Sauron can and cannot do.



We know for sure that when Frodo was a few feets away to throw the Ring, he didnt zapp him with a death ray of doom. All he did was calling his nazguls back, which didnt came in time. So I assume that if, in the very face of being defeated, he couldn't do anything better than summon his minions, that is what he was able to do.

So few ways to avoid Gandalf using the I WIN button, other than the storyteller not giving him that button in the first place (and hence, Gandalf dont have "movement" powers, and need a horse to go to Gondor and need the Eagle lord to escape from Saruman.



> You have a murder mystery, where the Count is the killer.  The horse says so, to the druid.  According to the druid, who may also be the killer, or in league with the killer to frame the Count, as far as any of the NPCs know.  For that matter, for all the druid knows, the Count may whip the horse from time to time, and the horse has it in for him.  Or the killer may have been wearing the Count's cloak, thus carrying his scent.
> 
> Sure, the adventure changes with the horse's testimony.  But it also changes with the stable boy's testimony.



Big, difference, the horse SAW the crime, the stable's boy didnt. 



> The problem with magic is that it offers "revealed knowledge", and while the value of that knowledge might be greater than that which is mundanely gathered, the mundane knowledge is perhaps more sure.  I mean, do we actually expect the King to hang the Count because a druid told him a horse said he was the murderer?  What makes the horse's testimony so special?  What makes the druid's?



 That might be a counter, if, and only if, the king is needed. Which depends on the social implications of the players killing the count themselves, which have nothing to do with magic. Would the players had been part of a Guild of Thieves, which the Countess was the leader, that concern is trivial. The players now have the knowlege, and can act acordingly, bypassing completelly the game of diplomacy, betrayals, accusations and friendship the story was about.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Well, you have to ask what the courts think of magically produced evidence.  Is it considered reliable on it's face (like DNA or fingerprints) or is it just an investigative tool (like a polygraph).



> Quote:
> Originally Posted by Raven Crowking
> In the same light, DNA evidence doesn't always result in a conviction
> RC




Point of fact- DNA evidence alone won't get anyone convicted.  You need additional evidence beyond its mere presence at the scene of a crime.


----------



## triqui

Raven Crowking said:


> There isn't enough information to go on here, but let us discuss.
> 
> I am assuming that this was a Teleport Without Error?  Otherwise, so sad to end up in another ship's bilge (perchance, for without actually going topside, how does the teleporter know what ship he is on?).
> 
> You left out how he sunk the pirate ship.  Did it sink instantly?  Were there no bilge pumps, and no materials for emergency repairs?  Was there no chance of a pirate discovering our caster augering out the bilge?  Was there no time for the pirate ship to turn and try to capture the PC's ship to replace their own?
> 
> RC



It was like an age ago, but i think it was regular scry+teleport. They INSIDE the ship, near the cargo, and made a hole in the base (can't be arsed to remember how, I think Desintegrate). The hole was big enough to make me conclude the ship sank, unless serious and heavy handweaving (which I dont like). They did it at midnight, most pirates were sleeping, and really, if a ship at midnight with a huge hole just in it's base does not sink, then it wont sink EVER. Sure, the pirates made some efforts, and the main NPC there saved their lives. But the race for the sunken city was over.

The pirate ship was a TON of miles away, so no chance to get to the players ship before it sunk


----------



## Raven Crowking

triqui said:


> It was like an age ago, but i think it was regular scry+teleport. They INSIDE the ship, near the cargo, and made a hole in the base (can't be arsed to remember how, I think Desintegrate). The hole was big enough to make me conclude the ship sank, unless serious and heavy handweaving (which I dont like). They did it at midnight, most pirates were sleeping, and really, if a ship at midnight with a huge hole just in it's base does not sink, then it wont sink EVER. Sure, the pirates made some efforts, and the main NPC there saved their lives. But the race for the sunken city was over.
> 
> The pirate ship was a TON of miles away, so no chance to get to the players ship before it sunk





Out of curiosity, once the water started gushing in, did that make it harder for the PC spellcaster to concentrate enough for his own getaway?  

Anyway, if the players were clever, it is entirely fitting that they should succeed in ending the chase, IMHO.

I am not saying that magic is not a game-changer.  I am saying that it need not be a game-breaker.


RC


----------



## Harlekin

nvm


----------



## triqui

Raven Crowking said:


> Out of curiosity, once the water started gushing in, did that make it harder for the PC spellcaster to concentrate enough for his own getaway?
> 
> Anyway, if the players were clever, it is entirely fitting that they should succeed in ending the chase, IMHO.
> 
> I am not saying that magic is not a game-changer.  I am saying that it need not be a game-breaker.
> 
> 
> RC




They preemtively casted some buff spells. Among them, invisibility and fly. So they werent touching  the floor, no balance or concentration check needed. Being able to concentrate to cast an spell in a situation like that is only hard if you arent a caster, oddly.

Yeah, they would had won one way or another. Thats the point, actually. They just chosed to win in a completelly anticlimatic way, and with most of the players being rendered useless. Only the wizard and sorcerer did matter


----------



## Raven Crowking

triqui said:


> Yeah, they would had won one way or another. Thats the point, actually. They just chosed to win in a completelly anticlimatic way, and with most of the players being rendered useless. Only the wizard and sorcerer did matter




3e?

In any event, the important point is that *they chose*.  And, when they chose that, they probably felt good about "winning".


----------



## Patryn of Elvenshae

Raven Crowking said:


> 3e?
> 
> In any event, the important point is that *they chose*.  And, when they chose that, they probably felt good about "winning".



Actually, I'd imagine:

1) If anyone felt good about winning, it was probably the wizard and the sorcer.

2) They might not have felt that good, anyway.  I know that the one time I seriously flexed my Wizard's powers to, essentially, tell the DM _and_ physics _and_ "the plot" to sit down and shut up it ... well, it all felt really anticlimactic.  I felt like I'd cheated.  Yes, we'd won in the sense that our goals had been accomplished, but as far as actual gameplay was concerned (and, especially, the other players at the table who ended up largely sidelined) it was a bust.

(Also, yeah - 3E.)


----------



## pemerton

Kerranin said:


> One of my favourite ways of limiting spell-casters is to have some form of backlash rules built into spell casting.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I suspect this sort of rule has already been implemented somewhere.



Rolemaster has rules a little like this. So does HARP.

But they don't work all that well, in my view, for the reasons that triqui has given in his/her recent posts upthread: it's not a very effective balancing mechanism to have one player have access to great power at the risk of losing his/her PC. If the player doesn't use the power, then it may as well not be there. If the player uses the power and gets away with it, then that player's PC is over strong (and hence unbalanced). If the player tries to use the power and suffers the backlash then the game for that player (and perhaps the rest of the players also, depending on the details of the backlash rules in question) is disrupted in a serious way.

Would we think it was a good game if the player of the fighter, in a hard combat, said to the GM "Let me toss a coin - heads I win the fight, tails I lose, my PCs dies and I sit out the rest of the session"? Doesn't sound very good to me. But this is what magic backlash rules approximate to.


----------



## pemerton

Raven Crowking said:


> You have a murder mystery, where the Count is the killer.  The horse says so, to the druid.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Sure, the adventure changes with the horse's testimony.  But it also changes with the stable boy's testimony.
> 
> The problem with magic is that it offers "revealed knowledge", and while the value of that knowledge might be greater than that which is mundanely gathered, the mundane knowledge is perhaps more sure.  I mean, do we actually expect the King to hang the Count because a druid told him a horse said he was the murderer?





Raven Crowking said:


> Yes, those things make it easy for the PCs to know the truth.  For them to *prove* what they know?  That's a different kettle of fish.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Because those spells only tell the PCs what they should be looking for.  They know the Count did it, now how do they convince everyone else that the Count did it?



But the game has now turned from an investigative one (who did it?) to a social/political one (how do we persuade XYZ of the truth?). That's a non-trivial impact of the magic right there. I'm not saying that this is a self-evidently bad thing - but one thing all my Rolemaster players wanted done when we ended our first long RM campaign and started a new one was to eliminate most of the divination magic, precisely because they didn't like this sort of effect it had on the way the game played.



triqui said:


> The players now have the knowlege, and can act acordingly, bypassing completelly the game of diplomacy, betrayals, accusations and friendship the story was about.



Exactly.

EDIT:



Raven Crowking said:


> In any event, the important point is that *they chose*.  And, when they chose that, they probably felt good about "winning".



Well, as well as divination the other magic that was removed, by popular demand, was teleport. So at least for my group, when the magic rules were such that the rational/expedient choices they produced led to anti-climactic episodes in play, they changed the rules. Then they could play their PCs rationally _without_ having that rational play produce anticlimaxes of the scry-buff-teleport-ambush variety.


----------



## Argyle King

pemerton said:


> Rolemaster has rules a little like this. So does HARP.
> 
> But they don't work all that well, in my view, for the reasons that triqui has given in his/her recent posts upthread: it's not a very effective balancing mechanism to have one player have access to great power at the risk of losing his/her PC. If the player doesn't use the power, then it may as well not be there. If the player uses the power and gets away with it, then that player's PC is over strong (and hence unbalanced). If the player tries to use the power and suffers the backlash then the game for that player (and perhaps the rest of the players also, depending on the details of the backlash rules in question) is disrupted in a serious way.
> 
> Would we think it was a good game if the player of the fighter, in a hard combat, said to the GM "Let me toss a coin - heads I win the fight, tails I lose, my PCs dies and I sit out the rest of the session"? Doesn't sound very good to me. But this is what magic backlash rules approximate to.




I like the way GURPS handles it.  Casting magic is physically tiring, so it requires you to use FP (fatigue points.)  Tougher spells are more physically draining.  Losing too much FP might mean you pass out.  I think that's a good way to imitate what I see in movies and read in books with the wizard giving one last ditch effort to save the day; putting his own body at risk to weave powerful arcane energies.

Also, if the caster wishes to do so, he may choose to use HP instead of FP if his FP is too low.  It's a gamble, but sometimes you need to get a spell off.  

IMO, this creates a system in which the mage may indeed have awesome power, but it doesn't come without drawback.  More importantly, the drawback isn't so crippling so as to make casting useless.  It's done in such a way that it becomes a tactical choice - much like using different melee weapons or ranged weapons might be a tactical choice.  

Though, to be fair, it's also worth mentioning that mages in that system aren't forced to be physically frail and/or use crap weapons.  It's perfectly viable (supported) to play a physically robust wizard or a sorcerer who is equally skilled in swordplay.

None of this is to suggest the system is perfect.  It too occasionally has its oddities.  However, overall, I think it does a fairly good job of presenting a plethora of options -magic among them- in way in which they each have their strengths and weaknesses.


----------



## Hussar

RC said:
			
		

> Yes, those things make it easy for the PCs to know the truth. For them to prove what they know? That's a different kettle of fish.




They go to the king and say the count did it because their god told them so.  The king turns to his three top clerics and they all cast Divinition and get the same result.  Count is convicted and suffers the punishments.

Well, it at least has the bonus of completely bypassing all those boring bits of investigation or whatnot.

See, even though DNA alone isn't enough to convict, I'm fairly certain that conviction rates went up after DNA evidence came into the toolbox.  And, DNA evidence makes a really good point.  All procedural police shows now must deal with DNA.  ((Assuming they are set in current times of course - a procedural set in 1920 deals with the issue a different way))  Every single police procedural and crime drama now has to take DNA evidence into account.

Just in the same way that every single D&D game has to take these spells into account.  Sure, it doesn't have to end the plot, but, you can't ignore the fact that the existence of these spells have an immense impact on the plot.

Interestingly, I found myself at something of a loss in a 4e game when a mystery came up and we couldn't just hit the magic buttons.  There was a doppleganger sabateour hidden in our midst before an invading force came to lay siege to the fortress we were holed up in.  We discovered the sabotage and deduced the existence of the doppleganger (not terribly difficult, the adventure had featured dopplegangers before) and set about trying to track him down.

Guess what?  Suddenly not having things like Detect Evil, True Seeing, and various other spells meant that we had to actually engage the setting rather than turn to the cleric/wizard to solve the problem.  Turned into a rather interesting skill challenge that we failed.  The doppleganger escaped.  

In 3e, this likely wouldn't have happened.  1e probably would have worked well here since there are so few divination type spells.  2e is iffy either way.


----------



## Herremann the Wise

pemerton said:


> Rolemaster has rules a little like this. So does HARP.
> 
> But they don't work all that well, in my view, for the reasons that triqui has given in his/her recent posts upthread: it's not a very effective balancing mechanism to have one player have access to great power at the risk of losing his/her PC. If the player doesn't use the power, then it may as well not be there. If the player uses the power and gets away with it, then that player's PC is over strong (and hence unbalanced). If the player tries to use the power and suffers the backlash then the game for that player (and perhaps the rest of the players also, depending on the details of the backlash rules in question) is disrupted in a serious way.
> 
> Would we think it was a good game if the player of the fighter, in a hard combat, said to the GM "Let me toss a coin - heads I win the fight, tails I lose, my PCs dies and I sit out the rest of the session"? Doesn't sound very good to me. But this is what magic backlash rules approximate to.



A question then: how would you design "backlash rules" that were more enjoyable for all concerned? What regular and mild backlash effects would you think reasonable (on let's say a 30% - 6 or below on a d20 - chance of miscasting and suffering)?

I think your fighter coin-tossing question a good one but there is a very important dynamic there that I think would be interesting to vary and ponder. If it is a coin toss, then the player is still thinking in their mind that they have an average chance of success. In other words, they have a reasonable incentive to give it a go if the chips are down (and thus 50% of the time that they are encouraged by the situation to give it a go, they lose their character).

However, what if you reduced the chance of success quite dramatically to let's say 10% (19+ on a d20)? And then you reduced the chance of death down a little but so it was still significant at let's say 25% (5 or below on a d20)***. In between these you might have one of the mild backlash effects such as needing a round to gather back the power to cast or perhaps more severely fatiguing the caster for the encounter. In other words, you are reducing the incentive to cast the spell based upon chance of success. Reducing the incentive means that the overall chance of losing the character is significantly reduced (to perhaps an acceptable level play-wise) but in the mind of the player and his or her caster the danger of the situation is still very much there and this spell will thus be used very much as a last resort. It becomes the classic piece of dark and mysterious arcane knowledge that an upstanding wizard would never trifle with, but the more curious wizard might weaken and study and eventually cast like a moth to a flame. The decision to cast such a spell would be a very interesting piece of role-playing I think within that context.

Just a thought.

I would very much appreciate your thoughts though on a workable backlash mechanic even if it is to repeat that it could not work effectively. You seem to have a very astute eye for such things.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

*** I think this Double DC mechanic would be an interesting step in a more advanced form of D&D opening up a vast array of interesting options. I've been wanting to start a thread on it but the full concept is still incomplete. I have been working away at it here and there to make a more interesting and complete presentation.


----------



## Raven Crowking

pemerton said:


> But the game has now turned from an investigative one (who did it?) to a social/political one (how do we persuade XYZ of the truth?). That's a non-trivial impact of the magic right there.




No one is arguing that magic is trivial.

There is nothing wrong with going from investigation to social/political.  The only person who may have reason to be miffed here is the GM, and then only if the GM has a strong feeling about how the adventure "should go".

If the players choose not to avail themselves of some kind of magic, because it damages the type of adventures/characters they want to play in/run, then they are perfectly capable of so choosing.



Hussar said:


> They go to the king and say the count did it because their god told them so.  The king turns to his three top clerics and they all cast Divinition and get the same result.  Count is convicted and suffers the punishments.




You don't follow politics much, do you?

If you get a chance, I'd recommend reading _*The Three Musketeers*_.

I hate to break it to you, but there are lots of reasons that those three top clerics might lie.  If you doubt that people in positions of power have reasons to lie, I suggest you obtain and read any newspaper anywhere in the world.

On top of which, unless the Count happens to be randomly homicidal, the murder was committed with a purpose, and that purpose probably involves others in some way.  And if the Count is a maniac, and has been doing this for some time, it is odd that (1) no one has caught him yet, while (2) he has taken no precautions related to divination spells.  Or perhaps the Count doesn't understand the workings of the courts, or of the aristocracy to which he belongs?

If the Count is well enough connected, and the victim is not, then the PCs discovering that the Count did it might get _*them*_ tossed into the darkest dungeons the King can find.  Imagine going to the Godfather to tell him that you learned that his made man murdered, say, one of the Godfather's enemies.  And you are intent on blabbing that.

Who do you think ends up in the concrete boots?

The problem here isn't the divination spell, the problem is that the scenario is not well enough thought out to consider the ramifications of both (1) the resources that the PCs have available, and (far more importantly) (2) what the "big picture" is that puts the events into context.

It is only when an "adventure" is visualized as a series of events that are "supposed to" happen that you run into this sort of problem.  When you see an adventure as a situation for the players to interact with as they desire, then it doesn't matter how they do so.  Of course, you have to understand the situation you are presenting quite well yourself to run adventures in this way.


RC


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:


> Interestingly, I found myself at something of a loss in a 4e game when a mystery came up and we couldn't just hit the magic buttons.  There was a doppleganger sabateour hidden in our midst before an invading force came to lay siege to the fortress we were holed up in.  We discovered the sabotage and deduced the existence of the doppleganger (not terribly difficult, the adventure had featured dopplegangers before) and set about trying to track him down.
> 
> Guess what?  Suddenly not having things like Detect Evil, True Seeing, and various other spells meant that we had to actually engage the setting rather than turn to the cleric/wizard to solve the problem.  Turned into a rather interesting skill challenge that we failed.  The doppleganger escaped.




I guess you should have "engaged the setting" by making X skill checks before you failed Y.  

The standard procedure is to get the person who can roll highest on the allowed checks to roll.  It is even easier than pushing the "magic buttons".

Unfortunately, your DM chose to go the Skill Challenge route.  My understanding of the math, as it was broken down in another thread some time ago, is that you suffer a far greater chance of failure in a Skill Challenge than you do if you are allowed to engage the setting by, you know, just engaging the setting.  If you had role-played it out, without the Skill Challenge roll-playing involved, you may well have succeeded.

Of course, people fail when they just push the magic buttons, too.  That's something that happens when interaction with the setting becomes "pushing buttons" rather than having to think about what you are doing.

I have psionic PCs in my game who can read minds and steal memories, let alone cast a few paltry divination spells.  And, yet, even when they manage to get all the information their captives know, they still have things to wonder about and interact with.  Even divination spells don't solve all of their problems.  There is no "I win" button.  Or skill check.

But, to each his own.  



RC


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> The king turns to his three top clerics and they all cast Divinition and get the same result. Count is convicted and suffers the punishments.




Again, it depends upon if the court considers Divination spells to be evidence or merely investigative- 4 people saying the same thing doesn't make it so.  Any or all of them could be lying.  What is the guarantee that the diviners in question are impartial.  Where is the guarantee that one or more are not frauds?  If they're the King's men, might they not lie for their Liege if he has an interest in the case?  (Before you answer that, consider the tumultuous relationships some powerful RW clerics have had with the rulers of their countries...and also how in some others, one side "owns" the other.)




> See, even though DNA alone isn't enough to convict, I'm fairly certain that conviction rates went up after DNA evidence came into the toolbox.




So did exonerations- IOW, overturned convictions- esp. from death row.


----------



## Sepulchrave II

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> You don't follow politics much, do you?




RC,

Superb musketeer post. Can't XP you enough. A campaign predicated on human deviousness, mendacity, inconstancy and empty allegiance is necessarily the most convincing: it is, rather unfortunately, _who we are._


----------



## Hussar

Herremann the Wise said:


> A question then: how would you design "backlash rules" that were more enjoyable for all concerned? What regular and mild backlash effects would you think reasonable (on let's say a 30% - 6 or below on a d20 - chance of miscasting and suffering)?
> 
> I think your fighter coin-tossing question a good one but there is a very important dynamic there that I think would be interesting to vary and ponder. If it is a coin toss, then the player is still thinking in their mind that they have an average chance of success. In other words, they have a reasonable incentive to give it a go if the chips are down (and thus 50% of the time that they are encouraged by the situation to give it a go, they lose their character).
> 
> However, what if you reduced the chance of success quite dramatically to let's say 10% (19+ on a d20)? And then you reduced the chance of death down a little but so it was still significant at let's say 25% (5 or below on a d20)***. In between these you might have one of the mild backlash effects such as needing a round to gather back the power to cast or perhaps more severely fatiguing the caster for the encounter. In other words, you are reducing the incentive to cast the spell based upon chance of success. Reducing the incentive means that the overall chance of losing the character is significantly reduced (to perhaps an acceptable level play-wise) but in the mind of the player and his or her caster the danger of the situation is still very much there and this spell will thus be used very much as a last resort. It becomes the classic piece of dark and mysterious arcane knowledge that an upstanding wizard would never trifle with, but the more curious wizard might weaken and study and eventually cast like a moth to a flame. The decision to cast such a spell would be a very interesting piece of role-playing I think within that context.
> 
> Just a thought.
> 
> I would very much appreciate your thoughts though on a workable backlash mechanic even if it is to repeat that it could not work effectively. You seem to have a very astute eye for such things.
> 
> Best Regards
> Herremann the Wise
> 
> *** I think this Double DC mechanic would be an interesting step in a more advanced form of D&D opening up a vast array of interesting options. I've been wanting to start a thread on it but the full concept is still incomplete. I have been working away at it here and there to make a more interesting and complete presentation.




I think this is a good idea.  Doesn't Paranoia have something like this where your mutant powers (or whatever it's called, it's been a REALLY long time since I played Paranoia) have a chance of doing very bad things?

The problem with this sort of thing though is the same as having critical hits in an RPG.  The NPC's don't suffer any of the consequences by and large.  Sure, an individual bad guy might die that much quicker to a crit, but, he was really supposed to die anyway, it just happend on round X instead of round Y.

But, eventually, the bad guys are going to crit the PC's and suddenly the PC goes from full health to dead through no real fault of his own.  It's a bit ... anticlimactic.

The same sort of thing could apply here.  The NPC's can blast away with spells all day long, because the odds of this particular NPC suffering some sort of backlash are so small.  The PC's, OTOH, will pretty much always suffer the backlash.

It's tricky.

------------



Raven Crowking said:


> I guess you should have "engaged the setting" by making X skill checks before you failed Y.
> 
> The standard procedure is to get the person who can roll highest on the allowed checks to roll.  It is even easier than pushing the "magic buttons".
> 
> Unfortunately, your DM chose to go the Skill Challenge route.  My understanding of the math, as it was broken down in another thread some time ago, is that you suffer a far greater chance of failure in a Skill Challenge than you do if you are allowed to engage the setting by, you know, just engaging the setting.  If you had role-played it out, without the Skill Challenge roll-playing involved, you may well have succeeded.
> 
> Of course, people fail when they just push the magic buttons, too.  That's something that happens when interaction with the setting becomes "pushing buttons" rather than having to think about what you are doing.
> 
> I have psionic PCs in my game who can read minds and steal memories, let alone cast a few paltry divination spells.  And, yet, even when they manage to get all the information their captives know, they still have things to wonder about and interact with.  Even divination spells don't solve all of their problems.  There is no "I win" button.  Or skill check.
> 
> But, to each his own.
> 
> 
> 
> RC




Umm, doing a skill challenge is "playing it out" actually.  I know that you insist on a strict, by the book, the DM has had half his brains scooped out interpretation of skill challenges, but, really, that's not how they work.  But, you're also missing the point.  In earlier editions, I'd simply turn to the cleric and cast Detect Evil and the problem is solved.  I don't have to engage in the setting in any way, shape or form.

But, I have a feeling that you're also playing silly buggers with the idea of "I win".  "I win" doesn't have to be 100% success 100% of the time.  It's simply an easy shorthand way of saying I can gain a measure of success without any effort on my part.

Want to find the murder weapon?  Locate Object.  King wants to know who the murderer is?  ESP, Mind Reading, Zone of Truth etc.  

Sure, real world and fiction based on the real world, this wouldn't work.  But, unlike the world of the Three Musketeers, when a cleric steps out of line, he stops being a cleric.  His god stops giving him spells.  A LG cleric has a code of conduct just as strict as a paladin's.  Lie to the king to protect a murderer?  Good luck getting that past Pelor or Heironeous.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Sepulchrave II said:


> RC,
> 
> Superb musketeer post. Can't XP you enough. A campaign predicated on human deviousness, mendacity, inconstancy and empty allegiance is necessarily the most convincing: it is, rather unfortunately, _who we are._




"We have met the enemy, and he is us."


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:


> Umm, doing a skill challenge is "playing it out" actually.




Funny, because so is casting a divination spell.  I don't know about your table, but everyone wants input at my table before the spell gets cast (to help formulate the questions) and after (to decide not only what the answers mean, but, far more importantly, what to do with them).

And the problem is that you are missing the point.  The doppleganger may be your problem right now, but that hardly means that the doppleganger is the only one in the room who will ping to your Detect Evil.

Frankly, I think you'd have a hard time trying the solutions you propose in any game that I was running.  For that matter, in any game that I would enjoy playing in.

Not necessarily all of the time, but certainly enough that the idea of an ESP spell identifying who the murder is would no longer seem like such an "I Win" button.

(But, then, I suspect this is similar to how you thought Sleep was an "I Win" button in 1e, until we went through the T1 moathouse encounters and discovered how many there were that left our poor magic-user folded, spindled, and mutilated after he supposedly "won".)


RC


----------



## Banshee16

Mercurius said:


> First, let me get something clear: wizards SHOULD be more powerful, imo. Otherwise, what's the point? But with that power should come some kind of vulnerability or a special quality for non-spellcasters.




In Scott Bakker's "Prince of Nothing" series, the sorcerers (known as schoolmen) are quite powerful.  They're known to be quite deadly...to the point that armies keep their own units of schoolmen to use against each other.  However, they're also somewhat fragile and delicate......so typically, they're kind of like nukes.  The armies have them, but try to avoid putting them in harm's way.  They'll try to take out the opposing army's sorcerers, and then, if they do, their own sorcerers then massacre the opposing army.

The mechanism he uses is that sorcerers traffic in forbidden powers....even the good ones.  Basically, they're working with evil knowledge, even if they are good people.  That traffic in darkness stains their souls, and as a result, they are vulnerable to the effect of items called "Chorae".  It's some kind of mystic rock.  When held by a non-spellcaster, it makes him invulnerable to incantations.  If it touches a schoolman, it turns him into a statue of salt (thus killing him).

The stuff is very valuable, so it's not like it's everywhere...but kinds and nobles tend to have it, and they'll have it on arrowheads held by groups of archers, etc.

It's an interesting way to control the power of the spellcasters, while allowing them to be lethal.  If a schoolman encounters a bunch of warriors, and they have no chorae, they're dead.  But if they encounter him and have chorae with him, all they have to do is make a touch attack and he's petrified.

Banshee


----------



## pemerton

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Again, it depends upon if the court considers Divination spells to be evidence or merely investigative- 4 people saying the same thing doesn't make it so.  Any or all of them could be lying.  What is the guarantee that the diviners in question are impartial.  Where is the guarantee that one or more are not frauds?





Raven Crowking said:


> I hate to break it to you, but there are lots of reasons that those three top clerics might lie.  If you doubt that people in positions of power have reasons to lie, I suggest you obtain and read any newspaper anywhere in the world.



I agree with Hussar - this is tending to push the game out of the "heroic fantasy" genre and into something slightly different. Which is fine in and of itself, but I think that D&D is well served by also supporting heroic fantasy play. And at least in my experience the alternative genre - grim and gritty musketeers or swords & sorcerry - also isn't harmed by dialing down the "mega-magic".



Raven Crowking said:


> There is nothing wrong with going from investigation to social/political.  The only person who may have reason to be miffed here is the GM, and then only if the GM has a strong feeling about how the adventure "should go".
> 
> If the players choose not to avail themselves of some kind of magic, because it damages the type of adventures/characters they want to play in/run, then they are perfectly capable of so choosing.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> It is only when an "adventure" is visualized as a series of events that are "supposed to" happen that you run into this sort of problem.  When you see an adventure as a situation for the players to interact with as they desire, then it doesn't matter how they do so.



I tend to think that there is a tension between these two paragraphs. Part of the issue, as I've indicated in previous posts, is that the presence of "mega-magic" means that the players, in interacting with the situation, have to choose between gimping their PCs and preserving the genre/story/flavour/whatever-label-you-want-to-give-to-walking-to-Gondor-rather-than-teleporting.

That is why, in my Rolemaster games, after a certain point the players decided that we would exclude teleport and a good chunk of divination from the game.

Now that is a modest mechanical tweak. Probably even a rookie GM and/or players can reflect and think of doing it. But the more the "mega-magic" - or, as KM and Prof Cirno are describing it, _narrative-controlling magic_ - is embedded into the game system, the harder this sort of tweaking gets and the more one might be looking for fundamental changes to the magic system.

If you compare HARP to Rolemaster you can see that a lot of this was done (although, while they got invis and save-or-die, they missed fly and teleport). 4e is another example, obviously. It's an open question, of course, who prefers which game on either side of the "mega-magic" divide, but I think it's pretty obvious that there's a singificant issue here, of what sort of mechanics support what sort of play. I don't think the designers of HARP and 4e are just jumping at shadows!


----------



## Banshee16

Johnny3D3D said:


> I like the way GURPS handles it.  Casting magic is physically tiring, so it requires you to use FP (fatigue points.)  Tougher spells are more physically draining.  Losing too much FP might mean you pass out.  I think that's a good way to imitate what I see in movies and read in books with the wizard giving one last ditch effort to save the day; putting his own body at risk to weave powerful arcane energies.




There was a system for that in 2nd Ed. in Players Option.  It was the Channeling system.  Basically, it relied on spell points instead of slots.  When you cast spells, you had to roll a save to avoid becoming fatigued.

It worked pretty well...made spellcasting very difficult and it became a choice.  Yes, you could rip off a powerful spell...but you might be reduced to half movement for the next hour and have a -4 to hit anything.

3E had something similar, but simplified.  It was in Monte Cook's 20 best d20 articles or whatever.  A book that came out maybe 5 years back.  Characters have to roll a spellcraft check to cast spells successfully.  If they succeed, it goes off, but if it fails, they become fatigued.  If they fail a second time, they become exhausted.  I think the way it was structured was that you could keep casting spells of a level......more than you normally could by using vancian spellcasting.  However...every time you cast a spell of the same level, the DC to avoid become exhausted goes up....so eventually you *will* fail.

Systems like that tend to prevent wizards from casting spells indefinitely.  They have to be more choosy.

Banshee


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> I agree with Hussar - this is tending to push the game out of the "heroic fantasy" genre and into something slightly different. Which is fine in and of itself, but I think that D&D is well served by also supporting heroic fantasy play.




You mean you can't think of a way in which someone might be convinced or forced to commit an untruth under oath in heroic fantasy play?  Or that heroic fantasy is immune from having divinations being wrong, misinterpreted or messed around with by other casters?

What about a curse by a trickster god that makes divinations completely wrong under conditions X, Y, and Z?  What if the clerics are being held in thrall to the will of another being?  Or perhaps like in _Legend of the Seeker_, there is a secret sect of evil holy persons hiding within the religion of the good?

Maybe the accused has been magically framed, and what is revealed in lesser divinations is simply the illusion that the framer wants diviners to see, and only the most powerful of divinations _conducted on the site of the crime_ will see otherwise.


----------



## pemerton

Herremann the Wise said:


> A question then: how would you design "backlash rules" that were more enjoyable for all concerned?
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I would very much appreciate your thoughts though on a workable backlash mechanic even if it is to repeat that it could not work effectively. You seem to have a very astute eye for such things.



Thanks for the vote of confidence! - I'm not sure I can say very much that lives up to it, though.



Herremann the Wise said:


> What regular and mild backlash effects would you think reasonable (on let's say a 30% - 6 or below on a d20 - chance of miscasting and suffering)?
> 
> <snip>
> 
> what if you reduced the chance of success quite dramatically to let's say 10% (19+ on a d20)? And then you reduced the chance of death down a little but so it was still significant at let's say 25% (5 or below on a d20)***. In between these you might have one of the mild backlash effects such as needing a round to gather back the power to cast or perhaps more severely fatiguing the caster for the encounter. In other words, you are reducing the incentive to cast the spell based upon chance of success. Reducing the incentive means that the overall chance of losing the character is significantly reduced (to perhaps an acceptable level play-wise) but in the mind of the player and his or her caster the danger of the situation is still very much there and this spell will thus be used very much as a last resort.



I think this turns very much on what sort of play the game, overall, is meant to support. Here's one way of looking at it: in a typical fantasy RPG, the player of the fighter's _distincitve_ way of affecting the gameworld is by having his/her PC fight monsters in close combat. This generates a certain risk of dying - and at least in some systems (eg RM's attack/parry rules, or 3E if the fighter has and uses the Expertise feat), the player of the fighter can make choices that trade off defence against attack, thereby choosing to increase the risk of PC death in exchange for the chance to have a greater impact on the gameworld.

Balancing these mechanics is (in my view) non-trivial. Does the party have ready access to raise dead or similar, or not? If not, what happens if the PC dies (in terms of bringing in a new PC, replacing magic items, etc)? Is the player risking time out of the play session, or ingame stuff like XP and treasure earned, or both, or neither (the latter is true if, for example, the party has access to in-combat resurrection).

Now when we look at your spellcasting mechanic, how is it going to work? Presumably, if the sorts of ingame effects the caster can achive are more impressive than the fighter's, then the chances of backlash/bad consequences have to be correspondingly high - it might be a bit like berserker rage, or something even stronger and hence riskier than that.

(Random factoid: Rolemaster has a fairly strong Frenzy (= berserker rage) skill, but no player in my games ever took it over 20 years of play, because they didn't want to run the risk of losing their PC.)

Is this going to be a useful balancing tool? Well all the questions we asked about the fighter player become even more pressing - what are your healing rules, your table rules for new PCs or raising dead or whatever, etc etc.

My personal view is that spells should not be stronger than the comparable effects that players of fighters could get if they invested comparable amounts of character building resources: so, for example, if learning to use plate armour costs X skill points/feat slots etc, then learning to cast a comparable armouring spell should cost something like the same number of build points; charm person should be an alternative to learning bluff skill, not an overwhelming option that makes the bluffing PCs redundant, etc. (4e and HARP both take something like this approach, though I think 4e probably is closer to the ideal.)

What gets tricker - and I guess it's obvious - is where spells can do things that are quite different from what martial PCs can do - eg teleport, transmute rock to mud, etc. I half want to say that learning to do that should be a significant enough choice, in terms of character building resources, that it precludes the wizard PC _also_ being as good as the fighter at attack, defence, mobility, etc. But this then creates wizards who are more vulnerable in combat (think AD&D 1st ed before stoneskin) and once again raises the thorny issue of risk of death as a balancing issue. If party play will work to mean that a wizard who is vulnerable is not a liability to the player in question but rather a challenge for the whole team to deal with, though, then this can avoid individualising the risk in the way that backfire mechanics do (and, again, this is roughly the 4e approach).

Bottom line: I've got no coherent answer for you. But at a minimum, I wouldn't make backlash produce consequences worse than what the fighters face in fights of comparable difficulty to the circumstances you envisage the powerful magic being used in response to - because at least then you have a better chance of having consistent rates of PC death and so on to build your game around. But even here, what happens if the group decides to have the wizard nova more often, and to have the party develop the capabilities, resources etc of supporting the wizard when the nova backfires? The player of the wizard still, then, has a type of power/option that the player of the fighter lacks, if there are no comparable nova mechanics for the player of the fighter to deploy.



Herremann the Wise said:


> It becomes the classic piece of dark and mysterious arcane knowledge that an upstanding wizard would never trifle with, but the more curious wizard might weaken and study and eventually cast like a moth to a flame. The decision to cast such a spell would be a very interesting piece of role-playing I think within that context.



I agree that this is desirable in a game, but for the reasons I've given - especially the last two sentences above, about the incentives the players have to regularise and efficiently operationalise wizard nova-ing - I don't think backlash mechanics are the way to achieve this.

I don't have a radical alternative suggestion as to how to do this - I can only talk about how I try and get some approximation to it in 4e. First, I tend to locate this sort of option in skill challenges rather than in combat, where the "backlash" can much more easily be handled in narrative terms rather than just in terms of hit points/fatigue points/risk of death. Second, in combat, you can set up hazards and similar that the wizard can tackle in a way very different from the fighters (eg when I ran a combat with a black dragon, the PCs had just recovered a statue of the Summer Queen - the wizard was using this statute to channel his Light cantrip in order to dispel the dragon's darkness - making increasingly harder Arcana checks - which then made it much easier for the other PCs to actually engage the dragon; another time, in a room full of elemental creatures dating back to the Dawn Wars, an elemental wind was blowing all the PCs further and further into the room while the wizard tried to shut it down as a mini-skill challenge). At least in my experience, these sorts of approaches preserve the distinct feel of wizards vs warriors, while keeping the stakes, and the level of contribution, somewhat comparable across the PCs.


----------



## triqui

Raven Crowking said:


> 3e?
> 
> In any event, the important point is that *they chose*.  And, when they chose that, they probably felt good about "winning".




Sure, just like if Gandalf cast scry-teleport in the second paragraph of.the return of the king its becouse he choses to. But it makes it for a  story. Plus it leads to two points I have addresed.


A) it completely trash any other single character but the sorcerer and the wizard for the encounter. Its not like they take the spotlight. They became the only Pc, rendering the rest into Npc status.

B) starts the nuclear arms race. Not only the drow did the same next night. He rrpeated it later to hunt down characters and kill them. Do you know whats the only thing that prevents .every. BBEG out there to cast scry+teleport on unsuspectings players at midnight and kill them all? That it makes for a crappy story. Sure, Gandalf might not teleport to Mordor becouse fear or Sauron will. But whar stops Witch King of Angmar to cast scry+ teleport without error and kill every one? The fact that the author knows Shiny Magic makes for Crappy Story. Hence he cut down magic level to a more usable level. One where magic and martial prowess are balanced. They dont need to be equal as in 4e. But they need to be balanced. Essentials showed a way.


----------



## pemerton

Dannyalcatraz said:


> You mean you can't think of a way in which someone might be convinced or forced to commit an untruth under oath in heroic fantasy play?  Or that heroic fantasy is immune from having divinations being wrong, misinterpreted or messed around with by other casters?



I can think of it. But I'm not sure I want the system to _require_ me to think of it.

If I want to run a mystery in a fantasy RPG, I'm just as likely - perhaps even more likely - to want to run it while not having to introduce the question of clerical corruption. At the moment I can only think of two mystery scenarios that I've run. One was mid-level RM, and the party didn't have any diviners, so it played out well (and the priests weren't corrupt) - 
the PCs followed the suspicious character, found the hideout, broke in, learned the Awful Truth, and then got mostly wiped out by a guardian lightning elemental. The other was high level RM, with some divination available, but there _were_ ingame reasons why it couldn't help. This second one did involve a corrupt advisor to a daimyo, but that corruption became fairly obvious when the advisor fled the daimyo's ship after killing a number of guards (I can't now remember exactly what made him think that the PCs were closing in on him, and whether or not divination magic played any role in that particular subcomponent of the mystery).

My 4e game is not entirely divination free - the wizard PC has the Object Reading ritual. But while fairly powerful, it does give me as GM a fair bit of control over what sorts of visions are received. It's therefore as much a GM as a player tool. What I'm glad is not in the game (or, if it is, I haven't noticed it and neither have my players) is mind-reading magic.

As I said in my earlier post, it's an open question who likes what sort of game. (And I may have wrongly implied that the "mega-magic" divide is a bright line, whereas it is presumably in fact quite blurry, and highly sensitive to individual player and GM preferences, habits and unspoken understandings.) My main point is that the issue is a real one.


----------



## triqui

Raven Crowking said:


> You don't follow politics much, do you?
> 
> If you get a chance, I'd recommend reading _*The Three Musketeers*_.
> 
> I hate to break it to you, but there are lots of reasons that those three top clerics might lie.  If you doubt that people in positions of power have reasons to lie, I suggest you obtain and read any newspaper anywhere in the world.
> 
> RC




Yet once again, that has nothing to do with magic itself. It does not make magic any less gamebreaking. Just make it rely on the social nature of the game setting. Sure, assuming the king is not confident on the PC, or assuming the king *needs* for some motive a real proof to hang the count (which they often did in a whim in Dark Ages when the cleric said "God think he's a demon-worshiper" WITHOUT any real divine magic to support it, btw), or if we assume the PC are working for the King, yes, they *might* need some other proof (although the king might dismiss any other evidence just like he can dismiss magic. Sure, the PC might be lying about his divination spell, but the PC might be lying about that letter they found, or the blooded knife there was behind the count bed might been planted there by the  PC too)

But that DOES NOT work for evey setting and every game. The PC might be a band of outlaws, like Robin Hood, wanting to know who killed the merciful countess, and willing to apply the Justice by their own, not relying on a king (who could be the Villain of the Campaign). The players might be fully trusted "knights of the Round Table" for his king. The players might be the kings themselves. Or they might be, as was the case, the ultimate Law Enforcers of a Lawful-Neutral to Lawful-Evil town, with a PC as Paladin of Death Goddess being the one who decides who to hang, no question needed to ask to the King. Yes, that means they could have hanged anyone else, and nobody would refute. The thing was the PC wanted to hang the *right* person, and thanks to magic, they did.

That's my point. If Magic is so powerful, it permeates everything. If magic "can do anything", then EVERYTHING must be done with magic. Why would any BBEG hire an assasin to enter into King's room and poison him at night? First, that would be useless: neutralize poison and raise dead and there you go. Second, it would be non-efficient. It's way easier to hire a caster that cast scry+teleport at night, kill the king, and teleport back. Sure, the king's room might be teleport-protected. THAT'S THE PROBLEM. In order to "survive" in a magic setting, the king *has* to be a magic user, or use a magic user hireling. It kills the freedom of choice from the setting author (the DM). You can't have a king that mistrust Magic (like Conan the King). If he does, he's doomed. Becouse Magic is the end-all nuclear weapon. Either you have magic, or you don't matter. At all.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> I can think of it. But I'm not sure I want the system to require me to think of it.




I'm not saying the system does.  I'm saying it's campaign dependent.

Remember, I'm was saying that what happened when Divinations were used in court depended on how reliable they were deemed to be.

In a realm in which Divinarions were known to be completely reliable, casting one ends the mystery (your setting).  In realms in which it was known or believed that Divinations were occasionally wrong, there would be reason to doubt them as absolute proof, but may still view them as strong investigative tools (RC's setting).  If they were wrong 50/50 or worse, they may be practitioners who are more accurate than others...or they may not be considered evidence at all.


----------



## Hussar

Raven Crowking said:


> Funny, because so is casting a divination spell.  I don't know about your table, but everyone wants input at my table before the spell gets cast (to help formulate the questions) and after (to decide not only what the answers mean, but, far more importantly, what to do with them).
> 
> And the problem is that you are missing the point.  The doppleganger may be your problem right now, but that hardly means that the doppleganger is the only one in the room who will ping to your Detect Evil.
> 
> Frankly, I think you'd have a hard time trying the solutions you propose in any game that I was running.  For that matter, in any game that I would enjoy playing in.
> 
> Not necessarily all of the time, but certainly enough that the idea of an ESP spell identifying who the murder is would no longer seem like such an "I Win" button.
> 
> (But, then, I suspect this is similar to how you thought Sleep was an "I Win" button in 1e, until we went through the T1 moathouse encounters and discovered how many there were that left our poor magic-user folded, spindled, and mutilated after he supposedly "won".)
> 
> 
> RC




Ok, you've banged this T1 Moathouse drum a few times, so let's set the record straigh.  What was being discussed at the time was the fact that sleep in AD&D is essentially an auto-win spell.  You went on and on about how it only works 50% of the time in T1.  That ignores the fact that the OTHER half of the time, it works perfectly fine and the wizard autowins the encounter.

The ENTIRE point of that conversation is that the non-casters get ZERO autowins ever.  Not one.  Not a single one.  It doesn't matter if the wizard only autowins 1% of the time, it's the fact that he autowins AT ALL that was the point.

Which bring it back around to this conversation.  The alignment rules are pretty specific.  If you are a good aligned cleric and you protect a murderer that you KNOW is guilty (and you know because your freaking GOD just told you), you're not going to be casting any spells anymore.

It's going to be pretty obvious that you're lying when all of a sudden you can't so much as cure a paper cut.

Now, you can adjust these rules to fit a different setting and that's fine.  Might be lots of fun.  But, I'm getting rather tired of trying to discuss people's homebrew settings who then try to frame the conversation as if this was standard in the rules.  

Divinations DON'T have failure chances.  Detect Evil works 100% of the time, and it's trivially easy to get around any defenses.  Know Alignment is even better.  There's a list of plot destructing spells as long as my arm and I have zero interest in going line by line explaining how each one has to be accounted for in order to run a particular kind of adventure.

The fact that you, RC, admit that the game changes because of these spells is pretty much proof of how intrusive these spells are.  My murder mystery switches to a court intrigue plot game, not because the players want to play that, not because I the DM want to run that, but because the rules constrain me in what can be played.

I'd much rather use a system that doesn't dictate what I can play.  1e works rather well in this regard, simply by not having a lot of divination available.  4e works in exactly the same way - most of the plot destructo spells aren't available.  The big problem came in 2e and 3e where you had spell lists as long as your arm.



			
				DannyA said:
			
		

> In a realm in which Divinarions were known to be completely reliable, casting one ends the mystery (your setting). In realms in which it was known or believed that Divinations were occasionally wrong, there would be reason to doubt them as absolute proof, but may still view them as strong investigative tools (RC's setting). If they were wrong 50/50 or worse, they may be practitioners who are more accurate than others...or they may not be considered evidence at all.




See, my beef at the moment is that Pemerton's setting is the default for 3e.  That's how the game is written.  RC's setting is a homebrew that has started whacking the wizard with a nerf bat to limit what the wizard can do.  That's certainly one direction to go.

But, it's not what the rules say.  If RC wants to discuss his homebrew setting, great.  I'm just getting tired of him trying to pass it off as how the rules are written.


----------



## Raven Crowking

triqui said:


> A) it completely trash any other single character but the sorcerer and the wizard for the encounter. Its not like they take the spotlight. They became the only Pc, rendering the rest into Npc status.




I will agree that this could be a problem, especially in slower-playing games, such as 3e.  OTOH, if you follow the guidelines in 3e, almost anyone can gain some form of non-detection device that should prevent your (B).



triqui said:


> Yet once again, that has nothing to do with magic itself. It does not make magic any less gamebreaking.




The first sentence is correct (but, as a reply to the meme that it takes magical GM handwaving to deal with the problem, *it shouldn't*).  The second sentence is wrong.  Consequences to using magic, and magic not simply solving the problem (but adding a layer of complexity/decision points) does make magic less gamebreaking.

BTW, in your examples of the "real Dark Ages":  In the feudal system, the Count is the vassal of the King, and owes him both allegiance and military duty.  The King is always making sure that the Count cannot amass too much power, while at the same time making sure that the Count has power enough to fulfill his obligations.  Again, rather like the mafia in The Godfather.

The Count's ambition is always to raise his own standard; the King knows this, and the Count knows that the King knows this.

Unless the Count is a problem to the King, though, it is never in the King's interests to take him out.  For this reason, in the real Dark Ages, as in any place in the world right now where similar conditions apply, the Count really can and does get away with murder.  He doesn't even have to hide it; he just has to avoid broadcasting too loudly so as to become a problem to the King.

Conversely, if the Count is a problem to the King, it doesn't matter that he is guilty.  It only matters that justice seems to be done, so that other nobles don't rebel, while everyone knows that the Count has paid the price for his actions, so that other nobles don't get ideas.

In such a scenario, the Count isn't the killer.  The killer is in the King's employ, and has disguised himself as the Count.  Either he fooled the horse or, in a D&D world, the horse is in the King's employ as well.



> But that DOES NOT work for evey setting and every game.




Obviously.

And, it should be equally obvious, you should seek a game and a magic system with which you are comfortable.

I am not saying that people do not experience these sorts of problems; I am saying that people _*do not necessarily*_ experience these sorts of problems.  They are an artifact of the convergence of the ruleset and playstyle expectations, where the two do not harmonize.

When that happens, it is a lot smarter to change the ruleset than play in a way you do not enjoy.

BUT that doesn't mean that a ruleset that meshes with your playstyle expectations is going to mesh with mine.

Options are good.  Dogmatism about what options should exist, IMHO at least, is not.



> If magic "can do anything", then EVERYTHING must be done with magic.




Sorry, but that doesn't follow.  One can have a system 



Hussar said:


> Ok, you've banged this T1 Moathouse drum a few times, so let's set the record straigh.  What was being discussed at the time was the fact that sleep in AD&D is essentially an auto-win spell.  You went on and on about how it only works 50% of the time in T1.  That ignores the fact that the OTHER half of the time, it works perfectly fine and the wizard autowins the encounter.




Significantly less than 50%, if memory serves.  But, by your definition of "autowin", I am not at all convinced that "the non-casters get ZERO autowins ever."  After all, in EVERY case in the Moathouse, the magic-user must not be surprised, and must get his spell off before he is struck in combat.



> Which bring it back around to this conversation.  The alignment rules are pretty specific.  If you are a good aligned cleric and you protect a murderer that you KNOW is guilty (and you know because your freaking GOD just told you), you're not going to be casting any spells anymore.
> 
> It's going to be pretty obvious that you're lying when all of a sudden you can't so much as cure a paper cut.




Here's a few things.

(1)  Your "pretty specific" alignment rules do not say "If you lie to protect a murder you KNOW is guilty, then you become Evil").  As a point of fact, they say nothing remotely close to that.

(2)  The King has no way of knowing whether or not the clerics are actually casting the spell.  It is entirely possible that they simply do not, and lie about that, because they do not want to know.

(3)  It is also possible that the cleric's freaking GOD wants them to protect the Count, because the Count is integral to his own plans (unknowable to mortals) or because he also talked to the Count, and told the Count to commit the murder.

(4)  If protecting a murderer that you KNOW is guilty makes one Evil, then I am guessing that most PCs are evil.  

(5)  In fact, an argument can be made that, if the clerics believe that the Count was justified and/or necessary to the stability of the kingdom (i.e., a necessary evil), that they are obligated to lie.  Likewise, if the clerics know that telling the truth condemns the Count to death, and actions directly leading to the death of another (sanctity of life and all that being a Good trait) are forbidden by their religion.

(6)  The clerics, of course, could simply be Neutral.



> But, I'm getting rather tired of trying to discuss people's homebrew settings who then try to frame the conversation as if this was standard in the rules.




 

Then you might want to brush up on the rules.



> Divinations DON'T have failure chances.




Absolutely sure about that, are you?  Under which version of the rules?



> See, my beef at the moment is that Pemerton's setting is the default for 3e.  That's how the game is written.  RC's setting is a homebrew that has started whacking the wizard with a nerf bat to limit what the wizard can do.




You presume too much.  I've played plenty of bog-standard 1e, 2e, and 3e.  With the exception of mentioning what is happening in my campaign right now, _*where divination magic exceeds that of 3e and still causes no problem*_, I haven't stepped out of bog standard D&D at all.  And, because the example is one in which the level of divination exceeds that of bog-standard D&D, the fact that it causes no problems in play is relevant to the question of whether or not such magic *must* damage play. 

OTOH, you are right about one thing:  If a ruleset doesn't mesh well with your playstyle assumptions, you should change rulesets to one that does.  Even if you have to build it yourself.



> But, it's not what the rules say.  If RC wants to discuss his homebrew setting, great.  I'm just getting tired of him trying to pass it off as how the rules are written.




How very "Boom, crush. Night, losers. Winning, duh." of you.

AFAICT, you are making a claim that taking NPC motivations and resources into account is _*a violation of the rules*_?     Please tell me, *specifically*, what I have said that violates the rules, Hussar.  I await your wisdom with bated breath.

Using a ruleset wisely is not a violation thereof.


RC


----------



## I'm A Banana

Narrative control, I feel, should either not be in the hands of a class at all (the 4e solution), or it should be in the hands of EVERY class (no D&D has used this solution).

One possibility is that divination is like treasure. If you go to the Gypsy Woods you might find the Crystal of Seeing, and then any character can use divination to scry. 

One possibility is that it is like a power or spell: protected by role. Clerics get Divination. Wizard get Teleportation. Fighters get Charm. Rogues get Invisibility. 

One possibility is that everyone gets something to help them fill any role. Wizards get Teleportation, Charm, Invisibilty, and Divination; Fighters get mounts or vehicles that make travel easy, intimidation that inspires complexes, agility that makes them undetectable, and combat knowledge that seems prescient (BATMAN!). 

The important point is just that spellcasters aren't the only ones with these powers.


----------



## triqui

Raven Crowking said:


> I will agree that this could be a problem, especially in slower-playing games, such as 3e.  OTOH, if you follow the guidelines in 3e, almost anyone can gain some form of non-detection device that should prevent your (B).



Which makes my point get back: if Magic is Powerful and Can do Anything is the norm, it permeates everything. EVERY PC and NPC *has* to be a magic user, use a magic user hireling, or buy magic items from a magic user just to be able to survive. Hence, you can't build a NPC Pirate that mistrust magic, or simply that ignores it. He *needs* to know *what* a scry spell is becouse he *needs* to have a non-detection device beforehand.




> The first sentence is correct (but, as a reply to the meme that it takes magical GM handwaving to deal with the problem, *it shouldn't*).  The second sentence is wrong.  Consequences to using magic, and magic not simply solving the problem (but adding a layer of complexity/decision points) does make magic less gamebreaking.



 When those consequences arise, yes. When they dont, no. Go back to my example: players might be a group of Robin Hood outlaws, so they might not care at all about their evidence been believed by the king. Once they know who killed the countess, they can act in consequence.



> BTW, in your examples of the "real Dark Ages":  In the feudal system, the Count is the vassal of the King, and owes him both allegiance and military duty.  The King is always making sure that the Count cannot amass too much power, while at the same time making sure that the Count has power enough to fulfill his obligations.  Again, rather like the mafia in The Godfather.
> 
> The Count's ambition is always to raise his own standard; the King knows this, and the Count knows that the King knows this.
> 
> Unless the Count is a problem to the King, though, it is never in the King's interests to take him out.  For this reason, in the real Dark Ages, as in any place in the world right now where similar conditions apply, the Count really can and does get away with murder.  He doesn't even have to hide it; he just has to avoid broadcasting too loudly so as to become a problem to the King.



Yet if the local Inquisitor point the Count with his finger and shouts "Devil-Whorshiper!!", the Count is hanged. And that does not address AT ALL the fact of magic divination being a plot buster. At *best* it might be a counter for *that* example. The Players might be investigating who killed the farmer's wife, and discover it was the farmer (who has 0 political power). The problem is that magic divination crush plots. That the plot *might* be built in a fashion that even with magic divinations, players need other actions, only means Magic *forces* the DM to build some plots instead of others. No other aspect of the game removes the narrative control from the narrator such as magic does.




> I am not saying that people do not experience these sorts of problems; I am saying that people _*do not necessarily*_ experience these sorts of problems.  They are an artifact of the convergence of the ruleset and playstyle expectations, where the two do not harmonize.



But I'm not talking exclusivelly about games (and thus a ruleset). The OP was talking about fiction. In Fiction, if magic exist to a level where it can "do anything", then everything else is pointless. Why would I hire a (mundane) assasin to kill a king? The king is going to be ressurrected, and will have magical defenses to protect himself. Only a magical assasin (with something like soul-trap) can kill him. That's why on most fiction (bassically, any that's not D&D based like Elminster series are), magic is non-existant, is a plot device, or do minor non plot-busting and shortcut effects. Gandalf did not teleport to Mordor. Witch King does not teleport to Frodo. Thulsa Doom does not Teleport to Conan. They have powerful effects (like casting circle of protection) than Martial Characters can't do. But those effects do ^not^ become into plotbusting, and is not far beyond of what a Martial Character can do (Glorfindel can't cast "circle of protection against Balrogs", but killed one with a club and a dagger, so the effect, while vissually different, isn't mechanically unique. It does not put Wizards beyond Warriors, given same level. Glorfindel is on par with Gandalf)

Just to point: get to 3e rules. Add up the cost of a fleet of galleons, a bunch of camels, their sailors, drivers, some guards, and their food, for a couple of months. Now compare it with the cost of making a permanent "circle of teleport" from Florentia to China. And tell me why on hell would a rich florentian trader use any kind of mundane caravan to the Silk Road.


----------



## Hussar

RC said:
			
		

> Here's a few things.
> 
> (1) Your "pretty specific" alignment rules do not say "If you lie to protect a murder you KNOW is guilty, then you become Evil"). As a point of fact, they say nothing remotely close to that.
> 
> (2) The King has no way of knowing whether or not the clerics are actually casting the spell. It is entirely possible that they simply do not, and lie about that, because they do not want to know.
> 
> (3) It is also possible that the cleric's freaking GOD wants them to protect the Count, because the Count is integral to his own plans (unknowable to mortals) or because he also talked to the Count, and told the Count to commit the murder.
> 
> (4) If protecting a murderer that you KNOW is guilty makes one Evil, then I am guessing that most PCs are evil.
> 
> (5) In fact, an argument can be made that, if the clerics believe that the Count was justified and/or necessary to the stability of the kingdom (i.e., a necessary evil), that they are obligated to lie. Likewise, if the clerics know that telling the truth condemns the Count to death, and actions directly leading to the death of another (sanctity of life and all that being a Good trait) are forbidden by their religion.
> 
> (6) The clerics, of course, could simply be Neutral.




Sigh.  Ok, I'll admit that I make mistakes with the 1e rules when I make the mistake of trying to discuss them.  Mostly because I'm going from memory and don't have the books.  But, there's no excuse for this when the d20 SRD is online during this conversation.

1.  The cleric does not need to change alignment to lose spells.

2.  I never said that protecting a murderer would change your alignment.

3.  A cleric of a LG diety cannot be Neutral.

4.  It specifically says that if the cleric violates the ethos of the god in question, he loses his ability to cast spells.  I'm not really sure how protecting a murderer that your god has told you is a murderer is not a violation of ethos of either Heironeous or Pelor, you pick, it doesn't really matter.

Although, it is fair enough to say that Divination has a failure chance.  I did have that mixed up with Commune, my bad.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:


> Sigh.  Ok, I'll admit that I make mistakes with the 1e rules when I make the mistake of trying to discuss them.  Mostly because I'm going from memory and don't have the books.




Happens all the time, to me as well.  I try to include a disclaimer whenever I think about it, so that folks know not to trust my memory.  But it means a lot to me that you are willing to say it.  (<---please note, not snark!)

Clearly, both you and triqui (and, I am sure, others) have had problems with these issues.  I (and, I am sure, others) have not.  Your problems are real.  Changing the ruleset to remove them is not only a good solution, it is the best solution I know of.  I change rulesets to make them more comfortable to my playstyle, too.

But just as your problems are real, the lack of problems others experience is also real.  It depends on both the material, and your approach to the material.  

And there is no such thing as an objectively better approach (although some material may be objectively better for your approach than other material).

I am very sorry if it seems I am implying otherwise.

You may be amused to know that, back in the 3e era, before I had substantially rewritten anything and, later, when I was first starting to consider how to do so, I advocated turning certain spells into rituals, increasing casting time, and/or allowing certain spells to be learned first as rituals and only later as spells.  I am not _*diametrically opposed *_to 4e's take on this.

EDIT:  Oh, and I wasn't aware that the cleric's god was specified as to ethos and/or alignment.  I obviously missed that, or forgot.

RC


----------



## Argyle King

Banshee16 said:


> There was a system for that in 2nd Ed. in Players Option. It was the Channeling system. Basically, it relied on spell points instead of slots. When you cast spells, you had to roll a save to avoid becoming fatigued.
> 
> It worked pretty well...made spellcasting very difficult and it became a choice. Yes, you could rip off a powerful spell...but you might be reduced to half movement for the next hour and have a -4 to hit anything.
> 
> 3E had something similar, but simplified. It was in Monte Cook's 20 best d20 articles or whatever. A book that came out maybe 5 years back. Characters have to roll a spellcraft check to cast spells successfully. If they succeed, it goes off, but if it fails, they become fatigued. If they fail a second time, they become exhausted. I think the way it was structured was that you could keep casting spells of a level......more than you normally could by using vancian spellcasting. However...every time you cast a spell of the same level, the DC to avoid become exhausted goes up....so eventually you *will* fail.
> 
> Systems like that tend to prevent wizards from casting spells indefinitely. They have to be more choosy.
> 
> Banshee





Unfortunately, I never got to experience 2e.  I grew up in a small rural town during the 'D&D is causing suicide and devil worship' era.  I actually remember saving money to buy it from Toys 'R Us only to go in the next day and be told 'sorry, we're not allowed to sell it anymore.'  It's a shame too; even if I were to find I didn't like the mechanics, I've come to find -from reading a friend's books- that I enjoy the style of the fluff and various other things of that nature.  Sadly, the friend who has the books says he'll never go back to Thac0 again.

Anyway, I agree.  It does cause a caster to be more choosy.  As I said in my previous post, it makes casting become a tactical choice.  Do I want to use my uber spell right now?  What I like about how GURPPS handles it (and D&D 2e from what you've told me) is that it doesn't cripple me either.  It may hinder me, but it doesn't completely prevent me from doing other things.  I'd suggest reading over how GURPS handles it sometime; even if you never plan to run the game, I've found that their books tend to be good reads; eye openers as to how things can work differently, and excellent sources of information.  As it pertains to the current conversation, the second reason applies.

--------------


As for the skill challenge conversation going on.  All of the same things you could do with 3rd Edition divination and such could be actually done easier in 4th Edition by just using a ritual.  The kicker is that I don't even need to be a wizard to cast a ritual in 4E.  

It is somewhat true that the original skill challenge math often made it pretty hard to succeed in a challenge.  On the other hand, the new math makes it too easy (IMO.)  There have been times when I could roll low single digits and still succeed at a check.  I agree that the groups I've played with normally ask around the table for who has the best check.


----------



## Mort

Kamikaze Midget said:


> Narrative control, I feel, should either not be in the hands of a class at all (the 4e solution), or it should be in the hands of EVERY class (no D&D has used this solution).




Actually the martial classes in 4e do have a limited form of narrative control. Many of the fighter, ranger, rogue dayllies are just extensions of their at-wills that do more damage (or extension of an at-will with a special effect). Brute stirke, for example, is just an at will but "I hit it much harder" and split the tree is twin strike that does more damage. The easiest way to explain that is by saying the player is excersising some narrative control over the combat as to when more damage and/or effects can be done. It's one reason I have no problem with martial daylies (it's basically just an alternative to giving the player tokens, fate points etc.)


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> if Magic is Powerful and Can do Anything is the norm, it permeates everything. EVERY PC and NPC *has* to be a magic user, use a magic user hireling, or buy magic items from a magic user just to be able to survive




Piers Anthony's _Xanth_ setting would disagree with you slightly.  In it nearly everyone has magic, but one of the first protagonists in the series had none.  He was so amagical that spells could not affect him.  That did not stop him from being affected by magical creatures, however...


----------



## Mort

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Piers Anthony's _Xanth_ setting would disagree with you slightly.  In it nearly everyone has magic, but one of the first protagonists in the series had none.  He was so amagical that spells could not affect him.  That did not stop him from being affected by magical creatures, however...




This is not exactly accurate. Bink's talent *actively* protects him from being harmed by magic in any way, this generaly does include threats from the magical effects of creatures (and since in Xanth almost every creature is magical this is huge).  In _Knight Mare_ the talent is elaborated upon (from the first 3 books) to show that generally it does protect even against magical creatures - it's one weakness is if there is no direct harm to Bink it will not protect him (ex. he was transported somewhere with no food so might starve to death but the transportation was not harmful). 

Bink is not anti-magic; he can use magic just fine and does on any number of occasions (again active protection, if it's in any way harmful it won't work but beneficial stuff works just fine): In a profoundly magical land, when  you can use magic against people and they cannot use it against you it is a very big advantage.

I think Xanth actually demonstrates the dominance of those with superior magic. While everyone has a magic talent, most are "create a colored spot on any surface" variety (essentially cantrip level). Those that have great talent (called "magician caliber") such as polymorph at will, full control over the dead, polymorph other at will, etc. Are generally the rulers of the land.


----------



## triqui

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Piers Anthony's _Xanth_ setting would disagree with you slightly.  In it nearly everyone has magic, but one of the first protagonists in the series had none.  He was so amagical that spells could not affect him.  That did not stop him from being affected by magical creatures, however...




To quote the Incredibles arch villain "if every body is especial, then nobody is". Thats balance too.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

I didn't say Bink couldn't use magic, just that magic itself would not affect him.

As for creatures, protection from their magical effects is all well & good, but a dragon still has big freaking claws & teeth.  That's one of those situations where some protection is about as useless as none at all.

On the whole, he much resembles a typical D&D fighter- with no magic of his own (beyond his aforementioned protection), he has to depend upon the magic supplied by others when magic is required.


----------



## Fifth Element

Dannyalcatraz said:


> On the whole, he much resembles a typical D&D fighter- with no magic of his own (beyond his aforementioned protection), he has to depend upon the magic supplied by others when magic is required.



I daresay a typical D&D fighter is not immune to the effects of magic. Fighters don't get spell resistance as they level. That would be a very significant benefit that puts him beyond the typical fighter in the game.


----------



## triqui

Raven Crowking said:


> Clearly, both you and triqui (and, I am sure, others) have had problems with these issues.  I (and, I am sure, others) have not.  Your problems are real.  Changing the ruleset to remove them is not only a good solution, it is the best solution I know of.  I change rulesets to make them more comfortable to my playstyle, too.
> 
> But just as your problems are real, the lack of problems others experience is also real.  It depends on both the material, and your approach to the material.




Sure, we can agree on that. Magic overshadowing everything else is mostly a thing about the players. Probably I wont have a problem DMing your players, and probably you would DMing mine (specially some magic-lover power-gamer sorceror that loves to sink pirate ships with half a dozen spells on him to start with). I DMed 3.0 and 3.5 for a long time, and lot of times, we didn't have a problem (although, to be fair, lot of times we played in "Conan style" worlds, were magic was inexistant, or controlled by plot. But a couple standard high fantasy as well, including in "world of warcraft world", and mainly without issues that you can notice). However, some other times, the problems arised. So I chosed to move to a system that control that by default, instead of needing myself twisting everything so Magic does not disrupt the game (I'm morally against  heavy handweaving and DM whim. If players get a good idea that get my guard low, they deserve victory, and not a simple "no that does not work, becouse I don't like it".)


> And there is no such thing as an objectively better approach (although some material may be objectively better for your approach than other material).



Agree. I jumped into this thread becouse of the tittle. While there is no such thing as "wrong fun", and your approach is absolutelly valid as soon as all (and not only the ones that cast spells) agree with it and have fun, everything s fine. However, to answer to the OP, in fiction, there is no such thing as "magic is better". Most of time, magic is not what we see in D&D or other high fantasy RPG (as Rolemaster or Runequest).. In most fiction, Magic is part of the plot, not the characters (as Gandalf), is part of the evil problem (Thulsa Doom), or is "on par" with Martial Characters (Achilles, Beowulf, Hercules...), or, even the main character is a powerful caster (like Elric), it doesn't have a lot of "shortcutting" spells. So, in my opinion, 4e serves better than 3e to *simulate* fantasy fiction. 0e to 3e serves better to simulate "D&D fiction" -such as Forgotten Realms novels-, mainly becouse D&D fiction is based on it.


----------



## Mort

Fifth Element said:


> I daresay a typical D&D fighter is not immune to the effects of magic. Fighters don't get spell resistance as they level. That would be a very significant benefit that puts him beyond the typical fighter in the game.




Couple that with the fact that everyone relies on magic for everything - including hurting others - and it's hugely significant. And it's not just magic resistance it is 100% magic immunity to harmful magic (with a godlike entity deciding harmful from not so it is very difficult to fool).

For an intersting take on a magicless man in a land where everyone relies on magic there is the Darksword Trilogy by Weiss and Hickman. Gets weird at the end but good reading until then.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Fifth Element said:


> I daresay a typical D&D fighter is not immune to the effects of magic. Fighters don't get spell resistance as they level. That would be a very significant benefit that puts him beyond the typical fighter in the game.




You did note that parenthetical about his immunity, right?  That means I was excepting that from the comparison.

Even including it, it still doesn't help him defeat a dragon if he doesn't have anything else to partner with it, it just keeps him alive longer.  Perhaps as long as another 6 seconds as the drake realizes he's immune and decides to try a more direct approach (like biting or clawing).  Or if its put on guard because he shrugs off magical effects and it doesn't want to get close, it can still drop big-ass rocks on him from the air- seagull style- and that magic immunity will be useless.


----------



## Fifth Element

Dannyalcatraz said:


> You did note that parenthetical about his immunity, right?  That means I was excepting that from the comparison.



Oh I know, it just struck me as strange to say "Other than some really powerful magic (effectively), he has no magic."


----------



## I'm A Banana

Mort said:
			
		

> Actually the martial classes in 4e do have a limited form of narrative control. Many of the fighter, ranger, rogue dayllies are just extensions of their at-wills that do more damage (or extension of an at-will with a special effect). Brute stirke, for example, is just an at will but "I hit it much harder" and split the tree is twin strike that does more damage. The easiest way to explain that is by saying the player is excersising some narrative control over the combat as to when more damage and/or effects can be done. It's one reason I have no problem with martial daylies (it's basically just an alternative to giving the player tokens, fate points etc.)




Kind of a quibble, but I wasn't using "narrative control" in the sense of "explain the ability to do this by story."

I was using it in the sense of "ability to control the narrative." That is that things like Teleportation, Scrying, Divination, Flight, even Raise Dead to a certain degree, give spellcasters control over what happens in the game world and how the party goes about its business of killing things and taking their stuff.

When a party's spellcaster gains these spells they are frequently (but not always) "game-changers," effects that change how the game's pace and information is structured. This potency to grab control of the game and run with it (unless the DM builds in pre-emptive magical protections) is something that no warrior in D&D has ever really had.

4e's solution was (mostly) to ditch those effects. Now the only one who controls the narrative is the DM. 

As an improv-heavy DM, this actually makes me work a lot harder to run a game in 4e than I did in 3e, since I don't have the ability to rely on the party to do whatever they want.


----------



## Argyle King

Kamikaze Midget said:


> Kind of a quibble, but I wasn't using "narrative control" in the sense of "explain the ability to do this by story."
> 
> I was using it in the sense of "ability to control the narrative." That is that things like Teleportation, Scrying, Divination, Flight, even Raise Dead to a certain degree, give spellcasters control over what happens in the game world and how the party goes about its business of killing things and taking their stuff.
> 
> When a party's spellcaster gains these spells they are frequently (but not always) "game-changers," effects that change how the game's pace and information is structured. This potency to grab control of the game and run with it (unless the DM builds in pre-emptive magical protections) is something that no warrior in D&D has ever really had.
> 
> 4e's solution was (mostly) to ditch those effects. Now the only one who controls the narrative is the DM.
> 
> As an improv-heavy DM, this actually makes me work a lot harder to run a game in 4e than I did in 3e, since I don't have the ability to rely on the party to do whatever they want.




minor nitpick...

All of those things are still available with rituals.  You need not even be a spellcaster to do them.


----------



## pemerton

Kamikaze Midget said:


> I wasn't using "narrative control" in the sense of "explain the ability to do this by story."
> 
> I was using it in the sense of "ability to control the narrative." That is that things like Teleportation, Scrying, Divination, Flight, even Raise Dead to a certain degree, give spellcasters control over what happens in the game world and how the party goes about its business of killing things and taking their stuff.
> 
> When a party's spellcaster gains these spells they are frequently (but not always) "game-changers," effects that change how the game's pace and information is structured. This potency to grab control of the game and run with it (unless the DM builds in pre-emptive magical protections) is something that no warrior in D&D has ever really had.
> 
> 4e's solution was (mostly) to ditch those effects. Now the only one who controls the narrative is the DM.



A quibble to your quibble: I disagree that in 4e the only one who controls the narrative is the GM. I would say that the one who _frames the scenes_ is the GM - because without teleport, etc the players can't - but the _resolution_ of those scenes, and hence the shape and consequences of the unfolding narrative, are in the hands of the players as well as the GM (in my preferred approach the players should be taking the lead, with the GM adjudicating within the parameters of the game mechanics).



Johnny3D3D said:


> All of those things are still available with rituals.  You need not even be a spellcaster to do them.



A nitpick to your nitpick - once you've taken the Ritual Caster feat I think you count as a spellcaster.

On the substantial point, true, but . . . True Portal (which allows teleport to a destination other than a permanent circle) is level 28, and Consult Oracle (which would be needed to learn the identity of a stealthy murderer) is level 16. I think this is quite a difference from earlier versions of D&D, in which Commune, Teleport and Contact Other Plane are all available at level 9, and alignment detection from level 1, with Know Alignment and ESP available at level 3. Discern Lies is a low-level ritual, but it gives a (significant) bonus to Insight checks rather than automatically detecing lies.


----------



## Argyle King

Those are farm from the only rituals which can hijack 'narrative control' though.  

I do semi-agree with what you're saying; I do agree that -generally speaking- magic was more flexible in 3rd Edition.  However, I would disagree that it's not possible to take control of the narrative in 4th Edition; doing so just isn't something which is unique to using magic... or even rituals really.


----------



## pemerton

Dannyalcatraz said:


> In a realm in which Divinarions were known to be completely reliable, casting one ends the mystery (your setting).  In realms in which it was known or believed that Divinations were occasionally wrong, there would be reason to doubt them as absolute proof, but may still view them as strong investigative tools (RC's setting).





Hussar said:


> my beef at the moment is that Pemerton's setting is the default for 3e.  That's how the game is written.  RC's setting is a homebrew that has started whacking the wizard with a nerf bat to limit what the wizard can do.





Raven Crowking said:


> BTW, in your examples of the "real Dark Ages":  In the feudal system, the Count is the vassal of the King, and owes him both allegiance and military duty.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Unless the Count is a problem to the King, though, it is never in the King's interests to take him out.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Conversely, if the Count is a problem to the King, it doesn't matter that he is guilty.



This setting stuff is tricky.

I think that D&D - especially post-OD&D and pre-4e - is fundamentally confused as to what it's setting is.

AD&D 1st ed is written in places as if the setting is a Conan-esque one - faux history intended to serve not as a genuine game element, but rather as a backdrop to escapades. (And LotR, although it has a very different faux history, is actually comparable in this regard. If a person's response to LotR is "But how does a small, mostly autarkic population of hobbits maintain a living standard comparable to that of one of the centres of world production and trade in the 18th and early 19th centuries?" they have probably missed the point.)

But then we get discussions of peasant revolts, taxation, social structures, etc all of which suggest that we are meant to take the sociology and economy of the setting seriously - even though it is a historically impossible setting (in part because of the magic, in part because of the anachronisms).

In my view this issue is only compounded in 2nd ed AD&D and 3E, because of the great proliferation of settings (and yes, I know FR started in 1st ed but it's peak came later) which are presented not as backdrop but as serious elements in the game, which are meant to shape and constrain the way the fiction unfolds.

One thing I like about 4e's approach - to an extent articulated in the DMG, but even more strongly articulated in Worlds & Monsters - is that it explicitly returns to the world as backdrop.

I think it is _possible_ to take some steps towards making quasi-mediaeval/feudal D&D semi-plausible - one of the most important steps (in my view) is to emphasise a culture among wizards and priests of such extreme conservatism that the idea of innovating by using magic as technology just never comes up (as sociology, this is more plausible if you're a Weberian than if you're a Marxist!). But the plausibility will, nevertheless, in my view be only a veneer. Feudal society is the upshot of a particular confluence of social, religious, technological, etc factors in Western and Central Europe that are simply not replicated in the typical D&D gameworld, and probably can't be given the difference that magic makes.

That's why these days I tend to prefer a D&D game where the setting is a backdrop, and where the default assumption about priests and knights of Pelor or Bahamut is that they are good guys whose word can be relied upon. That is, I prefer an approach that is genre (heroic fantasy) first, and sociology a distant second.


----------



## pemerton

Johnny3D3D said:


> Those are farm from the only rituals which can hijack 'narrative control' though.
> 
> I do semi-agree with what you're saying; I do agree that -generally speaking- magic was more flexible in 3rd Edition.  However, I would disagree that it's not possible to take control of the narrative in 4th Edition; doing so just isn't something which is unique to using magic... or even rituals really.



Picking up just on your last sentence - this may relate to my quibble with KM - I see 4e as a game in which the GM frames the scenes, but the players then take control of the resolution of those scenes.

And in that sense, yes, definitely, players can take control of the narrative - whether via rituals, skill checks, etc. But (at the risk of raising RC's ire) this is, to my mind, closer to what Hussar described a little upthread as "engaging the gameworld" - rather than sidestepping it.

To try to elaborate just a little on that controversial way of putting things: one function teleport has in classic fantasy RPG play (at least as I've experienced it) is to skip over the boring bits. But if the GM is framing scenes well, then there won't _be_ boring bits - and skipping over the _interesting_ bits is what creates the sort of anticlimax triqui is talking about.

When the players drive the scene forward by "engaging the gameworld" in the sense of actually interacting with the interesting bits, rather than skipping over them to an anticlimax, then we have good RPGing.

Now as RC and DannyA have pointed out, it is possible to run a murder scenario (for example) in which the interesting bits come _after_ the murderer has been identified. But as I and triqui and Hussar have pointed out, this is perhaps not true of _all_ murder scenarios. The overall issue, then, in my view (and I think on this I agree with RC _and_ Hussar) is making sure that the sorts of tools the players are given for engaging the gameworld are going to mesh well with the sorts of situations the GM will be presenting, so that they encourage engaging with, rather than skipping over, the interesting bits.

Where I think I disagree with RC is that 4e is probably the first version of D&D to really address this issue in a self-conscious fashion. Earlier editions introduced spells not by thinking of them as player tools, but by thinking of them simply in terms of fictional plausibility. As a result, play in earlier versions of D&D has (I believe) tended to shape itself to the spells taken as given. (Monte Cook had a column probably close to 10 years ago now where he emphasised very strongly that D&D GM's should be framing situations and designing scenarios to accord with the spell capabilities the system presents - even where this might be a little surprising/counterintuitive in the results it leads to. There was no suggestion that we might _first_ think of the sorts of situations/scenarios we are interested in - by reference to genre, etc - and then design and limit the tools to achieve this goal.)

Whereas the 4e designers had a certain conception of what sort of play the game should involve, and then did their best to introduce spells (thought of as player tools) that would facilitate that play. (And to go back to the rituals and their levels - part of this is a much more self-conscious conception of what it means to play the game with Heroic, Paragon and Epic PCs.)


----------



## Argyle King

Pem, it's not that I disagree with you.  In some respects, I would mostly agree.  However, I disagree that 4E necessarily fixed the problem.  

I would say that magic specifically is a little more controlled in 4E.  I would disagree that players can't sidestep the game world.  I would also say that there are indeed player options available which require a GM to change how he designs a scenario or a setting.  However, now most of them aren't confined to mages.


----------



## pemerton

Johnny3D3D, what have you got in mind?


----------



## Argyle King

The thing which first springs to mind for me is the comparison of the numbers a PC can regularly generate (even with just at-will powers) versus the numbers which the 'physics engine' the rest of the game world is built with.  For example, it's far easier for a group of PC to destroy a trap than it is to bother with a skill challenge to disarm one.

When I was first learning 4th Edition, I tried to create encounters which I thought would be cool.  One such encounter involved having the PCs on one gondola while the enemy was on another.  In my mind I envisioned how I thought it would play out.  In actual play the PCs just targeted the gondola.  Looking at what HP the books suggested I give to an object, I was surprised to find how easy it was for a player to destroy something like that.  Needless to say, there was what I felt an extreme anticlimactic end to the battle in little more than a round.

While I did anticipate it would be a tactic they would try, I did not think it would be so easy.  After a few other attempts which ended in a similar fashion, I changed how I was trying to build encounters to be more in line with ye olde basic dungeon crawl.  Granted, this example is probably outside of exactly what we're talking about, but -in a sense- it falls in line with some of the non-combat spells a mage once had.  Also, in a similar manner, I've seen a few skill challenges skipped over by applying brute force via powers.


Other examples would include the way in which the orb wizard originally worked.  Knowing that it was possible to load an impossible save onto a creature during an encounter was something a GM often had to take into consideration.  In particular, it often meant needing to stop using solos or it meant giving a BBEG a sidekick who could grant save bonuses.  After errata, it has gotten better, but it can still be something which causes problems.


If we're focusing on powers only, I've seen Magic Circle used quite a few times in a manner which had the potential to derail an encounter.  One included taking the time to draw one around the BBEG's lair.  This lead to him not being able to get out of his uber-fortress.

If I look back through my notes*, there are others, but those are the ones which are fresh in my mind.

*I often mark down in my notebook things which seem to work oddly, unique situations which arise in game, and etc.


----------



## Banshee16

Johnny3D3D said:


> Unfortunately, I never got to experience 2e.  I grew up in a small rural town during the 'D&D is causing suicide and devil worship' era.  I actually remember saving money to buy it from Toys 'R Us only to go in the next day and be told 'sorry, we're not allowed to sell it anymore.'  It's a shame too; even if I were to find I didn't like the mechanics, I've come to find -from reading a friend's books- that I enjoy the style of the fluff and various other things of that nature.  Sadly, the friend who has the books says he'll never go back to Thac0 again.
> 
> Anyway, I agree.  It does cause a caster to be more choosy.  As I said in my previous post, it makes casting become a tactical choice.  Do I want to use my uber spell right now?  What I like about how GURPPS handles it (and D&D 2e from what you've told me) is that it doesn't cripple me either.  It may hinder me, but it doesn't completely prevent me from doing other things.  I'd suggest reading over how GURPS handles it sometime; even if you never plan to run the game, I've found that their books tend to be good reads; eye openers as to how things can work differently, and excellent sources of information.  As it pertains to the current conversation, the second reason applies.




If you still play 3.5, you may want to look for the supplement "Legends of Sorcery" by RPG Object.  They have a channeling spell point system.

Instead of slots, you get points.  You use points on your spells but have to make a successful roll to case your spell.  Conceivably you can cast high level spells than you'd expect, but the more you "stretch" yourself, the more expensive the spell, the less likely it succeeds, and the more significant the cost if you fail....consequences of failing to cast a spell can range from suffering fatigue to taking lethal damage of 1d6 x spell level.

It works fairly well to simulate the channeling system from 2nd Ed.  And it lets you do things like have a lvl 3 caster attempt a lvl 4 spell.  It might use up all his spell points for the day if he succeeds, it would be a difficult roll to make, and if he fails, he could strain himself so much  he dies.  Similarly you could have a lvl 20 character case a whole whack of low level spells.....like magic missile 30 times.  To me, this is almost an ideal system in a way.

It's available as a PDF, and I think it's like $9.

Banshee


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## Banshee16

triqui said:


> That's my point. If Magic is so powerful, it permeates everything. If magic "can do anything", then EVERYTHING must be done with magic. Why would any BBEG hire an assasin to enter into King's room and poison him at night? First, that would be useless: neutralize poison and raise dead and there you go. Second, it would be non-efficient. It's way easier to hire a caster that cast scry+teleport at night, kill the king, and teleport back. Sure, the king's room might be teleport-protected. THAT'S THE PROBLEM. In order to "survive" in a magic setting, the king *has* to be a magic user, or use a magic user hireling. It kills the freedom of choice from the setting author (the DM). You can't have a king that mistrust Magic (like Conan the King). If he does, he's doomed. Becouse Magic is the end-all nuclear weapon. Either you have magic, or you don't matter. At all.




I disagree....generally, magic (assuming arcane magic) is being used only by characters with INT or CHA scores of 11 or higher *and* the training to use it.  That's basically like 1/6th of the population at most, and the majority of them will have low level magics anyways.

You can bet that not every character with an INT of 11 is going to be learning magic.  Because some of those guys with INT 11 might also have STR 14 or DEX 14, and thus be better off training as rogues or fighters.

So yeah, magic might be powerful in certain circumstances....but I don't think it would be the bygone conclusion for every situation.  It would be reserved for those who can afford to pay someone to use it on their behalf.  Maybe you can't afford a wizard bodyguard...but you can afford a fighter or rogue.

I *am* kind of surprised that D&D never went to having a dual stat system for calculating ability to use magic......add a 7th ability score....Magic.  Ranges from 3-18, and determines the highest level of spell you can cast, and it *never* changes.  Thus, if your Wizard has a 14 magic score, he'll only ever be able to handle low to mid level magics.  His INT might cover things like Save DC, # of bonus spells, etc.  Immediately, this would significantly limit the prevalence of spellcasters in the world.  Most players who wanted to become powerful spellcasters would thus dump their highest ability score into Magic.......but it wouldn't be like that for all NPCs....you'd have your guys with Magic score of 11 or 13 or whatever.  But it would also explain the presence of sages and other characters with high INT who choose not to study magic.  You could have a sage with 18 INT who teaches at a university and knows a bunch of languages, and serves as a source of info for PCs....but he can't even cast a cantrip, as his magic score is a 7.

Banshee


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## pemerton

Johnny3D3D, thanks for the reply. Everything you say makes sense. The orb wizard and Magic Circle problems I would see as errata-bait. The other one you mention is more interesting:



Johnny3D3D said:


> The thing which first springs to mind for me is the comparison of the numbers a PC can regularly generate (even with just at-will powers) versus the numbers which the 'physics engine' the rest of the game world is built with.  For example, it's far easier for a group of PC to destroy a trap than it is to bother with a skill challenge to disarm one.



I think this is part of what the rules envisage the GM will handle via the "may" target objects - unfortunately, I don't think enough guidelines are given. But I don't see it so much as a place for errata, as for better guidance on how to resolve attempts to damage objects.

(My first 4e encounter also involved the PCs on a boat and enemies on a raft, but with a sandbar inbetween them, which is where most of the fighting took place. So the destruction option didn't come up.)


----------



## pawsplay

pemerton said:


> But I don't entirely agree with your last paragraph. As a 4th level wizard in 1st ed AD&D I have 3 first and 2 second level spells. At 5th level I get a new 3rd level spell. So time to rest and memorise all spells at 4th level is 4 hours + 7*15 minutes is a bit less than 6 hours. I think that's less than 3E, which I believe for arcane casters requires 8 hours (though I think RC is right that it's less harsh as far as interruption is concerned). At 5th level it's 6 hours + 10*15 minutes which is eight-and-a-half hours. That's not very much more than 3E. I can't remember the spell table past this level - but even supposing that 6th level adds both a 2nd and a 3rd level spell, that's still a little less than 10 hours, which isn't hugely more onerous than 3E.
> 
> And once we get above 6th level, we're getting into the zone where 1st ed MUs are pretty strong - multiple fireballs or lightning bolts, stinking clouds or webs, and multi-target magic missiles, and often a wand or two to use in combat as well. Plus the utility options available. In my experience 7th+ level AD&D MUs were pretty potent characters regardless of the % chance to learn mechanics.




The rules for AD&D state:



> As a rule of thumb, allow 15 minutes of game time for memorization of one spell level, i.e. a 1st level spell or half of a 2nd level spell. Such activity requires a mind rested by a good sleep and nourished by the body.




I used to play the Gold Box TSR computer games, including Pool of Radiance. In my experience, spell memorization was a big issue, as this computer game brought to life in a way more prominently than a human-mediated game. Taking into account the prevalence of wandering monsters, which could occur hourly, it was difficult to find the 2-3 hours needed to rememorize. If you were lucky, you might be able to replenish. However, after a couple of memorization periods, your characters would tire, and need to sleep again. 

The way this usually played out was that, generally, I would head out with a wide selection of spells, go as far as I could before they were exhausted, then try to head back to a "safe" location (i.e. low wandering monster area, like the bottom of a well, or one or two completely closed rooms, or the inn in town). OTOH, when I knew I was heading into trouble, I tended to load my magic-users up with all the stinking clouds and fireballs I could, arm each cleric with one hold person and all the cure spells I could carry, and attack my opponents fresh. If my cleric were rendered unconscious, I would sometimes have to resort to cheating on my save games, as it was sometimes necessary to rest for days for an unconscious cleric to revive, and then be able to heal themselves. Ultimately, I tend to fall back on a two cleric, one magic-user, one elf fighter/magic-user as the mainstays of my party.

3e is a picnic by comparison. All you need is eight hours of sleep, and if you get interrupted, you can make up for some lost time. Memorization doesn't take all that long. OTOH, if you run out of spells completely, you are kind of screwed, but you really aren't any worse off than your AD&D counterparts who had to try to squeeze in an extra period of memorization in a day. My PCs always just use staggered shifts (generously configured for the benefit of casters) and camouflaged their position. Sleeping in "dungeons" was almost unheard of, though a couple of times they did construct a small improvised vault inside of a "clear" dungeon. 

Ultimately, clerics and magic-users in AD&D were very interested in acquiring wands and staves. By comparison, 3e clerics and wizards have a fair amount of juice, and can _make_ items with fairly little fuss at low levels.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Banshee16 said:


> You can bet that not every character with an INT of 11 is going to be learning magic. Because some of those guys with INT 11 might also have STR 14 or DEX 14, and thus be better off training as rogues or fighters.




And what has that to do with the price of fish in the market?  If we assume 3e character with Int 11 and Str 16, that's IIRC 2 first level spells per day.  How often is he likely to need to use his fighter weapon proficiency?  One fight for his life every day would be high.  On the other hand few people would not find a use for unseen servant every day.

Assuming one fight with danger of death/day is incredibly high (or the population would die off _fast_), who's better off in a fight?  The fighter with str 16?  Or the person with Sleep (or Expeditious Retreat) prepared and another spell slot to use?  Who makes the better bouncer?  The guy with big weapons or the burly and imposing guy who can finish bar fights with Cause Fear, Hold Person, Hypnotism, or Sleep?  (And can prevent them breaking out with the 0th level Daze spell at the right time).

Even professional soldiers. Which do you want beside you in a fight?  Twenty fighters?  Or twenty people who go into fights with crossbows and spells like Silent Image to provide concealment/false targets and Colour Spray for when things get up close and personal?  Fighters only start coming into their own when you get more than two serious fights per combat day.  Which yes, adventurers do.  But almost no one else does - not even soldiers.


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## Argyle King

pemerton said:


> Johnny3D3D, thanks for the reply. Everything you say makes sense. The orb wizard and Magic Circle problems I would see as errata-bait. The other one you mention is more interesting:
> 
> I think this is part of what the rules envisage the GM will handle via the "may" target objects - unfortunately, I don't think enough guidelines are given. But I don't see it so much as a place for errata, as for better guidance on how to resolve attempts to damage objects.
> 
> (My first 4e encounter also involved the PCs on a boat and enemies on a raft, but with a sandbar inbetween them, which is where most of the fighting took place. So the destruction option didn't come up.)





The clarify a little bit. In my encounter, I was using the type of gondola which is suspending from a cable in the air... similar to a ski lift. 

The only reason it lasted as long as it did was because I fudged the HP of it a few times. I normally hate to fudge numbers. Eventually I just allowed it to be destroyed because it quickly became apparent that many of the players were knowledgable about the rules enough to know it should have broken already.

I think the only thing in that encounter which was more anticlimactic than most of the enemy dying from the falling gondola was when the party fighter used Come And Get It to cause some of the enemy to lemming walk off the side to their collective dooms.

I suppose, in hindsight, as I look at my previous post, the point I was trying to make is that -sometimes- merely by being a PC in 4E, it's expected that you sidestep some of the gameworld. You're built on rules which are above, beyond, and often outside of the rules which the rest of the game world is built upon.


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## webrunner

It's probably been mentioned, but Discworld handles it like this:
1. Everything is magical.  In fact, Carrot's sword is notable as being the least magical known object on the Disc.
2. Everything runs on stories

These two things mean Mr Fighter Face can go toe to toe with mad mages and abominations without breaking a sweat.


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## triqui

webrunner said:


> It's probably been mentioned, but Discworld handles it like this:
> 1. Everything is magical.  In fact, Carrot's sword is notable as being the least magical known object on the Disc.
> 2. Everything runs on stories
> 
> These two things mean Mr Fighter Face can go toe to toe with mad mages and abominations without breaking a sweat.




That's what I call the "Incredibles approach". If everybody is  special then nobody is. In a game about Harry Potter, there is no such thing as a balance problem among mages and non-mages, becouse *everybody is a mage*. Just like there is no problem with a player race having vampiric powers if you are playing Vampire and everybody is a vampire.

The problem comes when magic and mundane users play together. Ars Magica acknowledge this imbalance issue, and thus make people to play with different characters, so everybody can play his mage once in a while, while the other players use "mundane companions" meanwhile.

Thing on this: if you make a game where you can be "human", "dwarf" and "elf", and humans and dwarves are basicallly similar in power level, but elves can do anything they want, are completelly inmune to most effects, can have higher level, use a different base attack bonus, and have access to a different subset of skills (like "fly" instead of "jump" and "see invisible" instead of perception") then everybody would claim that this race is unbalanced, that this is unfair. Even 3e players would say so. That's why nobody allow players to play with, say, a dragon, or a Balrog. However, when the unbalance come from some "player template" arbitrarely named "class" instead of some "player template" arbitrarely named "race", then a lot of people do not see a problem with one class being in a completelly different attack mechanic (ie: autohit spells and saving throws instead of BAB), inmunity to most things (like "protection from elements" or "stoneskin") or access to a completelly different subset of "skills" that are completelly better (like "scry" instead of "perception", "invisibility" as "stealth" or "detect thoughts" instead of "sense motive")


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## pemerton

Pawsplay, thanks for the post. What you say makes sense - but I couldn't help but note this:



pawsplay said:


> Ultimately, I tend to fall back on a two cleric, one magic-user, one elf fighter/magic-user as the mainstays of my party.



That suggests that, even if rememorising spells was hard, being a wizard rather than a warrior was still a reasonable choice!


----------



## I'm A Banana

> That's what I call the "Incredibles approach". If everybody is special then nobody is.




Well, as far as D&D is concerned, not everyone is special.

The *PC's* are special. They're the Heroes in this Heroic Fantasy. They're the Incredibles. They're Batman and Superman and Conan and Merlin all joining forces. 

Everyone else (aside from perhaps allies and rivals and enemies and other characters who might challenge or join with the Heroes) is basically a Level 1-3 Commoner or Warrior. Townsfolk. Beat cops. Army grunts. Beet farmers. Heck, craftsfolk. Magic item tinkerers. 

All I'm really concerned with is making sure that the spellcasters don't get to feel _more special_ than anyone else in the party, and that everyone in the party gets to feel more special than the dudes driving the turnip cart. 

Discworld is a little more democratic than that, of course, but Discworld is more strongly Comedy than Heroic Fantasy, and potential chaos and disruption from everyone being potentially awesome aid that feel. Not that you couldn't have a D&D with that idea, but it's better addressed in flavor than mechanics, IMO.


----------



## triqui

Kamikaze Midget said:


> Well, as far as D&D is concerned, not everyone is special.
> 
> The *PC's* are special. They're the Heroes in this Heroic Fantasy. They're the Incredibles. They're Batman and Superman and Conan and Merlin all joining forces.
> 
> Everyone else (aside from perhaps allies and rivals and enemies and other characters who might challenge or join with the Heroes) is basically a Level 1-3 Commoner or Warrior. Townsfolk. Beat cops. Army grunts. Beet farmers. Heck, craftsfolk. Magic item tinkerers.
> 
> All I'm really concerned with is making sure that the spellcasters don't get to feel _more special_ than anyone else in the party, and that everyone in the party gets to feel more special than the dudes driving the turnip cart.




Yes, that was my point. In a Harry Potter game, where the PC are all mages, they are "special" compared to maggots. But all the players are "equally special", so there's balance among them.  The problem arise when 1 of the players is special, and the rest are not. In the sense that one of them has all the goodies, while the rest are just "support casting"


----------



## pawsplay

pemerton said:


> Pawsplay, thanks for the post. What you say makes sense - but I couldn't help but note this:
> 
> 
> That suggests that, even if rememorising spells was hard, being a wizard rather than a warrior was still a reasonable choice!




Only by way of necessity. The elf, you see, has to be MU-fighter. If you go with two magic-users, you probably die. I had two clerics to try to keep my front line alive, and I used an NPC fighter on my front line, because that usually didn't work. I wanted two MUs because, you know, trolls. You really can't beat Pool of Radiance without area effects, but you can't do it without high hit point front line guys who can take out countless numbers of kobolds and orcs, either.


----------



## Banshee16

pawsplay said:


> I used to play the Gold Box TSR computer games, including Pool of Radiance. In my experience, spell memorization was a big issue, as this computer game brought to life in a way more prominently than a human-mediated game. Taking into account the prevalence of wandering monsters, which could occur hourly, it was difficult to find the 2-3 hours needed to rememorize. If you were lucky, you might be able to replenish. However, after a couple of memorization periods, your characters would tire, and need to sleep again.
> 
> The way this usually played out was that, generally, I would head out with a wide selection of spells, go as far as I could before they were exhausted, then try to head back to a "safe" location (i.e. low wandering monster area, like the bottom of a well, or one or two completely closed rooms, or the inn in town). OTOH, when I knew I was heading into trouble, I tended to load my magic-users up with all the stinking clouds and fireballs I could, arm each cleric with one hold person and all the cure spells I could carry, and attack my opponents fresh. If my cleric were rendered unconscious, I would sometimes have to resort to cheating on my save games, as it was sometimes necessary to rest for days for an unconscious cleric to revive, and then be able to heal themselves. Ultimately, I tend to fall back on a two cleric, one magic-user, one elf fighter/magic-user as the mainstays of my party.
> 
> 3e is a picnic by comparison. All you need is eight hours of sleep, and if you get interrupted, you can make up for some lost time. Memorization doesn't take all that long. OTOH, if you run out of spells completely, you are kind of screwed, but you really aren't any worse off than your AD&D counterparts who had to try to squeeze in an extra period of memorization in a day. My PCs always just use staggered shifts (generously configured for the benefit of casters) and camouflaged their position. Sleeping in "dungeons" was almost unheard of, though a couple of times they did construct a small improvised vault inside of a "clear" dungeon.




I find in practice, in 3E, including random encounters that can disrupt the party while they are resting makes a big difference.  Occasionally, they just find a new spot to camp and rest up again, and get lucky with no encounters the second time......and then other sessions, it results in a downward cycle of attrition where they still haven't rested enough to replenish spells, they've expended more of their spells on random encounters, have used up their healing magic, are more damaged than before, and when they try to rest, 3 hours into it they get hit by another random encounter.

Banshee


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## Banshee16

Neonchameleon said:


> Even professional soldiers. Which do you want beside you in a fight?  Twenty fighters?  Or twenty people who go into fights with crossbows and spells like Silent Image to provide concealment/false targets and Colour Spray for when things get up close and personal?  Fighters only start coming into their own when you get more than two serious fights per combat day.  Which yes, adventurers do.  But almost no one else does - not even soldiers.




Given that both Color Spray and Sleep have Will negates saves, I'm still leaning toward the fighter.....unless you're talking about your whole unit consisting of 20 lvl 1 mages, so that whe they run into 20 lvl 1 fighters.  If in any way the fighters outnumered the mages, the fact that half the fighters would pass their save (or rather, 45% of them, I think) would leave several of them who could easily do the 4 hp dmg needed to kill the spellcaster.

And for bouncers, last time I went to a bar, they had to get involved multiple times.  And these weren't bad bars........but any time you get young men + alcohol, with women in the environment....anyways, the bouncers would need more than one or two spells in their shift.

I'm not saying that spellcasters are valueless.  Obviously, they're of immense value.  But the limited availability of their powers means that other characters who can do stuff all day long (ie. rogues and fighters) do have value, because their abilities don't expire.  It would be a different matter if offensive and defensive capacity was negatively affected as hp are reduced, but that's not the case.

Banshee


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## Dannyalcatraz

Re: Bouncers

Not every bouncer needs spells.  In the RW, bouncers generally work in teams, each having a certain skillset and responsibilities.  A metal bar I used to frequent had a bunch of 300lb muscle-slab guys for most stuff, but when things got nasty, they got Mr. Lee.  Mr. Lee was a shade over 5'5"...and if you didn't leave when told, he'd do a leaping spin kick to your jaw.

In a fantasy setting, things could work the same way: brunette for the mundane stuff, but when things get messy, you call in the Bouncer-Mage.

Simon Green had something like this in his _Hawk & Fisher_ stories.  Most stuff was handled by mundane guardsmen, but when magic got involved, S.W.A.T. (Special Wizardry And Tactics) was called in.


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## Dannyalcatraz

> Even professional soldiers. Which do you want beside you in a fight? Twenty fighters? Or twenty people who go into fights with crossbows and spells like Silent Image to provide concealment/false targets and Colour Spray for when things get up close and personal?




There's a reason modern forces don't have all of one kind of soldier: there's a countermeasure for every kind of tactic.  Combat in a fantasy world would be much like modern warfare.  Depend too much on one kind of soldier- powerful though he might be- and the enemy can easily defeat you.

A bunch of arcane spellcasters might be truly formidable, but if they get hit by a silence spell...


----------



## Hussar

Dannyalcatraz said:


> There's a reason modern forces don't have all of one kind of soldier: there's a countermeasure for every kind of tactic.  Combat in a fantasy world would be much like modern warfare.  Depend too much on one kind of soldier- powerful though he might be- and the enemy can easily defeat you.
> 
> A bunch of arcane spellcasters might be truly formidable, but if they get hit by a silence spell...




This, right here, this is the crux of the issue.

The magic system is more or less dictating the setting.  The idea of a specialist team and modern day soldiery is anachronistic to say the least.  The average soldier in a modern army is far and away more educated than a medieval soldier for one. 

The idea that a feudal lord would allow small units to have this kind of responsibility and freedom without a gentleman officer standing over them to make sure they stay put and don't get into trouble is very, very out of place in a stock fantasy setting.

Heck, even the LotR Fellowship, other than Sam, virtually all the Fellowship are nobles or upper class members of their respective societies.  There's a reason for that.

The kind of societal changes required to allow a modern day army to function would have an enormous impact on the setting.

I mean, how many feudal lords would be comfortable allowing a peasant soldier with a Charm Person spell?


----------



## billd91

Hussar said:


> This, right here, this is the crux of the issue.
> 
> The magic system is more or less dictating the setting.  The idea of a specialist team and modern day soldiery is anachronistic to say the least.  The average soldier in a modern army is far and away more educated than a medieval soldier for one.
> <snip>
> 
> I mean, how many feudal lords would be comfortable allowing a peasant soldier with a Charm Person spell?




Very few, I suspect, which tells me something about just how much magic should dictate the system. If magic is so dangerous to have in just anybody's hands, various social forces will align to make it rare enough that it may not dictate much about the setting at all.


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## triqui

Dannyalcatraz said:


> A bunch of arcane spellcasters might be truly formidable, but if they get hit by a silence spell...




That's not Balance. It's arm race. You can't really say "spellcasters are balanced, becouse other spellcasters can counter them". This only shows spellcasters are so unbalanced, that only other spellcaster can balance them. It's tantamount to make dragon a player race, and say it's balanced becouse other players can choose to be a dragon as well


----------



## triqui

Banshee16 said:


> Given that both Color Spray and Sleep have Will negates saves, I'm still leaning toward the fighter.....unless you're talking about your whole unit consisting of 20 lvl 1 mages, so that whe they run into 20 lvl 1 fighters.  If in any way the fighters outnumered the mages, the fact that half the fighters would pass their save (or rather, 45% of them, I think) would leave several of them who could easily do the 4 hp dmg needed to kill the spellcaster.



Depends on what version of the game you are playing. In 2e, 5 lvl 1 wizards with a small number of shieldbearers in front of them would crush 100 or so lvl 1 fighters with area of effect sleep spells (no save throw).

Talking about fiction, magic is not restricted by things like "saves". You never see a spell "missing" in fiction (or an arrow, for that matter. Miss and hit are RPG things, not fiction things. In fiction, the main character only miss when the author feels appropiate). Any small amount of wizard will completelly change the way medieval armies fight.

They would become easily the equivalent of modern artillery (fireball), modern airforce (fly), modern covert action teams (mass invisibility), modern logistic (scry). Heck, probably they would change *modern day warfare* as well. I bet US Marine Corps will *pay* to have someone using a "invisibility wand" for Falluyah house-to-house insurgence cleansing. While they already have stone-skinned fireball-launching "tanks", and everbody gets a "magic missile wand" called M-4a1, magic would make for even better tactics.


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## Dannyalcatraz

> The kind of societal changes required to allow a modern day army to function would have an enormous impact on the setting.
> 
> I mean, how many feudal lords would be comfortable allowing a peasant soldier with a Charm Person spell?




That just tells you how few people- writers, designers & gamers alike- actually think through all the consequences magic would have in a world.

You've been her long enough, Hussar- do you remember the biiiiig thread from a couple of years ago about what a REAL fantasy castle should look like in a world with flying enemies everywhere?  No spires and high, crenellated walls: it would look like a modern bunker setup.



> That's not Balance. It's arm race.




Who said anything about balance?  Not me, that's for sure!

It was just an observation: mixed forces work best.  The silence spell reduces the mages to powerlessness and then the fighters charge in.  It's a massacre.


----------



## Votan

billd91 said:


> Very few, I suspect, which tells me something about just how much magic should dictate the system. If magic is so dangerous to have in just anybody's hands, various social forces will align to make it rare enough that it may not dictate much about the setting at all.




Or, the presence of magic will make the social structure (itself) less stable.  I suppose that this could be one role of Wizard's Guilds (to create a social structure for mages to prevent a power struggle between the nobility and the mages).  This is more likely in (for example) AD&D 1E with few spells, dramatic magic being dangerous and long spell memorization times.  Even high level wizards would be subject to being taken by surprise or would need to be very, very paranoid.

One sees the beginning of a social compact . . .  and one that probably includes mages not being able to be ordinary men at arms.


----------



## triqui

Dannyalcatraz said:


> It was just an observation: mixed forces work best.  The silence spell reduces the mages to powerlessness and then the fighters charge in.  It's a massacre.



Sure. But it is, becouse of the silence spell. Just like if mages cast sleep, and then fighters charge in, it's a massacre. Or if Mages cast mass invisibility, then rogues charge, it's a massacre. Or if Mages cast haste, then fighters charge, it's a massacre. Or cast Illusion Wall, and your archers rangers kill everybody behind it. Or mass fireballs and then some peasants mop up everything. And so on.

Sure, it's mixed force. But the key there, is what the wizards do. Be it cover, artillery, covert actions, logistic... whatever, is their job what makes the win or lose. Everybody else is there just for the dirty job: charge, shot some arrows, or mop up. But the party is over when the wizards turn end. Including when wizards turn end with oponent wizards silenced


----------



## Bedrockgames

I think this varies greatly from book to book. But I am not sure they really care about balancing out the power levels. Their concern is providing a cool setting that is believable and friendly to telling a good story. I've read books where wizards are uber powerful and basically run the show, read others where they are powerful outside of combat but not in it, and read others where they are pretty weak. Personally, I still like the classic AD&D approach, where warriors are better to start, but over time the wizards become the major powers.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> Sure, it's mixed force. But the key there, is what the wizards do. Be it cover, artillery, covert actions, logistic... whatever, is their job what makes the win or lose. Everybody else is there just for the dirty job: charge, shot some arrows, or mop up. But the party is over when the wizards turn end. Including when wizards turn end with oponent wizards silenced




First- minor quibble: Silence is a Bard/Cleric spell.

Second: the point of mixed forces is so that one tactic doesn't take you out while simultaneously having the ability to have more than one offensive tactic that will not be defeated by a single defense.

Look at tanks.  Awesome tools of war.  But taking an all tank unit into a city is stupid- they'll get eaten by infantry with Anti-Tank weaponry popping up from windows, corners and rubble. Tanks go into cities with infantry support.

So my answer is: so what if magic is the deciding factor in every battle?  Magic is basically indistinguishable from tech.  It's the flipside of Arthur Clark's aphorism.


----------



## Sepulchrave II

Bedrockgames said:


> I think this varies greatly from book to book. But I am not sure they really care about balancing out the power levels. Their concern is providing a cool setting that is believable and friendly to telling a good story. I've read books where wizards are uber powerful and basically run the show, read others where they are powerful outside of combat but not in it, and read others where they are pretty weak. Personally, I still like the classic AD&D approach, where warriors are better to start, but over time the wizards become the major powers.




I think that to really appreciate 1e's balance, you need to play *all the time*. Multiple characters in different stages of evolution, dropping like flies and being replaced: that way you will appreciate the sweetness of a 5th-level Magic User. The balance in 1e is much more strategic in that sense.  

Unfortunately, I don't have enough time. In D&D heaven, however, I will linger in the 1e vestibule.


----------



## pemerton

Banshee16 said:


> I find in practice, in 3E, including random encounters that can disrupt the party while they are resting makes a big difference.  Occasionally, they just find a new spot to camp and rest up again, and get lucky with no encounters the second time......and then other sessions, it results in a downward cycle of attrition where they still haven't rested enough to replenish spells, they've expended more of their spells on random encounters, have used up their healing magic, are more damaged than before, and when they try to rest, 3 hours into it they get hit by another random encounter.



This works for some playstyles - those that emphasise operational play of the classic AD&D 1st ed variety - but doesn't work so well for other playstyles. And I'm not just talking about adventure path play, or about hard scene framing play. Even pretty vanilla urban adventuring gives the players much more control over pacing than is being suggested here (on the assumption that, in a verisimilitudinous world, the chance of a random assassination attempt against the PCs in their houses/upmarker inn rooms is not all that high on any given night - especially as the higher the PC level, and hence the greater the issue of wizard-warrior balance, the more likely those houses are to be well-defended by magical as well as mundane means).


----------



## pemerton

Dannyalcatraz said:


> That just tells you how few people- writers, designers & gamers alike- actually think through all the consequences magic would have in a world.





Dannyalcatraz said:


> Magic is basically indistinguishable from tech.  It's the flipside of Arthur Clark's aphorism.





Votan said:


> Or, the presence of magic will make the social structure (itself) less stable.  I suppose that this could be one role of Wizard's Guilds (to create a social structure for mages to prevent a power struggle between the nobility and the mages).



I had a post on this upthread[/rul].

To reiterate - a lot of D&D is fundamentally confused as to what it's setting is. It wants the world to be quasi-mediaeval, but with a lot of anachronism (eg reading more modern values into the world, disregarding the relationship between mediaeval social forms and militarily and politcally aggressive Christianity, etc). This is the world of Conan or the Lord of the Rings. It is a historical/sociological _impossibility_. Just as flying dragons or walking giants are (without magic) a biological/physical impossibility.

The way that flying dragons can nevertheless work in the game is because _we ignore the natural laws violations_. Likewise, for setting, we have to _ignore the sociological impossibilities_.

A problem sets in for some approaches to D&D play, however, because they in fact _encourage us to pay attention to_ the sociology of the gameworld. They encourage us to _bring those absurdities_ to the foreground. And nonsense ensue - or, if it's not nonsense, the consequence does not look anything like a mainstream fantasy RPG setting.

It's the sociology equivalent of a game in which the players take a Decanter of Endless Water to a desert and become millionaires (this is the result of making economics _part of the game mechanics_ rather than just a backdrop) or use Fire Elementals to make perpetual motion machines (the result of making thermodynamics _part of the game mechanics_ rather than just a backdrop).

My preference is to keep these parts of the setting as backdrop rather than mechanics. Some of this depends on player buy in. But that player buy in is helped by mechanics that don't encourage the players to look for ways to foreground these elements of the mechanics.

(This also relates, to some extent, to Johnny3D3D's problem of the players being pushed by the mechanics just to smash traps and cable car gondolas rather than engaging with them in a more cinematic fashion.)


----------



## Kasoroth

I haven't read through the entire thread (only the first and last few pages), but I haven't noticed any mention of The Kingkiller Chronicle by Patrick Rothfuss.  It takes a rather interesting approach to magic.  There are several basic types of magic:

Alchemy, is basically what you would expect, except that many of the materials used are extremely toxic and dangerous to work with, so a moment of carelessness can easily lead to a painful death.

Sympathy allows the user to link similar or related objects over a distance and transfer energy (heat or motion) from one to the other.  The efficiency of the transfer is related to how closely related the objects are.  Getting a drop of someone's blood lets you do some mean things to them and is strictly forbidden.  The interesting thing is that it seems to obey basic laws of thermodynamics, so the caster has to either expend their own body heat, resulting in hypothermia ("binder's chills"), or link to some external source of energy, such as a fire, with the risk of having some of that energy cooking them rather than doing whatever they're trying to do if their link is inefficient.

Sygaldry is basically a "written" form of sympathy that establishes permanent sympathetic links through engraved runes.  this is often combined with more mundane elements to create more complicated "magic items", for example using energy stored in springs to deflect arrows through a sympathetic link.  As with alchemy, this sometimes involves working with dangerous and/or highly toxic materials.

Naming seems to be the hardest to learn, and requires tapping into a deeper understanding of things at a subconscious level.  While the other forms of magic seem to be learned though normal academic teaching methods, naming functions on a more intuitive level.  It is harder to learn to use reliably, and though it seems more powerful, it is less practical for everyday use.

Magical learning is restricted primarily to a single University, which generally imposes fairly strict rules about how magic should be used, and what magical items are allowed to be made for sale to the general population.  They don't want a popular uprising against mages, because as scary as it is that someone could boil your blood if they got a drop of it, it's still quicker to kill someone by knifing them in an alley.

Magic is powerful, and quite frightening to those who lack it, but mages are far from invincible, especially if they are caught unprepared.  Part of a mage's power comes from keeping the non-mages from knowing the limits of what magic is capable of, and thus how to counter it.


In general I like it when authors and DMs try to take the effects of magic into account when developing the cultural and political structures.  I also like it when magic itself is limited enough that it's possible to contemplate these political and cultural consequences and not simply be overwhelmed by magic eliminating any commonly understood real-world motivations.  

If everyone automatically respawns on death like in an MMO, then fear of death (a pretty significant motivator for most people in most real-world cultures) goes away, and it becomes very hard to imagine what society would be like.

-Kasoroth


----------



## Beginning of the End

pemerton said:


> Even pretty vanilla urban adventuring gives the players much more control over pacing than is being suggested here (on the assumption that, in a verisimilitudinous world, the chance of a random assassination attempt against the PCs in their houses/upmarker inn rooms is not all that high on any given night - especially as the higher the PC level, and hence the greater the issue of wizard-warrior balance, the more likely those houses are to be well-defended by magical as well as mundane means).




A few points:

(1) The general principle, as you say, is that you need to create a situation in which the PCs do not have complete control over the pace of encounters.

(2) Random encounters are the most traditional (and perhaps obvious) way of accomplishing this, but there are _lots_ of other ways to achieve the effect: Schedules that have to be met; unpredictable encounter mixes (instead of just "all combat all the time"); unexpected job offers; and so forth. It should be noted that many of these techniques can be employed as carrots instead of sticks.

(3) Nor do you have to do this ALL THE TIME. It is sufficient to merely raise the possibility that it can happen upon occasion in order for the spellcasters to diversify their resource pool and avoid the destructive nova tactics.

(4) Once you start looking at the vast array of options available for achieving this play, you quickly discover that they can be generalized into a simple maxim: Have an active campaign world in which the PCs have the choice of many options that they can pursue.

Honestly, that's just good advice regardless of the balance benefits that come with it.

(5) Shortly thereafter you realize that it is not, in fact, the case that you have to play the game in one specific way in order for it to work. Quite the contrary. You need to play the game in a very specific way _in order for the balance problems to show up_.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

I agree pretty much 100% with that- I've made many of those comments before in threads regarding the 15 minute workday...and why I've never seen it.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Dannyalcatraz said:


> So my answer is: so what if magic is the deciding factor in every battle? Magic is basically indistinguishable from tech. It's the flipside of Arthur Clark's aphorism.




And to continue the analogy, only a few people can use technology.  The rest are restricted not to guns, but to bayonets and sharp steel.

(Re: The colour spray example, remember that Colour Spray is an AoE spell).



Beginning of the End said:


> A few points:
> 
> (1) The general principle, as you say, is that you need to create a situation in which the PCs do not have complete control over the pace of encounters.




No downtime in 3e.  Right.  Because that's one place where casters power ahead of everyone else.



> (2) Random encounters are the most traditional (and perhaps obvious) way of accomplishing this, but there are _lots_ of other ways to achieve the effect: Schedules that have to be met; unpredictable encounter mixes (instead of just "all combat all the time"); unexpected job offers; and so forth. It should be noted that many of these techniques can be employed as carrots instead of sticks.




Of course.  But this is just Nova-handling.  It doesn't get to the heart of the problem.



> (3) Nor do you have to do this ALL THE TIME. It is sufficient to merely raise the possibility that it can happen upon occasion in order for the spellcasters to diversify their resource pool and avoid the destructive nova tactics.




And this misses the problem as well.  Novas are a self-correcting issue with any sort of pressure.  It isn't the nova spellcasting that breaks the game - it's the Batman Wizards.  It's the ones who cast one or two spells like Glitterdust selected for their target's weaknesses then let the fighters handle the mop-up.

It's the 9th level wizard who instead of novaing neutralises the Drow with one well-placed application of Evard's Black Tentacles the casters are very unlikely to escape and the soldiers need to get lucky for.  Followed by Glitterdust on the poor soldiers to keep them blind as well for 9 rounds just in case.  At that point the enemy fighters can't see (and may well be grappled as well) and the casters can't cast because they are grappled.  Two spells, neither of the highest level and what was meant to be a really tough fight has just been made laughably easy (at which point the wizard's buddies start cutting throats).  And why those two spells against drow?  Because they ignore spell resistance so the Drow's special defence against magic isn't going to work.

Two spells for a 9th level caster and the fight's become a joke.  Wearing him out of spells is going to take work because he's an actually smart spellcaster (well, his character sheet _does_ have an Int in the 20s).



> 4) Once you start looking at the vast array of options available for achieving this play, you quickly discover that they can be generalized into a simple maxim: Have an active campaign world in which the PCs have the choice of many options that they can pursue.




Sufficient to handle a nova-er.  Possibly.  But utterly insufficient to handle a Batman.  The Batman owns the fight with just one or two spells (especially at high levels) meaning he can easily outlast the Barbarian.  Or the fighter unless you're handing out healing like water (or just allowing the cleric to make Wands of Cure Light Wounds).



> (5) Shortly thereafter you realize that it is not, in fact, the case that you have to play the game in one specific way in order for it to work. Quite the contrary. You need to play the game in a very specific way _in order for the balance problems to show up_.




You list four specific constraints, and your conclusion is that you need to play the game in a very specific way in order for the balance problems to show up.  Based on the constraints you yourself are imposing you have this backwards.  _You need to play the game in a very specific way in order for the balance problems *not* to show up.  _Because the 15 minute workday isn't the only problem.


----------



## BryonD

You are cherry picking examples.

I've been playing 3E for a decade now.  I assure you that the "problem" you identify is NOT a defacto truth.  The specific examples can be, most certainly.  But you are failing to describe the entire game experience.  
You MAY be describing YOUR game experience.  I don't know and I don't challenge that either way.  But you seem convinced that no other experience may possibly exist.  And that is where the break down lies.


I have many, many times seen a spellcaster dominate a situation.  In my experience your examples, with context removed, are perfectly valid.  But once they are placed into context, they become features, not bugs.

I've seen many times when the fighter/barbarian player turns to the wizard players and goes "Hell YEAH!!!!  That was awesome!!".  If the wizard was trampling the warriors contributions, that would not be the reaction.  It certainly would not be a reaction seen over and over for year after year.

But the thing is, I see the wizard character go "Hell Yeah!!!!" to the warrior player just as often.  

I'm not at all interested in the idea that everyone needs to contribute equally at every given moment.  The wizard shines; the warrior shines; the rogue shines.  

I HAVE seen the 15 minute warkday.  But it is an exception that I now tend to notice with an "hey, that just happened here" attitude.  It is far from routine.  

Pointing out that under the right circumstances the wizard can be awesome doesn't say much to me.  OF COURSE HE CAN!  That is why we play.  And under the right circumstances every character can shine.  

But when your argument is founded on telling others that their experience does not exist, then you are goign to end up being wrong.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> And to continue the analogy, only a few people can use technology. The rest are restricted not to guns, but to bayonets and sharp steel.




So what?

Not much of a diff between that and modern combat.  I might be able to handle a blade in a fight to harm someone else who is untrained, but a trained knife fighter could take me down without a scratch.

If forced to shoot at someone, I might have problems remembering to turn the safety off, maintaining a proper grip, or controlling recoil, making me a danger to everyone around.  And the better, more powerful the gun, the more of a problem I'll have, in all likelihood.

More powerful weapons of combat- flamethrowers, bombs, missiles, tanks, planes, submarines- all mosly useless to the untrained.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Dannyalcatraz said:


> More powerful weapons of combat- flamethrowers, bombs, missiles, tanks, planes, submarines- all mosly useless to the untrained.




I spent 4 years in the US Army, and I have to laugh at the way modern weapons work in many movies.  The biggest problem I have is with the LAW (Light Anti-tank Weapon), which has a back-blast when it launches that is approximately 10 feet long.

Rambo fires one in an enclosed space (helicopter) and the people behind him _*cheer*_.

I guarantee you, they would not be cheering.

If you want to see the back-blast of a LAW, the best film I know of for doing so is *Jewel of the Nile*, where you see a LAW fired from profile.  Here is an image I found on the InterWeb: 








RC


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## Hussar

Wasn't it one of the Swartzeneger movies, that one with Jamie Lee Curtis, where the guy uses a LAW rocket from a truck and blows the driver out the front?  



			
				DannyA said:
			
		

> So my answer is: so what if magic is the deciding factor in every battle? Magic is basically indistinguishable from tech. It's the flipside of Arthur Clark's aphorism.




But, what if I don't want it to be?  What if I want to play a game where magic isn't the deciding factor in every battle?  D&D often sweeps these things under the carpet.  As you say, the fantasy D&D castle would not look like a medieval castle.

But, what if I want more traditional fantasy?  In D&D, as soon as you start scratching beneath the surface, you realize how poorly D&D does traditional fantasy, at least out of the box.  Sure, you can start making all sorts of changes to the ruleset to make it do that, but, that's kinda the point.  You have to radically alter a lot of the ruleset in order to do it.

And this gets back to the idea of balance.  In a balanced system, no choice is obviously superior to another choice.  A 4 cleric party should not be the best party from a rules standpoint.  

See, I do disagree with BOTE here that it requires a very specific playstyle to have these issues.  These issues are inherent in the system.  I mean, DannyA, you chose to play without wands.  That's going to make a huge difference, and, IMO and IME, something that the 3e ruleset certainly doesn't assume.  If it assumed that you were going to play without wands, why make them so cheap and easy to make?


----------



## Diamond Cross

> But, what if I don't want it to be?  What if I want to play a game where magic isn't the deciding factor in every battle?




Instead of trying to change the game you might want to try finding the game that has the right system for you.

Most of the times the rules are actually fine as is. Sometimes there's a real error that needs to be fixed, but usually any argument about changing the rules is because "that's the way i prefer it". There is a big difference between fixing an error than just arbitrarily changing the rules just because a person can't play the class right.


----------



## Herremann the Wise

BryonD said:


> I have many, many times seen a spellcaster dominate a situation.  In my experience your examples, with context removed, are perfectly valid.  But once they are placed into context, they become features, not bugs.
> 
> I've seen many times when the fighter/barbarian player turns to the wizard players and goes "Hell YEAH!!!!  That was awesome!!".  If the wizard was trampling the warriors contributions, that would not be the reaction.  It certainly would not be a reaction seen over and over for year after year.
> 
> But the thing is, I see the wizard character go "Hell Yeah!!!!" to the warrior player just as often.
> 
> I'm not at all interested in the idea that everyone needs to contribute equally at every given moment.  The wizard shines; the warrior shines; the rogue shines.



I think this last point is very important and in context of the entire response cogent. As long as everyone gets their chance to shine (some will obviously debate whether any particular system including 3e achieves this at all levels), then everyone's having a whole heap of fun. A good DM/GM will have a good mix of encounters that achieves this. However, I can also see a pretty strong argument put forward that at high level, the magic-user generally has more and varied ways of contributing in a combat. I think all posters here are making good points that are truly applicable at some stage of the level tree. However some arguments are perhaps more true at different levels (and thus why two opposing arguments can be true but just not across all levels). I think this is why 3e has a real nice sweetspot between levels 6 and 11 with some goodness bleeding out above and below those limits (and for some groups broaching the entire spectrum of play).

In 4e the focus is on teamwork (through a one action gives two results - one dealing damage but the other normally something that helps the rest of the party). I think if you could combine the two (in a future 5e let's say), then you will have a truly ideal level of play (for me at least anyway).

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise


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## Kasoroth

One thing that I've noticed in high/epic level 3.x D&D games is that often the melee fighting types could easily out-damage any of the casters on an individual target, even if the casters were using epic spells like hellball.  The casters still had the area-effect advantage, but the fighter and monk could easily deal more damage to a single target in a round.

In most of the epic games I've played, the spell casters mostly tended to end up in a battlefield control and enemy neutralizing role because their raw damage output couldn't compete.

A monk with flurry of blows or a fighter with a double-ended weapon could easily deal tons of damage at epic levels with a bunch of elemental damage effects stacked on weapons or gloves, and feats and/or magic items to maximise the number of attacks.  Throw in some power attack for good measure and you could have some insane damage machines.

This may have been partly due to the fact that the DM was extremely generous with powerful magic items at epic levels.  This gave the fighters a big boost to hit and damage (and that hit bonus allowed them to pour on more power attack).  Stat boosting tomes and equipment were quite common so ability scores were often boosted to absurd levels.

It was not a particularly remarkable event to see either the monk or the fighter deal over 1000 damage in a round by the time the game got to about 25th level.  The casters got lots of items as well, but caster items didn't generally tend to provide much damage increase.  Save DCs got quite hard for many enemies to match, but magic damage is much less effected by equipment and absurdly high stats than melee damage is.

I have to strongly agree with the earlier comment that the creative "batman" utility casters can be much more devastating to combat balance than a pure damage caster (particularly at high levels).  In the epic game I was in, some of the enemies were extremely powerful (they had to be to pose any challenge), and many battles involved both sides' casters trying to neutralize as much of the opposing force as they could in order to turn the melee slaughterfest in their favor.  

I played a wizard and I really loved the "greater anticipate teleportation" (I think that's the right name) spell that would take anyone trying to teleport anywhere near me out of the battle for a few rounds (and possibly give me a chance to prepare a nasty surprise for them when they finally reached their destination).  Many battles only lasted 3 or 4 rounds, but they often took hours to play out with all the stuff happening.

-Kasoroth


----------



## Argyle King

Diamond Cross said:


> Instead of trying to change the game you might want to try finding the game that has the right system for you.
> 
> Most of the times the rules are actually fine as is. Sometimes there's a real error that needs to be fixed, but usually any argument about changing the rules is because "that's the way i prefer it". There is a big difference between fixing an error than just arbitrarily changing the rules just because a person can't play the class right.





I think there's some truth here.  

It's actually what prompted me to look outside of D&D.  While I do enjoy D&D, there were a lot of things I wanted to do with encounters which were poorly done using 4E.  That's not really a fault with the rules; the rules are simply built upon a set of assumptions about play style which sometimes clashed with my own.  This lead to a lot of frustration on my parts.

So, not surprisingly, there are probably plenty of old posts I made on the WoTC forum which started to veer toward 'h4ter' territory.  I kept trying to tweak the rules and get what I wanted, and I kept feeling as though the game was letting me down.  It wasn't; I was just trying to use them to do some things they weren't -from what I can tell- made to do.

I tried a few other games, and found some that were better equipped to tell some of the stories I wanted to tell.  Since then, I'm better able to enjoy 4E when I play it because I've come to accept that it does what it is meant to do.  Instead of trying to work against the system, I've accepted that I need to temper some of my ideas and work with it.  I still do make a lot of tweaks to how skill challenges work, but that's a topic worthy of its own thread.


----------



## Hussar

Diamond Cross said:


> Instead of trying to change the game you might want to try finding the game that has the right system for you.
> 
> Most of the times the rules are actually fine as is. Sometimes there's a real error that needs to be fixed, but usually any argument about changing the rules is because "that's the way i prefer it". There is a big difference between fixing an error than just arbitrarily changing the rules just because a person can't play the class right.




But, see, there's the problem.  D&D, as it's presented is not this high magic, magic solves all game.

Looking at various settings - Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, etc. the settings are presented as medieval Europe with a veneer of magic layered on top.  The problem comes when you scratch below the surface, it's not hard to start seeing some really glaring incongruities.

For example, DannyA talks about fantasy armies looking a lot like modern specialist armies.  And I agree, that's what they probably should look like.  But, that's not how it's presented in the settings.  You have medieval castles, feudal lords and whatnot.

Yes, you could certainly look for a different system.  Or, you could change the system so that it actually fits the setting its trying to present.

D&D, up to 4e, is based on the idea that you are going to go to dungeons, kill the creatures and come back and then go to the next dungeon.  (By dungeon here, I mean adventure of some form - not necessarily a hole in the ground) But, it also tried to incorporate all these ideas on how to build the larger world as well.  But, the magic system gets in the way in very large ways.

Take something as simple as continual light/continual flame (depending on edition).  Access to PERMANENT light sources would have an enormous impact on a setting.  But, why do we have these spells?  Well, because our adventurers go down into dungeons and carrying a sack full of torches is a PITA.  So, we have Continual Light.  Makes dungeon crawling that much easier.  The broader effects of cheap, permanent magics are simply hand waved away.

One of the largest changes in 4e is the removal of nearly all permanent effects.  You don't have cities lit with continual light because there isn't any continual light to cast.  You don't have explosive rune arrow grenades (a favorite trick of our groups).  You don't have Item spelled barrels of burning oil bombs.

Upthread I talked about how the setting has to take magic into account and someone talked about how a government would likely have some sort of Inquisition style group to stop wizards from getting too powerful.  But, that's still the problem.  The magic system is dictating my setting.  I can't ignore the issue if I want a believable setting.


----------



## joela

sepulchrave ii said:


> usually:
> 
> Warrior = protagonist
> 
> wizard = plot device
> 
> so balance isn't really an issue. I think d&d stories are more a sub-genre of the game than "fantasy literature" _per se_, so they have their own rules.




+1!


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> One of the largest changes in 4e is the removal of nearly all permanent effects. You don't have cities lit with continual light because there isn't any continual light to cast. You don't have explosive rune arrow grenades (a favorite trick of our groups). You don't have Item spelled barrels of burning oil bombs.




Side note on this: the fleeting effectiveness of magic was another thing I really disliked about 4Ed.  Most other RPGs have magical effects of various duration, but in 4Ed, everything is so...evanescant.


----------



## joela

It's been awhile since I read the original trilogy, but wasn't there some sorta "balance" issue that restricted wizards? IIRC, Sparrowhawk was told that when he created rain in one place, it was dry somewhere else and vice versa.


----------



## Mort

joela said:


> It's been awhile since I read the original trilogy, but wasn't there some sorta "balance" issue that restricted wizards? IIRC, Sparrowhawk was told that when he created rain in one place, it was dry somewhere else and vice versa.




You're thinking of the Belgariad and Belgarath's talk with Garion after Garion uses weather to dominate a battlefield (Sparhawk is the protaganist of Eddings other big series). The gist of the conversation is that there is cause and effect in magic (as presented in the Belgariad) but that once a sorcerer understands this he can account for it. The Belgariad is an intersting example though: in it, sorcerers, once they attain any level of mastery, are simply "better" because they can be good at sorcery and pretty much anything else - there is no talk at all of balance.


----------



## Mort

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Side note on this: the fleeting effectiveness of magic was another thing I really disliked about 4Ed.  Most other RPGs have magical effects of various duration, but in 4Ed, everything is so...evanescant.




Not rituals! (at least when they were supporting rituals, grr.) I like the fact that most magic is fleeting - if you want something to last you need quite a bit more oomph - as in use a ritual (much longer casting time and likely more expensive).


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Point.

(I wish they'd done a better job with rituals...)


----------



## joela

Mort said:


> You're thinking of the Belgariad and Belgarath's talk with Garion after Garion uses weather to dominate a battlefield (Sparhawk is the protaganist of Eddings other big series). The gist of the conversation is that there is cause and effect in magic (as presented in the Belgariad) but that once a sorcerer understands this he can account for it. The Belgariad is an intersting example though: in it, sorcerers, once they attain any level of mastery, are simply "better" because they can be good at sorcery and pretty much anything else - there is no talk at all of balance.




Never read that series.


----------



## joela

(Psi)SeveredHead said:


> It was almost the opposite in gameplay. A wizard beats a warrior easily; cast Hold Monster, or Greater Invisibility followed by Lightning Bolt, etc, whereas a demon can probably resist half the wizard's spells. (A warrior might have the right weapon, or can just power through DR; given how weak monster ACs often were, Power Attack was a very powerful feat.)




Good point.


----------



## Mort

joela said:


> Never read that series.




Hmm - it just reminded me of the exact conversation.

You're talking about Eathsea then? Been meaning to reread the series.


----------



## Beginning of the End

Neonchameleon said:


> And this misses the problem as well.  Novas are a self-correcting issue with any sort of pressure.  It isn't the nova spellcasting that breaks the game - it's the Batman Wizards.  It's the ones who cast one or two spells like Glitterdust selected for their target's weaknesses then let the fighters handle the mop-up.




How does that break the game? The wizard contributed to the outcome and so did the other PCs.



> ...what was meant to be a really tough fight has just been made laughably easy




Ah. It's broken because the players did something that didn't conform to the GM's plan. Gotcha. I don't do a lot of railroading, so this isn't a problem I run into.



> Sufficient to handle a nova-er.  Possibly.  But utterly insufficient to handle a Batman.  The Batman owns the fight with just one or two spells (especially at high levels) meaning he can easily outlast the Barbarian.




So the wizard is completely dominating the encounters to the point where other characters aren't contributing, but the barbarian is still somehow losing all his hit points? How does that work?



> Or the fighter unless you're handing out healing like water (or just allowing the cleric to make Wands of Cure Light Wounds).




So the Batman Wizard has a limitless supply of magic perfectly suited to every possible opponent but the cleric can't even make a wand of cure light wounds?

This is looking more and more like a giant spherical cow to me.



Hussar said:


> But, what if I want more traditional fantasy?  In  D&D, as soon as you start scratching beneath the surface, you  realize how poorly D&D does traditional fantasy, at least out of the  box.  Sure, you can start making all sorts of changes to the ruleset to  make it do that, but, that's kinda the point.




Your point is that you have to change the rule system in order to change the rule system?

To use the colloquial: "No , Sherlock."

If you want to say "I don't want PCs to be able to casually fly and D&D doesn't support that out of the box" or any variations on the same, I don't think anybody would disagree with you. But saying "D&D doesn't support space opera out of the box" shouldn't lead one to the conclusion that "D&D is broken".

With that being said, it's pretty trivial to mod D&D for low magic. Some quick options include:

(1) E6 or E8 games.

(2) Banning the spellcasting classes entirely. (You might want to speed natural healing or alchemical healing potions available on the cheap, depending on the exact effect you're looking for.)

(3) Allow characters to have a maximum of 4 class levels in a spellcasting class. (You might want to allow caster level to equal total character level, again depending on the effect you're looking for.)

These are all simple changes.

(And since I can anticipate the inevitable, "But there'll be knock-on effects!" litany, allow me to preemptively point out that both "I want to change the rules without changing the rules" and "if I change the rules, the rules will be changed!" constitute "No , Sherlock" moments.)


----------



## joela

Mort said:


> You're talking about Eathsea then?




Yah


----------



## Jeff Wilder

Mort said:


> You're thinking of the Belgariad and Belgarath's talk with Garion



No, he's thinking of Earthsea.  Ged doesn't understand why Ogion is so slow at teaching him magic ... why Ogion just lets it rain on them, instead of casting a spell and making it go away.


----------



## joela

*d20 Fantasy Europe*



GameDoc said:


> Sometimes the balancing factor for wizards is that they are very powerful against specific types of obstacles or foes (generally magical or supernatural ones), but have no more power over the rest of the universe than any other person. In other words you fight magic with magic and mundane with mundane.
> 
> A wizard can bind or banish a ghost or demon that others are powerless against. But he can't do much against a mundane evil warrior with a sword unless he's also a trained warrior himself and has good weapon at hand. If he has any power over mortals or the natural world it's either brief and minor or slow and insidious. Hexes, curses, potions, or hedge magic. And there are protections to be found from these by consulting another mage or sporting a charm or holy symbol.
> 
> Likewise, his buddy the fighter migh carve the evil warrior up handily, but against a raging demon, he'd be ineffective. All he can do is get in it's face and try do distract it so the wizard can hit it with magic. Or he needs a wizard to enchant his weapons and armor so he can stand toe to toe with a magical monster.
> 
> In D&D terms you might say that a demon or other supernatural creature has damge reduction (or even invulnerability) against normal attakcs, but vulnerability to magical ones. Hit it with an ordiary sword and it has little to no effect. Hit is with a magical sword or a spell of rebuke and it suffers - moreso than a mortal human being would.
> 
> I see this as the anser to "Gandalf was a 5th level magic user that soloed a Balor." In the setting, the Balor is particularly vulernable to magic, as was the Nazgul that Gandalf turned back at Pellenor Fields. Those methods were not useful against the orcs of Moria so he had to rely on his sword.
> 
> Also, the more powerful the magic, the more specific it's effects. The Witch King could not be harmed by any man, but the loophole in the magic that protected him made him totally vulnerable against a female warrior. You get that kind of powerful, specific protetion, or you get something minor like a +2 weapon that is more likely to hit and do more damage against just about anything, but isn't going to cleave through a castle gate or hew the peak off a mountaintop.




GameDoc, I uploaded your post over at the Paizo boards as well as rpg.net, with the following:

_What if you built a game around such concept? The wizard's most powerful spells affecting the world maybe shield or magic missile or, basically, zero and first level spells. The bulk of their spells would then focus on, well, magic: read magic, antimagic field, arcane mark, banishment, reveal true shape, etc. Powerful spells that affect the mundane world (e.g., fireball) could be cast as either a ritual or "created" like a one-shot magic item (i.e., lots of time to prep, costly in terms of rare material components, etc.)_

A Paizoian rightly pointed out such a game sounded similar to Ars Magica. I'm familiar with that game, and am going to look into developing a version based off the SRD. 

Thanks for the idea!


----------



## FireLance

joela said:


> It's been awhile since I read the original trilogy, but wasn't there some sorta "balance" issue that restricted wizards? IIRC, Sparrowhawk was told that when he created rain in one place, it was dry somewhere else and vice versa.



Unfortunately, Earthsea is not a particularly good example of a setting where magic is balanced. Magical "balance" in Earthsea pretty much boils down to ... the wizards realize that bad things happen to the world if they mess with the balance, so they sort of have a gentleman's agreement not to do that. All it takes is for one wizard to be crazy enough to do that and, well, (spoiler) 



Spoiler



you get the entire plot of the third book, The Farthest Shore


.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Beginning of the End said:


> How does that break the game? The wizard contributed to the outcome and so did the other PCs.




It's Ars Magica.  The wizard solved the encounter then sent the other PCs in with mop and bucket to be the cleanup crew after things were resolved.  That's a hireling's job.



> Ah. It's broken because the players did something that didn't conform to the GM's plan. Gotcha. I don't do a lot of railroading, so this isn't a problem I run into.




*eyeroll*  No.  That would be when the spellcasters deal with the dungeon with _earthquake_ or _teleport without error_ or _scry _(or a scry and fry) to fix problems.



> So the wizard is completely dominating the encounters to the point where other characters aren't contributing, but the barbarian is still somehow losing all his hit points? How does that work?




The Barbarian has less longevity than the wizard.  Not none.  When he starts to take the lead he'll go down.



> So the Batman Wizard has a limitless supply of magic perfectly suited to every possible opponent but the cleric can't even make a wand of cure light wounds?




Nice strawman.  The cleric is about as strong as the wizard and the druid.  It's the caster vs non-caster balance that's the problem in 3.x not the wizard vs cleric balance.  And the Batman Wizard's magic is not perfectly suited to every possible opponent.  He doesn't have Q backing him who is able to say "You will need these gadgets and no other."  And for that matter he doesn't normally have a can of bat-shark repellant.  What he has is spells that are useful against a broad spectrum of foes.  There are four basic defences against magic.  Fort, Ref, Will, and SR.  Eyeball the foe to pick which defences will be high.  Then pick from your prepared spells on that basis.  Both spells I mentioned will ignore SR (conjurations normally do).  Both have a wide range of targets (Glitterdust on anyone with a low will, Evard's on anyone medium sized who isn't a bodybuilder (it'll outgrapple a monk with Improved Grapple)) so claiming perfect prep doesn't hold water.  And both are area effect  Those are two prepared spells _because they are useful in a wide range of circumstances_.  Not perfect - but good enough.  As for your claim about unlimited magic, you don't.  But you don't need much magic per fight - that took one 4th level spell and one second.  At 9th level you have two _fifth_ level spells , three fourth, and _five_ second (including stat mods - and no specialisation).  Scaling up that's four fights you could trivialise in a day quite easily.



> This is looking more and more like a giant spherical cow to me.




If you can't tell a spherical cow from a kangaroo (may look wierd and sound strange but they exist and many people have witnessed them and there are photographs) then that's your affair.



> Your point is that you have to change the rule system in order to change the rule system?




No.  My point is that if you change the rule system _you aren't playing the actual rules._  And that you needed to change the rules system shows what the problem is.



> If you want to say "I don't want PCs to be able to casually fly and D&D doesn't support that out of the box" or any variations on the same, I don't think anybody would disagree with you. But saying "D&D doesn't support space opera out of the box" shouldn't lead one to the conclusion that "D&D is broken".




Again, nice strawman.  If you want to say "I don't want to have a party with BMX bandit and angel summoner" (literally in the second case) and that D&D supports this, _that_ leads to the conclusion that D&D is broken.  It's not about the casual flight.  It's about the casual flight on one side and the sole ability being to swing a sharp piece of metal moderately hard on the other.

There is nothing wrong with Exalted as an RPG.  There is nothing wrong with GURPS as an RPG.  But mixing Exalted characters and 100 point (3e) GURPS characters is going to lead to an odd experience.  3.X goes beyond that.  It not only mixes the two, _it claims they are the same power level_.


----------



## triqui

joela said:


> GameDoc, I uploaded your post over at the Paizo boards as well as rpg.net, with the following:
> 
> _What if you built a game around such concept? The wizard's most powerful spells affecting the world maybe shield or magic missile or, basically, zero and first level spells. The bulk of their spells would then focus on, well, magic: read magic, antimagic field, arcane mark, banishment, reveal true shape, etc. Powerful spells that affect the mundane world (e.g., fireball) could be cast as either a ritual or "created" like a one-shot magic item (i.e., lots of time to prep, costly in terms of rare material components, etc.)_
> 
> A Paizoian rightly pointed out such a game sounded similar to Ars Magica. I'm familiar with that game, and am going to look into developing a version based off the SRD.
> 
> Thanks for the idea!




Although the setting might not be of your interest (becouse of victorian age feel in some of their parts), you really should check "Arcanum: of steam work and magick obscura", a game where being "mundane" made you less vulnerable to magic, but being magical made you less vulnerable to mundane. It's quite a good sandbox game, and one where you could effectively play a charisma character and win, becouse most of the encounters could be "bluffed" or "persuaded", and your charisma score would give you followers to deal with the blunt encounters that couldnt be solved with charisma. (you could also take sneak approach, magic approach, tech -steampunk tech- approach, or just don heavy armor and a claymore and hack and slash).


----------



## billd91

Neonchameleon said:


> Again, nice strawman.  If you want to say "I don't want to have a party with BMX bandit and angel summoner" (literally in the second case) and that D&D supports this, _that_ leads to the conclusion that D&D is broken.  It's not about the casual flight.  It's about the casual flight on one side and the sole ability being to swing a sharp piece of metal moderately hard on the other.




I always get a chuckle out of people who criticize strawmen while trotting out BMX bandit and angel summoner.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

Neonchameleon said:


> 3.X goes beyond that.  It not only mixes the two, _it claims [fighters and wizards] are the same power level_.



Where?

I, for one, think that wizards are capable of bringing _far_ more power to bear than fighters.  I'm not sure anyone in this thread would dispute that.

I don't remember D&D saying that wizards and fighters are equally powerful, explicitly or by implication.  I may have missed it.  (Really, I may have.  If I did, I think it's clearly a bogus claim.)  What I remember, and the way we've always played the game, is that wizards and fighters are both given opportunities to be in the spotlight.

Is it possible for a wizard to hog the spotlight?  Sure.  It's also possible for a fighter to do so.  Or a rogue.  Or a cleric.

Douchebags exist.  I just don't have much interest in a game that purports to eliminate douchebaggery because, you know, the GM and players are helpless to not be douchebags all on their own.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Jeff Wilder said:


> Where?
> 
> I, for one, think that wizards are capable of bringing _far_ more power to bear than fighters. I'm not sure anyone in this thread would dispute that.




They are claimed to be equal across the course of a four encounter day by the XP/ECL/CR system.  Yes, it's broken.  But it's what 3.X claims.  Swap a fighter out for a wizard and by the mathematics of 3.X the fair challenges for the day will be entirely unchanged.


----------



## Aus_Snow

joela said:


> It's been awhile since I read the original trilogy, but wasn't there some sorta "balance" issue that restricted wizards? IIRC, Sparrowhawk was told that when he created rain in one place, it was dry somewhere else and vice versa.



One of my favourite fantasy series. _Trilogies_, just to be clear. 

Also, I quite liked the rather similar aspect "magic" had in Carnivale. Cut short though it was - grr.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

billd91 said:


> I always get a chuckle out of people who criticize strawmen while trotting out BMX bandit and angel summoner.




But they aren't made of straw, they're made of _WIN!_


----------



## Nemesis Destiny

Jeff Wilder said:


> Douchebags exist.  I just don't have much interest in a game that purports to eliminate douchebaggery because, you know, the GM and players are helpless to not be douchebags all on their own.



This pretty much sums up most of the arguments refuting that problems exist in a given ruleset (note that I'm not being specific).

"Douchebags exist, but we don't play with douchebags, so we've never seen these "problems" that you're referring to, therefore the problem must be YOU."

Sorry, that doesn't mean there aren't problems, it just means that you're wise and/or fortunate enough to play with like-minded individuals. So am I, but it doesn't mean that countless gamers aren't so fortunate. I used to be in that boat. Some people are stuck in small towns, only play at events held at game stores (where you play with whomever is there or you don't play), small circles of friends, or otherwise don't know that there are other ways to play.

We are, of course, all free to continue doing what makes us happy. I want you to continue playing the game you like with the people you like playing it with. I'm not trying to convert anyone. I don't particularly care what other gamers that aren't at my table are doing.

There is, however, nothing at all wrong with wanting a game that is more douche-resistant, because you know, douchebags exist, and some gamers have a choice to play with douches or not at all.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

Nemesis Destiny said:


> This pretty much sums up most of the arguments refuting that problems exist in a given ruleset (note that I'm not being specific).



Nobody has convinced me that the "problem" is the _rules set_.  The _problem_ is deliberate misuse of the rules set, apparently combined with permissiveness from the other players and GM.

You can be a douchebag player as a wizard.  You can be a douchebag player as a fighter.

The solution isn't to change the wizard, if the problem is that a player is a douchebag.

It sure as _hell_ isn't the solution to change the entire game for _everybody_ because _that guy_ games with a douchebag.

Fix the actual problem.

Yes, it sucks that some people have no choice but to game with douchebags, if they want to game at all.  It does.  I sympathize. But changing the rules _will not change the douchebag_.  To paraphrase Ian Malcolm, "Douchebags find a way."

(BTW, none of my protests against changing the game should be taken as implicit claims that there's nothing wrong with the game, or with certain aspects of spellcasting.  _Glitterdust_ is a broken spell.  If it is used exactly as intended, on its own, without any search for ways to abuse it, it is too powerful.  There are many other examples.)


----------



## Nemesis Destiny

Jeff Wilder said:


> Nobody has convinced me that the "problem" is the _rules set_.  The _problem_ is deliberate misuse of the rules set, apparently combined with permissiveness from the other players and GM.



That's fine, I'm not trying to convince _you_. I've already stated that beyond continuing to do what makes you happy as a gamer, I don't care what you do.

So for you, the problem isn't with the rules. For others it is. It's a pretty subjective thing.



> You can be a douchebag player as a wizard.  You can be a douchebag player as a fighter.



Yep. Sure can.



> The solution isn't to change the wizard, if the problem is that a player is a douchebag.
> 
> It sure as _hell_ isn't the solution to change the entire game for _everybody_ because _that guy_ games with a douchebag.



That solution didn't work for _you_, but there are lots of folks that it did work for, and a fair number more that, even though they didn't necessarily have a problem, found that they quite liked a different approach to balance.

That doesn't make them wrong. That doesn't mean those changes were necessarily a bad idea. That makes them different, and makes those ideas interesting to perhaps a different crowd. That crowd doesn't include you, apparently.

Fortunately, you have found a solution that works for you. Others will keep looking, or move on, or whatever.



> Fix the actual problem.



Yeah, stop playing with douchebags. Great if you can, sucks if you can't. Gaming companies can't stop players from being douchebags. They have no control over that, but they do have control over rules and systems, so that's the only angle they can approach the problem from.

So that's what they did. Some liked it, some didn't. That's life, and that's business.



> Yes, it sucks that some people have no choice but to game with douchebags, if they want to game at all.  It does.  I sympathize. But changing the rules _will not change the douchebag_.  To paraphrase Ian Malcolm, "Douchebags find a way."



No it won't, but if there are less chances for douchebaggery, it follows that people forced to play alongside douchebags will have a better time of it.

It also follows that douchebags, when faced with less opportunity for douchebaggery, will choose to stick with what gave them the more opportunity to do what they liked. A lot of the douchey 3.x players I knew didn't move on for precisely that reason.

Beyond that, live and let live; game and let game. Not everyone wants to play the same game. There's nothing wrong with that, and fortunately there are many games to choose from to suit whatever your fancy.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

Nemesis Destiny said:


> That solution didn't work for _you_, but there are lots of folks that it did work for, and a fair number more that, even though they didn't necessarily have a problem, found that they quite liked a different approach to balance.



And I'm _absolutely_ good with that.

My objections began because certain posters _specifically_ started saying that 3.5/PF sucked because the wizard makes the fighter useless and stupid.  If those posters hadn't brought 3.5/PF into it, I wouldn't even be in this discussion.


----------



## triqui

Jeff Wilder said:


> Where?
> 
> I, for one, think that wizards are capable of bringing _far_ more power to bear than fighters.  I'm not sure anyone in this thread would dispute that.
> 
> I don't remember D&D saying that wizards and fighters are equally powerful, explicitly or by implication.  I may have missed it.  (Really, I may have.  If I did, I think it's clearly a bogus claim.)




It does, explicitly. Take a lvl 1 goblin. Give him 19 lvls of fighter. Now take a lvl 1 goblin. Give him 19 lvls of wizard. The games _tries to tell you_ they are balanced (both have same Encounter Level), while they are obviusly not.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

triqui said:


> It does, explicitly. Take a lvl 1 goblin. Give him 19 lvls of fighter. Now take a lvl 1 goblin. Give him 19 lvls of wizard. The games _tries to tell you_ they are balanced (both have same Encounter Level), while they are obviusly not.



There's so much wrong with this (not the least of which is an apparent misunderstanding of the word "explicit") that I'll just point out one:

You are equating "game mechanical balance" with "power."  This is problematic because, while I agree that the wizard can bring more power to bear, whether it is balanced with the fighter has to do with a huge number of factors.  As the simplest proof possible, which (a wizard 20 or a fighter 20) would more easily defeat an orc warrior 1?


----------



## triqui

Jeff Wilder said:


> You are equating "game mechanical balance" with "power."  This is problematic because, while I agree that the wizard can bring more power to bear, whether it is balanced with the fighter has to do with a huge number of factors.  As the simplest proof possible, which (a wizard 20 or a fighter 20) would more easily defeat an orc warrior 1?




Which is tantamount to say that a nuclear carrier and a single marine are balanced, becouse the marine will beat the nuclear carrier cooking an omelette

(EDIT: plus in this case, the nuclear carrier also cooks the omelette better. I'm pretty sure the wizard can win a lvl 1 ork without doing ANY action at all. His familiar can kick the lvl 1 orc ass just fine, while the wizard can employ his turn fliping the omelette)


----------



## Jeff Wilder

triqui said:


> Which is tantamount to say that a nuclear carrier and a single marine are balanced, becouse the marine will beat the nuclear carrier cooking an omelette



If you cannot think of reasonable situations in which a single marine is more useful than a nuclear carrier, it explains a _lot_.

And D&D is all about those situational disparities.


----------



## triqui

Jeff Wilder said:


> If you cannot think of reasonable situations in which a single marine is more useful than a nuclear carrier, it explains a _lot_.




I can. Already told you one example (a single marine is more useful than a nuclear carrier if you want to cook an omelette to the Commander in Chief). However, I'll argue all day that this does not prove they are balanced. It just prove that the single marine can have some niche moments where he can do things a nuclear carrier can't. Fliping an omelette or mop up the floor, for example. That, however, is not even a ressemblance of balance. That's just a job for Aquaman. Which does not make Aquaman balanced with Superman. Or Batman, for that matter. 

Note: I firmly advocate you _can_ have balanced characters with asymetric approach. Batman and Superman are balanced. Both have different strengths and weaknesses. You _could_ achieve asymetric balance between arcane and martials (opposed to the symetric balance achieved in 4e). Just that 3e failed at the task.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

triqui said:


> You _could_ achieve asymetric balance between arcane and martials (opposed to the symetric balance achieved in 4e). Just that 3e failed at the task.



3E didn't fail at that task, because 3E didn't _attempt_ that task.

What 3E attempted to do was make a game in which a DM and a number of players could cooperatively create and play through situations in which playing a fighter was just as "useful" and just as much "fun" as playing a wizard, all else being equal.

You keep talking about these things as if the DM and the players _don't exist_.  Other people keep talking about the game as if the only wizard players that _do_ exist are douchebags.

And, unsurprisingly, neither of you can understand that it just doesn't _matter_ that the wizard "out powers" the fighter.  All that matters is that the DM (and the players) give the fighter just as many moments to look and feel cool as they give the wizard.

My DM and players do so.  Perhaps yours don't.  That is a shame, and it's a problem, but it's not a problem _inherent to_ 3E.  It's a problem inherent to your DM and players.


----------



## Beginning of the End

Neonchameleon said:


> It's Ars Magica.  The wizard solved the encounter then sent the other PCs in with mop and bucket to be the cleanup crew after things were resolved.  That's a hireling's job.




I suspect this is most of your problem right here: For some reason you're privileging the wizard's contribution as being the only contribution that "counts". I'm not entirely sure on what basis you're making that value judgment, but it reads as fairly tautological.



> If you want to say "I don't want to have a party with BMX bandit and  angel summoner"



You've made a massive leap from "I cast _glitterdust_ and then the fighter makes his contribution" to "I cast _summon angels_ and the fighter does nothing".

And even the latter is only problematic if the wizard can do that for every single encounter or if it sucks up a disproportionate amount of table time.


----------



## triqui

Jeff Wilder said:


> 3E didn't fail at that task, because 3E didn't _attempt_ that task.



Fair point. I fully agree 3e did not even try to get balance. Then I do not know why we are arguing that 3e fighter and 3e wizard aren't balanced at all. We both agree they aren't.



> And, unsurprisingly, neither of you can understand that it just doesn't _matter_ that the wizard "out powers" the fighter.  All that matters is that the DM (and the players) give the fighter just as many moments to look and feel cool as they give the wizard.



 If those moments are "jobs for Aquaman", I disagree they are equally cool. It's like having an impaired charater and your DM making Paraolympic Games every now and then.



> My DM and players do so.  Perhaps yours don't.  That is a shame, and it's a problem, but it's not a problem _inherent to_ 3E.  It's a problem inherent to your DM and players.




Ad Hominem fallacy never proves anything at all. Get off your high "I play the game right, you don't, that's why you don't find it so cool as I do" horse. I play with the same DM and players in 4e than in 3e, and that problem did not arise. So _maybe_ the system has something to do with it  (EDIT:sure, other problems DID arise. 4e is NOT superior to 3e in every aspect. However, we are talking about Wizard vs Warrior balance in this thread)


----------



## Jeff Wilder

triqui said:


> Get off your high "I play the game right, you don't, that's why you don't find it so cool as I do" horse.



And you _still_ don't get it.

How about you try reading it as, "My friends and I play the game in a way in which fighters are as cool as wizards"?

Do you and your friends play the game that way?  If not, why not?  Is there something _inherent to the game_ that is preventing you?


----------



## triqui

Jeff Wilder said:


> Do you and your friends play the game that way?  If not, why not?  Is there something _inherent to the game_ that is preventing you?




Yes. Lack of options. And no, selecting how much Base Attack Bonus I trade to armor or damage does not make for it.

If you take a look at my 5th edition thread here, in the opening post I explain a bit of what is not working of 4e for me, what I would change, and  how I would try (probably without sucess, I admit) to do so. 

Briefly:
I do not want warriors and wizards to be *mechanically symetric*, but I want them to be _balanced in power_ -something 3e does not try to achieve-

I want them to have both _viable options_ in and out of combat

I don't want (some) magic to completelly trump over non-magic characters  (greater invisibility, fly, or reverse gravity come to mind)

I don't want relying on magic to solve most, if not all, group challenges and encounters when the group reaches lvl 9+ (I remember my group casting Levitate to everyone to "climb" the magic beans, for example)

And 3e has something that bassically exclude me to do what I want. To be fair, 4e has things that exclude me, too. Just that they are different ones, and not related to this thread (which talks about warrior vs wizards balance in fiction, where I find them quite balanced. Ulises wasn't worse than Circe. And 3e does not simulate that rightly, imho)


----------



## Jeff Wilder

triqui said:


> Briefly:
> I do not want warriors and wizards to be *mechanically symetric*, but I want them to be _balanced in power_ -something 3e does not try to achieve-



That's awesome.  Don't you already have that in 4E?

Why do you insist that I agree with you and that I must want that, too?  Because all I want is for wizards and fighters to be _balanced in their ability to be cool_, and I've got that in 3E.  And 4E's approach actually _damages_ that balance for me.

So ... you've got what you want.  What is compelling you to insist that 3E sucks because it does what I want it to do?

And, while I'm thinking on it, what in the world keeps those of you who want super-duper magical special fantastical wuxia warriors from simply creating a wizard and skinning it to be the warrior you want?


----------



## Diamond Cross

> but I want them to be _balanced in power_ -something 3e does not try to achieve-




They are, actually.

You just want a short sword to do 1d6 points of damage per level just like a fireball spell does, maximum 10d6, modified by metasword feats that can up the damage by half and do maximum damage per swing.

They are far more balanced than some people realize, because you only see the spells in comparison to the fighter, and are completely ignoring the weaknesses of a wizard, along with everybody else. As well as ignoring the situations and opponents that require these spells to be this way.

A summon monster spell is not for replacing the fighter, it is for a bodyguard for the wizard and to beef up the party against a larger party that can outnumber them three to one, for instance. Such as six characters going up against twenty Orcs. Or having a firewall against a small army of ten trolls. You know the regenerative power of trolls right? They regenerate all damage except fire and acid. BUT a troll is too powerful for a wizard to fight on his own in close quarters so he needs a fighter and a summoned monster to keep the troll off of him while he casts his fire or acid spells to defeat it.

A fighter is comparable to a wizard and in many cases can actually out perform a wizard. Any player worth his salt will beat a wizard without having to resort to dirty tricks to limit the wizard's magic in favor of the fighter.

All it boils down to is is experience, imagination and intelligence, the way a class is played. It has nothing to do with balance. That's just a lame excuse to favor one class above all else. If a player can't beat another player, it is because the other player is a better player and knows how to play their class really well. _It has nothing to do with game balance but everything to do with intelligence, experience and imagination._


----------



## joela

Aus_Snow said:


> One of my favourite fantasy series. _Trilogies_, just to be clear.




LOL. I know what you mean. I tried to read the, uh, "sequels". Ugh. Tell me a *story*, not some thinly veiled New Age/Feminist* essay. 



_*In the negative sense of the word. _


----------



## triqui

Jeff Wilder said:


> That's awesome.  Don't you already have that in 4E?



 Not really. While they are balanced, they are built symetrically. I don't want them to be the same, just balanced.



> So ... you've got what you want.  What is compelling you to insist that 3E sucks because it does what I want it to do?



That we are in a _discussion forum_ talking in a thread which is titled _how is warrior and wizard balance problem handled in fiction_. I find that RPG mimic fiction, and that some versions of the rule do it better than others. I dont see Gandalf teleporting to Mordor, I don't see him flying out of Saruman tower, I don't see him solving everything with Batman Utiity Wizard Belt (tm). And thus I discuss my opinion, becouse, you know, that's why this is a discussion forum to begin with.

Plus this is not only a chat between you and me. Other folks might come, read, and see my (and yours) opinions, and work around them, plus their own experience. That's the whole point of having a forum, you know.



> And, while I'm thinking on it, what in the world keeps those of you who want super-duper magical special fantastical wuxia warriors from simply creating a wizard and skinning it to be the warrior you want?



In 3e you mean? That it does not feel as a warrior. Not with 1d4 hp, no armor, low BAB... It does not feel martial, at all. 

PS: I don't know why you think I want warriors to be wuxia, but that's a completelly different issue.


----------



## Nemesis Destiny

Jeff Wilder said:


> And I'm _absolutely_ good with that.
> 
> My objections began because certain posters _specifically_ started saying that 3.5/PF sucked because the wizard makes the fighter useless and stupid.  If those posters hadn't brought 3.5/PF into it, I wouldn't even be in this discussion.



Yeah, I read the whole thread, so I know where/how it all started. Likewise though, if someone slams your game, why get into it with them? You should know by now that no good will come of it (and by 'you' I mean the proverbial 'you,' which can just as easily apply to 'them,' and it is, in any case a rhetorical question).

I don't know where all this edition hate comes from. It'd be nice if people could just be happy using whatever works for them, and let others be - without gettng all evangelical about it. Human nature, I guess.

I like "live and let live, game and let game," better, myself.

Cheers, and good gaming to you.


----------



## triqui

Diamond Cross said:


> They are, actually.



 That's your opinion. I was quoting Jeff Wilde, so it seems not everybody thinks the same, including some that play 3e.



> You just want a short sword to do 1d6 points of damage per level just like a fireball spell does, maximum 10d6, modified by metasword feats that can up the damage by half and do maximum damage per swing.



 Not really. Fighters do enough damage, that's not the problem. A sword that can stun or daze or blind, a sword that can kill on a failed save, that would be nice place to start. 

However, that's only about combat. I'd like to have some out of combat goodies too. For example, something named "lift bars" that automatically open/breaks a door (just like Knock does) might be nice, or something named "Awe" where they can use magnetic charisma to get a weaker "Charm person" or some kind of "sense the truth" that give him a weaker "zone of truth", or some "warrior's resolve" that allow them to briefly be inmune to mind compulsions (only a portion of what protection from evil does), or some "Find the path" equivalent for a Ranger, for example. I don't really see any reason for spellcasters (clerics in that case) to be better pathfinders than rangers (even if it's only once a day)




> A fighter is comparable to a wizard and in many cases can actually out perform a wizard. Any player worth his salt will beat a wizard without having to resort to dirty tricks to limit the wizard's magic in favor of the fighter.



 Let's assume you are right. So what? This is not a PvP game, so the point is moot.



> That's just a lame excuse to favor one class above all else. [/I]



If there's a class that is favored among all else, that's the magic users. Most people agree they are more powerful in 3e than fighters. Even Jeff Wilde does. Some does not have a problem with that unbalance, and some others do, that's a different beast. But "spellcasters" are above "warriors" in power in 3e, by far.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

triqui said:


> I don't want them to be the same, just balanced.



Now this is interesting.

How about giving me an example 9th-level spell (of your invention) juxtaposed against a balanced ability a fighter might acquire at 17th level?


----------



## Jeff Wilder

triqui said:


> That's your opinion. I was quoting Jeff Wilde



Who?



> so it seems not everybody thinks the same, including some that play 3e.



Just to be clear, you seem to insist -- as do many other people -- on equating "balance" with "power."  I disagree with that, but _if_ that is your metric, I concede that the wizard can bring more power to bear.

I'm with Diamond Cross, though: IMO, the classes are balanced fairly well for how the game is intended to be played.



> A sword that can stun or daze or blind, a sword that can kill on a failed save, that would be nice place to start.



Both PF and (later) 3E have all of those.



> For example, something named "lift bars" that automatically open/breaks a door (just like Knock does) might be nice



Doesn't your _next post_ say that you aren't interested in wizards are warriors being "symmetrically balanced"?  But it's be "nice" if fighters can do _knock_?  And _charm person_?  And _mind blank_?  And _find the path_?  Seriously?

Make a wizard and skin it as a fighter, man.  Jesus.



> Most people agree they are more powerful in 3e than fighters. Even Jeff Wilde



Who?



> does. Some does not have a problem with that unbalance



And there it is again: "power equals balance."  If the wizard is fighting the fighter, maybe so.  If the wizard and the fighter are for some reason competing against each other, maybe so.  But in a game where the DM actually, you know, _exists_, and creates challenges for both of them, "power" and "balance" aren't the same.


----------



## triqui

Jeff Wilder said:


> Now this is interesting.
> 
> How about giving me an example 9th-level spell (of your invention) juxtaposed against a balanced ability a fighter might acquire at 17th level?





Disclaimer: I'm not a game designer. And I'm doing this on the fly, so no playtest, or so, involved.

I assume you mean in 3e terms (if I were to build a game from scratch, might end looking more like Robert J Schwalb "a song of fire and ice" with magic)

But in D&D style, and high level, I would do something in the way:

Combat, offensive:

Wizard: Mass petrify. 1 target, plus 1 target each 2 levels, at close (25'+5'x lvl). Fortitude save DC 19+int or petrified (note: I would change most save or suck spells to have 2 saves, one instantly, one at the end of the target's turn, to give a chance to react)

Warrior: heartseeker. standard action (so your only attack). Does normal weapon damage + 1d6 x lvl. Creature saves vs Fort, or dies (2 saves too). Within 3e, I would make this 1 per day, but I would change all (including wizard spells) to be recharged per encounter or something similar (like mana that refreshes, or whatever).


Combat, Deffensive:
Wizard: Deflect spell. Reaction, change the target of a single target spell.

Warrior: Unstopable. Swift action. Last for 10 rounds. You get a fortitude saving throw at begining of your turn against effects that hold, stun, daze, dominate, fear or nauseate you.

Out of Combat:
Wizard: Summon Major Planar Ally: Invokes a Outsider that is bind to help you in one task (this is not my favourite taste of powers, but we are talking lvl 17 here)

Fighter: Awesome Majesty: Permanent. that are below your level are Shaken when fighting you. You are inmune to fear. You add your level to Intimidate and Diplomacy skills.

Something like that


----------



## triqui

Jeff Wilder said:


> Doesn't your _next post_ say that you aren't interested in wizards are warriors being "symmetrically balanced"?  But it's be "nice" if fighters can do _knock_?  And _charm person_?  And _mind blank_?  And _find the path_?  Seriously?



Yep. Becouse I would strip those powers from the spellcasters (or most of them). Wizard do not need to have knock, that's rogues (with subtetly) and fighters (with blunt) job. They don't need find the path, that's rangers job. They don't need charm person, that's Bard's job. They don't need mind blank anymore than anyone else (and arguabily less than a rogue). Just like "identify", "dispel Magic" and 

That's my point: wizards are supposed to do EVERYTHING (and actually, everything better than anyone else, but spending a spell slot. Pick lock might fail, Knock does not), and that's what I find unfair.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

triqui said:


> Yep. Becouse I would strip those powers from the spellcasters (or most of them).



What, generally, would you leave wizards _able_ to do?  From what I can tell from your example powers, everything is combat-oriented.  (I'm not real clear on the _summon_, since you don't indicate what the outsider can do for you.  I assume it can fight, if nothing else?)

So a wizard can turn an entire courtyard of gawkers to stone ... but he can't enthrall a single target.  A wizard can deflect a spell ... but he can't magically unlock a door. A wizard can summon a celestial ... but he can't ask the celestial to scout ahead and "find the path" for him.

Is that about right?  Wizards in your book can kill stuff real good?  Kinda like fighters?



> Pick lock might fail, Knock does not), and that's what I find unfair.



Now how sure are you of this?  Because I'm willing to bet you I can design a completely reasonable door that a 1st-level rogue can open that a wizard with a _knock_ spell cannot.


----------



## Diamond Cross

When you were young and your heart was an open book.
You used to say live and let live.
You know you did you know you did you know you did.
But in this ever changing world in which we live in.
Makes you give in and cry.
Say live and let die.


----------



## Mort

Jeff Wilder said:


> Now how sure are you of this?  Because I'm willing to bet you I can design a completely reasonable door that a 1st-level rogue can open that a wizard with a _knock_ spell cannot.




Interesting. I suppose the door, instead of having a lock would be opened like some trap (thereby making pick locks and _knock_ useless but disable device perfectly workable). If that's the case though, why wouldn't the designer also _wizard lock_ the door (or hire a 3rd level wizard to do so) as this would (by 3.5 rules) make the door impossible for the rogue too (short of breaking it down). 

Both Pathfinder and 4e have an easy solution here: _knock_ requires an arcana check to beat the DC of the lock (and arcane lock imposes a DC as opposed to being non-pickable), meaning a 3rd level wizard isn't suddenly a better lockpicker than a 20th level rogue.


----------



## Diamond Cross

> Pick lock might fail, Knock does not), and that's what I find unfair.



You know what I find unfair?

That a fighter can use a shield and a sword and have multiple attacks in a single round of combat and have a higher BAB that the wizard.

Wizards do not get this. They can only use a dagger and only get one attack per round.

For the sake of balance, a Wizard should get the same BAB as a fighter and the same number of attacks with their melee weapons. And a wizard should be able to use a shield and sword, just like a fighter does.

It'll make things far more balanced.

/sarcasm



> However, that's only about combat. I'd like to have some out of combat  goodies too. For example, something named "lift bars" that automatically  open/breaks a door (just like Knock does) might be nice, or something  named "Awe" where they can use magnetic charisma to get a weaker "Charm  person" or some kind of "sense the truth" that give him a weaker "zone  of truth", or some "warrior's resolve" that allow them to briefly be  inmune to mind compulsions (only a portion of what protection from evil  does), or some "Find the path" equivalent for a Ranger, for example. I  don't really see any reason for spellcasters (clerics in that case) to  be better pathfinders than rangers (even if it's only once a day)




A few things, but the biggest one is this:

You do want the fighter to be the same as the wizard, you just want to rename the abilities. There are many items that a fighter can get that perfectly mimics these abilities you want. You might have to spend some gold for them, find them in a dungeon craw, or do a specific quest for them, but they already exist as equipment.

A fighter does have capabilities that do allow him to do things like bend bars and lift gates. In 3,5e all you have to do is make a Strength check against the DC of doing so. Plus, there's an ability called Sunder.

In fact, here's what the SRD says on breaking things:

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/exploration.htm


----------



## triqui

Diamond Cross said:


> You know what I find unfair?
> 
> That a fighter can use a shield and a sword and have multiple attacks in a single round of combat.
> 
> Wizards do not get this. They can only use a dagger and only get one attack per round.
> 
> For the sake of balance, a Wizard should get the same BAB as a fighter and the same number of attacks with their melee weapons. And a wizard should be able to use a shield and sword, just like a fighter does.
> 
> It'll make things far more balanced.
> 
> /sarcasm




Incredibly flawed attempt. It's not the mechanics that have to be balanced, but the effects (in your example, defend themselves and do damage). A wizard does not have a shield, but have Shield (the spell), which protects them. And Mage armor, Blurr, Invisibility, Blink, Stoneskin and Mirror Image to add up. It does not have multiple attacks, but have damaging spells. If the total damage output is similar, it's balanced, the effect is the same. However, the wizard can fly. And teleport. And comune. And charm. And summon monster. Knock. Invisibility. Shapechange. Waterbreeze. Planeshift. And a lot of things that fighters can't do, or get near to do, with their own mechanics.


----------



## triqui

Jeff Wilder said:


> What, generally, would you leave wizards _able_ to do?  From what I can tell from your example powers, everything is combat-oriented.  (I'm not real clear on the _summon_, since you don't indicate what the outsider can do for you.  I assume it can fight, if nothing else?)



 With the outsider I was thinking on things like commune, create magic items for you, use spells that you dont have, etc.

Wizards could do a lot of things. Mainly related to magic. Including summoning, learning things (identify, contact other plane), protect from magic and magic beans (like protection from evil or nondectection), craft magic items, teleport (but not "without error"), that sort of stuff. Just that I don't think they should do ANYTHING. They should not be able to pick locks better than a rogue, shut doors better than a fighter, explore better than rangers.



> So a wizard can turn an entire courtyard of gawkers to stone ... but he can't enthrall a single target.  A wizard can deflect a spell ... but he can't magically unlock a door. A wizard can summon a celestial ... but he can't ask the celestial to scout ahead and "find the path" for him.



 Exactly. They should do the wizard stuff, and not step into everyone else shoe. You don`t see Gandalf tracking or sneaking around, do you?



> Is that about right?  Wizards in your book can kill stuff real good?  Kinda like fighters?



 Do you notice that your sentence implies the only thing fighters can do is "kill stuff real good"?  



> Now how sure are you of this?  Because I'm willing to bet you I can design a completely reasonable door that a 1st-level rogue can open that a wizard with a _knock_ spell cannot.




Which leads us to this is a job for Aquaman, and really address anything. I think rogues should be able to open *all* locks better than wizards, just like I think wizards should dispel *all* magic better than rogues. And not only just one single proxy lock built especifically so your impaired character can win a gold medal in paraolimpics too.


----------



## Diamond Cross

> Incredibly flawed attempt.




Right. Because fighters should be able to do everything a wizard should do and not in reverse, anything else is unfair.

Might as well just have one class:

The SUPERCLASS


Where everybody has the exact same abilities because it's just too unfair to have different abilities and effects.

Football should be baseball, hockey, golf, soccer, and chess all rolled into one.

Because, really, that's what you're arguing for, regardless of how you try to hide it weasel words like unfair and unbalanced.


----------



## Diamond Cross

Double post with a double class.

Added: and you know what?

I never see this argument being used against the cleric. It's only the wizard.


----------



## Patryn of Elvenshae

Diamond Cross said:


> Right. Because fighters should be able to do everything a wizard should do and not in reverse, anything else is unfair.




Um, no.  You've completely missed the point.

And the Cleric is just as bad as the Wizard, if not worse, at taking the Fighter's stuff, though generally not as good, I think, at taking the Rogue's stuff.  "Wizard" is just convenient shorthand for "spellcaster."

As has already been mentioned several times.


----------



## Argyle King

I think one thing that makes the problem worse -as far as D&D goes- is the "5 minute work day."  IMO, things are a little more balanced when the PCs need to be heroes at all times instead of only during a few encounters.  One of the DMs I used to play with when I played 3.5 used villains who were more pro-active; attacking the party during rest hours happened.  There were many times when the mighty wizard (or the cleric) were left with their fates in the hands of the party fighter.

This isn't to say I believe 3.5 was perfect; I fully agree it had a few problems, but I think some of the problems were made worse not by the system but by the way in which people played the system.


I also think that one of the issues is that novels/literature do not have levels. (D&D novels being the obvious exception.)  This is actually one of the reasons I've started to enjoy games without levels; I've often made the comment to my friends that GURPS often feels more like a book whereas I feel that D&D 4E seems more like a movie.  While I love movies, I appreciate the small details which books touch upon and the greater consistency that is possible in a book due to the more gradual pace.  I feel like my character evolves in a more organic way instead of hitting a specific point and then BOOM! - I learn a new sword technique because I completed a completely unrelated skill challenge.

I still very much enjoy D&D.  These are just things I've noticed as I've aged and gotten more experience with rpgs.


----------



## pemerton

Hussar said:


> What if I want to play a game where magic isn't the deciding factor in every battle?  D&D often sweeps these things under the carpet.  As you say, the fantasy D&D castle would not look like a medieval castle.
> 
> But, what if I want more traditional fantasy?  In D&D, as soon as you start scratching beneath the surface, you realize how poorly D&D does traditional fantasy, at least out of the box.  Sure, you can start making all sorts of changes to the ruleset to make it do that, but, that's kinda the point.  You have to radically alter a lot of the ruleset in order to do it.



Well, I think there is the alternative to AD&D (and probably 3E) which (in my view) Basic (but not Expert) adopted, and 4e has also adopted - which is to treat the sociology and demography of the gameworld as backdrop rather than as a game element that is to be used on a par with the rest of the game mechanics.

(Yes, I'm repeating myself from upthread. But I really feel that this is an underappreciated difference in the contribution that the gameworld makes to play!)



Hussar said:


> D&D, as it's presented is not this high magic, magic solves all game.
> 
> Looking at various settings - Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, etc. the settings are presented as medieval Europe with a veneer of magic layered on top.  The problem comes when you scratch below the surface, it's not hard to start seeing some really glaring incongruities.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Take something as simple as continual light/continual flame (depending on edition).  Access to PERMANENT light sources would have an enormous impact on a setting.  But, why do we have these spells?  Well, because our adventurers go down into dungeons and carrying a sack full of torches is a PITA.  So, we have Continual Light.  Makes dungeon crawling that much easier.  The broader effects of cheap, permanent magics are simply hand waved away.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The magic system is dictating my setting.  I can't ignore the issue if I want a believable setting.



I think believability in fantasy settings is grossly overrated. Tolkien's Middle Earth is not remotely believable. The Shire has material living standards comparable to 18th or early 19th century England, although the latter was a centre of world commerce and productiong and the former is a small, autarkic community. Gondor appears to have material living standards and economic power at least comparable to the major European kingdoms of the high mediaeval period, without any sort of comprable economic base. Where are the villages and towns that support Minas Tirith (they certainly don't seem to be passed through during the Ride of the Rohirrim)?

Exactly the same sorts of points can be made about REH's Hyborian Age, which is a self-conscious pastiche of various times and places intended solely to provide an evocative backdrop for the Conan stories.

I think there is nothing wrong with handwaving. In a game system which includes spells like Continual Light, all it needs is an understanding at the table that no one will push the boundaries that might make the handwaving fail to do its job. (Much like the understanding that no one will theorise _too_ hard about the dungeon's ecology, or the Underdark's impossible economy - how is the Vault of the Drow richer than any surface city given its such economically umpromising geography? - or about where and how often their PCs go to the toilet.)

Once the game makes the setting another element in the game that the PCs are expected to use alongside (or as part of) the mechanics, then I agree that things change. This is part of why I'm not a big fan of domain-type rules, at least of the classic AD&D/Expert variety. They suddenly make sociology and economics matter to the game,  bringing an end to the handwaving and encouraging players to break the gameworld in all the ways that you (Hussar) are talking about.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Jeff Wilder said:


> Who?
> 
> Just to be clear, you seem to insist -- as do many other people -- on equating "balance" with "power." I disagree with that, but _if_ that is your metric, I concede that the wizard can bring more power to bear.




What exactly does the fighter bring to bear?  The ability to swing a sharpened piece of metal really effectively.  That's it.  He doesn't even have the endurance of a cleric; a cleric can heal himself.  The fighter doesn't even bring skills for out of combat - he has fewer skill points than the wizard (assuming prime stats) and the ones he's good at (climb, jump, swim) are the easiest skills in the game to make irrelevant with magic.  His other skills are Handle Animal, Intimidate, and Ride.  It's the worst skill list in the game.



> I'm with Diamond Cross, though: IMO, the classes are balanced fairly well for how the game is intended to be played.




A statement that to me is almost exactly analogous to "Railroad plots are great as long as the PCs willingly stick to the railroad."  I play with a creative group - odd uses for spells, avoidance of combat matters as much as smacking people round the head with your sharpened bit of metal, and a lot of creativity comes into play.



> Doesn't your _next post_ say that you aren't interested in wizards are warriors being "symmetrically balanced"? But it's be "nice" if fighters can do _knock_? And _charm person_? And _mind blank_? And _find the path_? Seriously?




Knock is the goddamn Rogue's job.  The Wizard shouldn't be better at dealing with the important locks than the Rogue.  And shouldn't do it automatically.  Personally I like the 4e approach - with prep time and at a cost the caster can use the Arcana skill on locks rather than thievery.

Mind Blank likewise.  That should be a matter of force of will.  Not "have wizard or die".  Yes, wizards can counter scrying - but normally they do it in fiction with displays of brute magical force - the equivalent of throwing up chaff (which sticks out like a sore thumb).



> Make a wizard and skin it as a fighter, man. Jesus.




A wizard won't cut it.  A cleric on the other hand...



> And there it is again: "power equals balance." If the wizard is fighting the fighter, maybe so. If the wizard and the fighter are for some reason competing against each other, maybe so.




Power is a significant part of balance.



> But in a game where the DM actually, you know, _exists_, and creates challenges for both of them, "power" and "balance" aren't the same.




In a game where the DM is bending over backwards to create jobs for each PC rather than e.g. running a sandbox or a pre-published module, yes.  I don't micromanage to create jobs for Aquaman.  I set the PCs with situations based on what the bad guys want and how the PCs handle it is up to them.



Diamond Cross said:


> I never see this argument being used against the cleric. It's only the wizard.




Clerics as a problem are actually _worse._  They can fight in melee and their magic is almost as strong as wizards.  Druids ("I have class features stronger than your entire class") are worse still.  Wizard is just used as shorthand for spellcaster.



Johnny3D3D said:


> I think one thing that makes the problem worse -as far as D&D goes- is the "5 minute work day." IMO, things are a little more balanced when the PCs need to be heroes at all times instead of only during a few encounters. One of the DMs I used to play with when I played 3.5 used villains who were more pro-active; attacking the party during rest hours happened. There were many times when the mighty wizard (or the cleric) were left with their fates in the hands of the party fighter.




Two words.  Rope trick.



> This isn't to say I believe 3.5 was perfect; I fully agree it had a few problems, but I think some of the problems were made worse not by the system but by the way in which people played the system.




Indeed.  The core problem with 3.X is that if you played a wizard and played as an actually smart wizard within the setting you exposed those problems.  It's like the Masquerade - but a Masquerade which in character you have every incentive to break, with all the pressure not to coming from out of character situations.



> I've often made the comment to my friends that GURPS often feels more like a book whereas I feel that D&D 4E seems more like a movie.




I'll buy that   Movie or TV series.  And 4e pretty much explicitely runs on Holywood Physics.

My house rule for starting to cut wizards back in 3.x involves making the Bard the only primary caster. Because it seems to be a lot closer to mythological and fictional (protagonist) spellcasters than the wizard.


----------



## Bluenose

Jeff Wilder said:


> I'm with Diamond Cross, though: IMO, the classes are balanced fairly well for how the game is intended to be played.




Do the AD&D rules set out the way the game is intended to be played? Because I don't think many people are going to claim that the balance between classes is the same in 1e/2e/BECM as it is in 3e. Massive nerfing of everyone's saving throws, increased spell availability, easier magic item crafting, ability to cast spells after being hit, a skill system intended to reduce the participation of certain classes in non-combat situations - no doubt others can add to that list, but in general it amounts to giving more nice things to spellcasters and taking them away from non-spellcasters. And yet if the 3e way is how classes are supposed to be balanced, then earlier editions simply got it wrong.



pemerton said:


> I think believability in fantasy settings is grossly overrated. Tolkien's Middle Earth is not remotely believable. The Shire has material living standards comparable to 18th or early 19th century England, although the latter was a centre of world commerce and productiong and the former is a small, autarkic community. Gondor appears to have material living standards and economic power at least comparable to the major European kingdoms of the high mediaeval period, without any sort of comprable economic base. Where are the villages and towns that support Minas Tirith (they certainly don't seem to be passed through during the Ride of the Rohirrim)?




The economic base for Gondor appears to be in the coastal provinces to the south of the city, which is one area which we don't see much of in the books. Quite a few of the contingents of troops that defend Gondor come from that area.


----------



## BryonD

Bluenose said:


> And yet if the 3e way is how classes are supposed to be balanced, then earlier editions simply got it wrong.



I don't think earlier editions "got it wrong".  But I do think that a lot of modern games learned a lot from the experiences of older games, and early versions of D&D being the clear prime pioneer.

If you want to compare them on equal footing and use the most negative possible spin, then yeah, for modern gaming they "got it wrong".  But it really is a loaded unfair way of saying it on more than one level.  First, they were massively "right" for their time.  And second, "wrong" is really very much the wrong word.  Clearly there are many people who still absolutely love the older editions and for them they are the pinnacle of "right".  That's cool.  But if instead of asking the question : "What is the right or wrong way to have fun?" you instead ask "Which is the right way to appeal to a larger modern audience?", then 3E is "more right" and older editions are "more wrong".


----------



## BryonD

pemerton said:


> I think believability in fantasy settings is grossly overrated. Tolkien's Middle Earth is not remotely believable. The Shire has material living standards comparable to 18th or early 19th century England, although the latter was a centre of world commerce and productiong and the former is a small, autarkic community. Gondor appears to have material living standards and economic power at least comparable to the major European kingdoms of the high mediaeval period, without any sort of comprable economic base. Where are the villages and towns that support Minas Tirith (they certainly don't seem to be passed through during the Ride of the Rohirrim)?
> 
> Exactly the same sorts of points can be made about REH's Hyborian Age, which is a self-conscious pastiche of various times and places intended solely to provide an evocative backdrop for the Conan stories.
> 
> I think there is nothing wrong with handwaving. In a game system which includes spells like Continual Light, all it needs is an understanding at the table that no one will push the boundaries that might make the handwaving fail to do its job. (Much like the understanding that no one will theorise _too_ hard about the dungeon's ecology, or the Underdark's impossible economy - how is the Vault of the Drow richer than any surface city given its such economically umpromising geography? - or about where and how often their PCs go to the toilet.)



I absolutely agree with this.

In very simple terms, players sit down around the table wanting to experience a stereotype fantasy world.  (and even an against the grain anti-stereotype is just another stereotype for this point).

There are boundary conditions that everyone who is actually seeking to make the game fun tend to reflexively adhere to.  

That isn't to say that thinking real hard about ecology can't be a fun thing of its own.  And you can also look at Order of the Stick as an unrelenting parody of the mechanical implications of 3E.  But 3E fans I know all think OotS is funny as hell.  We love it, and then we turn around and sit at our table and accept our boundary conditions, experience immersion in the desired setting and have a blast.


----------



## BryonD

I am reminded of the old debates about how many chickens you could buy in a small town.  Back when 3E was the current edition, that discussion would come up every so often.  Some people would really have issues with it, but the bulk of the conversation was just about how absurd it was.  It was funny.  But it was a bunch of 3E fans talking about wonkiness when you get outside of boundary conditions.  The bottom line was we all still played 3E and this was big debate online without having any impact on the actual game.

Nowadays I find people trying to point out things like this and actually trying to use it as evidence that 3E was never a simulation.  The disconnect is so stark that there is no way to really even progress with the conversation.


I recall debating whether or not celestial great white sharks would ambush attack celestial sea lions for dinner, and whether or not the sea lions minded.  Absurdity.  But great fun.

I recall the great thread about how many house cats would be needed to slay a great wyrm red dragon.  First you need enough to build a giant pyramid of cats.  Then suicide cats fling themselves from the top onto the dragon for 20d6 damage.  Then you have to multiply by 20 because the other 19 failed their dragonfear save.....


----------



## Raven Crowking

Bluenose said:


> Do the AD&D rules set out the way the game is intended to be played?




1e PHB has quite a bit of advice as to how the game should be approached by a player; 1e DMG has quite a bit of advice as to how the game should be approached by a DM.


----------



## Diamond Cross

> My house rule for starting to cut wizards back in 3.x involves making  the Bard the only primary caster. Because it seems to be a lot closer to  mythological and fictional (protagonist) spellcasters than the wizard.




Gandalf and Merlin were not singing cowboys.


----------



## Hussar

Jeff Wilder said:


> Nobody has convinced me that the "problem" is the _rules set_.  The _problem_ is deliberate misuse of the rules set, apparently combined with permissiveness from the other players and GM.
> /snip
> 
> (BTW, none of my protests against changing the game should be taken as implicit claims that there's nothing wrong with the game, or with certain aspects of spellcasting.  _Glitterdust_ is a broken spell.  If it is used exactly as intended, on its own, without any search for ways to abuse it, it is too powerful.  There are many other examples.)




Catching up on this thread, and this one stuck out for me.

Don't you see a bit of a contradiction here?  "There's no problem with the ruleset" vs "There are many other examples of problems with the ruleset"?

If there weren't any problems with the ruleset, shouldn't there be, well, no problems with the ruleset and not a shopping list of problems?  Particularly when all the problems come from the same source - spells and the magic system?


----------



## Hussar

Pemerton said:
			
		

> I think there is nothing wrong with handwaving. In a game system which includes spells like Continual Light, all it needs is an understanding at the table that no one will push the boundaries that might make the handwaving fail to do its job. (Much like the understanding that no one will theorise too hard about the dungeon's ecology, or the Underdark's impossible economy - how is the Vault of the Drow richer than any surface city given its such economically umpromising geography? - or about where and how often their PCs go to the toilet.)
> 
> Once the game makes the setting another element in the game that the PCs are expected to use alongside (or as part of) the mechanics, then I agree that things change. This is part of why I'm not a big fan of domain-type rules, at least of the classic AD&D/Expert variety. They suddenly make sociology and economics matter to the game, bringing an end to the handwaving and encouraging players to break the gameworld in all the ways that you (Hussar) are talking abou




Yeah, I can see that.  And, to be fair, we certainly played that way.  By and large, most of these things were just handwaved away as much as possible.

However, I do find it rather refreshing to play a version of D&D where I don't have to do that quite so much.  It doesn't actually take that many changes to make the D&D magic system not have so much of an impact on world building really - just remove a lot of the permanent effects, particularly at low levels.


----------



## BryonD

Hussar said:


> However, I do find it rather refreshing to play a version of D&D where I don't have to do that quite so much.  It doesn't actually take that many changes to make the D&D magic system not have so much of an impact on world building really - just remove a lot of the permanent effects, particularly at low levels.



Yep.
If you want to play thta kind of setting, then D&D as written is not optimized for your preference.  

I'll only speak for 3E, but there are certainly numerous options for moding it into something that does work.  E6 is the most obvious.  Others exist.

As a kid I loved Wahoo stuff.  During my late teens and very much through my early 20s I found I was deeply interested in much lower magic type gaming.  Through my 30s and up to now I find that I still appreciate and enjoy the low magic stuff, but I'm back to wahoo as the default go-to.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:


> Yeah, I can see that.  And, to be fair, we certainly played that way.  By and large, most of these things were just handwaved away as much as possible.
> 
> However, I do find it rather refreshing to play a version of D&D where I don't have to do that quite so much.  It doesn't actually take that many changes to make the D&D magic system not have so much of an impact on world building really - just remove a lot of the permanent effects, particularly at low levels.




On the basis of a lot of posts, from a lot of posters (yourself included), I would argue that you still aren't playing a version where less handwaving is required.  Instead, you are playing a version where the onus of the handwaving has changed from handwaving the effects of magic to handwaving the causes of supposedly non-magical effects.

Which is fine; a choice of where the handwaving occurs is a good thing.  But, AFAICT, and on the basis of many, many threads and many, many posts, there is not actually less handwaving.  It's just been moved around some.

I am not actually convinced that a reduction in handwaving, without a resultant reduction in options, is possible.  And I don't mean options as in "What can magic do?" but rather options as in "What actions can the players choose to have their characters undertake?"  It seems to me that handwaving, in nearly every instance, is the result of the players pushing against the boundaries of the GM's preexisting work and the limitations of the logic thereof.  The only way to avoid it is to deny the players a chance to push up against those boundaries.  IMHO, that isn't good for either players or GM, but YMMV.


RC


----------



## BryonD

Hussar said:


> Catching up on this thread, and this one stuck out for me.
> 
> Don't you see a bit of a contradiction here?  "There's no problem with the ruleset" vs "There are many other examples of problems with the ruleset"?
> 
> If there weren't any problems with the ruleset, shouldn't there be, well, no problems with the ruleset and not a shopping list of problems?  Particularly when all the problems come from the same source - spells and the magic system?



I don't see any contridiction in what he said.
Tabeltop roleplayers certainly *should* know coming into the game that this isn't chess and the rules are not ever going to satisfactorily cover every contingency.  A bad chess players just plays badly, but the rules are not hamred by that.  For roleplaying games the rules and the GM blur.  That doesn't mean the GM breaks the rules, but being talented at applying them is critical.

I think that is on the list of reasons 4E and its attempt to service beginner DMs is not a prime choice for some people.


----------



## TwoSix

Diamond Cross said:


> Gandalf and Merlin were not singing cowboys.



Wasn't Gandalf famous for his horse?

More seriously, Gandalf and Merlin were known for not casting flashy magic, and the bard's focus on divination and enchantment magic would seem to qualify.  And it's easy enough to replace most of the bard's singing buffs with alternate class features.


----------



## Nemesis Destiny

TwoSix said:


> Wasn't Gandalf famous for his horse?
> 
> More seriously, Gandalf and Merlin were known for not casting flashy magic, and the bard's focus on divination and enchantment magic would seem to qualify.  And it's easy enough to replace most of the bard's singing buffs with alternate class features.



To say nothing of Bardic Lore, which, in any edition that I played extensively, really well represents the knowledge characters like that had.

This is something that I grasped in late 2nd edition, and that is the Bard is not necessarily just a minstrel. If you re-flavour and/or ignore the instrument / singing part, they can fit a lot of concepts.

And if I'm not mistaken, Gandalf was awfully fond of songs and poetry, even if he didnt' belt them out at every opportunity.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Diamond Cross said:


> Gandalf and Merlin were not singing cowboys.




No.  Which is why the best thing about the 3.X bard was Perform (Oratory).  If your bard is either singing or playing a lute in 3.X that is a personal choice, and there is nothing preventing bards from being tone deaf and just very good at speaking.  And just because you stereotype otherwise doesn't make it so.

Gandalf and Merlin were primarily known for _knowledge_.  Not for flashy magic, but for knowing things.  Bards have Bardic Lore, Wizards do not.  Also bards have a _lot_ of skill points.  Then they were both tricksters.  I don't know if Gandalf used fascinate or just a simple bluff in The Hobbit to deal with the trolls.  I do know it wasn't presented as spellcasting, but the bard abilities suit it perfectly.  Bardic knowledge, and the charisma and trickery heavy bardic skill list suit both characters perfectly.  The wizard fails here.  But Fascinate, Inspire Competence, Suggestion, and even Inspire Courage/Greatness are all close matches for what they actually do.  (With the reverberating duration of Inspire Courage, just naming a weakness is sufficient to grant it for the rest of the fight).

Then we look at their spells.  Neither cast very many (indeed it's debatable that without his Ring even Gandalf could cast too many).  And when they do, what is it?  Some fire from Gandalf, but normally illusion, divination, or enchantment.  In other words the sort of spells that are on the Bard list rather than flashy spells like Wall of Stone, Black Tentacles, and Overland Flight (the latter of which would have made Lord of the Rings very different).  Also neither of them is ever mentioned to be Vancian.  So I find bardic casting a much better representation of both Gandalf and Merlin than wizardly casting.

More accurate skills, more accurate magic, knowledge that actually works.  In just about every way I can think of both Merlin and Gandalf are 3.X Bards whereas the D&D wizard is mostly a D&D wizard.

While on the subject, some of the myths, Merlin was quite literally a bard.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> While on the subject, some of the myths, Merlin was quite literally a bard.




And/or a Druid.


----------



## TwoSix

Dannyalcatraz said:


> And/or a Druid.




Well, a bard is just a fighter dual class thief dual class druid anyway.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

Have any of you people bitching about _knock_ even read the damn spell?


----------



## Patryn of Elvenshae

Jeff Wilder said:


> Have any of you people bitching about _knock_ even read the damn spell?




Yes.

Did you have a point to make?



			
				d20 SRD said:
			
		

> The knock spell opens stuck, barred, locked, held, or arcane locked doors. It opens secret doors, as well as locked or trick-opening boxes or chests. It also loosens welds, shackles, or chains (provided they serve to hold closures shut). If used to open a arcane locked door, the spell does not remove the arcane lock but simply suspends its functioning for 10 minutes. In all other cases, the door does not relock itself or become stuck again on its own. Knock does not raise barred gates or similar impediments (such as a portcullis), nor does it affect ropes, vines, and the like. The effect is limited by the area. Each spell can undo as many as two means of preventing egress.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

Patryn of Elvenshae said:


> Did you have a point to make?



Apparently not one you'd get, no.


----------



## TwoSix

Jeff Wilder said:


> Apparently not one you'd get, no.




I'm really trying, but I'm also not seeing the point.


----------



## Diamond Cross

> Did you have a point to make?




The point is you people are just making up problems that aren't even there in order to favor the fighter.

But you know what? There is a real simple solution to your  so-called dilemma.

In d20 it's really easy to multiclass, and you can multiclass fighter with wizard and you can do everything you want. You can have a character that has all of those  nifty little effects you lament that should belong to the fighter.


----------



## Patryn of Elvenshae

TwoSix said:


> I'm really trying, but I'm also not seeing the point.




Yeah.  I really have no idea what point he's trying to make with that question.

The Knock spell is a 2nd-level Wiz/Sorc spell that acts as a combination perfect Open Locks roll and a perfect Strength check (up to two applications of either or both per casting).

What else am I supposed to see there?  What point is he demonstrating?

Instead, he's just gonna huff and puff, etc.



			
				DC said:
			
		

> The point is you people are just making up problems that aren't even there in order to favor the fighter.
> 
> But you know what? There is a real simple solution to your so-called dilemma.
> 
> In d20 it's really easy to multiclass, and you can multiclass fighter with wizard and you can do everything you want. You can have a character that has all of those nifty little effects you lament that should belong to the fighter.




Actually, the real solution is that I just don't play my Wizard characters to the full extent of their abilities, like I posted earlier.

I'm not sure what you mean by "favor the fighter."


----------



## Umbran

Jeff Wilder said:


> ... I'm willing to bet you I can design a completely reasonable door that a 1st-level rogue can open that a wizard with a _knock_ spell cannot.






Jeff Wilder said:


> Have any of you people bitching about _knock_ even read the damn spell?




First off, Jeff, please, could you tone it down a notch?  Letting annoyance show probably doesn't help anyone see your point.  Nor does being cryptic.

In 3.x, Knock is a 2nd level sorcerer or wizard spell.  So, the Wizard doesn't get access to it until 3rd level, for one thing - your first level rogue will run circles around the 1st level wizard.  And note that wizards don't automatically get every spell - he's got to spend one of his precious new spell level slots, or find and pay for it.  Then, the wizard has to prepare it, or spend XP and time making scrolls... you get the idea.  

Next, Knock only handles, at most, 2 impediments.  Put in a third, and the knock spell doesn't open the door.  You ever see one of those NYC apartment doors with a bazillion locks on them?  

Reading strictly - just tie the darned door shut, as Knock affects chains, but not ropes.  A pair of cleats and a stout string will defeat Knock, but not stop a rogue with that really slim knife in his toolkit...


----------



## Diamond Cross

And the thing about knock is this:

What if you're in a party that doesn't have a Rogue in it and you come across that chest that has that +5  Holy Avenger Vorpal Sword of Vampiric Regneration in it your fighter's been wanting for 22 years? Knock is the only solution to that dilemma. And knock doesn't even undo traps. Heck, it doesn't even open doors either.

The only other option is to bash the chest open. And that has certain dangers and risks.

As far as Jeff goes, he is correct. This fighter vs wizards hate fest is just complaining that one class gets abilities that other classes don't. And is absolutely no different than the classic complaining of why fighters get that 18/66 STR while other classes don't get exceptional strength. People do get frustrated with people complaining a lot.  Especially under certain circumstances when the complaining is not warranted and people are making problems up that don't even really exist. it's been going on for far too long and needs to stop. There is nothing wrong with the classes.

Some people just want their favorite class to do everything and for their favorite class to be the star of the show. That's not what D&D was made for.

But what D&D was made for was team work, to be part of a team, not for solo play.

There are many things Wizards can do that fighters can't. So what? 

I'd really love to see this thread end, especially since it has gone off topic for far too long. It was meant to address literature, not game mechanics.


----------



## TwoSix

The amount of assumption of intent in this post is quite high.



Diamond Cross said:


> Especially under certain circumstances when the complaining is not warranted and people are making problems up that don't even really exist. it's been going on for far too long and needs to stop. There is nothing wrong with the classes.




Except that, you know, there is.  Not all of them.  Bard?  No.  Fighter?  A little.  Wizard?  Yes.  Cleric?  Heck yes.



Diamond Cross said:


> Some people just want their favorite class to do everything and for their favorite class to be the star of the show. That's not what D&D was made for.
> 
> But what D&D was made for was team work, to be part of a team, not for solo play.



Thank you for arguing our point!

Past mid levels, spellcasters (at least ones played proactively) can solo the game.  Fighters can't.



Diamond Cross said:


> There are many things Wizards can do that fighters can't. So what?



Because the reverse isn't true?  



Diamond Cross said:


> I'd really love to see this thread end, especially since it has gone off topic for far too long. It was meant to address literature, not game mechanics.




We just talked about Gandalf as a 3.5 bard 5 posts ago.


----------



## Diamond Cross

> Thank you for arguing our point!
> 
> Past mid levels, spellcasters (at least ones played proactively) can solo the game.  Fighters can't.



_
And that is just not true. Period._

Nor was I arguing your point. That is very dishonest of you to try to turn the argument like that. I was doing no such thing.

Nobody can solo the game. That is the truth. Any DM can pick any creature that a spellcaster can not overcome by themselves and will need a team to overcome it.

And I have been playing the game since the early 1980s. Long before I even knew of such things as computers or the internet existed.

Even in DDO, I still need people to help me with even some of the low level dungeons I've gone into, when I play alone. I always have a Cleric and my summoned monster because a Wizard has a lot of difficulties in close combat especially when the opponents swarm him. There are many dungeons I can not complete without those two helping me.

And some opponents have Spell Resistance and immunities to many different spells.

For example, what is a lone Wizard or Cleric going to do when he faces a party of five Drow of equal level?

Try soloing that and you'll see how far you get.

Drow have Spell resistance. And if they happen to have a another wizard, well there's spell countering.

So don't give me that stuff.

A wizard is a powerful force to reckon with, but some people have some really strong misconceptions that they just can't beat.


----------



## Umbran

TwoSix said:


> Past mid levels, spellcasters (at least ones played proactively) can solo the game.




I don't know if that is true.  As I raised in my note about Knock - the spellcasters have to have spells prepared.  Having theoretical access to a spell, and having practical access in the middle of the dungeon is not the same thing, by a long shot.

Does your wizard know in the morning how many monsters of what type he'll fight, and now many walls he'll need to climb, and now many locks will need to be opened?  What happens when the number of tasks he needs to perform exceeds the number of spells he gets per day?


----------



## LostSoul

Umbran said:


> I don't know if that is true.  As I raised in my note about Knock - the spellcasters have to have spells prepared.  Having theoretical access to a spell, and having practical access in the middle of the dungeon is not the same thing, by a long shot.
> 
> Does your wizard know in the morning how many monsters of what type he'll fight, and now many walls he'll need to climb, and now many locks will need to be opened?  What happens when the number of tasks he needs to perform exceeds the number of spells he gets per day?




Scribe Scroll does help, though.


----------



## Mort

Umbran said:


> I don't know if that is true.  As I raised in my note about Knock - the spellcasters have to have spells prepared.  Having theoretical access to a spell, and having practical access in the middle of the dungeon is not the same thing, by a long shot.
> 
> Does your wizard know in the morning how many monsters of what type he'll fight, and now many walls he'll need to climb, and now many locks will need to be opened?  What happens when the number of tasks he needs to perform exceeds the number of spells he gets per day?




3e/3.5 exacerbated this with extremely easy access to scrolls/wands (heck scribe scroll is free for the wizard). It's not an issue at lower levels but by mid+ (say past 10 or so) a wizard that has any downtime at all will be well prepared with knock, water breathing, tongues etc. (he doesn't need dozens of scrolls just several of the "you don't usually need it, but when you need it boy do you need it variety).

Also by mid-high levels - leaving spell slots open becomes a pretty good option, which really increases versatility (at the expense of time of course).

It's one reason I think spontaneous casters (sorcerers, beguilers etc.) are never brought up as a problem when these issues get trotted out.


----------



## Patryn of Elvenshae

Umbran said:


> I don't know if that is true.  As I raised in my note about Knock - the spellcasters have to have spells prepared.  Having theoretical access to a spell, and having practical access in the middle of the dungeon is not the same thing, by a long shot.
> 
> Does your wizard know in the morning how many monsters of what type he'll fight, and now many walls he'll need to climb, and now many locks will need to be opened?  What happens when the number of tasks he needs to perform exceeds the number of spells he gets per day?




In theory, theory is the same as practice.  In practice, it isn't. 

But more helpfully, no, you generally won't know exactly how many locks you'll need to pick, or how many walls you'll need to climb.  The possibility of running out of resources certainly exists.

On the other hand, in my vasty years of gaming experience, I've never really come across a situation where there are multiple dozens of either.  Generally, there's 2 or 3 key (by which I mean important) locks, and _maybe_ one or two walls.  Oftentimes, however, there aren't any of either.

This is why scrolls - and, for a wizard, a scroll of Knock only costs 75gp per charge [or you can get it in wand form for 2,250gp (or 45gp per charge)], and Spider Climb is the same price for 30 minutes of free climbing - are so important.  And once 5th-level spells are available, Overland Flight becomes an option, and you'll never need to climb anything ever again (excepting 5'x5' chimneys, I suppose).

Pearls of Power are also fantastically helpful, since they let you recast your combat spells, saving a spell slot for something more broadly applicable.

Yes, at low levels those costs are prohibitive.  This is why, at low levels, spellcasters do not run roughshod over mundanes.  At higher levels, however, those costs aren't nearly so much in relative terms, and it also coincides with the time when spellcasters start having enough spellslots that they aren't routinely running dry (see also Mort's point about leaving slots open once you get enough).

EDIT: While it is possible that a GM could, in response to his _wand of knock_-carrying wizard, start putting anything and everything behind multiple dozens of locks, to me that's just 1) being adversarial, which is not likely to lead to a particularly happy table,* 2) lacking in verisimilitude ("Man - ever since we figured out how to magically open things, everything's locked!", and 3) is a pretty blatant job for Aquaman in order to make the rogue seem useful.**

Moreover, there is a huge upside in being able to, through the use of divinations and rapid transport spells, start dictating the answers to your questions: "I will fight no-one today because I'll be teleporting back to my tower to make three extra scrolls of _whatever_ (or maybe just picking them up from my storage cache) and I'll come back shortly to obliterate the enemy commanders (who I know are all vulnerable to cold damage, thanks to my fantastic Knowledge rolls and some invisible, flying scouting)."

* Note: the wizard "winning" everything is also not likely to lead to a happy table (unless they're all wizards, I guess).  Which is why, as posted before, I've intentionally played wizards to less than full capability for quite some time now.

** Yes, this has been linked before.  I just wanted to waste a couple hours of peoples' lives as they get sucked into TVTropes.


----------



## TwoSix

Umbran said:


> I don't know if that is true.  As I raised in my note about Knock - the spellcasters have to have spells prepared.  Having theoretical access to a spell, and having practical access in the middle of the dungeon is not the same thing, by a long shot.
> 
> Does your wizard know in the morning how many monsters of what type he'll fight, and now many walls he'll need to climb, and now many locks will need to be opened?  What happens when the number of tasks he needs to perform exceeds the number of spells he gets per day?




Easy.  He goes home with teleport and tries again tomorrow.  And of course he knows what he's facing, he's already scried the portions he's interested in.  And scrolls and wands are cheap.

When I mean solo, I don't mean "Start at the first door of the Tomb of Horrors and get to the end."  I mean more of  "I'm tenth level.  I want to achieve my personal character goals, which are to achieve the highest mastery of arcane power possible, gain immortality, and establish a legacy which will endure for centuries, if not millenia."  Divinations and teleports to gain money and levels.  Bind planar allies to your will to help.  Eventually astral project from your genesis created demiplane.

This is all stuff that's been around for years now.  You simply have to play extremely proactively, which is why for so many people, these issues aren't really issues.  It doesn't change the fact that if you substitute your 10th level fighter for a 10th druid or cleric or wizard, your party will be able to face many more encounters of higher Challenge rating with less risk.  There's simply nothing a fighter does that's better.


----------



## pemerton

Hussar said:


> Yeah, I can see that.  And, to be fair, we certainly played that way.  By and large, most of these things were just handwaved away as much as possible.
> 
> However, I do find it rather refreshing to play a version of D&D where I don't have to do that quite so much.



As I hope my posts on this, but moreso on other, threads have made clear, I'm a huge fan of 4e's approach to setting - especially as elaborated in Worlds and Monsters (one of the better GM books for 4e, a lot of which, in my view, should have been included in the DMG).

One thing that I like about it - certainly not the only thing, or even the primary thing - is that it's deliberately crafted to serve as an evocative backdrop for fantasy adventure, rather than an incipient source of game elements to be manipulated alongside the game mechanics. (Most NPCs not having stats is just one aspect of this. The magic item "economy" is another.)

So for me it's not that it makes the handwaving easier because it's got rid of permanent spells (everburning torches are still on the equipment list, for example) but rather that it's been designed from the ground up to be used as this sort of backdrop. And the game mechanics on the whole support this, by not encouraging players to make that backdrop part of the (quasi-)mechanical techniques of play (no domain rules of the classic sort, no crafting skills to create an economics or trading minigame, no animal breeding rules that push things in a similar direction, etc etc).

And just to avoid any unintended inferences being drawn - a world that is a backdrop is not a world that is unimportant or shallow, or merely colour. I take it the LotR is sufficient proof of this. It's rather that the game is about heroics which engage the gameworld as a source of theme and value and stakes for adventure - not as a matter for demography and sociology and economics and calculating the optimal tax rate to set in order to maximise production of heavy cavalry from my horse-breeding villages.



Raven Crowking said:


> On the basis of a lot of posts, from a lot of posters (yourself included), I would argue that you still aren't playing a version where less handwaving is required.  Instead, you are playing a version where the onus of the handwaving has changed from handwaving the effects of magic to handwaving the causes of supposedly non-magical effects.



Well I think handwaving of all sorts is required. Though in the case of everburning torches, it's the sort of handwaving where we _just don't ask_ why they aren't on the corner of every city intersection. Whereas in the case of non-magic effects it's the sort of handwaving where reaching consenus at the table as to what happened in the fiction is part (if only one small part) of the fun of playing the game.


----------



## pemerton

Umbran said:


> Knock only handles, at most, 2 impediments.  Put in a third, and the knock spell doesn't open the door.  You ever see one of those NYC apartment doors with a bazillion locks on them?
> 
> Reading strictly - just tie the darned door shut, as Knock affects chains, but not ropes.  A pair of cleats and a stout string will defeat Knock, but not stop a rogue with that really slim knife in his toolkit...



I haven't played a lot of 3E - in part for the sorts of reasons that those like TwoSix, Patryn of Elvenshae and others are giving - but I wouldn't think of knock as the most egregious issue. It's one issue, sure, but to me it pales in comparison to fly and teleport (I would put invisibility somewhere in the middle). This could in part be because I tend to use fewer dungeon/"behind-locked-door" type adventures than seems to be typical in D&D play (at least judging from published adventures).

But I still think knock is an issue, even if not egregious. It's just one example of the wizard's superior mobility in comparison to non-spellusers. And in a game that is based so heavily on geography and travel and exotic locations as is the fantasy genre, this is a huge strength, and (in my experience) a huge disincentive for players to play non-magical PCs.

And there's something just wrong, to my mind, about the solution to knock being _rope_. I just don't feel the attraction of a fantasy world in which everyone ropes as well as locks and bars their doors, because magic can disregard locks and bars, but almighty _rope_ defeats them, and require a non-spell user who can make a Rope Use check or whip out a knife.


----------



## pemerton

Diamond Cross said:


> what is a lone Wizard or Cleric going to do when he faces a party of five Drow of equal level?
> 
> Try soloing that and you'll see how far you get.



First, I don't think this really answers the point. Because if the answer is "bring along a few cleric, wizard and druid henchmen" then we haven't really shown that the fighter is as viable a PC class.

Second, isn't the answer "Cast Quickened Glitterdust and Evard's Black Tentacles and then walk around the blinded, grappled drow to see what they were guarding"?


----------



## steeldragons

How is the Wizard vs Warrior Balance Problem Handled in Fantasy Literature?

995 replies, 67 pages of thread later...have we figured it out yet? Huh? Have we?

Honestly people...the point of the original post...Remember...THAT question? ...is there an answer yet? That's all I care to know.

Fer cryin out sakes.


----------



## Raven Crowking

pemerton said:


> Well I think handwaving of all sorts is required. Though in the case of everburning torches, it's the sort of handwaving where we _just don't ask_ why they aren't on the corner of every city intersection.




Nah, that's trivial.  First off, it isn't even a question that arises before 3e, and secondly, the only reason it arises in 3e is because (1) the GM hasn't considered the ramifications of magic on the setting, (2) the GM has decided to allow magic item to be available/purchased (he controls all NPC casters, as well as what Feats they have for creating said items), and (3) the group hasn't accepted that ideas themselves are a form of technology....Simply because a modern mind thinks in terms of "X is a problem, therefore Y", it doesn't follow that the campaign world denizens believe either X is a problem or Y is a good solution.

Besides which, one only has to look at the real world to realize that it requires no handwaving at all to answer the question "Why don't people just do what I think they logically should do?"  The reality is that the outlay for those everburning torches, although relatively minor over the long haul, has to come out of somebody's pocket to be purchased in the first place.  

Or, to put it another way, no player I've ever known has spent his gold on public works of that nature, and, as a result, the players should hardly be surprised that no NPC did, either.  After all, any NPC so generous will find more immediate needs closer at hand.



> Whereas in the case of non-magic effects it's the sort of handwaving where reaching consenus at the table as to what happened in the fiction is part (if only one small part) of the fun of playing the game.




Not in my case.  Having to play what some have called "pop quiz" role-playing is not at all fun to me, except in small doses and corner cases.  Having the "Why did X happen?  How can we make sense of result Y?" so integral to the game leaves me utterly cold.

But, as I said in the post you quoted, it is a good thing that different games place handwaving in different contexts.  It gives everyone a chance at finding something they like.

(And, for the record, in no version of D&D from 1e to 3e did I have problems with the fighters feeling outclassed.  In RCFG, right now the fighter is by far the preferred class of the playtesters, followed by rogue and psionic adept.

I do not like the 4e solution of balancing the fighter and wizard by turning the fighter into more of a wizard, and the wizard into more of a fighter.  Some do.  More power to them!  Like I said with handwaving, it gives everyone a chance at finding something they like!)


RC


----------



## pawsplay

pemerton said:


> Second, isn't the answer "Cast Quickened Glitterdust and Evard's Black Tentacles and then walk around the blinded, grappled drow to see what they were guarding"?




The area of effect for Tentacles is too big for that. Unless you're in a very large area, you have to pick one or the other, usually. Also, there's a good chance high level Drow can cast spells or have a good Escape Artist bonus.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

steeldragons said:


> How is the Wizard vs Warrior Balance Problem Handled in Fantasy Literature?
> 
> 995 replies, 67 pages of thread later...have we figured it out yet? Huh? Have we?
> 
> Honestly people...the point of the original post...Remember...THAT question? ...is there an answer yet? That's all I care to know.
> 
> Fer cryin out sakes.




In those first 5 pages, there are many posts which address the original question- I personally posted a dozen different methods used in literature in post #7, and subsequently added others.

 One that seems to crop up repeatedly is: "The writer didn't address balance at all."


----------



## Nemesis Destiny

Nope. All we're going to get is more of this --^^


steeldragons said:


> How is the Wizard vs Warrior Balance Problem Handled in Fantasy Literature?
> 
> 995 replies, 67 pages of thread later...have we figured it out yet? Huh? Have we?
> 
> Honestly people...the point of the original post...Remember...THAT question? ...is there an answer yet? That's all I care to know.
> Fer cryin out sakes.




                                                                         ............................................................\/-- and some more of that --\/


----------



## pemerton

pawsplay said:


> The area of effect for Tentacles is too big for that. Unless you're in a very large area, you have to pick one or the other, usually. Also, there's a good chance high level Drow can cast spells or have a good Escape Artist bonus.



Fair enough.


----------



## Diamond Cross

> First, I don't think this really answers the point. Because if the  answer is "bring along a few cleric, wizard and druid henchmen" then we  haven't really shown that the fighter is as viable a PC class.




The point that was made was _a wizard is so powerful he doesn't need anybody else he can just solo everything_. Which means a Wizard doesn't need _anybody _to help him. You obviously missed that context.

Which is a bunch of hooey.  Because a wizard alone can't possibly defeat five Drow all by himself, unless the wizard is several levels higher than the Drow. The Drow have spell resistance, and whenever a wizard casts a spell it automatically provokes an attack of opportunity. And if the Drow have another wizard in the party, that Drow can counterspell. Which means the Drow party has a lot of chances to disrupt the wizards' casting.

People who say things like that have never fought monsters like a Beholder. They simply do not know what they're talking about when they make stupid claims like a wizard is so powerful they can soloe the entire game. Hogwash.

You see, that's the thing about D&D, _power is relative_, and saying that a wizard's spells are just too powerful ignores all the other circumstances and situations they were created to address, and is very disingenuous.

Those people just don't have a leg to stand on, but thanks to their envy, they're never going to change their minds and do whatever they can to limit the wizard so their favored class can win.


----------



## Mort

Diamond Cross said:


> The point that was made was _a wizard is so powerful he doesn't need anybody else he can just solo everything_. Which means a Wizard doesn't need _anybody _to help him. You obviously missed that context.




The "solo the game" post was phrased in way too general a manner. It's pretty obvious that any one class can or can't "solo" the game solely at the wim of the DM. The question isn't (or shouldn't be) one of character against the world but character relative to other characters. Not in a PVP perspective but in a "does this character overshadow the others" if the answer is no - then there's not much of a problem. But if yes, then a deeper look is needed. Is it the mechanics? Is it the group dynamic and playstyle? Or, as is quite likely, is it a combination of factors, and if so what can be done to swing it back to "everyone at the table is having fun." (as at the end of the day, that's what matters).




Diamond Cross said:


> Which is a bunch of hooey.  Because a wizard alone can't possibly defeat five Drow all by himself, unless the wizard is several levels higher than the Drow. The Drow have spell resistance, and whenever a wizard casts a spell it automatically provokes an attack of opportunity. And if the Drow have another wizard in the party, that Drow can counterspell. Which means the Drow party has a lot of chances to disrupt the wizards' casting.




Throwing out these kinds of examples doesn't help much because they are so context dependant. For example, no wizard player with any tactical knowledge is going to take an attack of opportunity due to easy 5' steps. Spell resistance is really relative in 3e/3.5 because it depends what the DM allows in the game, if it's later 3.5 supplements spell resistance is a bit of a joke, and even core a smart player can get around it easily. And counterspelling, while perhaps a good idea initially is such a clunky awful mechanic thay I saw it used maybe once in a 6 year campaign.

Again though saying a wizard can or can't solo a game is the same as saying a fighter can or can't do it - it's up to the whim of the DM. Frankly if you have a solo player then it becomes quite a bit more like a novel and the thread OP question becomes quite relavent. In a party context, however, not so much - because it's the relationship between the players that matters not so much their relationship to the world (from a balance perspective anyway).



Diamond Cross said:


> People who say things like that have never fought monsters like a Beholder. They simply do not know what they're talking about when they make stupid claims like a wizard is so powerful they can soloe the entire game. Hogwash.




Again I think the "solo the entire game" tangent is a bit silly. The correct question is does the wizard step on the toes of the other classes to the extent that the players of the other classes are having less fun. You'll note, if you care to slog through many of the responses, that the answer tends  to be "yes the class can, but we don't let it" which is not the same as "no the class does not."  

Also your responses have been from a 1e-3.5e perspective. The problem is 1e and 2e did not have some of the same issues 3e spellcasters can have: in particular the easy (ridiculously so) access to scrolls etc. which (IMO of course, but it's backed up) ramps up power level considerably.




Diamond Cross said:


> You see, that's the thing about D&D, _power is relative_, and saying that a wizard's spells are just too powerful ignores all the other circumstances and situations they were created to address, and is very disingenuous.




It is not the least bit disingenous to say WoTC got carried away with some of the spells they gave the wizard. For example, the cheesy conjuration "ball spells" (added around complete mage?) that do decent damage and completely ignore spell resistance. Even some of the core spells are a bit much. Just because the problem is easy to address, does not mean it shouldn't be pointed out. 



Diamond Cross said:


> Those people just don't have a leg to stand on, but thanks to their envy, they're never going to change their minds and do whatever they can to limit the wizard so their favored class can win.




You're painting with too broad a brush here (not that everyone else, likely myself included, isn't also being overly broad), saying the problem isn't world shattering is not the same as saying there is no issue period. For what it's worth BTW, my favorite 3.5 class happens to be the wizard (well right next to the crusader for Bo9S which is just a fun awsome class but that's neither here nor there). It's just that having played one, seeing many of these issues arise (and having to constantly restrain myself from overpowered play) I tend to be vocal about it.

To those pointing out the thread has realy wandered. Yes it has, but the orignal point was answered pretty well (and succinctly) several times by about page 3.


----------



## Bluenose

Diamond Cross said:


> Those people just don't have a leg to stand on, but thanks to their envy, they're never going to change their minds and do whatever they can to limit the wizard so their favored class can win.




Should the wizard have no limits at all, then?

I want something closer to 1e/BECM play, where problems required solutions that just as often involved cleverness as they did casting a spell at the problem. Even then many supplements introduced more spells, but there weren't as many spells and the limits were more noticeable. 2e saw a massive expansion in the range of spells and some reduction in the limits on those spells. 3e then increased the amount of spells available to spellcasters, the availability of magic items, and reduced everyone's saving throws as well. There's a reason some people derisively call 3e 'Caster edition', and it's not because they think it's just like earlier editions.


----------



## pemerton

Diamond Cross said:


> The point that was made was _a wizard is so powerful he doesn't need anybody else he can just solo everything_. Which means a Wizard doesn't need _anybody _to help him. You obviously missed that context.



Well, I think you may have missed the context - the "solo" phrasing was an exaggerated way of pointing out that there is almost no significant species of challenge in the game that wizards can't handle better than warriors - they have more powerful movement options (Teleport, Knock etc), more powerful stealth options (Invisibility etc), more powerful knowledge options (better skill list and skill points, divination, scrying etc), more powerful control options (wall spells, Evard's Black Tentacles, etc), more powerful defences (Mirror Image, Displacement, etc) and so on.

The fighter in 3E is probably better at dealing direct damage, and is not completely hosed by anti-magic. On the other hand the wizard is less hosed by item destruction than the warrior, so on this latter point things are perhaps a wash. So that leaves the fighter with one species of challenge at which s/he is clearly better. And it's _not_ a capability that, on its own, is enough to do very well - there are very many challenges that can't be overcome by dealing direct damage - whereas it's a capability that a wizard can often render unnecessary (eg clever movement or control can make the dealing of direct damage, in order to attain one's goals, unnecessary).

I think this is what was meant by the "solo" point, and I think it stands. The wizard actually has sensible things to do to try and deal with the five drow - teleporting out being the obvious last resort - whereas I'm not sure that the fighter does. It only takes one darkness spell to go a long way to shutting down the fighter, after all.



Diamond Cross said:


> The Drow have spell resistance, and whenever a wizard casts a spell it automatically provokes an attack of opportunity. And if the Drow have another wizard in the party, that Drow can counterspell. Which means the Drow party has a lot of chances to disrupt the wizards' casting.



Mort tackled this fairly well. 5' step to avoid the AoOs. Counterspell (unless it's Dispel Magic style counterspell, which requires an opposed check) depends heavily upon spell preparation and Spellcraft checks (do by-the-book drow have good Spellcraft? I don't know). And none of the spells I mentioned - Glitterdust, Evard's Black Tentacles or Teleport as a last resort - is subject to spell resistance. And only Glitterdust grants the drow a save.



Diamond Cross said:


> You know what I find unfair?
> 
> That a fighter can use a shield and a sword and have multiple attacks in a single round of combat and have a higher BAB that the wizard.
> 
> Wizards do not get this. They can only use a dagger and only get one attack per round.



Well, arguably wizards don't _need_ it. For the reasons I gave, the one significant ability that wizards lack - namely, the ability to deal significant amounts of direct damage - is one that in many circumstances there _other_ abilities permit them to do without.



Diamond Cross said:


> People who say things like that have never fought monsters like a Beholder. They simply do not know what they're talking about when they make stupid claims like a wizard is so powerful they can soloe the entire game. Hogwash.
> 
> You see, that's the thing about D&D, _power is relative_, and saying that a wizard's spells are just too powerful ignores all the other circumstances and situations they were created to address, and is very disingenuous.
> 
> Those people just don't have a leg to stand on, but thanks to their envy, they're never going to change their minds and do whatever they can to limit the wizard so their favored class can win.



Well, the envy accusation could equally be turned upon (and frequently is turned upon) defenders of the 3E status quo.

And I'm not sure I follow the point about "other circumstances and situations". There is only one significant circumstance in which fighters outshine wizards, which is in the direct delivery of damage. Wizards have the capacity to outshine warriors in more-or-less all other respects. I don't see how it is disingenuous to point this out.



Diamond Cross said:


> And the thing about knock is this:
> 
> What if you're in a party that doesn't have a Rogue in it and you come across that chest that has that +5  Holy Avenger Vorpal Sword of Vampiric Regneration in it your fighter's been wanting for 22 years? Knock is the only solution to that dilemma. And knock doesn't even undo traps. Heck, it doesn't even open doors either.
> 
> The only other option is to bash the chest open. And that has certain dangers and risks.





Diamond Cross said:


> They are far more balanced than some people realize, because you only see the spells in comparison to the fighter, and are completely ignoring the weaknesses of a wizard, along with everybody else. As well as ignoring the situations and opponents that require these spells to be this way.
> 
> A summon monster spell is not for replacing the fighter, it is for a bodyguard for the wizard and to beef up the party against a larger party that can outnumber them three to one, for instance. Such as six characters going up against twenty Orcs. Or having a firewall against a small army of ten trolls. You know the regenerative power of trolls right? They regenerate all damage except fire and acid. BUT a troll is too powerful for a wizard to fight on his own in close quarters so he needs a fighter and a summoned monster to keep the troll off of him while he casts his fire or acid spells to defeat it.



Why is the _wizard_ the solution to the absence of a rogue? Why is the fighter not that solution? There's no reason, in principle, why the game should favour the use of a knock spell over the fighter bashing the chest open.

Likewise if the party is too small. Why is the wizard's summoned monster the solution? Why doesn't the player of a fighter have a "summon sidekick" or "muster irregulars" ability? And the same could be said about your troll example, with the added point that it makes the _fighter_ look very sidekick-y if his/her job is to hold off the trolls while the wizard defeats them.



Diamond Cross said:


> All it boils down to is is experience, imagination and intelligence, the way a class is played. It has nothing to do with balance. That's just a lame excuse to favor one class above all else. If a player can't beat another player, it is because the other player is a better player and knows how to play their class really well. _It has nothing to do with game balance but everything to do with intelligence, experience and imagination._



My problem with this sort of claim is that, in the absence of more detail about what exactly you envisage a fighter doing that puts him/her on a par with a wizard, it is far too abstract and general to really engage with. I mean, you could say the same thing if the wizard had access to one XP-free wish spell per level per day - sure, you might say, the player of the fighter can match that if s/he has sufficient experience, imagination and intelligence. But would that sort of wizard be no more powerful than, or balanced with, a fighter for typical D&D play?


----------



## Neonchameleon

Diamond Cross said:


> The point that was made was _a wizard is so powerful he doesn't need anybody else he can just solo everything_. Which means a Wizard doesn't need _anybody _to help him. You obviously missed that context.




It's an only slightly hyperbolic claim.  And happens to be quite true once he gets _Gate_ and decides to gate in a Solar.



> Which is a bunch of hooey. Because a wizard alone can't possibly defeat five Drow all by himself, unless the wizard is several levels higher than the Drow. The Drow have spell resistance,




Stop right there.  The drow might have spell resistance, but that should not even slow a prepared wizard.  The spells mentioned for taking out drow (Evard's Black Tentacles, Glitterdust) ignore spell resistance.  So all the drow having spell resistance does is means you need to prepare the spellbook.  Your objection here is irrelevant.



> and whenever a wizard casts a spell it automatically provokes an attack of opportunity.




Unless the wizard takes a 5 foot step or is simply not in melee.  Is your question really "How can a wizard take out five drow _when the drow are already surrounding him and have their swords to his throat?"_  Your objection here is irrelevant.



> And if the Drow have another wizard in the party, that Drow can counterspell.




A counterspelling wizard?  _Really_?  One who just happens to have prepared the same spell as the PC wizard?  And to see him casting?  Unless the PC wizard is deliberately giving the drow a chance your objection here is, once again, irrelevant.



> Which means the Drow party has a lot of chances to disrupt the wizards' casting.




Sure.  _If they start with their swords pressed against his throat_.  If not, and the wizard gets the drop on them, they are in trouble.  The wizard might not necessarily _win_. But start off with the wizard flying and buffing himself with greater invisibility.  Then casting Black Tentacles.  The drow are grappled and at a huge disadvantage.  They can't see the wizard and don't know where he is.  Their wizard is not going to escape if he doesn't have spells he can cast without somatic components and without material components - the difference in grapple checks is huge.  The tentacle's just going to slowly crush him.  One down.  (Even the L10 Str 22 fighter is trying to escape at a disadvantage).

And the wizard was the dangerous one.  Non-spellcasters are simple.  Trap them in with a wall of force and drop a cloudkill on them.  With tentacles already in there  and the wall they aren't going to escape.  Their spell resistance is worth nothing - it doesn't work on any of the spells you've just cast.  (The real question is how long it will take the Cleric to escape the Black tentacles and whether he is likely to successfully dispel magic).

Will this work against every group?  100% of the time?  No.  No more than a fighter will always hit.  But assuming the already invisible and flying wizard gets the drop on the drow it stands a good chance.  Which fits yor challenge.

And _that's_ assuming you take defeat to mean kill, not defeat to mean bypass.  A simple flight + invisibility or teleport will work to bypass the drow.



> People who say things like that have never fought monsters like a Beholder.




You mean monsters with an anti-magic eye?  Why do I think that that wasn't chosen at random.



> You see, that's the thing about D&D, _power is relative_, and saying that a wizard's spells are just too powerful ignores all the other circumstances and situations they were created to address, and is very disingenuous.




And this thread is about the _Wizard vs Warrior Balance_.  Power is relative.  And relatively, the wizards, clerics, and druids have a lot of it.  Relatively non-casters _don't_.



> Those people just don't have a leg to stand on, but thanks to their envy, they're never going to change their minds and do whatever they can to limit the wizard so their favored class can win.




So you yourself admit that wizards win and other classes don't.  A telling admission.

But you have my motivation completely backwards.  _I want to play a wizard_.  However, if I play a mid-high level wizard in 3.X I feel _dirty_.  I feel as if I've started using cheat codes.  I want to play a wizard class that feels challenging and I want everyone else at the table to have fun too.  I do not want to leave the DM in a situation where they have three choices - challenge my character, challenge everyone else and give me a very easy job, or set anti-magic fields everywhere.  Even my low level 4e wizard is giving my DM headaches (but then so does my 4e monk and my 4e warlord).

My second motivation is that I like upending situations and scenarios but _I want to feel a sense of accomplishment._ The overwhelming out of combat power of the 3.X wizard takes that away from me.  It feels cheap.


----------



## Diamond Cross

> Stop right there.  The drow might have spell resistance, but that should  not even slow a prepared wizard.  The spells mentioned for taking out  drow (Evard's Black Tentacles, Glitterdust) ignore spell resistance.  So  all the drow having spell resistance does is means you need to prepare  the spellbook.  Your objection here is irrelevant.



Then put up or shut up.

Here's what I challenge.

I will create a party of 5 12th level Drow against your 15th level wizard. In open terrain. 

This challenge uses 3.5e rules because I have not read 4e rules and don't know anything about 4e.

Your wizard has to follow these rules: No monster summoning, no hirelings of any sort. And no golems. You have to do this completely alone without any help at all. 

Other than that, the Wizard can have any items he wants up to his level wealth limit.

Your wizard can even have maximum hit points. With an 18 Constitution. That means 120 hit points.

This will be in open terrain. With an encounter start of one hundred feet.

The caveats are you can't run away from the fight. You have to destroy the entire party, all by yourself. And you're limited in spell knowlege to the wizard spell tables in the PHB. That means you know:

4 4 4 4 4 4 3 2 1 spells per day. That's all you can cast.

And you can not use any help at all.

However, this doesn't mean that you can't have wands or scrolls or potions.

My caveat is I can have any classes and class combinations and equipment limited to wealth by level I want.

If I win, you owe me one hundred XP and you'll admit you were wrong and owe me a public apology. If you win, I'll owe you 250 xp.

Are you game?

This is a real put up or shut up challenge.

The gauntlet has been thrown.

Rules addendum: I will limit my classes and class combination to the PHB. And I won't use Prestige classes. You can have any Prestige Class you want as long as you qualify for it and let me read up on it first.


----------



## Mort

Diamond Cross said:


> Then put up or shut up.
> 
> Here's what I challenge.
> 
> ....




A CR20 (for a party of 4) challenge? Plus the Drow can also have spellcasters? This would depend so much on situation that it's extremely difficult to play out though again the conditions favor the drow (plus too much would depend on who goes 1st especially considering you artificially gimped the wizard) - also the smart wizard here is a) running or b) never got himself into this situation in the first place.

D&D is a team game - I've always seen this solo pant dropping stuff (hopefully that gets accross the non-grandma friendly concept) complete nonsense.

That said, I maintain the wizard would have a passing chance at this scenario, and but for the arbitrary "no runnning" condition could evade rather easily if neccessary. 

The correct question, if you're going to ask it - is not how would a wizard fare in this scenario. It's how would a wizard fare compared to a rogue, or a fighter (or heck a cleric or druid)? Now that would be interesting put the classes in this supposed Kobiyashi Maru scenario and see who fares best.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Diamond Cross said:


> Then put up or shut up.




I might put up if your challenge wasn't rigged in your favour.  But it wasn't me making claims that a wizard could solo everything.  Simply that the fighter is near-pointless and that the wizard _can_ solo your drow under the right conditions, with your defences being bypassable.  Not will, but _can_.



> Here's what I challenge.
> 
> I will create a party of 5 12th level Drow against your 15th level wizard. In open terrain.




Because a smart wizard tackles his foes head on.  What next?  You want me to use an int 8 wizard?  Or do you really use PCs who try to kick in the front gates of the enemy castle?



> This challenge uses 3.5e rules because I have not read 4e rules and don't know anything about 4e.




In 4e it would be a silly challenge.  The wizard would be annhiliated and with good reason.



> Your wizard has to follow these rules: No monster summoning, no hirelings of any sort. And no golems. You have to do this completely alone without any help at all.




On my own in terrain not of my choosing where the action economy can cut the wizard to ribbons.  I think all PC parties have demonstrated this one on both wizards and dragons.



> Your wizard can even have maximum hit points. With an 18 Constitution. That means 120 hit points.




You look as if you're trying to give the wizard an advantage despite doing almost everything short of a handy antimagic field to neuter him.  Cute.



> This will be in open terrain. With an encounter start of one hundred feet.




And you really haven't got it, have you.  The biggest advantage a wizard has over a fighter - and, for that matter, a high level wizard over a low level wizard is _Plot Power_.  The ability to set the scene to favour them.  Open ground and everyone knowing where everyone else is strips the plot power from the high level wizard.  If the high level wizard is fighting on even terms, he's an idiot.



> The caveats are you can't run away from the fight.




And why would any self-respecting wizard agree to that?  If both sides survive then things are a draw - especially if you are trying to solo.  If just one of the enemy dies and the wizard escapes then the wizard _wins_.  The remaining drow are strategically weakened and the wizard isn't.



> You have to destroy the entire party, all by yourself. And you're limited in spell knowlege to the wizard spell tables in the PHB. That means you know:




Bwuh?  That's not the spells a wizard knows.  That's the number of spells a wizard can _prepare_.  Assuming no intelligence bonus.



> However, this doesn't mean that you can't have wands or scrolls or potions.




Of course.  I assume you want to use them.  The action economy favours you after all.



> My caveat is I can have any classes and class combinations and equipment limited to wealth by level I want.




Given that the simple solution to an arena duel is a bard to fascinate as _no one_ can match a perform check with a save, I don't think so.



> Are you game?
> 
> This is a real put up or shut up challenge.
> 
> The gauntlet has been thrown.




The way a wizard wins fights like the ones you propose is to attack suddenly using overwhelming odds and the local terrain.  And the ability to retreat (preferably with a _Contingency_ spell linked to _Teleport_ if 15th level) is one of the reasons a wizard can solo but a fighter _can't_.  

Your so-called challenge therefore seeks to strip almost every substantive advantage the wizard has and turn a battle of options into one of brute strength.  As it fundamentally misses the point of why the wizard is powerful, at best it can serve as an illustration of how not to play an effective high level wizard.


----------



## Diamond Cross

Yep I figured you guys would weasel out of the challenge any way you could.

You guys make the claim that any prepared wizard could easily handle this encounter. And now you're complaining about the conditions.

What, do you want the drow to be 5th level each to ensure your victory?

Put up or shut up. These are the conditions I offer.

Any other arguments show you're wrong.

Your solution to run away is laughable.

You made the claim, now put up or shut up. That means take the challenge. Anything else means you're wrong, and are just trying to be argumentative to win the argument.

The drow will win, you just don't want to lose and will make any weaselly excuse you want to not take the challenge.

Put up or shut up.

I've given you guys many advantages so you'll win. Heck, it'll even be in daylight so that means further penalties for the drow.

Take the challenge, or stop the nonsense. prove me wrong or shut up.

No more arguing, no more being argumentative just for the sake of argument.

No weaseling out of it either.

You made the claim that a wizard can easily handle this situation.

PROVE IT!


----------



## Mort

Diamond Cross said:


> Yep I figured you guys would weasel out of the challenge any way you could.
> 
> ...
> 
> PROVE IT!




I made no such claim. 

And between my last post and Neonchameleon's I think it shows why such a challenge, issued under the terms it was is laughable at best and grossly disingenous at worst. And regardless, as stated, it means absolutely nothing unless all classes response to the same challenge is gauged.


----------



## Diamond Cross

Right, any excuse to not take the challenge.

That means you lose the entire argument.

The claim was a prepared wizard can easily handle the encounter. The quote is this:



> Stop right there.  The drow might have spell resistance, but that should   not even slow a prepared wizard.  The spells mentioned for taking out   drow (Evard's Black Tentacles, Glitterdust) ignore spell resistance.   So  all the drow having spell resistance does is means you need to  prepare  the spellbook.  Your objection here is irrelevant.




So I made the encounter.

Now you guys will not take up the challenge using and lame excuse you can to not take it.

Put your money where your mouth is or admit the wizard is not as powerful as you think it is.

Take the challenge as is.


----------



## TwoSix

When I made the "solo the game" comment, I didn't mean that a Wizard can defeat every encounter you could dream up.

I meant that he can face level-appropriate challenges in quantities sufficient enough to gain experience without undue risk to himself.  

The minute the wizard is facing a challenge he didn't select, he gave up the very power that makes wizards so overpowered.  And unless the DM applies extremely specific limitations or narrative contrivances (You have 24 hours to go through the Abyss or the world dies!), the wizard will never be in a situation he doesn't choose to be in.


----------



## Diamond Cross

TwoSix said:


> When I made the "solo the game" comment, I didn't mean that a Wizard can defeat every encounter you could dream up.
> 
> I meant that he can face level-appropriate challenges in quantities sufficient enough to gain experience without undue risk to himself.
> 
> The minute the wizard is facing a challenge he didn't select, he gave up the very power that makes wizards so overpowered.  And unless the DM applies extremely specific limitations or narrative contrivances (You have 24 hours to go through the Abyss or the world dies!), the wizard will never be in a situation he doesn't choose to be in.




And that's an admission that a wizard is not as powerful as you think it is.

But that's the thing about being an adventurer.

You are often caught in situations you do not choose to be in.

And I want to see very specific examples to this claim:


> I meant that he can face level-appropriate challenges in quantities  sufficient enough to gain experience without undue risk to himself.




Because for one thing, this mean he has to know about the situation before hand. That means intelligence gathering. Sure, he can do things like use a crystal ball for scrying, but there are protections against that as well.

And I believe you're still wrong on that as well.

And what exactly do you mean by level appropriate challenges? That's a pretty vague statement. I want to see specific examples of what you mean.

When you're an adventurer, your life will always be full of risks and situations you can't be prepared for. Still, any smart and imaginative
A wizard is indeed a powerful force to reckon with, but not as powerful as you think he or she is.

And my challenge still stands to anybody who truly believes that a  wizard is just too much of a manly man for any fighter to beat.


----------



## Patryn of Elvenshae

Alright, folks.  We should all just toss in our towels.

_Plainly_, Diamond Cross has proven us all to be liars.

Despite the fact that, yet again, he's completely missing the point.  The well-played 18th-level wizard has enough tools in his bag to _never have to deal with this stupid, contrived scenario_.

And if it does come up, he's got the capabilities to say, "Screw this; I'm out of here and I'll deal with this tomorrow."

And I'll tell you what, DC - I'll consider doing this.*  _If._

_And only if._

You run a fighter through the same gauntlet.  We'll compare notes on who survives better.

* I really don't have all that much spare time to contribute to what is, essentially, a moronic process.

EDIT: Oh, yeah - and your spell knowledge restrictions and your "No Summoning!" rules are stupid.  I won't abide by them, should I decide to take you up on your offer.

EDIT 2: Your drow can't be spellcasters, either.  Otherwise, you're just making the argument that a Wizard with some help can beat a higher-level Wizard, which, you know, duh.


----------



## Diamond Cross

> Despite the fact that, yet again, he's completely missing the point.   The well-played 18th-level wizard has enough tools in his bag to _never have to deal with this stupid, contrived scenario_.



Your excuses to not do my challenge do not impress me.

Put up or shut up.

It is you who's missing the point. not me.

And by the way, the people in the villages these drow are slaughtering, well, their relatives and families would wonder where the wizard is and not look kindly on the wizards cowardice.


----------



## Umbran

Diamond Cross said:


> ...prove me wrong or shut up.





*Let me make something abundantly clear - you don't get to set conditions under which others are allowed to speak.  If they aren't breaking the rules you don't have a say.  You don't get to bully, challenge, or attempt to humiliate folks into doing as you say.

So, back down on the confrontation, please.  Anyone continuing the schoolyard challenge stuff will be on the losing side, I assure you.*


----------



## Diamond Cross

Yeah, they can say anything they want to but I can't, especially when I am right and haven't done anything wrong.

You sure taught me a lesson.

Go ahead treat me unfairly, like you always do.

*Mod Note:* I was pretty clear on what was done wrong - no one gets to order or bully people around on these boards.  Doubly so when the excuse for doing so is, "I'm right."  This has always been the case, and it would be unfair for us to allow it here.  

If you are here to win, to silence people who don't agree with you, you're on the wrong boards, folks.  

As always, if you have an issue with moderation, take it to e-mail or PM.  ~Umbran


----------



## Jeff Wilder

Patryn of Elvenshae said:


> You run a fighter through the same gauntlet.  We'll compare notes on who survives better.



And that's what it comes down to.

It's not enough for y'all that a fighter be interesting to play, and a contributor to a D&D party, in the game as it's intended to be played.

No, y'all look at the fighter and, for some reason I can't understand, insist that he be able to whoop-ass against the wizard and against every situation in which the wizard can whoop-ass.  And in measuring this bizarre goal, you ignore the fact that the DM and the other players exist.  For y'all, it's all about how bad-ass you can be, and whether you can "win" D&D.

That's just a fundamental difference in how we view the game, and a fundamental difference in how we want to play the game.

There's really nothing more to say.


----------



## Diamond Cross

Playing the game is all about team work and being part of a team, not being the biggest baddest dude you can be.


----------



## Fifth Element

Indeed. I think the point some are trying to make is that the wizard can make his teammates irrelevant sometimes, which certainly doesn't make sense for a game based on teamwork.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

Fifth Element said:


> Indeed. I think the point some are trying to make is that the wizard can make his teammates irrelevant sometimes, which certainly doesn't make sense for a game based on teamwork.



Even if that were true -- _even if_ -- it's not a problem with non-douchebag players and a decent DM.

In other words, the problem isn't the game system.


----------



## Fifth Element

Jeff Wilder said:


> Even if that were true -- _even if_ -- it's not a problem with non-douchebag players and a decent DM.
> 
> In other words, the problem isn't the game system.



That's rather dismissive. Why do you assume that these guys only play with dbags and that their DM is subpar?

Not everyone has to have the problem for it to be a problem for a significant number of people. I've never had the problem myself, but that might be because I've never played 3E above 15th level or so. Or maybe I wouldn't have it at all. Who knows. But I find no reason to dismiss those who do have the problem.


----------



## billd91

Fifth Element said:


> Indeed. I think the point some are trying to make is that the wizard can make his teammates irrelevant sometimes, which certainly doesn't make sense for a game based on teamwork.




And to belabor the point a bit more...
Even if this is true from time to time, it's typically not true all the time. D&D has traditionally offered a variety of ways to accomplish tasks - some via magic, some not. This is a good thing because it allows groups of players to configure their parties of PCs in different ways while still taking on challenges DMs come up with.

(I'll admit, some classes like the cleric have a pretty high level of relative indispensability, but we managed to get through Shackled City without one thanks to the druid and paladin. So even that's possible.)


----------



## Mort

Jeff Wilder said:


> Even if that were true -- _even if_ -- it's not a problem with non-douchebag players and a decent DM.
> 
> In other words, the problem isn't the game system.





That doesn't really follow though. A great DM and great players can make any system fun. As I said upthread, one of the best campaigns I've ever had the pleasure of playing in was DMed using RIFTS. The DM was great, the other players were great. Everyone had an absolute blast. Does not change the fact that the rules system was to put it delicately sub par.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Diamond Cross said:


> Right, any excuse to not take the challenge.
> 
> That means you lose the entire argument.
> 
> The claim was a prepared wizard can easily handle the encounter.
> 
> The quote is this:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Stop right there.  The drow might have spell resistance, but that should    not even slow a prepared wizard.  The spells mentioned for taking out    drow (Evard's Black Tentacles, Glitterdust) ignore spell resistance.    So  all the drow having spell resistance does is means you need to   prepare  the spellbook.  Your objection here is irrelevant.
Click to expand...



For the record, the claim quoted was not that the wizard could beat the drow in a fair fight.  The claim was that _the Spell Resistance of the drow wouldn't hinder a properly prepared wizard_.  Which I stand by.  Spell resistance isn't a problem to a wizard expecting it because there are enough powerful spells that ignore it for it not to be a problem.  And spell resistance is _all_ the paragraph quoted talks about.  It was not talking about whether a Level 15 Wizard could handle a CR 18 challenge with a wide range of additional constraints to further handicap him.

With that I'm bowing out of this conversation.


----------



## rkwoodard

I suspect this is the crux of the issue.  What does it take to avoid the problem.  I am not looking directly at 3.5 or 4th, so bear with me as I put my thoughts on paper:

If the issue is avoided with a Decent DM and Non-douchebag players, it is not a system problem.
If the issue requires a Good DM and Really Good Players, it is a system problem.

Where on the spectrum is 3.5 ?  I don't know.  I think it is closer to the system problem side, but I have always had pretty good players, so I have no evidence to form a strong opintion.

RK


----------



## Neonchameleon

Jeff Wilder said:


> And that's what it comes down to.
> 
> It's not enough for y'all that a fighter be interesting to play, and a contributor to a D&D party, in the game as it's intended to be played.
> 
> No, y'all look at the fighter and, for some reason I can't understand, insist that he be able to whoop-ass against the wizard and against every situation in which the wizard can whoop-ass.  And in measuring this bizarre goal, you ignore the fact that the DM and the other players exist.  For y'all, it's all about how bad-ass you can be, and whether you can "win" D&D.
> 
> That's just a fundamental difference in how we view the game, and a fundamental difference in how we want to play the game.
> 
> There's really nothing more to say.




Other than that I roleplay PCs in challenging situations.  I _don't care_ about playing weak characters.  I do care that if I'm playing a character fighting for his life, I don't need to engage in doublethink to hold him back.  I don't want to seriously overshadow the other PCs, and I don't want to have to fight myself not to by treating what are in character life-threatening situations as not that serious.  So I can't play 3.X wizards at high level.



billd91 said:


> (I'll admit, some classes like the cleric have a pretty high level of relative indispensability, but we managed to get through Shackled City without one thanks to the druid and paladin. So even that's possible.)




The Druid being the other 9th level divine caster in the PHB who can cast Heal.  And in AD&D a subclass of cleric...



rkwoodard said:


> If the issue is avoided with a Decent DM and Non-douchebag players, it is not a system problem.
> If the issue requires a Good DM and Really Good Players, it is a system problem.
> 
> Where on the spectrum is 3.5 ?  I don't know.  I think it is closer to the system problem side, but I have always had pretty good players, so I have no evidence to form a strong opintion.




Honestly, I think it depends what level you are at.  E6 works because it's before it becomes a system problem.

In AD&D (1e certainly) clerics got temples at either 8th or 9th level, fighters got keeps at 9th level, wizards got towers and the ability to make items at 11th level, and thieves got guilds at 10th.  Which means that in the playtest group that's where the game changed - and the spells had a lot less empirical playtesting above that level because the characters were often playing with their big toys.  In 3.0, fighters and thieves lost their keeps and guilds.  Clerics lost their temples - but gained high level spells to make up for it.  And Wizards lost their towers (the weakest/least influential of the buildings) _but gained the ability to craft scrolls from level 1_.  So I think that that's around when the game goes wonky.  The plot power that fighters and thieves were meant to gain in AD&D to make up for the wizard's (and cleric's) increasing plot power from better spells never shows up in 3.X.  Around the time the Wizard had 5th level spells, the fighter had a castle and men at arms - whereas in 3.X the wizard gets 5th level spells _with fewer restrictions_ and the fighter ... can swing his sword slightly better.

Eyeballing, I'd have said the barbarian (and possibly the fighter) could about hold their own until 4th level spells showed up.  And if you gave fighters free keeps and castles as in AD&D they'd probably balance 5th level and 6th level spells...  E6 works - and in AD&D the fighter dipped behind a bit until their keep showed up, when they put on a surge to overtake for another couple of levels before falling behind again.


----------



## Patryn of Elvenshae

Jeff Wilder said:


> And that's what it comes down to.




No, it really isn't.  This is a silly sidebar on the real issue.



> It's not enough for y'all that a fighter be interesting to play, and a contributor to a D&D party, in the game as it's intended to be played.




Lord Almighty, man - take the chip off of your shoulder.

My point is that a well-played "wizard" (which incl. clerics and druids) can, quite easily, make having a fighter around fairly irrelevant -that a party would, generally, be better off ditching the fighter and adding another Cleric.

At high levels, this becomes even more extreme.

I know this _because I have done it before_.  In one game, I took a moderately-high-level Wizard (actually a wizard this time) and, in what was supposed to be a pretty epic series of battles, sidelined basically the entire rest of the party and "won" the encounter all on my own.

This was possible due to a couple reasons:

1) I know the rules better than just about anyone else at my table.
2) My table's full of people who like to play fighter-types.
3) The number of spells I knew, which could be put into scrolls or wands, and other pretty standard items let me punch really far above my weight class.
4) The spells themselves made it easy to tell large swathes of the encounter to sit down and shut up.

So, what was supposed to be a series of "fun for the whole party" encounters turned, instead, into "PoE shows off."*

Did I do _everything_?  Of course not - the party fighters and the rogue still fought some enemies, and did some damage, but everyone at the table knew who really won the encounters.  They only fought the enemies I left for them to fight, and we bypassed a couple other encounters (where they might have played a larger role) through some scrying and transportation magic.  The other party members were, essentially, my sidekicks for a pretty significant portion of the adventure.

And you know what?

It _sucked_.

It was a complete anticlimax.  Not only were the other players not having a particularly large amount of fun, _I wasn't either_.  It wasn't, "Hey, PoE's been holding back a bit, now it's his time to shine."

It was, "Hey - PoE's been holding back a bit, now it's his time to trivialize everyone else for a bit."

Which is why, ever since, _I don't play Wizards to their full abilities_.  Since then, I've played an Artificer who focused on improving everyone else's stuff rather than taking the CharOp route of buffing myself beyond all reason.  I've played a Fighter / Rogue duelist type with no magical capabilities whatsoever.  We played a short Star Wars game and I deliberately didn't pick a Jedi.  I'm currently playing a Pathfinder Magus because all he gets is blasty-type spells, which are by far the weakest option, along with some self-buffs to sorta maybe equal or exceed the Fighter some of the time.

No, I'm not just a player; I've actually been the DM for the past two years.  No, my goal isn't to prove that the Wizard is the bestest class evahlol.  No, this isn't about me grandstanding about how I totally "won" D&D.

It's just me recognizing, "Hey - there's kind of a problem here.  The easy solution is for me to just play dumb.  I'll do that."

* Actually, I've done this twice.  The other time, more recent, was while playing Warhammer Quest, of all things, and I used a really good Magic Winds roll to collapse the floor of the last chamber under a balrog and send it, temporarily at least, into the pit to let us all escape.

Yes, this one sucked, too.


----------



## TwoSix

Fifth Element said:


> Indeed. I think the point some are trying to make is that the wizard can make his teammates irrelevant sometimes, which certainly doesn't make sense for a game based on teamwork.




Exactly.  This is my chain of thought on the matter,  I'd appreciate seeing where people differ so I can figure out why there's such a disconnect.

1)  D&D is both a game and a social exercise.
2)  We play D&D for both elements.
3)  The point of socializing is to have fun.
4)  The point of a game is to challenge ourselves and thus achieve satisfaction from our mastery of the game's required skill set.
5)  Proving mastery can only be obtained by comparison to measurable criteria.  In D&D, these criteria are encounters.
6)  The socializing skill set of D&D is distinct from the "game mechanic" skill set of D&D. 
7)  The game mechanic skill set has a character building skill subset and a table-play skill subset.
8)  One demonstrates mastery of the entire "game mechanic" skill set by overcoming encounters(table-play) with a character you've designed (character building).
9)  D&D is a team game.
10)  The goal of a team is to prove mastery of the game's skill set.
11)  In D&D, the effectiveness of a team is measured by defeating encounters.
12)  To demonstrate mastery of the character building skill subset, one should make a character that contributes to the team.
13)  The team will be most successful at overcoming encounters the more skill sets the character can provide via his character building.
14)  The skill set of a team is not just the sum of individual skill sets, but also the sum of all synergies of overlapping skill sets.
15)  Providing more options provides more synergies.
16)  Necessary skill sets in D&D are damage, damage mitigation, encounter control, and narrative control.  Every ability provides or modifies these base sets.
17)  Fighters provide high damage and moderate personal damage mitigation.
18)  Wizards provide moderate-to-high damage, high damage mitigation (blur, mirror image, invisibility), high encounter control (fly, invisibility, solid fog), and extremely high narrative control (teleport, scry, planar binding, astral projection).
19)  By providing all required skill sets, a wizard provides only benefits to the party.


----------



## billd91

Neonchameleon said:


> The Druid being the other 9th level divine caster in the PHB who can cast Heal.  And in AD&D a subclass of cleric...




Which is really just saying it's hard to get through without some form of magical healing. Just like it's hard to get through without some way of finding and disabling traps. Or opening locked doors. Or identifying magic items. And so on.

But thanks to having other classes (like the druid, whom I might add, doesn't normally heal spontaneously nor gimp undead - the other major reason most parties include a cleric), the party was able to achieve the things a cleric would bring via other classes - a party configuration without a cleric. And that's precisely my point.

Ultimately, they used teamwork to get through the campaign and did so without the "my class is better than your class" dangly body part comparisons that seems to be inherent in these caster vs non-caster debates.


----------



## TwoSix

Jeff Wilder said:


> It's not enough for y'all that a fighter be interesting to play, and a contributor to a D&D party, in the game as it's intended to be played.




If the game is intended to be played a certain way (and I think the intention for D&D is tough-as-nails fighters, problem-solving thieves, healing clerics, and blasty wizards), then why do the rules support a play method that's opposed to the intention?


----------



## billd91

TwoSix said:


> Exactly.  This is my chain of thought on the matter,  I'd appreciate seeing where people differ so I can figure out why there's such a disconnect.
> 
> 1)  D&D is both a game and a social exercise.
> 2)  We play D&D for both elements.
> 3)  The point of socializing is to have fun.
> 4)  The point of a game is to challenge ourselves and thus achieve satisfaction from our mastery of the game's required skill set.
> 5)  Proving mastery can only be obtained by comparison to measurable criteria.  In D&D, these criteria are encounters.
> 6)  The socializing skill set of D&D is distinct from the "game mechanic" skill set of D&D.
> 7)  The game mechanic skill set has a character building skill subset and a table-play skill subset.
> 8)  One demonstrates mastery of the entire "game mechanic" skill set by overcoming encounters(table-play) with a character you've designed (character building).
> 9)  D&D is a team game.
> 10)  The goal of a team is to prove mastery of the game's skill set.
> 11)  In D&D, the effectiveness of a team is measured by defeating encounters.
> 12)  To demonstrate mastery of the character building skill subset, one should make a character that contributes to the team.
> 13)  The team will be most successful at overcoming encounters the more skill sets the character can provide via his character building.
> 14)  The skill set of a team is not just the sum of individual skill sets, but also the sum of all synergies of overlapping skill sets.
> 15)  Providing more options provides more synergies.
> 16)  Necessary skill sets in D&D are damage, damage mitigation, encounter control, and narrative control.  Every ability provides or modifies these base sets.
> 17)  Fighters provide high damage and moderate personal damage mitigation.
> 18)  Wizards provide moderate-to-high damage, high damage mitigation (blur, mirror image, invisibility), high encounter control (fly, invisibility, solid fog), and extremely high narrative control (teleport, scry, planar binding, astral projection).
> 19)  By providing all required skill sets, a wizard provides only benefits to the party.




I think some of your steps in your thought chain are excessively mechanistic. Number 4, for example, may describe some element of why we might play a game, but it misses that the point of the game play itself is not merely to derive satisfaction from winning but also to have fun. What happens if you're failing to show mastery because you're losing a game? Isn't it possible you're still having fun?

Once #4 has such an important gap, I think you can see how others down the line would have them as well. I'm not saying that the chain doesn't describe your approach to the game, but I can guarantee you it doesn't describe everybody's. Frankly, if that were my approach, I'd feel kind of empty. It's very cold, devoid of art. It's like replacing my creativity and imagination with some kind of algorithm with an inherent assumption geared toward maximization (#13) that also wouldn't fit everybody's approach to the game.


----------



## billd91

TwoSix said:


> If the game is intended to be played a certain way (and I think the intention for D&D is tough-as-nails fighters, problem-solving thieves, healing clerics, and blasty wizards), then why do the rules support a play method that's opposed to the intention?




Because not everyone is Gygax and his original table of cronies (or Arneson and his original table of cronies). 

Are you seriously questioning why an RPG might appeal or try to appeal to a broad market of people with differing tastes in play?


----------



## TwoSix

billd91 said:


> Ultimately, they used teamwork to get through the campaign and did so without the "my class is better than your class" dangly body part comparisons that seems to be inherent in these caster vs non-caster debates.




I'm really not sure what you mean by that.  No one on the "casters are better" side of the debate are happy about caster superiority.  It's not like "Neener, neener, you fighter players are so duuuummmbbb."

We simply want to be able to play any class without feeling like we have to play poorly to not come across as game-wrecking douchebags.


----------



## TwoSix

billd91 said:


> I think some of your steps in your thought chain are excessively mechanistic. Number 4, for example, may describe some element of why we might play a game, but it misses that the point of the game play itself is not merely to derive satisfaction from winning but also to have fun. What happens if you're failing to show mastery because you're losing a game? Isn't it possible you're still having fun?
> 
> Once #4 has such an important gap, I think you can see how others down the line would have them as well. I'm not saying that the chain doesn't describe your approach to the game, but I can guarantee you it doesn't describe everybody's. Frankly, if that were my approach, I'd feel kind of empty. It's very cold, devoid of art. It's like replacing my creativity and imagination with some kind of algorithm with an inherent assumption geared toward maximization (#13) that also wouldn't fit everybody's approach to the game.




#4 says the point is to show mastery, not to win.  Do you play games to intentionally lose?  If you're in the process of playing a game, and you do something in-game to amuse your friends, you're drawing pleasure from the social aspect, not the game aspect.  

Think of playing a board game.  I'll assume that there are times when you play the game and are unconcerned with the game's victory conditions.  I do that all the time.  You may be screwing with an unconventional strategy.  That's still showing your mastery over the system, because you know enough about the game to know conventional from unconventional.  Playing a new game shows mastery, because at the end, you've learned a skill you didn't have before.

The point of a game is to play the game.  But the only way that you're playing is to _be engaged with the game._  And that's because there's a very primal aspect of our nature that rewards you for engaging with a system.


----------



## MrMyth

Patryn of Elvenshae said:


> My point is that a well-played "wizard" (which incl. clerics and druids) can, quite easily, make having a fighter around fairly irrelevant -that a party would, generally, be better off ditching the fighter and adding another Cleric.
> 
> At high levels, this becomes even more extreme.
> 
> I know this _because I have done it before_.




A story that (these days) my group tends to laugh about quite a bit:

A friend is running a high-level D&D one-shot. I decide to play a cleric, because I've never played one at high levels before! And I think it will be awesome. 

Another friend is playing a rogue, or duelist type, or someone designed to use sneak attack or crits or similar bonuses. And as we go exploring this evil temple we fight... some golem constructs. Which he can't do much about. And then some water elements. Again, can't do much other than try and bounce in and out and stay alive. But the DM assures him, the adventure _does have enemies_ who he will excel against. 

Eventually, we reach the final encounter, and are swarmed by the high cultist and his various minions. Human minions! 

And my cleric wins initiative, and not even realizing what would happen, I try out my high level spell - Holy Word. 

And in a single standard action, kill/disable every enemy in the adventure vulnerable to sneak attack. 

(The High Cultist survived, of course. And happened to be wearing Heavy Fortification Armor...)

Now, this specific story wasn't about one character being useless or not - there are plenty of ways to address that (in this specific instance) by adjusting the adventure itself. 

But the point is that it doesn't take a drive to 'be the best' for one PC to overshadow another. This guy wasn't optimized or designed to be the best - he was just a high level cleric with the Good domain, and that give him a spell (at +1 caster level!) that trivialized what my companion could contribute in the adventure.


----------



## TwoSix

billd91 said:


> Because not everyone is Gygax and his original table of cronies (or Arneson and his original table of cronies).
> 
> Are you seriously questioning why an RPG might appeal or try to appeal to a broad market of people with differing tastes in play?




You did see I was quoting someone who used the phrase "as the game is intended to be played"?


----------



## billd91

TwoSix said:


> I'm really not sure what you mean by that.  No one on the "casters are better" side of the debate are happy about caster superiority.  It's not like "Neener, neener, you fighter players are so duuuummmbbb."
> 
> We simply want to be able to play any class without feeling like we have to play poorly to not come across as game-wrecking douchebags.




You don't have to play poorly to not be a glory hog. If there's a rogue in the party who wants to invest in opening locks, don't plan to rely on knock. Or if he says he's interested in investing his skill points elsewhere, go ahead with the knock wand. Coordinate your builds and plans to complement each other, not dominate the encounter.

From what I'm seeing here, you approach the game as if it's all about problem solving - defeating the encounter as efficiently as possible. But some players don't approach the game like that. I think it's a lot of fun to roll crits as a fighter and I know a lot of other players who have fun just slinging the dice to see what happens rather than try to find the fastest way to defeat the encounter. If you've got fellow players like that and you're always trying hit the "win button", you're pretty much swinging your dangly bit without caring about the teamwork involved in having a *fun game* regardless of whether you took out the bad guys in the fastest way or not.


----------



## billd91

TwoSix said:


> You did see I was quoting someone who used the phrase "as the game is intended to be played"?




Yes I did. And that I also noticed that Jeff's comment was about playing an interesting character and contributing to the game. It's hard to argue that's not a very broad way the game is intended to be played, nor is it hard to find that controversial. Everyone at the table should be able to play an interesting character and contribute - that the game supports a variety of ways to do that isn't a shortcoming. Nor is it really limited to tough as nails fighters, problem solving thiefs, blasting wizards, and healing wizards.


----------



## billd91

TwoSix said:


> #4 says the point is to show mastery, not to win.  Do you play games to intentionally lose?  If you're in the process of playing a game, and you do something in-game to amuse your friends, you're drawing pleasure from the social aspect, not the game aspect.




How about if I'm playing D&D and get a massive crit with a greataxe? Can't I take pleasure from that or am I only deriving pleasure because my friends are high-fiving me? That's a major problem with #4 as you communicated it. There's nothing about mastery in lucking into an awesome result and enjoying the heck out of it. Nor is it deriving pleasure from the social aspect of getting together if I enjoy the way the game mechanics themselves come together and produce a result.




TwoSix said:


> The point of a game is to play the game.  But the only way that you're playing is to _be engaged with the game._  And that's because there's a very primal aspect of our nature that rewards you for engaging with a system.




The point of playing a game is to enjoy the time spent on it (unless you it for a living in which case getting a paycheck may also be a point to playing the game).


----------



## Jeff Wilder

TwoSix said:


> If the game is intended to be played a certain way (and I think the intention for D&D is tough-as-nails fighters, problem-solving thieves, healing clerics, and blasty wizards), then why do the rules support a play method that's opposed to the intention?



The rules also "support" a play method in which you gather at the table with your characters and try to kill one another.  Explicitly or implicitly.

The rules support this.

It's not the way the game is intended to be played.


----------



## Fifth Element

billd91 said:


> Are you seriously questioning why an RPG might appeal or try to appeal to a broad market of people with differing tastes in play?



Presumably not. D&D does appeal to a wide variety of tastes, and this is one reason why some people who play D&D encounter the problem with dominant high-level wizards, and others don't. It's not that one group is a bunch of douchebags with a crappy DM; it's that different groups play the game in different ways.


----------



## LostSoul

Diamond Cross said:


> Are you game?




I am game.

A couple of questions first:

Do I start with any spells prepared?
How do we encounter each other?
Are the drow 10th level because of their +2 level adjustment, or 12th level like you stated?


----------



## Fifth Element

I'm not entirely sure Diamond Cross will be responding any more?


----------



## Jeff Wilder

Fifth Element said:


> It's not that one group is a bunch of douchebags with a crappy DM; it's that different groups play the game in different ways.



And that's _fine_.  But when the way you choose to play the game means you're not having fun playing the game, either change the way you play the game or play a different game.

The people who are saying 3.5/PF doesn't work for them are completely willing to change everything that does work for _us_, because (apparently) they just can't control themselves from ruining the game for their fellow players.

When a player comes to the table and immediately engages in P v. P play, which the rules support, what's the proper thing to do (assuming the group doesn't want that kind of play)?

Why is the answer different if a player comes to the game with a rules-abusive cleric or druid or wizard (or, yes, even fighter or rogue)?

Why are these players incapable of having elements in the game that they don't seek to abuse to "win" D&D?  "If it's in the game, I must make every conceivable effort to abuse it, whether it's fun for the other players or not"?  'Cause, I gotta be honest, that's what I'm hearing.


----------



## TwoSix

billd91 said:


> How about if I'm playing D&D and get a massive crit with a greataxe? Can't I take pleasure from that or am I only deriving pleasure because my friends are high-fiving me? That's a major problem with #4 as you communicated it. There's nothing about mastery in lucking into an awesome result and enjoying the heck out of it. Nor is it deriving pleasure from the social aspect of getting together if I enjoy the way the game mechanics themselves come together and produce a result.




But dude, the deriving the result is the system mastery!  _If you didn't have system mastery, rolling a 20 wouldn't mean anything, because you wouldn't be able to interpret it._  You and I have system mastery, because we know that a 20 is good and 1 is bad.  My mom wouldn't be happy if she rolled a 20, because she doesn't know the rules of D&D for that 20 to have any meaning.  You're deriving pleasure from the understanding of a complex system.

Mastery != powergaming.  "Mastery" as I'm using it isn't mastering as in control, it's mastering as in understanding.


----------



## TwoSix

Jeff Wilder said:


> Why are these players incapable of having elements in the game that they don't seek to abuse to "win" D&D?  "If it's in the game, I must make every conceivable effort to abuse it, whether it's fun for the other players or not"?  'Cause, I gotta be honest, that's what I'm hearing.




Because when I play a game, I want to play to the best of my ability.  If I don't, I'm not having as much fun.  I have more fun playing Street Fighter against my 24 year old brother than against my 4 year old sons.  Why?  Because my brother is a challenge.  I don't like playing chess against my wife.  I'm not an expert, but I've played some, and she barely knows the pieces.  So I have to hold myself back and mess around to not end the game.  I have some fun trying unorthodox things, but it's just not the same as an actual challenge.

Playing a wizard in a party of Tier 4 or 5s is like playing Street Fighter against a 4 year old.


----------



## Mort

Jeff Wilder said:


> And that's _fine_.  But when the way you choose to play the game means you're not having fun playing the game, either change the way you play the game or play a different game.
> 
> The people who are saying 3.5/PF doesn't work for them are completely willing to change everything that does work for _us_, because (apparently) they just can't control themselves from ruining the game for their fellow players.
> 
> When a player comes to the table and immediately engages in P v. P play, which the rules support, what's the proper thing to do (assuming the group doesn't want that kind of play)?
> 
> Why is the answer different if a player comes to the game with a rules-abusive cleric or druid or wizard (or, yes, even fighter or rogue)?
> 
> Why are these players incapable of having elements in the game that they don't seek to abuse to "win" D&D?  "If it's in the game, I must make every conceivable effort to abuse it, whether it's fun for the other players or not"?  'Cause, I gotta be honest, that's what I'm hearing.




I'm realy not sure where you're getting this from at all. The whole point (certainly from me and from what I've seen the great majority in the thread) is what exactly causes a caster to be overpowered in some instances - and what can be done about it so it doesn't happen - there have been several suggestions both for why casters can be perseived as overpowered and what can be done about it? I don't see anyone yelling "I plan to abuse the system to the best of my ability and you can't stop me!"

Also, I'm not exactly getting what a player in your group would do to be considered abusive, rude etc. 

Let's say a new player in a new campaign took color spray, for example. He uses it in several combats, which turns some potentially difficult combats into a cakewalk (cast colorspray incapacitate 2-4+ opponents, everyone beats them to a pulp etc.) - Is it wrong of him to continue to use one of the most powerful 1st level spells? Is it ok as long as he didn't realise how unbalanced the spell is (as it completely bypasses the HP mechanic and is save or die at first level) Is it ok as long as he's not a jerk about it? 

What's the criteria? or is it more of a you know it when you see it type thing?

honestly curious.


----------



## Fifth Element

Jeff Wilder said:


> And that's _fine_.  But when the way you choose to play the game means you're not having fun playing the game, either change the way you play the game or play a different game.



And plenty of people do; they play 4E among other games. That doesn't mean they didn't actually have a problem with 3E the system. 



Jeff Wilder said:


> The people who are saying 3.5/PF doesn't work for them are completely willing to change everything that does work for _us_, because (apparently) they just can't control themselves from ruining the game for their fellow players.



How are they changing your game? No one's saying you should stop playing the way you play. They're saying that your claim that the problem _does not_ or _should not exist for anyone_ is specious.

Remember that you said if you don't play with douchebags and have a decent DM, this problem _does not exist_. You therefore appear unwilling to even accept that some people with good groups do have a problem with the game. I'm not insisting that _you_ must have this problem; just that some people do and their problems with the system are legitimate.

For them, the system has this problem just like for you, it doesn't. I fully acknowledge that this problem does not crop up in your games. Can you acknowledge that it does occur in some people's games, and that doesn't necessarily mean they suck at playing?


----------



## Jeff Wilder

Mort said:


> Let's say a new player in a new campaign took color spray, for example. He uses it in several combats, which turns some potentially difficult combats into a cakewalk (cast colorspray incapacitate 2-4+ opponents, everyone beats them to a pulp etc.) - Is it wrong of him to continue to use one of the most powerful 1st level spells?



Not necessarily.  Maybe it's wrong of my GM not to provide opponents that can't be turned into "cakewalks" by the use of one spell.

_Color spray_ (and the wizard player) does not exist in a vacuum!  Why is that so hard to understand?  The entire _point_ of the GM is to provide interesting challenges for the players, and you keep saying, "Well, what if the GM doesn't provide a challenge?  Isn't it a problem that the game isn't a challenge?"

How exactly _do_ you people play D&D?!


----------



## Fifth Element

Jeff Wilder said:


> Not necessarily.  Maybe it's wrong of my GM not to provide opponents that can't be turned into "cakewalks" by the use of one spell.



If the DM has to build the encounters around the capabilities of one character to avoid the problem, then that's a problem, if you know what I mean. First it's more work for the DM (the module says _this_, but the wizard will cream those guys, so I have to change it to _that_.)

And then you have a potential problem with the wizard's player: what's the point of having these cool spells if the DM's always throwing enemies at me that they don't work on? Why does the DM take away my ability to do things, but not the others?


----------



## TwoSix

Jeff Wilder said:


> How exactly _do_ you people play D&D?!




Dice, books, and a fair amount of beer. 



Jeff Wilder said:


> Not necessarily.  Maybe it's wrong of my GM not to provide opponents that can't be turned into "cakewalks" by the use of one spell.




What low-level opponents do you use against wizards with color spray?  Right off the bat, humanoid opponents become a lot less troublesome.



Jeff Wilder said:


> _Color spray_ (and the wizard player) does not exist in a vacuum!  Why is that so hard to understand?  The entire _point_ of the GM is to provide interesting challenges for the players, and you keep saying, "Well, what if the GM doesn't provide a challenge?  Isn't it a problem that the game isn't a challenge?"




Tailoring an encounter to a well-played wizard is...difficult.  Not impossible.  Just difficult.


----------



## Herremann the Wise

Fifth Element said:


> If the DM has to build the encounters around the capabilities of one character to avoid the problem, then that's a problem, if you know what I mean. First it's more work for the DM (the module says _this_, but the wizard will cream those guys, so I have to change it to _that_.)
> 
> And then you have a potential problem with the wizard's player: what's the point of having these cool spells if the DM's always throwing enemies at me that they don't work on? Why does the DM take away my ability to do things, but not the others?



I think there's a spectrum here that is not as black and white as you present. What's wrong with the middle ground? What's wrong with a mix of encounters that provide challenges as well as time to shine, as well as times for the entire team to have a field day? I thought this was DMing 101? Know your PCs strengths and weaknesses and look for the things in different encounters that emphasize both.

Re: Color Spray - yes it is occasionally a highly effective spell. That is useless against mindless opponents or opponents immune to mind-affecting effects, that requires the wizard to get within proximity of their targets (thus being useless at range), is difficult to cast when your allies are in the range of the spell, is a spell and thus with a readied action a wizard's casting can be interrupted (pertinent here due to the range of the spell), and as a 1st level spell will have a lower DC anyway. There's enough here that it should not be difficult to get the wizard to choose alternative spell tactics without needing to spam color spray as a solution to everything. Occasionally it is really effective, other times less so. Let it work sometimes and challenge it at others. There are bigger fish to fry in my opinion re: wizard versus fighter in 3e.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> What low-level opponents do you use against wizards with color spray? Right off the bat, humanoid opponents become a lot less troublesome.




Archers.  Trap setters.  Ambushers with good tactics.  Tucker's Kobolds.


----------



## Patryn of Elvenshae

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Archers.




Very true.

They also happen to be pretty good against _all_ low-level characters. 

EDIT: The rest of your list, too.


----------



## pawsplay

TwoSix said:


> What low-level opponents do you use against wizards with color spray?  Right off the bat, humanoid opponents become a lot less troublesome.




Skeletons. Warriors who charge. Javelineers. Spider swarms.


----------



## pemerton

Jeff Wilder said:


> Why are these players incapable of having elements in the game that they don't seek to abuse to "win" D&D?





MrMyth said:


> A story that (these days) my group tends to laugh about quite a bit:
> 
> A friend is running a high-level D&D one-shot. I decide to play a cleric, because I've never played one at high levels before! And I think it will be awesome.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> my cleric wins initiative, and not even realizing what would happen, I try out my high level spell - Holy Word.
> 
> And in a single standard action, kill/disable every enemy in the adventure vulnerable to sneak attack.



MrMyth's story doesn't sound to me like someone abusing game elements to "win" D&D. It sounds more like someone using a high level spell that hasn't been balanced either by mathematical calculation or by extensive playtesting. It's a problem in some other systems too (Rolemaster clerics, as written in the rulebooks, get access to far and away the best save-or-suck/die spells in the game, even though there is a whole other class - the sorcerer - that's meant to be about that.)

I've had plenty of fun with D&D. I've had _heaps_ of fun with Rolemaster. It doesn't get in the way of me diagnosing poorly-designed rules elements, though. I mean, these rulesets were just written up by ordinary people. There's nothing sacrosanct about them. And there's no reason to think they're inherently the best that can be done for delivering the play experience that they're aimed at.


----------



## Beginning of the End

There's a good deal of talking past each other happening in this thread. (Although that whole "my spherical cow vs. your spherical cow" challenge match a few pages back was precious.)

Here's the facts as I see 'em:

(1) Wizards are designed for some mixture of (a) blowing up a handful of encounters per day or (b) softening up a slightly larger number of encounters per day. (With the latter usually taking the form of some early blow that sets the party up for a safe victory; or a late bailing out of the party in a situation that has gotten out of control.)

(2) If the wizard is allowed to control the pace and/or content of encounters, this starts becoming problematic around 10th-12th level. (Possibly a little lower if the DM is really just letting the wizard walk all over them.)

(3) It will be perceived as more "problematic" from your POV if you consider softening up to be inherently more interesting than delivering the KO. (If this is your opinion, then you should definitely play wizards and not fighter. But not everybody agrees with you.)

(4) It will also be perceived as more "problematic" from your POV if you consider every encounter to have some sort of "ideal outcome", so that when the wizard blows through one of your encounters with a huge expenditure of magical firepower you think that something has gone wrong because the encounter was "too easy". (It wasn't. The speed at which the wizard burns through resources is, IMO, a feature, not a bug. It's not a spotlight problem and it varies encounter pacing.)

#3 and #4 have nothing to do with the game system being "broken". The only "problem" here is that the game isn't catering itself to your taste. (Or, more accurately, certain sections of the game aren't catering to your taste.)

#2 is a problem, but it requires a very specific and very narrow style of play for this problem to exist. (Whereas, on the other hand, there are a multitude of playing styles in which it doesn't exist.)


----------



## Neonchameleon

billd91 said:


> Which is really just saying it's hard to get through without some form of magical healing. Just like it's hard to get through without some way of finding and disabling traps. Or opening locked doors. Or identifying magic items. And so on.




Yes.  What it isn't hard to get through without is someone who swings a sword _and doesn't do anything else that an extra warm body wouldn't_.  Someone who can swing a mace pretty well, and wear plate armour, and get spells could cover that role without trouble.



TwoSix said:


> I'm really not sure what you mean by that. No one on the "casters are better" side of the debate are happy about caster superiority. It's not like "Neener, neener, you fighter players are so duuuummmbbb."
> 
> We simply want to be able to play any class without feeling like we have to play poorly to not come across as game-wrecking douchebags.




I don't often do this, but QFT.



billd91 said:


> You don't have to play poorly to not be a glory hog. If there's a rogue in the party who wants to invest in opening locks, don't plan to rely on knock. Or if he says he's interested in investing his skill points elsewhere, go ahead with the knock wand. Coordinate your builds and plans to complement each other, not dominate the encounter.




Of course.  But how does it end up?  The rogue defeats all the easy locks - and then comes running to the wizard for help when he fails on one.  And at mid levels or above either the wizard is _stupid_ and hasn't added knock to his spellbook (and probably prepared a couple of scrolls of knock) just in case something happens to the rogue or when the rogue gets into trouble doing what he does best he turns to big brother (the wizard) for help.  And big brother smiles and steps in.

Note that this isn't as big a problem with the sorceror.  With the sorceror you can easily avoid adding spells to your spellbook without having to justify it.  And you can't make scrolls for spells you don't know.  A 15th level wizard in a high magic campaign without as useful and cheap a spell as _Knock_ in their spellbook should just add the letter D to their pointy hat.



> From what I'm seeing here, you approach the game as if it's all about problem solving - defeating the encounter as efficiently as possible. But some players don't approach the game like that. I think it's a lot of fun to roll crits as a fighter and I know a lot of other players who have fun just slinging the dice to see what happens rather than try to find the fastest way to defeat the encounter.




Oh, indeed.  And when the encounter isn't a seriously threatening one that's fine in character and out.  But when the encounter is an actually dangerous one, not defeating it quickly and efficiently is _risking their life, your life, and very possibly the fate of the world just to give the fighter an ego-rub_.  *That*is the sort of wizard you need to play to play the way you want him to.

And frankly I refuse to play that sort of semi-suicidal jackass.  I'll play a wizard who buys the fighter flowers, complements him/her on his/her appearance, and even throws games of cards to him on occasion.  But there are limits.  And those limits are long past when there's a Balor in the house.



> If you've got fellow players like that and you're always trying hit the "win button", you're pretty much swinging your dangly bit without caring about the teamwork involved in having a *fun game* regardless of whether you took out the bad guys in the fastest way or not.




OK.  Here is the scenario you are insisting on in character.  You are going into high risk situations to take on scary creatures like Dragons and Balors with very high stakes on the line.

Limiting your options so the fighter can have fun (and possibly die) is your recommendation.  And doing that as a sorceror (or other spontaneous caster) is fine.  Sorcerors don't get to pick their spells in character.  Wizards, druids, and clerics _do_.  And neither wizards, druids, nor clerics can be both stupid and unwise.  (Wis or Int as casting stat).  What this means is that _In Character_ your non-spontaneous caster knows he is quite literally patronising the fighter.  And knows that he is risking the fighter's life and his (or her) own just to give the fighter an ego trip.  That ... is an intense character restriction.

This leaves me with two options for high level wizards.  Roleplay a patronising and more than slightly suicidal idiot or roleplay and be a jerk.

I like the wizard archetype and want to play one.  But with that choice above for mid level and above 3.X wizards, I refuse to pick either option.  Which doesn't stop me wanting to play a wizard.

Does this explain the problem?  And do you have any solutions other than to object to people pointing out the problem?


----------



## Votan

Diamond Cross said:


> I will create a party of 5 12th level Drow against your 15th level wizard. In open terrain.
> 
> Your wizard has to follow these rules: No monster summoning, no hirelings of any sort. And no golems. You have to do this completely alone without any help at all.
> 
> This will be in open terrain. With an encounter start of one hundred feet.
> 
> The caveats are you can't run away from the fight. You have to destroy the entire party, all by yourself. And you're limited in spell knowlege to the wizard spell tables in the PHB. That means you know:
> 
> 4 4 4 4 4 4 3 2 1 spells per day. That's all you can cast.
> 
> And you can not use any help at all.




So the Drow are 14th level characters (12th level + 2 levels of LA)?  In which there could be (just guessing) classes  bard, cleric and wizard?  Plus a ranger with just the right favored enemy and a bow?  And there are 5 of them?  

Does no running include opening distance?   

What's odd is that (prepared) the wizard might make it a fight with a group of fighters and rogues, depending on their gear.  

But the challenge seems to look like: can my 14th level wizard with 4 equal level buddies take on your 15th level wizard (who has a class of spells banned from her).  What if 2 of the Drow are wizards?  

And why is a high level wizard wandering around without help in an area with powerful Drow.  How about Overland flight . . .


----------



## Neonchameleon

Beginning of the End said:


> (1) Wizards are designed for some mixture of (a) blowing up a handful of encounters per day or (b) softening up a slightly larger number of encounters per day.




Corollary: As wizards get higher level they can either blow up or soften up many more encounters/day due to having many more spells.



> (3) It will be perceived as more "problematic" from your POV if you consider softening up to be inherently more interesting than delivering the KO. (If this is your opinion, then you should definitely play wizards and not fighter. But not everybody agrees with you.)




Agreed.



> (4) The speed at which the wizard burns through resources is, IMO, a feature, not a bug. It's not a spotlight problem and it varies encounter pacing.




Three points:
1: At higher levels wizards can take more encounters per day simply due to having more spells.
2: This can be markedly varied depending on play style.
3: Some low level spells remain useful for a lot longer than others.



> #3 and #4 have nothing to do with the game system being "broken". The only "problem" here is that the game isn't catering itself to your taste. (Or, more accurately, certain sections of the game aren't catering to your taste.)




The trouble with 3 is not that the game doesn't cater to my taste.  It's that it lays out an all you can eat buffet to my taste.  It caters so far to my taste that I'm tempted to gorge myself sick.  And that's bad.  And my corollaries to 4 make it broken at higher levels - the obselescence curve of the wizard's lower level spells failing hard.



> #2 is a problem, but it requires a very specific and very narrow style of play for this problem to exist. (Whereas, on the other hand, there are a multitude of playing styles in which it doesn't exist.)




I disagree emphatically.  Once you hit the teens, you require a small range of specific and narrow playstyles for #2 to _not_ exist - either a tight and extremely metagamy social contract or pressurising the PCs extremely heavily.  Both of which are against the guidance given by the DMG (the four encounter adventuring day being what the game is "balanced" around indicating you shouldn't do things you do like toss wandering monsters in to pressure the PCs).  Give the PCs the initiative and 2 runs rampant.


----------



## Fifth Element

Herremann the Wise said:


> I think there's a spectrum here that is not as black and white as you present. What's wrong with the middle ground? What's wrong with a mix of encounters that provide challenges as well as time to shine, as well as times for the entire team to have a field day? I thought this was DMing 101? Know your PCs strengths and weaknesses and look for the things in different encounters that emphasize both.



Of course, but in discussions you tend to have to focus on something to make your point.

The point being that the wizard, in some games, is so flexible and powerful that all encounters have to be designed with his strengths in mind so that he doesn't always overshadow the other characters.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with the wizard sometimes dominating an encounter, so long as the other characters also get to do that at other times. But if the rules make it so that some people have to either intentionally gimp their own character, or the DM has to continually contrive to reduce that character's effectiveness, then that's a problem. Again, not a problem that everyone has, but it does exist.


----------



## BryonD

pemerton said:


> MrMyth's story doesn't sound to me like someone abusing game elements to "win" D&D. It sounds more like someone using a high level spell that hasn't been balanced either by mathematical calculation or by extensive playtesting. It's a problem in some other systems too (Rolemaster clerics, as written in the rulebooks, get access to far and away the best save-or-suck/die spells in the game, even though there is a whole other class - the sorcerer - that's meant to be about that.)
> 
> I've had plenty of fun with D&D. I've had _heaps_ of fun with Rolemaster. It doesn't get in the way of me diagnosing poorly-designed rules elements, though. I mean, these rulesets were just written up by ordinary people. There's nothing sacrosanct about them. And there's no reason to think they're inherently the best that can be done for delivering the play experience that they're aimed at.



You can look at it as poorly designed rules.  But it also can be poorly designed encounters.  

If you WANT big magic with save or die/suck as part of the powers and threats that exist to be controlled, avoided, and overcome then first the nature of the adventures should take that into account.  

At the very least encounter design should realize what makes an interesting activity for the level of power in question.  Obviously you could get into a whole long discussion on this tangent.  But, without getting hung up on "best", I think the Holy Word spell does a perfectly fine job of doing what it was aimed at.  It may be that what it is aimed at and what this given set of players want are different, and it may be that the encounter designer failed to account for the implications of the power level.

It certainly still comes down to a bad overall play experience in the example, no doubt.  And I'm not trying to claim your explanation is wrong.  But depending on your tastes, completely different explanations may apply.


----------



## Raven Crowking

I think both sides make good points, and (as is often the case) the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

*Somehow* people manage to play D&D without running into these problems.  I am not a "super DM" by any means, and yet I somehow avoid it without making any real effort to do so.  And my players, like Neonchameleon, are encouraged to do their best.

Yet *somehow* this problem does seem to arise for some people.  For more than it doesn't arise?  No idea.  But I suspect that there are real rules problems at the root of the issue.  IMHO, it is probable that design elements have unintended knock-on effects that lead to this problem, such as a combat system that discourages "non-essential" combats (which in turn makes it easier for casters to go nuclear).

In fact, long before 4e was a twinkle in Mike Mearls' eye (or at least, long before it was announced), I discussed some of the same here on EN World.  (Of course, when 3e was the game of the day, I was told by a few vocal people that, essentially, I didn't know what I was talking about.)

For those people who disagreed with me then, if you cast your mind back, you might understand why some disagree with you now.  But, by the same light, I can certainly understand where you are coming from.  IMHO, 3e added some real innovations and created some serious (but avoidable) problems by not thinking through the rammifications of change.

3e certainly isn't alone in that.

But then, no game is perfect.


RC


----------



## TwoSix

Raven Crowking said:


> Yet *somehow* this problem does seem to arise for some people.  For more than it doesn't arise?  No idea.  But I suspect that there are real rules problems at the root of the issue.  IMHO, it is probable that design elements have unintended knock-on effects that lead to this problem, such as a combat system that discourages "non-essential" combats (which in turn makes it easier for casters to go nuclear).




Honestly, I think awareness of the "wizard problem" is much more prevalent among people who participate on internet sites such as the one we're on right now.  I'm the only one of my regular game problem who is on sites like EN World, RPG.net, and especially sites like GitP, Brilliant Gameologists and the Char Op forum on the Wizards boards, where the amount of char-op fu among the regulars is quite high.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I'm the only one in the game group who thinks wizards are a problem.   The rest of the players have no issue that the wizard in the party ends a tough fight with one Black Tentacles.  To them, that's the expectation of how play should be, and they have fun with it. 

So why is it an issue for me?  I just don't like that level of swinginess, I guess.  A tough fight became cleanup in one action.  I want my game to be more like Final Fantasy Tactics, where every fight is against a large group of enemies, and each movement matters, and the sum of small, well-planned actions is what wins the day, not one decisive one.  3e feels more like New Super Mario Bros. Wii, where it's pretty, colorful, chaotic, fun, but I get really tired of Luigi jumping on my head.


----------



## MrMyth

Jeff Wilder said:


> Not necessarily. Maybe it's wrong of my GM not to provide opponents that can't be turned into "cakewalks" by the use of one spell.
> 
> The entire _point_ of the GM is to provide interesting challenges for the players, and you keep saying, "Well, what if the GM doesn't provide a challenge? Isn't it a problem that the game isn't a challenge?"






BryonD said:


> You can look at it as poorly designed rules. But it also can be poorly designed encounters.
> 
> If you WANT big magic with save or die/suck as part of the powers and threats that exist to be controlled, avoided, and overcome then first the nature of the adventures should take that into account.




Yeah, I think both of these situations are ones that a good DM can, of course, avoid. But I think that can be a problem in and of itself - if the game requires a certain level of system mastery on behalf of the DM in order to be enjoyable. 

Especially as you get higher level. At level 1, you've got one spell for the DM to worry about - Color Spray. Soon you add Glitterdust into the mix. And buff spells, and divinations, and more - and by higher level, in order to properly 'challenge' a high level wizard, the DM might need to spend hours of optimizing on their own. Or resort to blanket solutions like sticking the wizard in an Antimagic field - and while that might be interesting _once_, it could get real old, real fast. 

Now, that isn't to say that every game will require that level of planning to avoid a caster overwhelming it. Nor is it to say that some groups won't _enjoy _that level of one-upmanship. But I think for many, that it is part of the problem. 



BryonD said:


> At the very least encounter design should realize what makes an interesting activity for the level of power in question. Obviously you could get into a whole long discussion on this tangent. But, without getting hung up on "best", I think the Holy Word spell does a perfectly fine job of doing what it was aimed at. It may be that what it is aimed at and what this given set of players want are different, and it may be that the encounter designer failed to account for the implications of the power level.
> 
> It certainly still comes down to a bad overall play experience in the example, no doubt. And I'm not trying to claim your explanation is wrong. But depending on your tastes, completely different explanations may apply.




And just to be clear, again, I wasn't necessarily using that as an example of the imbalance in the system. It _is _something that could have been addressed with different encounters or characters. My main point there was that it was an example of the spells and powers presenting this sort of imbalance without any optimization or powergaming required. 

The character was a Cleric, and took an appropriate Domain spell. In this situation, it trivialized another character's participation, and largely incidentally. This is a thing that could happen, and it could happen without anyone _setting out _to build the guy who always 'wins', as Jeff Wilder had suggested.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

MrMyth said:


> At level 1, you've got one spell for the DM to worry about - Color Spray. Soon you add Glitterdust into the mix. And buff spells, and divinations, and more - and by higher level, in order to properly 'challenge' a high level wizard, the DM might need to spend hours of optimizing on their own.



And, once again, we see that the player simply has no choice in the matter.  Because he _must_ pick every broken spell and feat in the game.  It's _imperative_.  Poor player.  Life is hard.


----------



## BryonD

MrMyth said:


> And just to be clear, again, I wasn't necessarily using that as an example of the imbalance in the system.



That's cool.  I was really just responding to Perm's point.  But that was based on your example.....


----------



## MrMyth

Jeff Wilder said:


> And, once again, we see that the player simply has no choice in the matter. Because he _must_ pick every broken spell and feat in the game. It's _imperative_. Poor player. Life is hard.




But, again, the player might not be taking these options for those reasons - they may not even realize how powerful they are. They want a wizard who confounds and dazzles his foes rather than blasting them with magic - one might even think (mechanics aside) that this would make for a _less _powerful wizard. 

In the end, the issue is this - if you think there is a problem with a player choosing these spells (even if they do so without intending to take the 'best' spells available), isn't the problem with the system that makes those options available more than with the player who chooses them?


----------



## Neonchameleon

Jeff Wilder said:


> And, once again, we see that the player simply has no choice in the matter.  Because he _must_ pick every broken spell and feat in the game.  It's _imperative_.  Poor player.  Life is hard.



Feats?  No.  But there is an imperative to a wizard to pick the best spells.  Being prepared as well as possible can quite literally be a matter of life or death for the wizard.  Poor adventurer.  Life is dangerous.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

MrMyth said:


> In the end, the issue is this - if you think there is a problem with a player choosing these spells (even if they do so without intending to take the 'best' spells available), isn't the problem with the system that makes those options available more than with the player who chooses them?



No.  In a system as sprawling as 3.5/PF, there is broken material.  There is broken stuff in every class.

A player who deliberately chooses broken material, to the point where it negatively impacts enjoyment of the game, is a douchebag.

A GM who allows a novice player to choose broken material, to the point where it negatively impacts enjoyment of the game, needs to improve as a GM (and often, but apparently not always will).

The system has flaws and broken bits.  In an ideal world, there would be none of those.  In a non-ideal world, one of the jobs of the GM and the players is making choices (and guiding choices) partially for the enjoyment of others.  This is true no matter what class one is playing.

That some players and GMs are apparently incapable of doing this job is not a reflection of the _system_.  If it were, there wouldn't be such a large number of people who use the system just fine.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

Neonchameleon said:


> Life is dangerous.



Well, sure.  (Except for the _wizard_, of course.)


----------



## Raven Crowking

TwoSix said:


> Perhaps unsurprisingly, I'm the only one in the game group who thinks wizards are a problem.   The rest of the players have no issue that the wizard in the party ends a tough fight with one Black Tentacles.  To them, that's the expectation of how play should be, and they have fun with it.
> 
> So why is it an issue for me?  I just don't like that level of swinginess, I guess.




Which is fine, and points to what is happening in this thread.  

Is the "problem" a result of the rules?  No.  Is the "problem" the result of a set of expectations?  No.  Is it a result of the rules interfacing with specific expectations?  Yes.  

How much of that is rules, and how much is expectation?  Dunno....that's sort of like asking "What are the right expectations to have?", where the only right answer is to unask the question.



Jeff Wilder said:


> And, once again, we see that the player simply has no choice in the matter.  Because he _must_ pick every broken spell and feat in the game.  It's _imperative_.  Poor player.  Life is hard.




Nonsense.  The player can pick the spells and feats the rules allow him to pick, and still have a fine time with the game.  

Or, at least, IMO and IME.  I mean, aren't we having this discussion with the same people who championed the 4e magic system because the wizard was *too weak*?  Am I the only one to remember that?  Once he ran out of his paltry spell allotment, the was reduced to flinging darts or plinking away with a crossbow?  Anyone?  Bueller?

Within that context, this thread feels like:  _My hat of d02 wizards know no limit.  It is too strong and too weak all at the same time._

I remember arguing quite strenuously that the wizard had all sorts of things to contribute to the party; I am exceedingly happy to note that some of my prior detractors have now agreed with that position (even if I do feel they went overboard somewhat).

I am very much looking forward to 5e, so that I can discover which of the many things about 4e, which I am *now* absolutely wrong about, I might be discovered to be less wrong about _*then*_.

(Although I still say that now is not the right time for 5e, and WotC should wait until they have produced several 4e adventures that really kick-ass.  A new edition should come on the waning of a sales crest -- when people are excited about your products and the buzz is good.  IMHO.)

RC


----------



## Beginning of the End

Neonchameleon said:


> Both of which are against the guidance given by the DMG (the four encounter adventuring day being what the game is "balanced" around indicating you shouldn't do things you do like toss wandering monsters in to pressure the PCs).




You've said this several times now. I suggest you review your DMG. It specifically tells you NOT to run your game around four balanced encounters per day.

But, yes. Your insistence on running a string of "balanced" My Precious Encounters(TM) is contributing to your problems with wizards. It is the very specific and very narrow style of play I was talking about.



> you require a small range of specific and narrow playstyles for #2 to _not_ exist




You say that. But you're the one who keeps insisting on analyzing everything through the context of a single style of play you (erroneously) claim is required by the DMG.



> Give the PCs the initiative and 2 runs rampant.




IME, when players are free to set their own goals in a rich and active environment, those goals quickly expand to the capacity of their resources to achieve them.

It specifically requires a non-reactive environment with an artificially limited number of goals for the PCs to pursue in order for the typical group to habitually elect to perform below capacity. And it's only when the party is performing below capacity that the wizard can dominate every challenge.

This is why it's so trivial to find campaign structures where wizards don't cause problems before 15th level (or even higher). You have to very specifically set out to create a limited number of My Precious Encounters(TM) before the wizard becomes inherently disruptive.


----------



## MrMyth

Jeff Wilder said:


> No. In a system as sprawling as 3.5/PF, there is broken material. There is broken stuff in every class.
> 
> A player who deliberately chooses broken material, to the point where it negatively impacts enjoyment of the game, is a douchebag.
> 
> A GM who allows a novice player to choose broken material, to the point where it negatively impacts enjoyment of the game, needs to improve as a GM (and often, but apparently not always will).




So, just to be clear - in my previously shared anecdote, in which I played a cleric with the Good domain who thus took the spell holy word, that was being a jerk? And the DM was at fault for not specifically forbidding that spell from the game?

Seriously, I think you are going way too far in your expectations for both players and DMs. Are you truly not willing to recognize that (1) players can end up taking these options without realizing their effect, and (2) even once aware of how potent certain abilities are, would find that deliberately setting aside all of their useful powers (or deliberately not using them each day) would disrupt their own enjoyment of the game? 



Jeff Wilder said:


> That some players and GMs are apparently incapable of doing this job is not a reflection of the _system_. If it were, there wouldn't be such a large number of people who use the system just fine.




I still don't get this viewpoint. Some people don't run into these problems and/or are perfectly find expending the effort to develop/implement solutions to them and/or are willing to overlook the problem area due to enjoying other elements of the system. Sure, that's fine. 

But saying that this means that whenever other players _do _run into these issues, it isn't a flaw in the system itself, but instead their own personal failings... that's just... incomprehensible to me. That's the sort of thing edition wars are built on - saying not, "I accept you prefer a different style of system, but I am fine with this one and it works for me," and instead saying, "You don't like my system because _you aren't good enough to use it right_."


----------



## MrMyth

Raven Crowking said:


> Or, at least, IMO and IME. I mean, aren't we having this discussion with the same people who championed the 4e magic system because the wizard was *too weak*? Am I the only one to remember that? Once he ran out of his paltry spell allotment, the was reduced to flinging darts or plinking away with a crossbow? Anyone? Bueller?
> 
> Within that context, this thread feels like: _My hat of d02 wizards know no limit. It is too strong and too weak all at the same time._




Well, I've only been in the conversation here briefly, but I'm not sure I see the two arguments as being actually at odds. Wasn't the usual criticism specifically that balancing a class by making it inferior at level 1, but superior at level 15, being a poor form of design? (At least in the opinion of some gamers). 

Hence... yes, the wizard was too strong and too weak, but not at the same time, but instead at different points over the course of the game. No one was complaining that a 15th level wizard was reduced to flinging darts, as far as I know. 

Now, there has been mention of low-level spells like Color Spray that do quite potent things. But I think that is an issue more of the spells themselves - is it really appropriate that if I take the right Level 1 spell, I might trivialize an encounter... but if I took Magic Missile instead, I instead get one round of being almost as good as the archer is every round?

And, even with the 'best spells', a style of play that involves trivializing one or two encounters a day, but spending the rest of the day firing a crossbow, is not one that some players enjoy. 

Now, much of the above remains personal preference and involves issues that have been no doubt debated to death in many other threads before now. I'm not trying to start up those entire discussions again!

But I do think it a bit simplistic to reduce all of that to simply saying, "Wizards are too weak" or "Wizards are too strong", and then to point at this very different sorts of criticisms without the context to make clear that, yes, both of these are valid concerns for one personto have.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

MrMyth said:


> So, just to be clear - in my previously shared anecdote, in which I played a cleric with the Good domain who thus took the spell holy word, that was being a jerk?



Did you do it intentionally?



> And the DM was at fault for not specifically forbidding that spell from the game?



Uh, yes.  And next time he'll know better.

This is why pre-gen PCs are best created with spells already chosen.



> Seriously, I think you are going way too far in your expectations for both players and DMs.



Well, that explains our differences.  I expect people to play in a way in which the game is fun, and you think that's too much to expect.  Fair enough.



> Are you truly not willing to recognize that (1) players can end up taking these options without realizing their effect, and (2) even once aware of how potent certain abilities are, would find that deliberately setting aside all of their useful powers (or deliberately not using them each day) would disrupt their own enjoyment of the game?



Yes.  A non-douchebag player will quickly realize and correct for something like this.  The douchebag player thinks his enjoyment trumps everybody else's.



> instead saying, "You don't like my system because _you aren't good enough to use it right_."



If the shoe fits.  If it pinches your toes, nobody's forcing you to wear it.

What I'm actually saying is, "If it doesn't work for you as you play it, either change the way you play it, or find a different system."  How in the hell that is the _least_ bit controversial is just mind-boggling.


----------



## MrMyth

Beginning of the End said:


> This is why it's so trivial to find campaign structures where wizards don't cause problems before 15th level (or even higher). You have to very specifically set out to create a limited number of My Precious Encounters(TM) before the wizard becomes inherently disruptive.




Well, I'll say that I've seen campaigns that don't quite fit that sort of structure, in which high level casters still can be problematic. What sort of campaign structures are you envisioning in which the wizard's capabilities at higher levels are not an issue, and why are they immune to the potential problems being presented?


----------



## TwoSix

Raven Crowking said:


> Or, at least, IMO and IME.  I mean, aren't we having this discussion with the same people who championed the 4e magic system because the wizard was *too weak*?  Am I the only one to remember that?  Once he ran out of his paltry spell allotment, the was reduced to flinging darts or plinking away with a crossbow?  Anyone?  Bueller?
> 
> Within that context, this thread feels like:  _My hat of d02 wizards know no limit.  It is too strong and too weak all at the same time._




Sure, but there's no discrepancy or worse, hypocrisy, in those statements.  Wizards are simultaneously too strong at high levels (by virtue of number of spells + scrolls), too strong at low levels (by use of encounter ending spells + cheap scrolls), and too weak/boring at low levels (once your 2-4 spells per day are used, and you don't have an opportunity to make scrolls).

The goal, at least for me, is always the same.  Encounters should be challenging and not boring.  If it isn't a challenge, why bother running it?  Ending a challenge with a spell is boring.  Shooting a crossbow is boring.  I'd rather cast 6 spells in an encounter and help out then cast 1 and win.


----------



## MrMyth

Jeff Wilder said:


> Did you do it intentionally?




I said, "Hey, I've never really tried out the alignment domains, that seems like an interesting option for a high level cleric!" 

I didn't say, "Hey, I bet this spell will completely destroy an encounter, and I want to be the 'winner' of this game."



Jeff Wilder said:


> Uh, yes. And next time he'll know better.
> 
> This is why pre-gen PCs are best created with spells already chosen.




Again, though, this level of system mastery just doesn't seem a reasonable expectation. Wanting a system to not have these 'trap' options - either ones too strong or too weak - seems an entirely legitimate point of view to me. Yes, you have pointed out that no system will be perfect - but that isn't reason to not even try and present a balanced system. 

And how do I - as a player or DM - define the line between 'effective' and 'overwhelming'? Shouldn't I have some guidance in the system to do it for me? Especially because this isn't simply one or two spells that can be problematic. There are quite a few - and more with every supplement released for the system. 

It would seem a reasonable expectation to be able to simply play the game and enjoy the options it presents. Asking for a level beyond that, in which the player and DM need to self-edit to ensure that they choose effective options, but not _too _effective options... I mean, _yes_, it is a solution. But not, to my mind, a reasonable one. 



Jeff Wilder said:


> Well, that explains our differences. I expect people to play in a way in which the game is fun, and you think that's too much to expect. Fair enough.




I think that this conversation has covered a number of useful topics, and I've seen insightful posts from several posters I often disagree with, such as Raven Crowking and BryonD. I'd really rather not see the thread locked, and towards that end, I would appreciate it if you might refrain from comments along these lines, which seem needlessly antagonistic. (Including, perhaps, the depiction of those you are arguing with as 'douchebags'.)

My expectation is that I would like a system which allows a group to play the game as it is written to be played, and expect that to be a fun experience. I think it would be nice if it was simply a trivial matter to find and excise all elements that detract from the experience, but that doing so can, in fact, be quite a bit of work. 



Jeff Wilder said:


> Yes. A non-douchebag player will quickly realize and correct for something like this. The douchebag player thinks his enjoyment trumps everybody else's.




Again, it is the lack of any room in-between that I don't quite get. How many sessions before I realize that my effective spell (Evard's Black Tentacles) is frustrating the fighters who get to watch enemies die helplessly before they reach us. I mean, shouldn't they be happy they aren't going to take any damage?

Or what is the easy option when I realize this sort of thing? Try out some other spells and see if they are less effective, but still effective enough for me to feel like I am contributing? And how many sessions will these issues come up before I find a perfect balance? What about when it happens in a one-shot? Sure, maybe the next time the DM will be prepared. But that doesn't salvage that session, and the fault wasn't with players and DMs who assumed that the options the system was presenting to them were acceptable ones. 



Jeff Wilder said:


> If the shoe fits. If it pinches your toes, nobody's forcing you to wear it.
> 
> What I'm actually saying is, "If it doesn't work for you as you play it, either change the way you play it, or find a different system." How in the hell that is the _least_ bit controversial is just mind-boggling.




Because, often, they might like the system, but object to specific aspects? And discussion and debate over those elements might offer a chance to see improvement in the future and/or find solutions to the overall problem (as they perceive it)?

Basically, some folks have come forward and said, "Hey, we see these flaws in the system, and here are our concerns about them." Others have offered reasons why those flaws can be benefits for them, or discussion on ways to address those flaws or campaign styles in which they may be less of an issue. 

But your statements above come across more as saying, "Here is what you need to do to not have these flaws. And if you can't or won't do that, it is because you either aren't a good enough gamer or are actively a jerk." 

And... yeah, I think people are going to feel that such a statement is controversial.


----------



## Patryn of Elvenshae

And  I can't XP MrMyth.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

MrMyth said:


> that isn't reason to not even try and present a balanced system.



The reason is that what you call "balanced," I call "Harrison Bergeron."  I don't _need_ the "balance" that you apparently need.  The stuff that you consider "unbalanced," I consider a feature of the game that I like.

But you keep insisting that because _you_ need the "balance," I should have to accept it.  I don't.

Instead, I choose to play as someone, and with others, who are smart enough to recognize when they're being abusive (intentionally or usually not), respectful enough to share the knowledge of the abusable rules that may exist, and non-douchey enough not to whine about helping to make the game fun for other people.



> And how do I - as a player or DM - define the line between 'effective' and 'overwhelming'?



Howzabout by, you know, "are people having fun"?  The whole point of this is that you folks keep talking about how the wizard being over-powered ruins your fun.  God forbid you take responsibility for the way you choose to play.



> Shouldn't I have some guidance in the system to do it for me?



If you need it, absolutely.  _We don't_.  (Or, more precisely, the guidance that does exist, coupled with our desire to foster fun, has always been enough for us.)



> Especially because this isn't simply one or two spells that can be problematic. There are quite a few - and more with every supplement released for the system.



Hint: Broken stuff isn't limited to spells.



> It would seem a reasonable expectation to be able to simply play the game and enjoy the options it presents.



Seriously, do you even realize that every time you complain about something it's in the framework of how it impacts how _you_ want to play, with never a mention of anybody else at the table?



> I mean, _yes_, it is a solution. But not, to my mind, a reasonable one.



Well, of course not.  It involves evaluations and attitudes that go beyond, "Hey, what can _I_ do?"



> "Here is what you need to do to not have these flaws. And if you can't or won't do that, it is because you either aren't a good enough gamer or are actively a jerk."
> 
> And... yeah, I think people are going to feel that such a statement is controversial.



And, as I said, that is mind-boggling, even with the spin.  If you're not having fun with System A, you can (a) use a different system, (b) adapt the way you play so you _do_ have fun with the system, or (c) complain about how you're not having fun with the system, and insist on changing it despite the protests of people who are using the system, as intended, just fine.

I personally think (a) and (b) are reasonable.  All I'm seeing from folks in this thread, though, is (c).


----------



## Neonchameleon

Jeff Wilder said:


> No.  In a system as sprawling as 3.5/PF,  there is broken material.  There is broken stuff in every class.




And yet in a system with 30 or so classes and tons of powers, the designers can actually do their job and errata broken stuff.  I pay the designers to give me a good product, not a half broken collection of ideas.  I can come up with ill thought out ideas myself.  If it's _that_ broken then it's not worth paying for.



> A player who deliberately chooses broken material, to the point where it  negatively impacts enjoyment of the game, is a douchebag.




A character who _has_ broken material and does not use it to the point where it severely negatively impacts bad guys is a suicidal idiot.  But because the designers screwed up, you apparently need to look at each spell on a case by case basis and ask "Is this broken?"  



> A GM who allows a novice player to choose broken material, to the point  where it negatively impacts enjoyment of the game, needs to improve as a  GM (and often, but apparently not always will).




Apparently the GM is meant to do the designers' and playtesters' job for them.  Why the hell pay WoTC or Paizo for half finished product?



> The system has flaws and broken bits.  In an ideal world, there would be  none of those.  In a non-ideal world, one of the jobs of the GM and the  players is making choices (and guiding choices) partially for the  enjoyment of others.  This is true no matter what class one is playing.




Take a system like GURPS.  It's dead easy to break if you try.  But you need to be trying.  And that is the difference - in 3e you can easily break the system _accidently_.  More easily than in any other version of D&D.



> That some players and GMs are apparently incapable of doing this job is not a reflection of the _system_.




That GMs and players _need_ to do this job is absolutely a reflection of the system.



> If it were, there wouldn't be such a large number of people who use the system just fine.




Oh, 3.X has a lot of advantages.  Tons of material, a massive embedded player base that have worked off the rough edges _at their table_ (what one table considers fine, another one considers munchkin), excellent production values.  It has many, many advantages - just about everything except the system.

I can tell my players at heroic tier in 4e "Design your own characters and just send me the background" without trouble.  At Paragon I need to give people the once-over.  In GURPS I just need to give the once-over unless we are playing at Supers levels (when I'd use another system...).  Wushu ... isn't a problem.  Dread?  How do you break a Dread character?  Dr Who?  The main thing to resolve is who plays the Time Lord.  Spirit of the Century?  I don't need to worry about things being _broken_.  Cold City?  Likewise.  Paranoia and AD&D I will be suspicious about extremely high rolls (and restrict to something resembling core).  But that's about it.

Yet 3.X I need to go through the character sheets and spell lists looking for an arbitrary and home made definition of broken.  And you claim this _isn't a problem with the system?_  3.X is the 2003-era Microsoft Windows of the roleplaying world.  It has many advantages that make it the dominant OS of the time.  But the programming isn't one of them.



Raven Crowking said:


> Or, at least, IMO and IME.  I mean, aren't we having this discussion with the same people who championed the 4e magic system because the wizard was *too weak*?  Am I the only one to remember that?  Once he ran out of his paltry spell allotment, the was reduced to flinging darts or plinking away with a crossbow?  Anyone?  Bueller?




Oh, ffs.  And I doubt it was me.  But the situation is Linear Fighter, Quadratic Wizard.  The wizard gains in power significantly faster than the fighter.  Saying high level wizards are too strong because they have plot power and ridiculous overkill doesn't mean that level 1 wizards are too weak.  This argument is about high levels, not level 1.  And could you please tell me who claimed that 3.X fighters were _too strong_?

(And for that matter, there's a difference between too weak and feels like a chump.  At Will Ray of Frost feels more wizardly than having to fall back on a crossbow even if the crossbow is stronger).



> Within that context, this thread feels like:  _My hat of d02 wizards know no limit.  It is too strong and too weak all at the same time._




If and only if a wizard is level 1 and level 20 _at the same time_.  



Beginning of the End said:


> You've said this several times now. I suggest you review your DMG. It specifically tells you NOT to run your game around four balanced encounters per day.




It also says it's balanced around that.  Which means it should be able to handle that easily - it can't.  (And IIRC you claim that the modules that came out after that were balanced round it).



> But, yes. Your insistence on running a string of "balanced" My Precious Encounters(TM) is contributing to your problems with wizards. It is the very specific and very narrow style of play I was talking about.




Would you kindly stop running your "My precious encounter model model" in message board threads?  It is a specific, narrow, and irrelevant style of argumentation.



> You say that. But you're the one who keeps insisting on analyzing everything through the context of a single style of play you (erroneously) claim is required by the DMG.




I claim it's suggested.  Because it says it's what the game is balanced round.  And many new DMs are going to be cautious breaking far from basic patterns and for good reasons.  You erroniously claim I claim it's _required_.



> IME, when players are free to set their own goals in a rich and active environment, those goals quickly expand to the capacity of their resources to achieve them.




And the wizard achieves a hell of a lot more than the fighter does.  Possibly the bard achieves more still - unlike the fighter he has both skills _and_ magic.  (The fighter, of course, doesn't have one and doesn't have much of the other).  And can therefore get a lot done.



> It specifically requires a non-reactive environment with an artificially limited number of goals for the PCs to pursue in order for the typical group to habitually elect to perform below capacity. And it's only when the party is performing below capacity that the wizard can dominate every challenge.




Now bring the fighter in please.  What's he got to contribute?  A sword.  he must fight to do something he's better than a commoner at (a commoner gets a better skill list).  Or the Barbarian - better off than the fighter, but not great.  The wizard massively overperforms until you compare him to his high-casting bretheren.  The fighter massively underperforms unless you're running a combat stomp.



> This is why it's so trivial to find campaign structures where wizards don't cause problems before 15th level (or even higher). You have to very specifically set out to create a limited number of My Precious Encounters(TM) before the wizard becomes inherently disruptive.




Once more you are fitting things to the My Precious Encounter Model model.  Break outside your relentless focus on combat and encounters and the wizard can completely change economies with spells like Fabricate or by crafting.  The fighter, in exchange, has a double handful of ranks in Craft (Basketweaving).  (He doesn't even have Profession (Basketweaver) on his skill list).  He can also glower at people threateningly.  Or work in the stables as long as they don't care that he's not a professional.

To sum up, a good DM can make 3.X sing.  Or any other system.  And a lot of people have put a lot of time into doing so.  But it takes a hell of a lot of work to fix the failures of the system.


----------



## LostSoul

I don't think I understand 3.x well enough to come to any conclusions on its balance.  That being said, I have a few questions:



Beginning of the End said:


> IME, when players are free to set their own goals in a rich and active environment, those goals quickly expand to the capacity of their resources to achieve them.




Player skill being equal, don't wizards have more resources to draw on than fighters when trying to achieve their goals, especially in a rich and active environment?  (Quick thought - would this make the fighter _more_ important?  The more the wizard's resources expand the scope of his goals, the more he needs the fighter to back him up.  Does that make sense?)


----------



## Fifth Element

Jeff Wilder said:


> What I'm actually saying is, "If it doesn't work for you as you play it, either change the way you play it, or find a different system."  How in the hell that is the _least_ bit controversial is just mind-boggling.



I'd guess the controversial bit may be the "...and if you have problems with 3E it's just because you play with douchebags" part.


----------



## BryonD

Neonchameleon said:


> Take a system like GURPS.  It's dead easy to break if you try.  But you need to be trying.  And that is the difference - in 3e you can easily break the system _accidently_.  More easily than in any other version of D&D.



I think I agree with this.
There are absolutely burdens and expectations that come with 3E.

The thing is, those burdens bring with it a more rewarding play experience than any other system out there.  If any other game system could reach the standards that 3E has set for what I want out of a game AND be more resilient, then I'm sure I'd be there.

For example, GURPS is good for the more low key stuff.  

But the thing is, I don't see accidental breakage of 3E ever impacting play at the table.  I've never been surprised by the system.  At least, not in so long that I have any memory of it. 

And I think part of that has a lot to do with what defines breaking the system.  Things that can be more challenging to handle, like high level magics in general, can seem broken, but as long as they are doing what they are intended to do, then that is not broken.  If the DM can't handle it the the experience *at that table* will be "broken".  

Its like the guy who misses the target and declares the rifle broken.  The next guy grabs the rifle and nails the bullseye, and you know it wasn't the rifle.

Yeah, 3E doesn't have a safety net.  But it can do awesome when done right.  And it does not require any super tier of DM.  If it did then it would have not been the massive success it was, much less the massive success it continues to be.  It certainly isn't as beginner friendly as 4E marketed itself as being, and apparently truly is.  But unless you are a beginner, who cares?


----------



## Raven Crowking

LostSoul said:


> Player skill being equal, don't wizards have more resources to draw on than fighters when trying to achieve their goals, especially in a rich and active environment?




Not IME or IMHO.  Wizards gain the benefit of a few powerful resources by not having as many good "all the time" resources.  Fighters have better "all the time" resources to draw on.

In a team environment, the fighter will draw upon the wizard's fewer (but powerful) resources in order to meet his goals, just as the wizard will draw upon the fighters "all the time" resources to accomplish hers.

I will agree that 3e makes this more difficult in higher levels than, say, 1e does.  For example, the fighter in 3e needs to plan ahead more to become a mover and shaker in the game world, because he must select feats that increase his temporal power (and therefore limit his personal power), i.e., Leadership, to gain what a 1e fighter gains as a class feature.

The 3e rules for item creation, the implication some gain about what sort of encounters should occur during a game day, and the increase in spells (and the increased difficulty in saving throws) also make spellcasters more powerful than they were in 1e and 2e.

But these increases were, AFAICT, a direct result of complaints that the 1e & 2e wizards were _*too weak*_.  Just as the 4e changes were driven by complaints about the balance changes 3e made, and 5e will no doubt be driven by the complaints about 4e.


RC


----------



## Mort

Raven Crowking said:


> Not IME or IMHO.  Wizards gain the benefit of a few powerful resources by not having as many good "all the time" resources.  Fighters have better "all the time" resources to draw on.
> 
> In a team environment, the fighter will draw upon the wizard's fewer (but powerful) resources in order to meet his goals, just as the wizard will draw upon the fighters "all the time" resources to accomplish hers.
> 
> I will agree that 3e makes this more difficult in higher levels than, say, 1e does.  For example, the fighter in 3e needs to plan ahead more to become a mover and shaker in the game world, because he must select feats that increase his temporal power (and therefore limit his personal power), i.e., Leadership, to gain what a 1e fighter gains as a class feature.
> 
> The 3e rules for item creation, the implication some gain about what sort of encounters should occur during a game day, and the increase in spells (and the increased difficulty in saving throws) also make spellcasters more powerful than they were in 1e and 2e.
> 
> But these increases were, AFAICT, a direct result of complaints that the 1e & 2e wizards were _*too weak*_.  Just as the 4e changes were driven by complaints about the balance changes 3e made, and 5e will no doubt be driven by the complaints about 4e.
> 
> RC




One of the more counterintuitive things about 3e especially with all the talk of how wizards require a higher level of system mastery etc.: IME It is much harder to design an effective mid-high level fighter than to design an effective mid-high level wizard.

Edit: Also as you mentioned your response is more applicable to 1 & 2e over 3e.  By mid-high level 3e play wizards have enormous "staying power" usually more than sufficient to keep up with the fighter. It's one reason if/when I run 3e again I might consider spontaneous casters only as I have not observed the same issues.


----------



## Votan

Raven Crowking said:


> But these increases were, AFAICT, a direct result of complaints that the 1e & 2e wizards were _*too weak*_.  Just as the 4e changes were driven by complaints about the balance changes 3e made, and 5e will no doubt be driven by the complaints about 4e.
> RC




While there may have been complaints about the strength of AD&D wizards (and clerics?), I wonder if they really reflect the reality of the class.  If nothing else, the one place that the class seemed to underperform (very low levels) was where the changes had the least impact (as the extra spells really assisted high level wizards in boosting endurance more than they made a 1st level wizard better able to contribute to a part).


----------



## Neonchameleon

Raven Crowking said:


> Not IME or IMHO.  Wizards gain the benefit of a few powerful resources by not having as many good "all the time" resources.  Fighters have better "all the time" resources to draw on.
> 
> In a team environment, the fighter will draw upon the wizard's fewer (but powerful) resources in order to meet his goals, just as the wizard will draw upon the fighters "all the time" resources to accomplish hers.




_What_ "all the time" resources?  The ability to swing their sword better _in combat_?  Nope, that's an in combat resource.  The extra feats?  Nope.  The fighter's extra feats are specifically combat oriented.  (Actually, that does free up slots for extra non-combat feats)  That leaves ... skills?  For the fighter?  *snicker*

The fighter doesn't have "all the time" resources.  He has "permanent combat" resources.



> I will agree that 3e makes this more difficult in higher levels than, say, 1e does.  For example, the fighter in 3e needs to plan ahead more to become a mover and shaker in the game world, because he must select feats that increase his temporal power (and therefore limit his personal power), i.e., Leadership, to gain what a 1e fighter gains as a class feature.




It's actually far worse than that for two reasons.  1: _Anyone_ can take leadership and it's the most overpowered feat in the game (even for personal power - one feat for a cohort?).  2: _The fighter isn't very good at it_.  No better than anyone else, and fighters have almost no other synergy with charisma, meaning that sorcerors, bards, clerics, paladins, and rogues are all trivialy better off taking it.



> But these increases were, AFAICT, a direct result of complaints that the 1e & 2e wizards were _*too weak*_.  Just as the 4e changes were driven by complaints about the balance changes 3e made, and 5e will no doubt be driven by the complaints about 4e.




The root problem is _Linear Fighter, Quadratic Wizard_.  With a system like that, if the two are balanced at level 1 there is a massive disparity at level 20 and vise-versa.  3e attempted to balance them at low levels - and made the difference _enormous_ at level 20.  In 2e they were probably balanced somewhere between level 7 and 9 - which meant that the fighter was massively stronger at level 1.


----------



## Banshee16

Jeff Wilder said:


> And, once again, we see that the player simply has no choice in the matter.  Because he _must_ pick every broken spell and feat in the game.  It's _imperative_.  Poor player.  Life is hard.




Weird that we had multiple wizards in our game over the 10 years we played 3E, and I rarely saw those spells ever get used.

My players apparently had no idea that they "had no choice in the matter". 

Banshee


----------



## BryonD

Neonchameleon said:


> The root problem is _Linear Fighter, Quadratic Wizard_.



I don't agree that this is a valid assessment.

Yes, the fighter is primarily oriented toward combat.  He is called a "fighter", after all.

But a decade of playing has demonstrated that a fighter can easily hold his own as a valuable player in a campaign.  Comparing them point by point to other classes, wizards in particular, is difficult to do because they are so different.

If you want to say that you can't do it and therefore other games are better for you.  But when you claim that things others routinely do can not be done by anyone, you just sound ill informed.


----------



## LostSoul

Raven Crowking said:


> *In a team environment*, the fighter will draw upon the wizard's fewer (but powerful) resources in order to meet his goals, just as the wizard will draw upon the fighters "all the time" resources to accomplish hers.




Two things:

1. "In a team environment" - I highlighted this because I think there's something about that idea that I'm missing.  I have a gut feeling that this is what keeps the game from becoming unbalanced... but I'm not sure how or why.  ("Balance", to me, means: all players, over the course of the campaign, have regularly-occurring, meaningful choices to make.)

2. Does the wizard really have fewer resources?  He can draw on scrolls and magic items of his own devising, specifically tailored to meet his goals (and add some "just in case" items).  This won't be the case if the wizard has limited GP + Time (system resources the wizard needs to draw on), but a campaign with no downtime + GP seems to be a pretty specific one. 

It's interesting that Time is not really a resource that the Fighter needs to draw on - not past level 2, when Wands of Cure Light Wounds become available.  However, and this might tie into 1. above, Time can be seen as a party resource... This gets me thinking - when Beginning of the End said 'a rich, active environment', was he talking about limiting/putting pressure on Time as a resource?


----------



## Mort

BryonD said:


> I don't agree that this is a valid assessment.
> 
> Yes, the fighter is primarily oriented toward combat.  He is called a "fighter", after all.
> 
> But a decade of playing has demonstrated that a fighter can easily hold his own as a valuable player in a campaign.  Comparing them point by point to other classes, wizards in particular, is difficult to do because they are so different.
> 
> If you want to say that you can't do it and therefore other games are better for you.  But when you claim that things others routinely do can not be done by anyone, you just sound ill informed.




I ran a group from 1st-21+ level and everyone had a blast the whole time (we retired the campaign and moved on but consider doing more epic stuff - though frankly I don't have the time anymore to run epic 3.5 properly). 

But one reason I think everyone had no noticeable problems was because the group played so well together: the casters supplemented the non-casters, the non-casters protected the casters etc. There where no glory hounds or big egos in the bunch. This was because the group treated the game as a cooperative team game (IMO the only way it should be treated barring one shots etc.). 

That's not to say that the actual power levels were anywhere near the same especially out of combat. I just can't see a valid argument that the power levels are "different but equal" as levels increase.

The reason for this is simple, while a high enough level of technology is indistinguishable from magic, the inverse is also true: by mid to high levels the wizard essentially has access to modern or even near star trek levels of tech as a class feature, while the fighter still has the same features he started with - just ramped up a bit (as access to items is equal that part balances out):

When things start (at 1st level) the mage and the fighter are close, with maybe the fighter having an edge b/c higher hitpoints, better to hit and not being dependant on a few shots per day. But as the levels increase, the fighter hits better, hits harder, has more tactical options etc.

The mage, on the other hand, gets more and more access to essentially star trek level technology:

-Need to get the party somewhere fast (really fast)? the fighter can't do it. The mage has several options from fly to teleport and others.

- Need to scout a location but the rogues not there? The fighter likely can't do it. The mage has diviniation that can, prying eyes for example is essentially a modern reconaissance drone! Or the mage can make the fighter invisible to help him out.

- Need to talk to a group encountered on the road but don't know the language? what's the figher going to do? the mage casts comprehend languages or tongues and off you go.

that's a small sample - there are many others.

All of the above btw - can be relegated to scrolls - the mage does not have to worry overmuch about memorizing the spells and wasting precious resources.

The kicker to all of the above: they take 6 seconds and no other real resources (again why I like rituals, they at least require time and money).

All of which is not saying that a well rounded group is not necessary or that a player will have not fun playing a fighter. Since the goal is a cooperative game, all the things the wizards player does can benefit the fighter and everyone shares in the exploration, butt-kicking and other campaign experiences. The fighter in turn can do things to benefit the wizard, but to say the level of resources after mid-level is remotely equal - that's a tough one to swallow.


----------



## BryonD

Mort said:


> I ran a group from 1st-21+ level and everyone had a blast the whole time (we retired the campaign and moved on but consider doing more epic stuff - though frankly I don't have the time anymore to run epic 3.5 properly).
> 
> But one reason I think everyone had no noticeable problems was because the group played so well together: the casters supplemented the non-casters, the non-casters protected the casters etc. There where no glory hounds or big egos in the bunch. This was because the group treated the game as a cooperative team game (IMO the only way it should be treated barring one shots etc.).



Certainly that is a great start.
I don't recall Aragorn ever wishing he was Gandalf.

I don't recall Lancelot wishing he was Merlin.

And I've never had trouble with fighter players wishing they were the wizard player.  As I said way upthread, I've absolutely had times when the wizard dominated the situation.  But I've also had times when the fighter did.





> The fighter in turn can do things to benefit the wizard, but to say the level of resources after mid-level is remotely equal - that's a tough one to swallow.



I didn't say equal.  I specifically said they are so different they can't be compared.  Setting aside magic items, (which clearly are not the point here) fighter characters absolutely have less "star trek" -esque tricks.  Or, better said Wizards have those and fighters do not.

But the fighter's ability to "be cool", "be fun", and contribute to the game experience hangs in there just fine.


----------



## Neonchameleon

BryonD said:


> But a decade of playing has demonstrated that a fighter can easily hold his own as a valuable player in a campaign.  Comparing them point by point to other classes, wizards in particular, is difficult to do because they are so different.




Then possibly you'd care to deal with the clarification of my claim.  _What does a fighter bring to the table out of combat that an equal level commoner with equivalent gear doesn't?_  I am not denying that an additional warm body with the contacts and brain of a PC can be useful.  



BryonD said:


> Certainly that is a great start.
> I don't recall Aragorn ever wishing he was Gandalf.
> 
> I don't recall Lancelot wishing he was Merlin.




Agreed.  I also don't recall either Merlin or Gandalf creating walls of stone out of thin air or using long distance teleports.  Merlin and Gandalf, as I said earlier, were _Bards_.  The Wizards were something else.  The only serious candidate I can think of in Lord of the Rings for the Wizard class is Sauron._  And I can imagine Gandalf _wishing he was a Wizard_._



> And I've never had trouble with fighter players wishing they were the wizard player.  As I said way upthread, I've absolutely had times when the wizard dominated the situation.  But I've also had times when the fighter did.




Would they play a fighter if they did?



> I didn't say equal.  I specifically said they are so different they can't be compared.




And I seriously disagree here.  In situations that don't involve sticking a pointy bit of metal into someone, the _commoner_ is more useful than the fighter except in a drinking or poison swallowing contest.  It has all the non-combat feat allowance, and a better skill list.  The fighter gets nothing else.



> But the fighter's ability to "be cool", "be fun", and contribute to the game experience hangs in there just fine.




Indeed.  Mascot characters can be great fun to play - and even without skills you can roleplay pseudo-diceless.  I just wish that the fighter class was open in saying "This class is weaker than almost all others with the possible exception of the Monk.  And is challenging to build effectively for combat.  If you want a challenge or simply don't care, play a fighter."


----------



## Beginning of the End

Neonchameleon said:


> _You've said this several times now. I suggest you review your DMG. It specifically tells you NOT to run your game around four balanced encounters per day._
> 
> 
> 
> 
> It also says it's balanced around that.
Click to expand...



It says that it's balanced around the thing it specifically tells you NOT to do?

That sounds... highly implausible. I've just skimmed through the Encounters section of the 3.5 DMG again and I'm not seeing anything to back you up on this one.

When you make ridiculous, non-factual claims like this, it makes it very difficult to discuss anything with you.



LostSoul said:


> Player skill being equal, don't wizards have  more resources to draw on than fighters when trying to achieve their  goals, especially in a rich and active environment?




Several points:

(1) The game isn't really designed to handle player-vs-player competition. It's designed for group play with group goals. So it's not really a question of "who's better at achieving their goals"; it's about everyone having a chance to share the spotlight.

(2) Above 15th level, I would tend to agree. Back in OD&D and AD&D1, high-level fighters used to get dozens, hundred, or even thousands of followers. This was a class feature. But whereas the high-level wizard kept his high-level toys; the fighter lost his. It's why I think the game starts to show stress fractures around 12th and starts to break down around 15th.

(3) In general, the attitude from NeonChameleon seems to be, "All the fighter can do is fight!" Well... yeah. It's right there in the name of the class. If that's not what you want to be doing, then you should _play a different class_.

It's like he's got a screwdriver in his hand and he's caterwauling about how awesome nails are and how lousy the screwdriver is at pounding them.

It's obviously true for him. But what he seems to have difficulty understanding is that not everyone shares his particular, narrow tastes.



> (Quick thought -  would this make the fighter _more_ important?  The more the  wizard's resources expand the scope of his goals, the more he needs the  fighter to back him up.  Does that make sense?)




Now you're getting it.


----------



## BryonD

Neonchameleon said:


> Then possibly you'd care to deal with the clarification of my claim.  _What does a fighter bring to the table out of combat that an equal level commoner with equivalent gear doesn't?_  I am not denying that an additional warm body with the contacts and brain of a PC can be useful.



I'll start with a disclaimer that you may simply consider a dodge, but I do not.  In a great game, everyone should have times to shine but there is no need whatsoever for everyone to shine equally at all times.  If you play a fighter and want to be equal to a bard in social events then you are either being foolish, or you are setting up an interesting distinct challenge for your self. 

But, you didn't say "equal to the bard", you just said better than a commoner.
D&D game are generally about conflict.  I think we can agree with that.  And generally, the idea of physical combat is near.  You may be talking with enemies for whom a fight is potentially imminent.  You may be talking with allies about an upcoming fight.  You may be talking with a neutral third party about any variety of issues.  And in any case the fighter brings being a serious force in combat to the non-combat situations.  

But you could further ask about puzzle solving or truly non-combat related conversations.  To that I would say: "the fighter brings nothing the commoner doesn't bring."  Then I would add: "Hurray!".  He is a fighter mixing in a bunch of other crap would be just that: crap.  You want a fighter with a special build, there are a ton of ways to get there in 3E.  

I don't WANT fighters being implicitly good at non-fighting things.  I don't consider arguing that they are not a meaningful point.  

It may be interesting to point out that in the flickering moments between when I first heard that 4E was coming and when I first discovered it was not going to reach my standards, one of the wish list items I threw out was a hope that Wizards would lose their BAB (or whatever equivalent 4E was to have).  I specifically said that commoners, imo, have no implicit reason to improve in combat ability and every class should be commoners, except for where they get better as part of the class concept.  Wizards who want to get better at actual fighting have ways to do that.  Fighters that want to get better at non-fighting have ways to do that.  But the core class concepts are just what they are.  (You can probably imagine my reaction to the "all classes get the same bonus" reality.)



> Agreed.  I also don't recall either Merlin or Gandalf creating walls of stone out of thin air or using long distance teleports.  Merlin and Gandalf, as I said earlier, were _Bards_.  The Wizards were something else.  The only serious candidate I can think of in Lord of the Rings for the Wizard class is Sauron._  And I can imagine Gandalf _wishing he was a Wizard_._



I disagree that you have covered all versions of Merlin that have been generally accepted.  But I could also point to Pug and Thomas, or any vast number of D&D novels which are steadily consumed.  I think you are missing the forest point for the minor details of a few trees.



> And I seriously disagree here.



You disagree that my games exist?    Again, my games demonstrate that you are wrong in declaring these things objectively unequal.



> Indeed.  Mascot characters can be great fun to play - and even without skills you can roleplay pseudo-diceless.  I just wish that the fighter class was open in saying "This class is weaker than almost all others with the possible exception of the Monk.  And is challenging to build effectively for combat.  If you want a challenge or simply don't care, play a fighter."



Well, if "mascot" or your general description apply for you here, then 3E clearly is not the game for you.  

The "pseudo-diceless" point is interesting.  The tone I read into what you say there is negative on this.  And I think this fits in with my disappointment in 4E's attempt to cover everything with +1/2 levels and the such and my earlier comment about 3E not having a safety net.  (And even the whole "board gamey" complaint against 4E, with the whole idea that the answer is in the book and relying on a good DM to interpret and judge gets into this taboo "pseudo" game land.)

Yeah, pseudo diceless happens all the time.  A commoner and a fighter may have exactly the same *game system quantified* skill in Intimidate.  So they have the exact same chance of successfully intimidating an orc.  But if they both threaten the orc with direct physical violence, then I probably won't even let the common roll.  Or, if they are both there and the commoner threatens the orc with violence, from the fighter, then that is just as good.  But the commoner needed the presence of the fighter, so the difference stands.

Maybe to you this an an unacceptable hand wave and a failure of the system.  I've never seen a great roleplaying game that didn't assume that quality GM intervention and quality rules need to meet somewhere and trade back and forth.  Circumstantial bonuses and deciding what rules are even allowed in the first place is a huge part of it.

And really, to roll that all up, I believe my system allows me to have my cake and eat it to.  The raw skills of the default fighter are basically the same as the raw skills of the commoner and that is great.  And the fighter has a consistent and fun impact on non-combat situations, and that is great.


----------



## Votan

Beginning of the End said:


> Above 15th level, I would tend to agree. Back in OD&D and AD&D1, high-level fighters used to get dozens, hundred, or even thousands of followers. This was a class feature. But whereas the high-level wizard kept his high-level toys; the fighter lost his. It's why I think the game starts to show stress fractures around 12th and starts to break down around 15th.




I also think some of the balancing factors of the wizard (in terms of risk) were removed.  My favorite example is teleport, all versions of which have a chance of instant death in the AD&D PHB (and contemporary systems like Rolemaster).  Memorizing a spell with a (albeit small) chance of instant death makes the decision to avoid obstacles a real dilemma.  Do it often enough and you'll end up dead.  And even having the option (as a quick escape) eats up resources.

This makes the spell good for last minutes escapes from hopeless battles more than anything else.

By 3E, there are a lot more spell slots (due to bonus high level spells due to intelligence and , possibly specialization), routinely available low cost scrolls, wealth per level guidelines to make sure said scrolls are plentiful and a risk or damage (as opposed to instant death) or, with a higher level spell, no risk at all.  

On the other hand, having a small army and a fortress (and the political contacts that come with it) would give a high level fighter some serious out of combat muscle.  This was even more true in AD&D where there was no particular reason fighters would be bad at diplomacy (for example).  So the fighter got to be King Arthur while the wizard was Merlin.  

I think noting these changes points to a lot of my issues with 3E and power balance.  I do not believe that, in 1E AD&D using the PHB, DMG, MM as sources, that there is a serious class balance issue (except possibly at very low levels where small tweaks are possible).


----------



## Votan

BryonD said:


> I disagree that you have covered all versions of Merlin that have been generally accepted.  But I could also point to Pug and Thomas, or any vast number of D&D novels which are steadily consumed.  I think you are missing the forest point for the minor details of a few trees.




I seem to remember Thomas, the fighter, being bonded to a demigod and able to do significant magic (like using illusion on some sort of undead creature).  If high level D&D fighters could do the same tricks than I would be forced to agree with you.


----------



## BryonD

Actually, unless my memory has completely failed me (which is possible, it has been some years since I read it) I'm pretty certain it was Thomas who played the part in that scene, but it was Pug who provided the illusion.

Certainly over the series of books Thomas was "the fighter" and did a lot of ass kicking while Pug was "the wizard".

But, whatever, I still know that it CAN be done, because it has been done over and over at tables I've been at.

The fact the you are nit picking a stray example, the point of which really was that it ISN'T about the stray examples, says more than your rebuttal does.


----------



## Hussar

Raven Crowking said:


> Not IME or IMHO.  Wizards gain the benefit of a few powerful resources by not having as many good "all the time" resources.  Fighters have better "all the time" resources to draw on.
> 
> In a team environment, the fighter will draw upon the wizard's fewer (but powerful) resources in order to meet his goals, just as the wizard will draw upon the fighters "all the time" resources to accomplish hers.
> 
> I will agree that 3e makes this more difficult in higher levels than, say, 1e does.  For example, the fighter in 3e needs to plan ahead more to become a mover and shaker in the game world, because he must select feats that increase his temporal power (and therefore limit his personal power), i.e., Leadership, to gain what a 1e fighter gains as a class feature.
> 
> The 3e rules for item creation, the implication some gain about what sort of encounters should occur during a game day, and the increase in spells (and the increased difficulty in saving throws) also make spellcasters more powerful than they were in 1e and 2e.
> 
> But these increases were, AFAICT, a direct result of complaints that the 1e & 2e wizards were _*too weak*_.  Just as the 4e changes were driven by complaints about the balance changes 3e made, and 5e will no doubt be driven by the complaints about 4e.
> 
> 
> RC




One other issue that made fighters (and fighter types) considerably weaker was the massive boost that the baddies got to hit points and defenses.  

In AD&D, your mid to high level fighter could drop that monster in a round or two because it only had 40 hit points (up to about a max of 100 for any non-unique creature).  So, even if the wizard was blowing up the odd encounter, the fighter types could still shine quite well by turning some poor giant into a fine red mist with a couple of well placed hits.

I do recall, back in the day though, that there was considerable concern over the power of casters at higher levels.  But, it generally wasn't an issue because so few campaigns actually played those levels.  You didn't have that many campaigns where people played 15th level wizards or clerics. 

3e did change that signficantly with the presumption that a campaign actually should be played at those levels instead of simply putting your characters off to pasture once they hit double digit levels.  Which, in turn, really highlights where the problematic spells and whatnot came in - many of them were holdover spells from earlier editions which didn't see play back in the day but started to see a lot more daylight in 3e.

-------------------

I have a question though.  Why does a caster player have to be handicapped?  Jeff Wilder has repeatedly claimed that the issue isn't with the system, but rather with players abusing hte system and that if a spell or effect is too disruptive at the table, the players should be self-policing.

I believe an earlier example was that if I see the rogue player pumping up his open locks, I should hold off on that wand of knock.

Why?  Actually, two why's.  First Why is why should I have to deliberately choose options that are weaker?  Wouldn't it make more sense to remove those options in the first place?  Secondly, why does playing the caster mean I have to play pity party for Bob sitting next to me?  "Oh, gee Bob, I guess I should let you play your character, I won't buy that wand of knock."

If I was Bob, I'd be pretty annoyed.  I get to play my character because the caster player condescends to let me play it?  Gee thanks.

Again, I'd much rather simply change the system so that the caster character doesn't step on my toes.


----------



## Mort

BryonD said:


> Actually, unless my memory has completely failed me (which is possible, it has been some years since I read it) I'm pretty certain it was Thomas who played the part in that scene, but it was Pug who provided the illusion.




It certainly does not read that way. It seems to be all Thomas.



BryonD said:


> Certainly over the series of books Thomas was "the fighter" and did a lot of ass kicking while Pug was "the wizard".




If you want to continue calling a near godlike being with access to ridiculous powers a fighter then go ahead.



BryonD said:


> But, whatever, I still know that it CAN be done, because it has been done over and over at tables I've been at.




What's been done exactly? You are being extraordinarily vague. Noone is arguing the players of the fighter cannot and do not contribute. I don't believe anyone is arguing (and I'm certainly not) that the communal play experience cannot be loads of fun, for everyone including the fighter players. What's being argued, is that at mid+ levels the  power differential, by any measure, is enormous and gets bigger as levels increase. Not different but equal, as you seem to be arguing.



BryonD said:


> The fact the you are nit picking a stray example, the point of which really was that it ISN'T about the stray examples, says more than your rebuttal does.




He's just pointing out that your "stray example" of a straight fighter was anything but.


----------



## pawsplay

LostSoul said:


> Two things:
> 
> 1. "In a team environment" - I highlighted this because I think there's something about that idea that I'm missing.  I have a gut feeling that this is what keeps the game from becoming unbalanced... but I'm not sure how or why.  ("Balance", to me, means: all players, over the course of the campaign, have regularly-occurring, meaningful choices to make.)




Much has been made of the wizard's great powers. However, wizards have significant vulnerabilities. Sometime's the wizard's best move is casting D-door to escape from a grapple. Sometimes wizards get taken down by large damage.

As powerful as a druid's pet or a wizard's summon may be, a fighter is even more powerful. As powerful as a self-buffing cleric is, a fighter buffed by the cleric is even more powerful. 

In order to shine, both the fighter and wizard need support of other players. However, since's the fighter's contributions are often almost automatic (just having more hit points and being in front is a good start) it is a little easier for the wizard to purposefully steal the spotlight. And yet there are games where the fighter is the spotlight stealer, monopolizing the caster's powers in order to receive powerful buffs, then delivering the big hits. 

3e has shifted things slightly toward casters (clerics with full casting, wizards with easy access to scroll) yet the fighter remains viable. The problem is not raw power, but what in Shadowrun is called the "decker problem." The decker is basically a computer hacker, and while he is doing his thing, it's possible other characters may be left "standing guard." The wizard's ready access to knock, dispel magic, and fly mean that adventures can, and therefore do, make use of obstacles such as difficult to open doors (which only a wizard or a concentrated rogue is likely to be able to handle), magical traps and barriers, trange monsters, and physical chasms and other barriers. If the wizard weren't there, the fighter would just do something different, but since they are there, the fighter "stands guard" while the wizard casts a spell. While almost all characters have something to do, most turns, in most fights, not everyone is equipped for specialized obstacles. 

OTOH, give the fighter the Leadership feat and an adamantine mace, and he becomes an effective problem-solver, too, in the wizard mode. Now, when the party comes upon a locked door, the party "stands guard" while the fighter smashes it to pieces, and when they need to sneak past enemies, his sorcerer cohort casts invisibility.



> 2. Does the wizard really have fewer resources?  He can draw on scrolls and magic items of his own devising, specifically tailored to meet his goals (and add some "just in case" items).  This won't be the case if the wizard has limited GP + Time (system resources the wizard needs to draw on), but a campaign with no downtime + GP seems to be a pretty specific one.




Short answer, yes. Even stacks of 1st level scrolls are a significant expense until very high levels.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:


> One other issue that made fighters (and fighter types) considerably weaker was the massive boost that the baddies got to hit points and defenses.




Absolutely.

And it had a real secondary effect in making combats last longer than necessary, IMHO.  3e is not my "perfect system"!



> I have a question though.  Why does a caster player have to be handicapped?  Jeff Wilder has repeatedly claimed that the issue isn't with the system, but rather with players abusing hte system and that if a spell or effect is too disruptive at the table, the players should be self-policing.




I don't endorse that viewpoint.



> Why?  Actually, two why's.  First Why is why should I have to deliberately choose options that are weaker?  Wouldn't it make more sense to remove those options in the first place?




1.  You should not have to.
2.  Yes.  BUT (a) not everyone experienced those problems where (1) is concerned, and (b) there are many ways of doing this; the 4e way is not objectively better than the 1e way.  I prefer the 1e way, myself.



> Secondly, why does playing the caster mean I have to play pity party for Bob sitting next to me?




You should not have to.

If the interaction between your playstyle and a ruleset creates these problems, pick (or create) a different ruleset!



RC


----------



## BryonD

Mort said:


> It certainly does not read that way. It seems to be all Thomas.



Again, it is been a long time since I read it.  But on center stage it is "all Thomas" doing the acting, because Pug is on the sideline doing the magic part.



> If you want to continue calling a near godlike being with access to ridiculous powers a fighter then go ahead.



Near godlike at kicking ass.  There are times when Conan's asskicking becomes every bit as massive as Hercules or Thor in their various, and be design "godlike" but still Fighter abilities.  I think a very high level fighter could easily be role played as Thomas.



> What's been done exactly? You are being extraordinarily vague. Noone is arguing the players of the fighter cannot and do not contribute. I don't believe anyone is arguing (and I'm certainly not) that the communal play experience cannot be loads of fun, for everyone including the fighter players. What's being argued, is that at mid+ levels the  power differential, by any measure, is enormous and gets bigger as levels increase. Not different but equal, as you seem to be arguing.



That is double talk.

If the power level of the wizard dwarfs the power level of the fighter, then the fighter will no longer be able to contribute.  And frankly, if we all agree that the fighter can contribute, then what is the point of the conversation?

The wizard has a wide range of flashy powers.  No doubt.  I agree with the "star trek" point.  But the fighter can and does carry his weight in equal proportions.



> He's just pointing out that your "stray example" of a straight fighter was anything but.



I still say he is wrong and, far more importantly, if both of you now are stuck trying to fixate on the nit pick as a means of ignoring everything else I said, then that is the real answer.


----------



## Mort

BryonD said:


> Again, it is been a long time since I read it.  But on center stage it is "all Thomas" doing the acting, because Pug is on the sideline doing the magic part.
> 
> Near godlike at kicking ass.  There are times when Conan's asskicking becomes every bit as massive as Hercules or Thor in their various, and be design "godlike" but still Fighter abilities.  I think a very high level fighter could easily be role played as Thomas.




I've just been reading _The Hour of the Dragon_ and have an interesting take on your Conan example - but you'd just say I'm nitpicking, so what's the point?




BryonD said:


> That is double talk.
> 
> If the power level of the wizard dwarfs the power level of the fighter, then the fighter will no longer be able to contribute.  And frankly, if we all agree that the fighter can contribute, then what is the point of the conversation?
> 
> The wizard has a wide range of flashy powers.  No doubt.  I agree with the "star trek" point.  But the fighter can and does carry his weight in equal proportions.




What double talk? My position is absolutely clear. The mechanics of the system give the wizard more options and allow the wizard more power (in or out of combat) than the fighter. The wizard in 3e is mechanically more powerful at mid-high levels than the fighter and impacts on the fighter's ability to contribute from a strictly mechanical sense (Another way to say this is, the player's contribution is limited because of the limits on the character). This is a bigger power differential than it was in either 1e or 2e (and obviously 4e). There have been mutiple examples provided both in this thread and others along with many suggestions on how to equalize things from a mechanical point of view.

 Take Conan for example (ok so I'm sneaking it in anyway), settting aside the fact that in Conan the wizards are plot devices, from a game point of view - the universe seems to favor "action and bold deeds" over wizardry. This can easily be modeled by giving fighters fate points or somesuch (Conan seems to use lots of them - he is always barely surviving fatal injury, or just happens to find himself in the exact place or with the exact item he needs, things just seem to go his way - after the universe has had its fun with him of course) while wizards have none and make do with their spells etc.

 I have had and have fun playing 3e but I'm not simply going to turn a blind eye to the issue.



BryonD said:


> I still say he is wrong and, far more importantly, if both of you now are stuck trying to fixate on the nit pick as a means of ignoring everything else I said, then that is the real answer.




I am not picking nits, you are fixating on a nit and refusing to answer anything on the actual issue other than vague generalities.


----------



## Votan

BryonD said:


> Again, it is been a long time since I read it.  But on center stage it is "all Thomas" doing the acting, because Pug is on the sideline doing the magic part.
> 
> I still say he is wrong and, far more importantly, if both of you now are stuck trying to fixate on the nit pick as a means of ignoring everything else I said, then that is the real answer.




I removed the middle because I want to focus on the example for a moment (not to nit pick but because I think Pug and Tomas is a very good example).  Tomas merges with a mythical being (the greatest of the Valheru, Ashen-Shugar) and even the language of the Valheru is a domination effect.  

This is very different than a simple man at arms who happens to be very powerful and it makes him an excellent compliment to Pug (who makes a very powerful archmage).  If Fighters or Barbarians gained these types of supernatural powers at high levels then they'd be a very good match for the Wizards and Clerics.  

One of the things that I found frustrating in 3E was that the Fighter ended up with very weak social skills (in contrast with an AD&d fighter where this was not necessarily true).  

Consider Diplomacy and Sense Motive.  A 15th level Fighter who does not purchase cross class skills will have somewhere between -1 and +2 in these skills (plus any cross class ranks).  Her will save is base +5 (making her susceptible to domination effects).  

Best case, imagine a fighter who commits one skill point per level to either diplomacy or sense motive.  One would expect between a +4 and +7 bonus in these skills.  

A cleric has these as class skills and is likely to have a high wisdom modifier (maybe +6 at that level).  So Sense Motive might easily reach +24 and Diplomacy (with an 8 CHA) could easily be + 17.  Will Save is around +9 (with another +6 for wisdom) making her much harder to dominate.  

A DC 20 skill challenge (Diplomacy or Sense Motive) would be easily for the diplomatic cleric and nearly impossible for most fighters.  Consider the simple ability to detect if somebody is dominated (critical for a leader).  The cleric will nearly always succeed (if not always with a DC25 check to sense enchantment) whereas few fighters have a chance.  

So, ironically, the fighter no longer makes great sense as a leader of men in 3E (lacking many of the basic skills).  Rogues, Bards and Clerics do much better in this (classically fighter based) role, the later two of which are much harder to control by an evil doer.  And they are better judges of character and so forth.  

Tomas, or King Arthur or Conan, as literary examples are quite capable of judging people, leading men or resisting mind affecting magic.  I was concerned that the 3E fighter did these roles poorly.


----------



## Mort

Votan said:


> I removed the middle because I want to focus on the example for a moment (not to nit pick but because I think Pug and Tomas is a very good example).  Tomas merges with a mythical being (the greatest of the Valheru, Ashen-Shugar) and even the language of the Valheru is a domination effect.
> 
> This is very different than a simple man at arms who happens to be very powerful and it makes him an excellent compliment to Pug (who makes a very powerful archmage).  If Fighters or Barbarians gained these types of supernatural powers at high levels then they'd be a very good match for the Wizards and Clerics.
> 
> One of the things that I found frustrating in 3E was that the Fighter ended up with very weak social skills (in contrast with an AD&d fighter where this was not necessarily true).
> 
> Consider Diplomacy and Sense Motive.  A 15th level Fighter who does not purchase cross class skills will have somewhere between -1 and +2 in these skills (plus any cross class ranks).  Her will save is base +5 (making her susceptible to domination effects).
> 
> Best case, imagine a fighter who commits one skill point per level to either diplomacy or sense motive.  One would expect between a +4 and +7 bonus in these skills.
> 
> A cleric has these as class skills and is likely to have a high wisdom modifier (maybe +6 at that level).  So Sense Motive might easily reach +24 and Diplomacy (with an 8 CHA) could easily be + 17.  Will Save is around +9 (with another +6 for wisdom) making her much harder to dominate.
> 
> A DC 20 skill challenge (Diplomacy or Sense Motive) would be easily for the diplomatic cleric and nearly impossible for most fighters.  Consider the simple ability to detect if somebody is dominated (critical for a leader).  The cleric will nearly always succeed (if not always with a DC25 check to sense enchantment) whereas few fighters have a chance.
> 
> So, ironically, the fighter no longer makes great sense as a leader of men in 3E (lacking many of the basic skills).  Rogues, Bards and Clerics do much better in this (classically fighter based) role, the later two of which are much harder to control by an evil doer.  And they are better judges of character and so forth.
> 
> Tomas, or King Arthur or Conan, as literary examples are quite capable of judging people, leading men or resisting mind affecting magic.  I was concerned that the 3E fighter did these roles poorly.




In _ The Hour of the Dragon_ Conan winds up on a ship. He needs it to go where he wants, so within minutes he incites a revolt, takes control of the ship and goes on his merry way. The bard, and (of course) the wizard have means to do this outside of combat easily. The fighter has no such means, even though he really should be the leader of men (or at least have the potential). And lets not bring in, roleplaying and player skill as these are, obviously, not exclusive to any class.


----------



## Umbran

Mort said:


> The bard, and (of course) the wizard have means to do this outside of combat easily. The fighter has no such means, even though he really should be the leader of men (or at least have the potential).




Yeah, well, there's a strong argument that Conan's a big old Mary Sue, so maybe expecting a game that's supposed to have some niche protection built into it to perfectly represent him with a single class is not reasonable.

Or, maybe Conan's got some bard levels in there.

More importantly - any character could try to talk others into revolting with him.  The Bard will probably be better at it, as he's probably put more points into his Charisma and relevant skills, but a fighter should most certainly have a chance.

If that's not sufficient, each character has a chance of getting his or her way _by using his or her shtick_.  Last I checked, the class name was "fighter", not "shmoozer", and his shtick involves fighting.  Funny thing, that.


----------



## Mort

Umbran said:


> Yeah, well, there's a strong argument that Conan's a big old Mary Sue, so maybe expecting a game that's supposed to have some niche protection built into it to perfectly represent him with a single class is not reasonable.
> 
> Or, maybe Conan's got some bard levels in there.
> 
> More importantly - any character could try to talk others into revolting with him.  The Bard will probably be better at it, as he's probably put more points into his Charisma and relevant skills, but a fighter should most certainly have a chance.
> 
> If that's not sufficient, each character has a chance of getting his or her way _by using his or her shtick_.  Last I checked, the class name was "fighter", not "shmoozer", and his shtick involves fighting.  Funny thing, that.




Being a leader of men is not the same as a shmoozer - there's a pretty good tradition of it in the literature - and I was just putting the Conan example in more context. The point is, of the classes mentioned, the fighter is the least equiped to sway fighting men to his cause - there's something wrong with that.

As for the fighter being good at fighting -well ok, but the wizard's schtick is also good in a fight, as good as the fighters, and it's also good outside, far superior to the fighters - I think this argument falls short.


----------



## Votan

Umbran said:


> Yeah, well, there's a strong argument that Conan's a big old Mary Sue, so maybe expecting a game that's supposed to have some niche protection built into it to perfectly represent him with a single class is not reasonable.
> 
> Or, maybe Conan's got some bard levels in there.
> 
> More importantly - any character could try to talk others into revolting with him.  The Bard will probably be better at it, as he's probably put more points into his Charisma and relevant skills, but a fighter should most certainly have a chance.
> 
> If that's not sufficient, each character has a chance of getting his or her way _by using his or her shtick_.  Last I checked, the class name was "fighter", not "shmoozer", and his shtick involves fighting.  Funny thing, that.




Fair enough.  But leading soldiers seems to be related to fighting in a very direct way.  In 3E terms, it is odd to model Genghis Khan or Alexander the Great as Fighter/Bard multi-class characters.  Okay, neither really exist in a fantasy world . . . but the idea that a soldier might be good at leading armies or squads of mercenaries isn't a huge stretch.  

It's also a very edition specific concern, go be fair.  In AD&D the fighter naturally acquired men at arms who were loyal followers as a class feature.  In 4E the leader of men niche is more warlord than Fighter but the skill and feat structure don't handicap the Fighter as much.  

In war of the spider queen (books based on 3E), the subversives in the Drow city were delighted at how easy it was to dominate senior soldiers (due to the known weak will of fighters).  The logical conclusion of this is that soldiers would never be placed in charge of anything - - - which would be a major change in the socio-political structure of many game worlds.  Oddly, clerics turn out to be the best class for commanding troops, or maybe a druid or bard.  A wizard would be weak at it but would be hard to dominate and could make a critical roll (with Moment of Prescience, perhaps the worst thought out spell in 3E).


----------



## GSHamster

Just going to back to combat mechanics, I wonder if the structure of the game as turn-based combat contributes to the disparity.

For example, imagine the game with the following changes:

1. No shift/5 foot step.
2. Casting a spell is a full-round action.
3. Anyone next to a casting character gets to make an attack roll that interrupts the cast if successful.

That right there would make casting a lot harder once the melee closes in.


----------



## Votan

GSHamster said:


> Just going to back to combat mechanics, I wonder if the structure of the game as turn-based combat contributes to the disparity.
> 
> For example, imagine the game with the following changes:
> 
> 1. No shift/5 foot step.
> 2. Casting a spell is a full-round action.
> 3. Anyone next to a casting character gets to make an attack roll that interrupts the cast if successful.
> 
> That right there would make casting a lot harder once the melee closes in.




That is very close to AD&D (where casting a spell in melee was for the brave or the reckless).  In low levels, this really hurts the wizard but it helps preserve the role of the fighter even at the highest levels.


----------



## pawsplay

As far as 3e goes, a fighter can be a competent leader of men. With Leadership, Negotiator, and some cross-class skills, he can meet and beat routine DCs. Smart fighters, anyway, or at least, human ones. However, he is clearly far behind the bard or Cleric in such things, which is not ideal. It is true that in AD&D, the fighter attracted loyal fighting men in a way in which other classes simply could not. Fighters were imbedded in the social order, while wizards and thieves stood apart, and clerics had the loyalty of religious flocks rather than states. 

Fantasy Craft handles this pretty well. First of all, their version of the fighter, the Soldier, gets medium Fort and high Will, making him a good bit pluckier. Further, they have two leader-type classes, Captain, and Noble, which could be used either as a foundation to, or an addition to, Soldier levels. Lastly, there are origin options and feats that can make people skills more accessible to the fighter. Additionally, Holdings and Contacts can bind impressed armsmen to the fighter, even if he's not much of a "people person" in general.

Pathfinder, despite some fairly minor changes, does much better than 3.5 for the landed fighter! Cross-class skills mean nothing more than losing a +3 bonus to the skill, and feats such as Skill Focus and Negotiator offer some scaling benefits.


----------



## Umbran

Mort said:


> The point is, of the classes mentioned, the fighter is the least equiped to sway fighting men to his cause - there's something wrong with that.






Votan said:


> Fair enough.  But leading soldiers seems to be related to fighting in a very direct way.




I am not at all sure that the ability to swing a sword well is particularly related to the ability to lead men in battle.  Sure, being a good fighter will earn you some respect from other warriors, but beyond that, the skills are not particularly related.  In the real world, the tactical knowhow and the charisma are not borne of being good at wielding a weapon, are they?

Sure, genre fiction has many characters who are good at fighting and also at leading men.  But why do you want to insist that these individuals need to be represented with single-classed fighters in the game? 

In a game without classes, if you want to be good at leading, you have to spend your points on something other than the mechanics of fighting.  Why should D&D be any different?


----------



## Votan

Umbran said:


> I am not at all sure that the ability to swing a sword well is particularly related to the ability to lead men in battle.  Sure, being a good fighter will earn you some respect from other warriors, but beyond that, the skills are not particularly related.  In the real world, the tactical knowhow and the charisma are not borne of being good at wielding a weapon, are they?
> 
> Sure, genre fiction has many characters who are good at fighting and also at leading men.  But why do you want to insist that these individuals need to be represented with single-classed fighters in the game?
> 
> In a game without classes, if you want to be good at leading, you have to spend your points on something other than the mechanics of fighting.  Why should D&D be any different?




This is a good point.

But I think genre fiction is a good place to look for ways that these classes can be balanced with the game world.  I think that the general sense I get is that the fighter has a very sparse set of out of combat options but doesn't dominate in combat.  Ending up as rulers or leaders is a nice way to bring this balance back (and was the classic AD&D approach).  

In a sense, does the class model martial artist (obsessive focus on fighting) or soldier (where leadership and tactics would be part of the training).  Given the monk, I usually assumed the latter (but valid alternate interpretations of the class exist).  My personal break point was in that set of FR novels where they made the weak will save of high levels fighters a plot point (which seemed to just break with historical archetypes).  

That being said, I think the fighter (and Barbarian, to a lesser extent) is a uniquely weak element of high level 3.X D&D.  The class works fine, even at high levels, in 1E, 2E and 4E.  More interestingly, 1/2E and 4E each solve this issue in very different (and equally valid) ways.


----------



## Ultimatecalibur

Looking back at things the Fighter/Fighting-Man lost a lot of power in the transition from 2e to 3.x. 

_Warning the following data is from memory_

In 2e the best AC was -10 and primarily the domain of rare/unique creatures such as the Tarrasque or Fighters outfitted in +5 Full plate and +5 Shields. non-magical Full Plate with Shield was AC 0.

A Fighter had a starting Thac0 of 20 that decreased by 1 per level and gained .5 attacks per round every 6 levels that used the Fighters full attack bonus. Specialization in a melee weapon granted +1 to hit, +2 damage and .5 attacks.

At level 10 a Fighter with a Str of 9 (minimum Fighter strength; no penalty) had a Thac0 of 11 that allowed him to hit an opponent in non-magical Full Plate and Shield with a random non-magical weapon 50% of the time with 3 attacks every 2 rounds. Equipped with a +3 weapon that he is specialized in and a Belt of Hill Giant Strength (set Str to 19) the same Fighter would have an effective Thac0 of 4 and could hit AC -10 30% of the time with 2 attacks per round dealing a minimum of 12 damage per hit. Considering that creature hp rarely went over 100 that is a lot of damage.

I don't have an "average" 3.x Fighter build on hand, but I think that the 3.x Fighter ends up relatively weaker even with all the customization.


----------



## pawsplay

Umbran said:


> I am not at all sure that the ability to swing a sword well is particularly related to the ability to lead men in battle.  Sure, being a good fighter will earn you some respect from other warriors, but beyond that, the skills are not particularly related.  In the real world, the tactical knowhow and the charisma are not borne of being good at wielding a weapon, are they?




Charisma may be less important than demonstrated courage and ability. Fighting men want someone they can stand beside... perhaps even behind.  Charisma may be useful for leading armies and founding dynasties, not so much for convincing someone to follow you into the south of France. 

Tactical knowhow *is* related to being able to swing a sword well. If you don't have both tactics and physical ability, you are not going to survive to 3rd level. 

Being a general officer is a different skill from being a fencer, but being a fighter isn't a different skill from either; it encompasses and requires both. Musashi was renowned, not because he was Mr. Popular, but because if you were on his side, you won and lived, and if you were on the other side, you lost and died.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

pawsplay said:


> Charisma may be less important than demonstrated courage and ability.



Completely as an aside, I wouldn't have minded Pathfinder giving fighters a class ability granting +1/level on Charisma checks or Charisma-based skill checks related directly to combat or war.

You'd have someone bitching that "I don't want my fighter to be a charismatic leader," but the "surly warrior that says nothing but still influences the rank-and-file" is common enough that they could live with it.


----------



## Mort

Jeff Wilder said:


> Completely as an aside, I wouldn't have minded Pathfinder giving fighters a class ability granting +1/level on Charisma checks or Charisma-based skill checks related directly to combat or war.
> 
> You'd have someone bitching that "I don't want my fighter to be a charismatic leader," but the "surly warrior that says nothing but still influences the rank-and-file" is common enough that they could live with it.




That or give some options:

bonus to war related charisma checks (as you said) or
bonus to war related skills (constructing siege engines etc.) or
bonus to strategy related skills. etc.

or

Frankly, giving a bonus to all of those wouldn't unbalance things.


----------



## JamesonCourage

For anybody interested in houseruling in some Fighter changes to make them better leaders (more like OD&D, it looks like), you can make the following changes. It's purely optional, of course. I use some of the following rules in my homebrewed RPG, and I'll list some uses of the Leadership skill that will work alright in a 3.X game (which means leaving out the Mass Combat stuff, as all of that is specific to my RPG, as well as the uses that apply in a party setting).


The first is the Leadership skill. When it mentions Diplomacy, it's talking about a modified version of Giant In the Playground Games but that skill as written will work decently.



> *Leadership*
> 
> *Win Over Crowd*
> You can attempt to win over a crowd that has no allegiance to you. This usually involves a speech, which can take quite anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour. You may make a Leadership check against a crowd that is not already under your leadership. The DC is 15 + the average hit die of the crowd + the average Wisdom modifier of the crowd. If successful, they are considered 1 step more favorable on the Risk vs. Reward chart in Diplomacy for the encounter. This only applies to your next Diplomacy check, and only if you make the Diplomacy check to the crowd during or at the end of the speech.
> 
> *Rally Followers*
> You can attempt to improve the way you are perceived by a crowd that has some allegiance to you. This usually involves a speech, which can take quite anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour. You may make a Leadership check against a crowd that is already under your leadership. The DC is 15 + the average hit die of the crowd + the average Wisdom modifier of the crowd. If successful, they are considered 1 step more favorable on the Relationship chart in Diplomacy for the encounter. This only applies to your next Diplomacy check, and only if you make the Diplomacy check to the crowd during or at the end of the speech.




I have a Tactics skill as well, but it has 3 uses for Mass Combat and 3 uses for a party-like scenario. Leadership has 2 uses for Mass Combat, as well as 1 use for a party-like scenario.

I'd suggest just adding Leadership and Diplomacy as a class skill for Fighters (or Barbarians, or whoever you feel is appropriate). Give them class abilities at whatever levels feel right:

	Level 5: If you have 8 ranks in Leadership, you gain a bonus on Will saving throws against effects that would effect your mind while in battle equal to your class level.
	Level 8: If you have 11 ranks in Leadership, you gain the effects of the Leadership feat, as well as a bonus on it equal to ½ your class level.
	Level 11: If you have 14 ranks in Leadership, you gain a bonus to Leadership skill checks to Rally Followers equal to ½ your class level.
	Level 14: If you have 17 ranks in Leadership, you gain a bonus to Leadership skill checks to  Win Over Crowds equal to ½ your class level.
	Level 17: If you have 20 ranks in Leadership, when using the Rally Crowd use, your followers are considered two steps in favor of you if you are successful on your Diplomacy check, rather than one step.
	Level 20: If you have 23 ranks in Leadership, when using the Win Over Crowd use, the crowd  is considered two steps in favor of you if you are successful on your Diplomacy check, rather than one step.

Is this a lot for free, just by investing in one skill? It sure is. It's nothing but a narrative power boost for Fighters. In the last 3.x game I ran, I had a cleric, a sorcerer, and a fighter, and none of them seemed to constantly outshine the rest of the party (in fact, while the players loved their characters, they were jealous of how the others could do certain things they couldn't, usually about an even amount of the time).

Just throwing those two uses out there for people, if they like them. My RPG runs classless, and I don't have to worry about a lot of stuff, but if it's narrative control that people are after, then the Leadership skill might at least go one step towards fixing it. You can only give it to Fighters, and you can make it Trained Only if you felt it fit better.

Because, in the end, play what you like


----------



## Neonchameleon

Beginning of the End said:


> It says that it's balanced around the thing it specifically tells you NOT to do?
> 
> That sounds... highly implausible. I've just skimmed through the  Encounters section of the 3.5 DMG again and I'm not seeing anything to  back you up on this one.



From the SRD:
*Challenge Rating*

   	This shows the average level of a party of adventurers for which one creature would make an encounter of moderate difficulty. 

In more detail, IIRC a CR equal to the party is meant to be the level of  challenge that will make them expend 25% of their daily resources.  It  tells you not to do every fight like this because that gets _tedious_.  It's bad DMing because it's boring.  And that's why the DMG tells you not to do it.  And it _needs_ to do it because it is an easy trap as that's what the system is supposedly balanced around.

Or what is your belief in what CR means?



> When you make ridiculous, non-factual claims like this, it makes it very difficult to discuss anything with you.




Given that you seem to want to define the meaning of words and phrases the way you want to rather than by their orthodox meanings (for instance you claim things to be spherical cows when people have observed and experienced them - spherical cows being theoretical constructs based on impossible simplifications), I'm not surprised you have problems discussing things.



> (3) In general, the attitude from NeonChameleon seems to be, "All the fighter can do is fight!"




All the fighter can do is fight.  _And he can't even do that especially well_.  The part of fighting the fighter is good at is _hitting people_.  Not controlling the battlefield.  Not strategy.  Not tactics.  Not logistics.  Not morale.  Simply the mechanical motions involved in weapon meeting face.



> Well... yeah. It's right there in the name of the class. If that's not what you want to be doing, then you should _play a different class_.




The Leverage RPG arrived from Amazon for me yesterday.  You know the name of one of the classes in there?  Hitter.  He hits people and does it well as the name would apply.  But, unlike the fighter, he's a professional at dealing with dangerous situations - and has things he has learned other than how to hit people.  This is the approach I like.  People with a good basic level of competence.  And with stuff they've picked up along the way.



> It's like he's got a screwdriver in his hand and he's caterwauling about how awesome nails are and how lousy the screwdriver is at pounding them.




It's like he's got a screwdriver - when everyone else has an entire toolkit involving screwdrivers, hammers, saws, etc.  Yes, it's a nice ratchet screwdriver.  Shinier than the bard's - and doesn't need to spend time on the charger unlike the wizard's electric screwdriver.  Most people get a toolkit (for the moment we'll ignore that the monk's toolkit is unfinished and will give you splinters unless you wear heavy gloves).  The fighter gets ... a screwdriver.



BryonD said:


> I'll start with a disclaimer that you may simply consider a dodge, but I do not.  In a great game, everyone should have times to shine but there is no need whatsoever for everyone to shine equally at all times.  If you play a fighter and want to be equal to a bard in social events then you are either being foolish, or you are setting up an interesting distinct challenge for your self.
> 
> But, you didn't say "equal to the bard", you just said better than a commoner.




I did.  Because that to me is the heart of the problem.  There are 36 skills (not counting subspecialties) in 3.X (Pathfinder has, to its credit, fewer).  Fighters get 2+int mod skill points per level and a pathetic skill list.



> D&D game are generally about conflict.  I think we can agree with that.  And generally, the idea of physical combat is near.  You may be talking with enemies for whom a fight is potentially imminent.




And, pray tell, why would the fighter be more relevant than any other class here.  After all, _everyone_ can fight.  And the rogue might even be able to give you advance warning.



> You may be talking with allies about an upcoming fight.




Something the fighter isn't inherently good at.  



> You may be talking with a neutral third party about any variety of issues.




Issues outside axe meeting face?  Would knowing about them be Int or Wis based?  Either way there is no inherent reason within 3.X that the wizard and the cleric wouldn't be better at them than the fighter.  (The fighter can't even take Profession (mercenary) as a class skill).



> And in any case the fighter brings being a serious force in combat to the non-combat situations.




*So does every other class.*  PC _Bards_ are a serious force in combat.  Not _quite_ the force fighters are, but certainly not insignificant.  (And if you're talking about it to potential allies, Inspire Courage may well add more than the fighter does).



> I don't WANT fighters being implicitly good at non-fighting things.  I don't consider arguing that they are not a meaningful point.




The first problem is that they aren't good at fighting things other than direct physical combat.  The second problem is that they aren't even particularly good at that by the standards of other classes.  If the classes were the Leverage array of Hitter/Hacker/Mastermind/Grifter/Thief with each having a separate role then I'd see your point.  But in both 3.X and 4e, the role of every class is combat.  By talking about fighters in the way you are you are saying that their only role is a role shared by every other class.



> I specifically said that commoners, imo, have no implicit reason to improve in combat ability and every class should be commoners, except for where they get better as part of the class concept.




Here I strenuously disagree.  In ten levels, a wizard who goes adventuring will probably have used his staff to defend himself from orcs, goblins, ogres, the occasional dragon, footpads, highwaymen, possibly a few demons, and much much more.  If he isn't fitter, tougher, more battlewise, and generally better at hitting people over the head than a first level wizard, I want to know why.  And that tenth level wizard _is still less dangerous with a staff than a first level fighter_.  (Unless he's put some work into it).  So the whole idea of wizards hitting people over the head with their staff never comes up in practice.

And this, I think brings us to the root cause of our disagreement.  Your character concept starts with the word "Wizard".  My character concept has the word "Adventuring" as the first word.  So you get the Adventuring Wizard, the Adventuring Cleric, etc.  Yes, there is no reason the average wizard shouldn't be a total klutz with no competence at all with a staff.  He also probably sits in his tower, researching or writing heated exchanges and sending them via crystal ball to other wizards.  Or possibly summoning succubi or watching them on crystal balls.  For games of D&D he is also an NPC.  As is the cleric who tends his flock and hasn't ever seen a weapon drawn in anger - indeed when he shows up everyone puts down the swords out of sheer embarrassment.  Not at all the same thing as the cleric who goes into the crypt to face down the undead.  And that is why I'm glad 4e PC classes are for PCs only.



> Wizards who want to get better at actual fighting have ways to do that.




Wizards who _don't _want to get better at actual fighting should stay away from adventuring.



> I disagree that you have covered all versions of Merlin that have been generally accepted.  But I could also point to Pug and Thomas, or any vast number of D&D novels which are steadily consumed.




The exceptions that prove the rule.  Fictional wizards who are like D&D wizards tend to be D&D derived.



> The "pseudo-diceless" point is interesting.  The tone I read into what you say there is negative on this.




There is if it's used too heavily.  You end up with the "Shadowrun Decker" problem.  Pseudo-diceless takes a lot of time and a lot of focal time if done heavily.



> Yeah, pseudo diceless happens all the time.  A commoner and a fighter may have exactly the same *game system quantified* skill in Intimidate.  So they have the exact same chance of successfully intimidating an orc.  But if they both threaten the orc with direct physical violence, then I probably won't even let the common roll.




For me it would depend how the commoner was played.  _Why_ does the commoner have an intimidate as high as the fighter?  How does he specialise in intimidating people?  I can see a musclebound thug (commoner) having more chance of intimidating people with physical violence than a debonair swashbuckler (fighter).  On the other hand if the fighter is musclebound and the commoner is weedy, why the hell is he threatening the orc with _direct violence_?  That's certainly a circumstance penalty.


----------



## Banshee16

Votan said:


> So, ironically, the fighter no longer makes great sense as a leader of men in 3E (lacking many of the basic skills).  Rogues, Bards and Clerics do much better in this (classically fighter based) role, the later two of which are much harder to control by an evil doer.  And they are better judges of character and so forth.
> 
> Tomas, or King Arthur or Conan, as literary examples are quite capable of judging people, leading men or resisting mind affecting magic.  I was concerned that the 3E fighter did these roles poorly.




While I don't necessarily agree with everything that has been said, I do agree with these points.

I suspect WotC went this way, as they were starting to crystalize the whole "striker, tank, etc." roles, and the game was intended for use for adventuring, going in dungeons and all that, and to give a fighter these social skills would mean they take away from the schtick that the cleric and bard have....even though fighters having those skills would make sense.

Similarly, we lost all the stuff about  name levels and gaining a keep, and how high level play differs from low level play by being more political.  Personally, I think D&D lost alot by having that aspect taken away.  But likely it's been something that was  harder to design for and run, hence, unnecessary.

With respect to the social skills conundrum, I got around it by using feats I found in Swashbuckling Adventures.  Basically, they were talent feats where you could take a feat such as "Commander" that would add several skills to your class skill list....Diplomacy, Sense Motive, etc.  You wouldn't have any ranks...it's just that from the point you took the feat, it was now a class skill.

Simple and elegant.  You want a fighter who's a leader of men?  Take the feat, and now you can start putting skill points into your new class skills on a 1 for 1 basis, and you max would be char lvl +3, instead of char lvl +3/2.

Banshee


----------



## BryonD

Neonchameleon said:


> I did.  Because that to me is the heart of the problem.  There are 36 skills (not counting subspecialties) in 3.X (Pathfinder has, to its credit, fewer).  Fighters get 2+int mod skill points per level and a pathetic skill list.



Again, you declaration of "a problem" is at an impasse with the fact that my games don't have a problem.  The difference is that can't seem to see the difference between your problem and a problem implicit to the system.

The fighter has the skills a fighter needs in order to be *a fighter*.



> And, pray tell, why would the fighter be more relevant than any other class here.  After all, _everyone_ can fight.  And the rogue might even be able to give you advance warning.



Now you are just playing silly word games.  The fighter's capacity at martial skill applied to a fight is quite valuable, and fun to boot.




> Issues outside axe meeting face?  Would knowing about them be Int or Wis based?  Either way there is no inherent reason within 3.X that the wizard and the cleric wouldn't be better at them than the fighter.  (The fighter can't even take Profession (mercenary) as a class skill).



Um, I'm trying to play by your rules here.  You said "compare to commoner".  It seems you now find the need to move the goal posts.




> *So does every other class.*  PC _Bards_ are a serious force in combat.  Not _quite_ the force fighters are, but certainly not insignificant.  (And if you're talking about it to potential allies, Inspire Courage may well add more than the fighter does).



And again with the moving of goal posts.  I didn't say anyone was "insignificant".  By this standard a fighter is not the force bards are in a debate, but they can easily be constructed to be far from insignificant.




> The first problem is that they aren't good at fighting things other than direct physical combat.  The second problem is that they aren't even particularly good at that by the standards of other classes.  If the classes were the Leverage array of Hitter/Hacker/Mastermind/Grifter/Thief with each having a separate role then I'd see your point.  But in both 3.X and 4e, the role of every class is combat.  By talking about fighters in the way you are you are saying that their only role is a role shared by every other class.



Funny, I don't know any serious 3E fans who agree with this assessment.  Certainly other classes also carry their weight.  But I think your anti-3E bias is undermining the integrity of your position.




> Here I strenuously disagree.  In ten levels, a wizard who goes adventuring will probably have used his staff to defend himself from orcs, goblins, ogres, the occasional dragon, footpads, highwaymen, possibly a few demons, and much much more.  If he isn't fitter, tougher, more battlewise, and generally better at hitting people over the head than a first level wizard, I want to know why.  And that tenth level wizard _is still less dangerous with a staff than a first level fighter_.  (Unless he's put some work into it).  So the whole idea of wizards hitting people over the head with their staff never comes up in practice.



Yep.  We disagree.





> And this, I think brings us to the root cause of our disagreement.  Your character concept starts with the word "Wizard".  My character concept has the word "Adventuring" as the first word.  So you get the Adventuring Wizard, the Adventuring Cleric, etc.  Yes, there is no reason the average wizard shouldn't be a total klutz with no competence at all with a staff.  He also probably sits in his tower, researching or writing heated exchanges and sending them via crystal ball to other wizards.  Or possibly summoning succubi or watching them on crystal balls.  For games of D&D he is also an NPC.  As is the cleric who tends his flock and hasn't ever seen a weapon drawn in anger - indeed when he shows up everyone puts down the swords out of sheer embarrassment.  Not at all the same thing as the cleric who goes into the crypt to face down the undead.  And that is why I'm glad 4e PC classes are for PCs only.



Yep.  And that is why Andy Collins made the comments he made about class design.  And that narrow minded perspective on what what characters are is part of the reason 4E lost so much of the D&D fan base.

My way allows the concepts you describe.  Your system demands them.




> Wizards who _don't _want to get better at actual fighting should stay away from adventuring.



Heh, funny how BAB wasn't "actual fighting" when you try to claim bard and rogues equal to fighters, but you turn on a dime here.



> There is if it's used too heavily.  You end up with the "Shadowrun Decker" problem.  Pseudo-diceless takes a lot of time and a lot of focal time if done heavily.



And it is awesome when done well and a game that doesn't go there enough end up falling well short of the ultimate potential.




> For me it would depend how the commoner was played.  _Why_ does the commoner have an intimidate as high as the fighter?  How does he specialise in intimidating people?  I can see a musclebound thug (commoner) having more chance of intimidating people with physical violence than a debonair swashbuckler (fighter).  On the other hand if the fighter is musclebound and the commoner is weedy, why the hell is he threatening the orc with _direct violence_?  That's certainly a circumstance penalty.



Certainly, and you can build commoners to match what you want.  Buy, yet again, you are using double standards and moving goal posts from your own argument.

Bottom line, it is clear you love 4E and don't get what you want from 3E. 
If I sit here and list off all the crap I find in 4E that makes the game less satisfactory than numerous other games out there, I doubt you are going to be very swayed.

Well, the same thing applies here.  If you tell me this happened to you, then fine, I believe you.  But when you foolishly extrapolate that it also has to happen to everyone else, you are simply wrong.


----------



## Mort

BryonD said:


> Again, you declaration of "a problem" is at an impasse with the fact that my games don't have a problem.  The difference is that can't seem to see the difference between your problem and a problem implicit to the system.
> 
> The fighter has the skills a fighter needs in order to be *a fighter*.




Really? 2 skill points per level is enough to cover it? Fighters are already stat dependant so it's unlikely you will have much over that for most builds (maybe an extra 1 or 2 if you are going for an expertise build, but the rules punish you for it).



BryonD said:


> Now you are just playing silly word games.  The fighter's capacity at martial skill applied to a fight is quite valuable, and fun to boot.




From many of your posts You really, *really* hate it when others declare broad generalisations as fact. Perhaps you should stop doing it? What martial skill do fighters have other than "I hit it hard?" It would actually be a nice add-on rule if fighters could (or could at least take feats) to provide tactical bonuses to those around them.




BryonD said:


> Funny, I don't know any serious 3E fans who agree with this assessment.  Certainly other classes also carry their weight.  But I think your anti-3E bias is undermining the integrity of your position.




I'm sorry but this statement is utter BS (and again doing exactly what you say you hate). Many 3e fans love the system but hate the implementation of the fighter (and acknowledge it as a weak class). Some of us like the Bo9S as what "fighters should be." Others, who don't like the wuxia angle of the Bo9S like the add ons in Players Handbook II with the fighters feats that finally, finally don't suck. Pathfinder also recognised some of the weaknesses and has several feats to try and patch them. I frankly don't think pathfinder goes far enough but I (and my players) love the Bo9S so we actually have no problem there. I would gladly play in another 3e game (not DM though, I don't have the time to do it as properly as I like and like I used to, but that's a different complaint) and to suggest I somehow hate 3e because I dislike the implementation of the fighter class is ludicrous.




BryonD said:


> Certainly, and you can build commoners to match what you want.  Buy, yet again, you are using double standards and moving goal posts from your own argument.




His argument is "fighter implementation is flawed and weak compared to the other classes." You have yet to actually refute the argument in any meaningful way.



BryonD said:


> Bottom line, it is clear you love 4E and don't get what you want from 3E. If I sit here and list off all the crap I find in 4E that makes the game less satisfactory than numerous other games out there, I doubt you are going to be very swayed..




Again with this weird belief that if you thinks wizards are overpowered or think the fighter is underpowered you don't like 3e. There are easy ways to fix both of these beliefs right within the system, but that doesn't mean you can't hold the belief and expound it when called for on a message board.



BryonD said:


> Well, the same thing applies here.  If you tell me this happened to you, then fine, I believe you.  But when you foolishly extrapolate that it also has to happen to everyone else, you are simply wrong.




You don't have to extrapolate to everyone, or even most, you just have to show that it happens often enough to be an issue worthy of discussion. And to reiterate "You don't like fighter or wizard implementaion... move to 4e" is silly (move to 4e if you like 4e - pretty simple really) how about "if you don't like wizard or fighter implementation in 3e but like 3e... try one of the many variants available in 3e.


----------



## Hussar

pawsplay said:


> /snip
> 
> 3e has shifted things slightly toward casters (clerics with full casting, wizards with easy access to scroll) yet the fighter remains viable. The problem is not raw power, but what in Shadowrun is called the "decker problem." The decker is basically a computer hacker, and while he is doing his thing, it's possible other characters may be left "standing guard." The wizard's ready access to knock, dispel magic, and fly mean that adventures can, and therefore do, make use of obstacles such as difficult to open doors (which only a wizard or a concentrated rogue is likely to be able to handle), magical traps and barriers, trange monsters, and physical chasms and other barriers. If the wizard weren't there, the fighter would just do something different, but since they are there, the fighter "stands guard" while the wizard casts a spell. While almost all characters have something to do, most turns, in most fights, not everyone is equipped for specialized obstacles.
> 
> OTOH, give the fighter the Leadership feat and an adamantine mace, and he becomes an effective problem-solver, too, in the wizard mode. Now, when the party comes upon a locked door, the party "stands guard" while the fighter smashes it to pieces, and when they need to sneak past enemies, his sorcerer cohort casts invisibility.




The solution to the problem of casters overshadowing non-casters is to give the non-caster nearly equal casting abilities (cohorts are typically only a level or two behind the PC) to the caster.  I'm not sure this is actually solving the issue.



> Short answer, yes. Even stacks of 1st level scrolls are a significant expense until very high levels.




Umm, what?  A 1st level scroll costs TWELVE gp.  Oh, sorry, 12.5 gp.  I can buy a HUNDRED scrolls for just a bit more than it takes a 5th level caster to make a +1 sword.  Exactly how big is your stack?



Raven Crowking said:


> Absolutely.
> 
> And it had a real secondary effect in making combats last longer than necessary, IMHO.  3e is not my "perfect system"!
> 
> 
> 
> I don't endorse that viewpoint.
> 
> 
> 
> 1.  You should not have to.
> 2.  Yes.  BUT (a) not everyone experienced those problems where (1) is concerned, and (b) there are many ways of doing this; the 4e way is not objectively better than the 1e way.  I prefer the 1e way, myself.




In this case, the 1e and 4e approach is the same - limit what impact the caster can have on the game world by removing virtually all the problematic spells from play (or never adding them in the first place as the case may be) and making fighter types able to hold their own quite well without having a caster buff the heck out of them.




> You should not have to.
> 
> If the interaction between your playstyle and a ruleset creates these problems, pick (or create) a different ruleset!
> 
> 
> 
> RC




Or, simply adjust the ruleset so that the problem goes away.  Isn't that probably the grandest tradition in D&D?  Isn't that the basic point of things like E6 and BFRPG?


----------



## Hussar

Banshee16 said:


> While I don't necessarily agree with everything that has been said, I do agree with these points.
> 
> I suspect WotC went this way, as they were starting to crystalize the whole "striker, tank, etc." roles, and the game was intended for use for adventuring, going in dungeons and all that, and to give a fighter these social skills would mean they take away from the schtick that the cleric and bard have....even though fighters having those skills would make sense.




Wait... what?  They crystalized roles for characters back in 1998 in preparation for a game that wouldn't begin development for a decade?



> Similarly, we lost all the stuff about  name levels and gaining a keep, and how high level play differs from low level play by being more political.  Personally, I think D&D lost alot by having that aspect taken away.  But likely it's been something that was  harder to design for and run, hence, unnecessary.




I'm a bit foggy, but, did fighters gain followers in 2e?  I did a bit of checking and I know the name level stuff disappeared in 2e.  But, I cannot recall if there were follower rules in 2e.

The problem was IMO, that the shift from dungeon crawling to economics was too large for most groups.  And, there were some serious gaps in the mechanics for exactly how you were supposed to mechanically model running a kingdom or fief.

The rules had fifteen different ways for killing a goblin but were very sparse on the ground on things like taxation and crop growing - basic stuff you really need to know if you actually want to play Run the Fief.  




With respect to the social skills conundrum, I got around it by using feats I found in Swashbuckling Adventures.  Basically, they were talent feats where you could take a feat such as "Commander" that would add several skills to your class skill list....Diplomacy, Sense Motive, etc.  You wouldn't have any ranks...it's just that from the point you took the feat, it was now a class skill.

Simple and elegant.  You want a fighter who's a leader of men?  Take the feat, and now you can start putting skill points into your new class skills on a 1 for 1 basis, and you max would be char lvl +3, instead of char lvl +3/2.

Banshee[/QUOTE]


----------



## pawsplay

Hussar said:


> The solution to the problem of casters overshadowing non-casters is to give the non-caster nearly equal casting abilities (cohorts are typically only a level or two behind the PC) to the caster.  I'm not sure this is actually solving the issue.




That was a for-instance. The cohort could be a rogue, or heck, another fighter. The followers should be warriors.



> Umm, what?  A 1st level scroll costs TWELVE gp.  Oh, sorry, 12.5 gp.  I can buy a HUNDRED scrolls for just a bit more than it takes a 5th level caster to make a +1 sword.  Exactly how big is your stack?




I was thinking about a hundred. 1250 gp is real money until you get well into the teen levels.


----------



## joela

*Mondern Warrior versus Wizards: Superheroes*

If you liken Batman as analogous to warriors and wizards to be GL or Dr. Fate, how does one "balance" them out, gamewise?


----------



## pemerton

LostSoul said:


> (Quick thought - would this make the fighter _more_ important?  The more the wizard's resources expand the scope of his goals, the more he needs the fighter to back him up.  Does that make sense?)





Beginning of the End said:


> Now you're getting it.



To me, that is suggestive of "fighter as mascot/henchman". That's highly viable mode of play. But obviously it's not the only way that reasonable people might want to play.



BryonD said:


> In a great game, everyone should have times to shine but there is no need whatsoever for everyone to shine equally at all times.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> D&D game are generally about conflict.  I think we can agree with that.  And generally, the idea of physical combat is near.  You may be talking with enemies for whom a fight is potentially imminent.  You may be talking with allies about an upcoming fight.  You may be talking with a neutral third party about any variety of issues.  And in any case the fighter brings being a serious force in combat to the non-combat situations.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Yeah, pseudo diceless happens all the time.  A commoner and a fighter may have exactly the same *game system quantified* skill in Intimidate.  So they have the exact same chance of successfully intimidating an orc.  But if they both threaten the orc with direct physical violence, then I probably won't even let the common roll.  Or, if they are both there and the commoner threatens the orc with violence, from the fighter, then that is just as good.  But the commoner needed the presence of the fighter, so the difference stands.
> 
> Maybe to you this an an unacceptable hand wave and a failure of the system.



I'm a little sceptical of the handwave. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a failure of the system - but in a game in which other players might be spending character building resources on Intimidate, Leadership etc giving the player of the fighter free plot coupons seems to me to raise some issues (does the player of the rogue get them too, or does s/he have to spend skill points on Gather Information and the like?).

One thing I like about Rolemaster, and which is one of the reasons I prefer it to 3E, is that there are enough character build resources available that players of fighters have more options in terms of building those social or similar skills into their PCs, and so need to rely a bit less on GM handwaving.

But as I said, I'm only a _little _sceptical of the handwave. I'm not fully sceptical. Because RM still has a warrior/wizard balance issue, I've done similar handwaving, although at a slightly more abtract level of resolution - allowing the players of fighter PCs to have a stronger embedding of their PCs into the poltical/social situation than is the case for the wizard PCs (luckily I've rarely had players play priests, so the issue that they are both good casters _and_ plausibly socially well-embedded hasn't normally come up).

But I would never suggest that this is a strength of RM. It's a weakness that in the past I've put up with because the system offered other features that were worth the trade off. It's one of the reasons that I would probably now be quite happy never to GM RM again (despite retaining much residual fondness for the system).

Turning to the example of the commoner and the fighter - that works for me, but again it is suggestive to me of fighter as mascot, or means-to-an-end, wheras the wizard remains the end-in-itself.



BryonD said:


> If the power level of the wizard dwarfs the power level of the fighter, then the fighter will no longer be able to contribute.  And frankly, if we all agree that the fighter can contribute, then what is the point of the conversation?



I think that the issue is about the _mode_ of contribution. When the fighter contributes by providing the muscle that the wizard needs, or the mopping up after the spells are cast, then there is an issue of tone/story - again, it starts to look like the fighter is a mascot/henchman rather than a protagonist of equal worth. (I think this is also why Ars Magica has been brough up more than once on this thread.)

There are various ways to try and compensate for this - and in principle the inner life of the henchman can be just as rich, if not richer, than that of the master, and hence make very satisfying gaming material (My Life With Master is one sort of take on this!). But that's perhaps tending to stray a little away from typical D&D play.



Votan said:


> IOn the other hand, having a small army and a fortress (and the political contacts that come with it) would give a high level fighter some serious out of combat muscle.  This was even more true in AD&D where there was no particular reason fighters would be bad at diplomacy (for example).  So the fighter got to be King Arthur while the wizard was Merlin.
> 
> I think noting these changes points to a lot of my issues with 3E and power balance.



I think this is a good point which highlights the sort of elements of a game which can start to put a bit more mechanical flesh on the handwaving of the fighter's social situation and status. And thereby also reduce the sense that the fighter is just a henchman of the wizard. (Of course, it gives rise to other issues - particularly, that party play may become increasingly difficult when the PCs start to be defined in such different mechanical terms, and have a natural inclination to engage the gameworld in such different ways; and also, the whole gameworld-as-focus-for-mechanical-interaction-rather-than-background that was discussed upthread.)


----------



## pemerton

Jeff Wilder said:


> A player who deliberately chooses broken material, to the point where it negatively impacts enjoyment of the game, is a douchebag.
> 
> A GM who allows a novice player to choose broken material, to the point where it negatively impacts enjoyment of the game, needs to improve as a GM (and often, but apparently not always will).
> 
> The system has flaws and broken bits.  In an ideal world, there would be none of those.  In a non-ideal world, one of the jobs of the GM and the players is making choices (and guiding choices) partially for the enjoyment of others.  This is true no matter what class one is playing.
> 
> That some players and GMs are apparently incapable of doing this job is not a reflection of the _system_.



I cannot agree with the last sentence. If a novice player and/or novice GM, simply by playing the game out of the box and using the options presented can break the game that easily, then there is (in my view) the _paradigm_ of a system problem. It's not as if Colour Spray is some spell from an optional supplement that only the die-hards will know about, and hence will adjust their game to take account of. It's there in the PHB. If the system is well-designed, there ought to be no basis for being accused of douchebaggery simply by picking up the books and using them to build a PC and then play the game.

To put it another way - if this doesn't count as a system problem, what would?

(Now if someone wants to argue that Colour Spray, or Holy Word, or whatever is _not_ game breaking, that's a different matter.)



MrMyth said:


> It would seem a reasonable expectation to be able to simply play the game and enjoy the options it presents.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I would like a system which allows a group to play the game as it is written to be played, and expect that to be a fun experience.



Or in other word, this.



Jeff Wilder said:


> If you're not having fun with System A, you can (a) use a different system, (b) adapt the way you play so you _do_ have fun with the system, or (c) complain about how you're not having fun with the system, and insist on changing it despite the protests of people who are using the system, as intended, just fine.
> 
> I personally think (a) and (b) are reasonable.  All I'm seeing from folks in this thread, though, is (c).



If it's OK for you to have the game system you like, such that others have to do (b) for it to be playable by them, then what is wrong with them in fact doing (c), so that the game system becomes one _they_ like, leaving you free to do (b) in turn. Or, in other words, why is your desire for preservation more important than someone else's desire for change?

I would have though that the answer is - neither person's preference is inherently more valuable than the other's, and hence that discussions along those lines may not be very profitable.


----------



## Beginning of the End

Votan said:


> I also think some of the balancing factors of the wizard (in terms of risk) were removed.  My favorite example is teleport, all versions of which have a chance of instant death in the AD&D PHB (and contemporary systems like Rolemaster).




There was a general weakening of lethal consequences, but I'll admit that, in this regard, I think the designers of 3E were largely modifying the game to match the common practice at many game tables. (I don't think I ever saw a lethal teleport at the actual table; largely because none of the groups I played in ever thought that would be much fun.)

And, OTOH, 3rd Edition also saw the power of a lot of spells significantly decreased.

In this, 3E was largely following trends that were first started back when OD&D morphed into AD&D. (The weakening of powerful spells and the softening of lethal consequences.)

Next section is going to be a little "quote choppy" as I address each point separately...



> By 3E, there are a lot more spell slots (due to bonus high level spells due to intelligence and , possibly specialization),




Looking at the actual historical numbers:

OD&D: 7/7/7/7/7/7/3/3/2
AD&D1: 5/5/5/5/5/4/3/3/2
BECMI: 6/5/5/5/4/4/3/2
D&D3 (Int 25): 6/6/6/5/5/5/5/4/4/4

They aren't that far out of whack. And most of the skew happens around 18th level (where the 3E wizards pick up more 8th and 9th level spells).








> routinely available low cost scrolls,




Quite a few scrolls in AD&D were actually cheaper than their 3E equivalent. (The cost of a scroll was basically 300 gp per level. Obviously 1st level scrolls are considerably cheaper in 3E, but higher-powered stuff outpaces the linear 1E guidelines.)



> wealth per level guidelines




Somewhere I read that Gygax suggested that the proper ratio of treasure-to-monster XP was 3:1. If that's true, then one can see that AD&D1 characters would have a lot more treasure than their 3E counterparts.

People have also analyzed the published 1E modules and discovered a treasure acquisition rate that closely mirrors the wealth by level guidelines of 3E. Those numbers weren't plucked out of nowhere.

In general, I think if you badly misread the DMG (as NeonChameleon has done) and create small packets of My Perfect Encounters(TM), then 3E breaks down badly. If you just use old school encounter design, 3E plays pretty much like every other edition of D&D from 1974-2008.

YMMV.



Neonchameleon said:


> From the SRD:
> *Challenge Rating*
> 
> This shows the average level of a party of adventurers for which  one creature would make an encounter of moderate difficulty.




You do realize that doesn't say anything about the game being balanced around "the four encounter adventuring day", right?

Like I said: When you make ridiculous, non-factual claims like that, it makes it very difficult to discuss anything with you. 			 		

When you try to back up those ridiculous, non-factual claims with quotes that have absolutely nothing to do with the claim you made, it makes it very difficult to even take you seriously.

Allow me to repeat myself: The DMG not only doesn't say that the game is balanced around the "four encounter adventuring day", the DMG specifically tells you _not to design your adventures like that_.

I think we can all agree that when you play the game in the very narrow, very limited fashion that you say you play it, that the game doesn't work very well. But since the DMG specifically tells you not to play that way, I don't think the problem is the game. The problem is you.

To be clear: There are other people participating in this thread who are discussing legitimate problems with the game. I don't think anyone in this thread is claiming the game is perfect, either.

But you, AFAICT, are just spouting non-factual nonsense. I don't know if that's because you honestly never read the DMG or if you're just hoping nobody will notice. But, seriously, crack a book.


----------



## Neonchameleon

BryonD said:


> The fighter has the skills a fighter needs in order to be *a fighter*.




And not those needed to be *an adventurer*.  Someone who does something other than face people with pointy bits of metal on a training salon.



> Now you are just playing silly word games.  The fighter's capacity at martial skill applied to a fight is quite valuable, and fun to boot.




So is the Bard's.  So is the Rogue's.  So is the Cleric's.  But that's not all they can do.  Far from it.   The problem here is that casting spells is _not_ all the wizard or cleric can do.  Playing the lute is _not_ all the bard can do.  Yet mysteriously you think that fighting should be all a fighter can do.  I see this as a double standard.



> Um, I'm trying to play by your rules here.  You said "compare to commoner".  It seems you now find the need to move the goal posts.




No.  Commoner is an _illustration_ not a goalpost.



> Funny, I don't know any serious 3E fans who agree with this assessment.  Certainly other classes also carry their weight.  But I think your anti-3E bias is undermining the integrity of your position.




And I know a _lot_ who were keen on the Bo9S because it finally gave fighters a way of keeping up.  Trying to defend that the fighter is a decent class is ... challenging.



> Yep.  And that is why Andy Collins made the comments he made about class design.  And that narrow minded perspective on what what characters are is part of the reason 4E lost so much of the D&D fan base.




If I wanted an utterly flexible game I'd play GURPS.  The designs I'm thinking of represent modelling what happens in most actual games.  4e is more tightly focussed than 3.X.  But I have serious problems looking at a class and level based game and seeing something generic in there.



> My way allows the concepts you describe.  Your system demands them.




Your way _penalises_ the concepts I describe.  It penalises representing what I consider actual adventurers - what almost all groups play in 3.X. 



> Heh, funny how BAB wasn't "actual fighting" when you try to claim bard and rogues equal to fighters, but you turn on a dime here.




Then you misunderstood - and I was using your terminology.  BAB is _one component_ of actual fighting.  If two people are mostly the same but one has a higher BAB then clearly one is better at actual fighting.  So are other things.  Damage is another component.  As I said, the tenth level (adventuring) wizard (high int, low strength) is better at fighting than the first level adventuring wizard.  His BAB has gone up by 5.  But even restricting the fighter to a staff, with the strength the average 1st level PC fighter gets the fighter is better at clobbering people over the staff than the wizard - he gets about the same to hit bonus, can use At Wills rather than a melee basic attack, and does far more damage per hit.  Where is the practical problem?



> And it is awesome when done well and a game that doesn't go there enough end up falling well short of the ultimate potential.




Oh, games should always go there _some_ of the time.  But people should not be forced to go there as a default because of bad class design.



Beginning of the End said:


> In general, I think if you badly misread the DMG (as NeonChameleon has done) and create small packets of My Perfect Encounters(TM), then 3E breaks down badly. If you just use old school encounter design, 3E plays pretty much like every other edition of D&D from 1974-2008.




I have not misread the DMG in the slightest.  I am pointing out the definition of CR.  And the DMG then tells you not to use that number in the most basic way possible because it will be dull and annoying.



> You do realize that doesn't say anything about the game being balanced around "the four encounter adventuring day", right?[/quote[
> 
> It's based on a quarter of the resources being used.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Allow me to repeat myself: The DMG not only doesn't say that the game is balanced around the "four encounter adventuring day", the DMG specifically tells you _not to design your adventures like that_.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *The CR System*is based on the level of threat needed to use about a quarter of your resources.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> But you, AFAICT, are just spouting non-factual nonsense. I don't know if that's because you honestly never read the DMG or if you're just hoping nobody will notice. But, seriously, crack a book.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> You AFAICT are ducking, dodging, and weaving to try to ignore my point so that you can claim the above.  What do you think CR means?  What do you think that little number is based on?  And _why_ do you think the advice in the DMG is _needed_ to not design your adventures round the X equal level encounters if there isn't that inherent temptation in the system?
Click to expand...


----------



## Votan

Beginning of the End said:


> There was a general weakening of lethal consequences, but I'll admit that, in this regard, I think the designers of 3E were largely modifying the game to match the common practice at many game tables. (I don't think I ever saw a lethal teleport at the actual table; largely because none of the groups I played in ever thought that would be much fun.)




I have actually seen a teleport have a lethal outcome in both AD&D and Rolemaster.  Multiple times, in the former.  It made us see teleport as a special resource to be used in emergencies and left one with a fair degree of gambler's high.  It never made the spell disliked but it sure as heck made us unwilling to cast it for routine travel or such.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:


> Or, simply adjust the ruleset so that the problem goes away.  Isn't that probably the grandest tradition in D&D?  Isn't that the basic point of things like E6 and BFRPG?




I include that as a subset of picking/creating a new ruleset.


----------



## Mort

joela said:


> If you liken Batman as analogous to warriors and wizards to be GL or Dr. Fate, how does one "balance" them out, gamewise?




Batman has access to such technology that it may as well be magic. He would not be a straight fighter in 3e, he would be something like a gestalt fighter/artificer.


----------



## Bluenose

Ultimatecalibur said:


> Looking back at things the Fighter/Fighting-Man lost a lot of power in the transition from 2e to 3.x.
> 
> _Warning the following data is from memory_
> 
> In 2e the best AC was -10 and primarily the domain of rare/unique creatures such as the Tarrasque or Fighters outfitted in +5 Full plate and +5 Shields. non-magical Full Plate with Shield was AC 0.
> 
> A Fighter had a starting Thac0 of 20 that decreased by 1 per level and gained .5 attacks per round every 6 levels that used the Fighters full attack bonus. Specialization in a melee weapon granted +1 to hit, +2 damage and .5 attacks.
> 
> At level 10 a Fighter with a Str of 9 (minimum Fighter strength; no penalty) had a Thac0 of 11 that allowed him to hit an opponent in non-magical Full Plate and Shield with a random non-magical weapon 50% of the time with 3 attacks every 2 rounds. Equipped with a +3 weapon that he is specialized in and a Belt of Hill Giant Strength (set Str to 19) the same Fighter would have an effective Thac0 of 4 and could hit AC -10 30% of the time with 2 attacks per round dealing a minimum of 12 damage per hit. Considering that creature hp rarely went over 100 that is a lot of damage.
> 
> I don't have an "average" 3.x Fighter build on hand, but I think that the 3.x Fighter ends up relatively weaker even with all the customization.




I think there were one or two unique creatures with ACs of -11, at least one being a demon lord (or possibly an archdevil). Of course, there were other big changes hindering fighters as well.



pawsplay said:


> Charisma may be less important than demonstrated courage and ability. Fighting men want someone they can stand beside... perhaps even behind.  Charisma may be useful for leading armies and founding dynasties, not so much for convincing someone to follow you into the south of France.
> 
> Tactical knowhow *is* related to being able to swing a sword well. If you don't have both tactics and physical ability, you are not going to survive to 3rd level.
> 
> Being a general officer is a different skill from being a fencer, but being a fighter isn't a different skill from either; it encompasses and requires both. Musashi was renowned, not because he was Mr. Popular, but because if you were on his side, you won and lived, and if you were on the other side, you lost and died.




William Marshal is a pretty good example. Being the baddest of badasses got him a position in the royal household, contacts with royalty, a marriage to a heiress, a noble title, the rank of Marshal of England, and eventually a position as regent. He doesn't seem to have had much difficulty dealing with soldiers and nobles on level terms, or to have been unpopular. While there were undoubtedly exceptional warriors who weren't leaders, there doesn't seem to be any reason why an exceptional warrior wouldn't also be a leader too. And indeed in 1e/2e, they could be.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Votan said:


> I removed the middle because I want to focus on the example for a moment (not to nit pick but because I think Pug and Tomas is a very good example). Tomas merges with a mythical being (the greatest of the Valheru, Ashen-Shugar) and even the language of the Valheru is a domination effect.




Indeed.  Calling Thomas a 3.X fighter is highly questionable.  The class I'd use as the 3.X best guess would be the Psychic Warrior.  If Thomas _is_ a fighterthen he's a ridiculously house-ruled one.  Which means that he's a good exception that proves the rule - in order to keep Thomas relevant, he needs to be given some pretty extreme magical empowerment.



> One of the things that I found frustrating in 3E was that the Fighter ended up with very weak social skills (in contrast with an AD&d fighter where this was not necessarily true).




Indeed.  And because they are cross-class skills with an awful rate of return most fighters don't invest in them.  Which means that despite having travelled across the plains, faced doppelgangers and demons, and who knows what else, a 15th level fighter is no better than a first level fighter under the rules as written at seeing through Nigerian 401 scams and games of three card monte.  The main thing he takes from having travelled all this way and been part of events few mortals ever are is ... the ability to swing his pointy bit of metal a bit better.

He's hung round with a thief so good he's either legendary or no one even knows his name.  But he's no better at noticing when bob the first level street urchin picks his pocket than he was when he was fresh off the farm (Spot/Listen).  And he's seen the thief vanish into shadows more times than he cares to count - but still hasn't picked up the first clue about what makes a good shadow to hide in.  The party wizard has probably cast more combat spells over the course of a dozen levels than most mages do over a lifetime.  And he's been right there beside it.  And that's not even counting enemy spellcasters.  But does he get better at recognising spells?  Does he gain some rudimentary spellcraft?  Does he heck.  For all he knows about spellcraft he might as well never have met a wizard in his life.  And religion?  He's faced worshippers of more cults than most people have even _heard_ of.  He's had more divine magic cast on him than most clerics.  And has very probably spat in the eye of demons and possibly even met the gods themselves.  But knows no more about religion or the divine than kids in sunday school

There is no assumed competence.  There is no assumed observation.  The fighter's the worst case here (fewest skill points, worst skill list, fewest means of getting round these restrictions) but every class except the bard suffers from it.



pawsplay said:


> Charisma may be less important than demonstrated courage and ability. Fighting men want someone they can stand beside... perhaps even behind.  Charisma may be useful for leading armies and founding dynasties, not so much for convincing someone to follow you into the south of France.




In that case under 3.X rules what they should want is not a fighter, but a cleric.  Also stands beside them, is tough, and unlike the fighter is able to heal them or provide magical support.  (And fwiw, Charisma is _exactly_ what you need to recruit a volunteer army in my opinion - although logistics is vastly more important for making it _effective_).

Tactical knowhow *is* related to being able to swing a sword well. If you don't have both tactics and physical ability, you are not going to survive to 3rd level. 



> Being a general officer is a different skill from being a fencer, but being a fighter isn't a different skill from either; it encompasses and requires both.




Subodai, arguably the greatest general the world has known, was carried into battle on a litter.  Napoleon was known as "The Little Corporal" and I may be wrong but I don't recall evidence that he was a great hand to hand fighter.  Wellington was a notoriously poor shot.  I see little evidence that any of these men was a fighter.  Yes, they could wield weapons.  But that was about it.  And classes other than fighters can wield weapons - so why insist that generals need to be fighters?  There is, so far as I can tell, little mechanical support for this.

And on the other hand there are people who are fighters.  The general's _bodyguards_.  Very few generals will have been better fighters than their bodyguards.  Which means the bodyguards are better fighters than the general - but somehow the general needs to be a higher level fighter than his bodyguards to be a general?

And if you look mechanically, so far as I can tell in _all_ the skills required for generalship the bard is at least as good as the fighter - better at inspiring his troops, better at knowing the mind of his people and the enemy generals, better at knowing the terrain.  And a bard with Perform (Oratory) gives great speeches.  He just gets beaten round the training ring by his bodyguards (as you'd expect).

So why do you insist that the general should be a fighter?  I see no scrap of mechanical support for this.  And a lot of mechanics indicating that bards and clerics both do a better job.


----------



## Votan

Neonchameleon said:


> Subodai, arguably the greatest general the world has known, was carried into battle on a litter.  Napoleon was known as "The Little Corporal" and I may be wrong but I don't recall evidence that he was a great hand to hand fighter.  Wellington was a notoriously poor shot.  I see little evidence that any of these men was a fighter.  Yes, they could wield weapons.  But that was about it.  And classes other than fighters can wield weapons - so why insist that generals need to be fighters?  There is, so far as I can tell, little mechanical support for this.
> 
> And on the other hand there are people who are fighters.  The general's _bodyguards_.  Very few generals will have been better fighters than their bodyguards.  Which means the bodyguards are better fighters than the general - but somehow the general needs to be a higher level fighter than his bodyguards to be a general?
> 
> And if you look mechanically, so far as I can tell in _all_ the skills required for generalship the bard is at least as good as the fighter - better at inspiring his troops, better at knowing the mind of his people and the enemy generals, better at knowing the terrain.  And a bard with Perform (Oratory) gives great speeches.  He just gets beaten round the training ring by his bodyguards (as you'd expect).
> 
> So why do you insist that the general should be a fighter?  I see no scrap of mechanical support for this.  And a lot of mechanics indicating that bards and clerics both do a better job.




Well, the querstion began with how does literature address the imbalance between warriors and wizards (bards and clerics just make it painful).  

I see a number of ways:

1) Magic doesn't work well in combat (see Fred Saberhagen's Empire of the East) so warriors are required for fights

2) Magic is slow, subtle, and hard to use so it is not suitable for flashy use on the battlefield (Icelandic Sagas seem to fit into this category) 

3) Magic isn't all that powerful so a wizard can do neat things but so can a tough warrior (Gandalf in the Hobbit seems to fall into this category)

4) Warriors have influence on the world via leadership skill and/or social status that make them able to do things mages cannot (Dragon Age and King Arthur are examples of this trope)

5) Wizards have some sort of special vulnerability or limitation that makes them rely on warriors (classical folktales are filled with these)

6) Warriors can do supernatural feats or are inherently magical (Tomas from the riftwar, Manga, Achilles)

I kind of like #4 as a way of balancing high level characters.  Making the cleric better at #4 than the fighter (at the levels where clerics are hardly weak at melee) seems to be an odd way to balance the classes.


----------



## Hussar

pawsplay said:


> That was a for-instance. The cohort could be a rogue, or heck, another fighter. The followers should be warriors.
> 
> 
> 
> I was thinking about a hundred. 1250 gp is real money until you get well into the teen levels.




Again, what?  A 7th level character is expected to have 17k gp in equipment.  A hundred scrolls (which is an insane number of scrolls IMO, is less than 10% of his total wealth.

Think about that for a second.  By 7th level, I can cart around 100 spells for half the cost of a +1 sword.  

1250 gp is chump change after about 3rd level.


----------



## Raven Crowking

So long as you don't get hit by magical fire or fall into the water......?


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Raven Crowking said:


> So long as you don't get hit by magical fire or fall into the water......?




Or a cheechchong elemental...


----------



## Neonchameleon

Votan said:


> 4) Warriors have influence on the world via leadership skill and/or social status that make them able to do things mages cannot (Dragon Age and King Arthur are examples of this trope)
> 
> ...
> 
> I kind of like #4 as a way of balancing high level characters. Making the cleric better at #4 than the fighter (at the levels where clerics are hardly weak at melee) seems to be an odd way to balance the classes.




And in AD&D this is what happened.  Explicitely within the rules.  In 3.X, it doesn't.  They took the rules to support this out.  And put in rules (skills) that make the cleric better at #4 than the fighter.  Namely the class skill lists.  Which means that anyone trying to use the AD&D balance mechanism here is explicitely house-ruling.  And just because you can house-rule to make something better doesn't mean it's not broken.  (Is that the Oberoni or the Stormwind fallacy?)



Dannyalcatraz said:


> Or a cheechchong elemental...




.303 Bookworms are fun.


----------



## Patryn of Elvenshae

Raven Crowking said:


> So long as you don't get hit by magical fire or fall into the water......?




1.  Items on your person don't take damage from magical fire unless extreme things happen, and even then, scrolls are way the hell down the list.

2.  Handy Haversacks and magical scrollcases obviate most of that danger, anyway.


----------



## Patryn of Elvenshae

Neonchameleon said:


> (Is that the Oberoni or the Stormwind fallacy?)




Oberoni.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Patryn of Elvenshae said:


> 1.  Items on your person don't take damage from magical fire unless extreme things happen, and even then, scrolls are way the hell down the list.




That is a VERY edition-dependent observation.  And another example of things 3e got wrong (IMHO)....If I'm caught in a dragon's fiery breath while holding a scroll, the scroll should be the _*first thing *_to go up!

EDIT:  If you want to bag on some of the boneheaded changes made in the 2e --> 3e transition, I've got no problem with that.  Indeed, I have a long history of that......going back to when 3e was the new shiny, and bagging on it was not so popular.  So much do I dislike parts of 3e (and 4e, and 2e, and, yes, 1e) that I have given up on Official Versions altogether!  (If I did go back to an Official Version, right now it would be 1e).



> 2.  Handy Haversacks and magical scrollcases obviate most of that danger, anyway.




Perhaps, but if so, they must be added to the cost in order to carry Hussar's point.


RC


----------



## Patryn of Elvenshae

Raven Crowking said:


> That is a VERY edition-dependent observation.




Given that we're talking about "wealth by level" and "creating your own scrolls," etc., I'd say its pretty obvious what edition we're discussing.



> Perhaps, but if so, they must be added to the cost in order to carry Hussar's point.




Eh.  A haversack's 1,000gp to make yourself, and is ridiculously useful for all sorts of things, besides.

Scroll cases are 1gp apiece.

I don't think these meaningfully move the needle.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Patryn of Elvenshae said:


> Eh.  A haversack's 1,000gp to make yourself, and is ridiculously useful for all sorts of things, besides.




Yeah, I just re-read it, and you're right; this is another example of something from earlier editions that has been taken out of its original context (and which can, therefore, cause problems in the game).



> Scroll cases are 1gp apiece.
> 
> I don't think these meaningfully move the needle.




Sorry, you said "magical scrollcases".  I thought you were referring not to ordinary scrollcases for magical scrolls, but some form of enchanted scrollcase, perhaps from a splat I didn't bother to purchase.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> A haversack's 1,000gp to make yourself, and is ridiculously useful for all sorts of things, besides.




True, but then you have to factor in the opportunity cost of taking the Craft Wonderous Item Feat...and not everyone plays crafted mages- I've only seen Craft feats taken by a couple of PCs in all these years.


----------



## Patryn of Elvenshae

Raven Crowking said:


> Sorry, you said "magical scrollcases".




So I did.

In fact, I meant to write "sealed scrollcases,"* and have no idea how that turned into "magical" 'twixt head and keyboard.  Probably, as you surmised, because of "magical scrolls." 

* These might be "masterwork" quality, so they might be more expensive than normal scrollcases.  PF gives us a masterwork backpack, which gives you a +1 bonus to your Strength score for determining your encumbrance value.  This costs 50gp, versus a normal backpack's 2gp.  The rules also have waterproof bags - at 5sp each - which allow for compeltely immersion for up to 10 rounds before water damage occurs.

So, basically, a waterproof scrollcase is going to be pretty cheap.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Patryn of Elvenshae said:


> So I did.
> 
> In fact, I meant to write "sealed scrollcases,"* and have no idea how that turned into "magical" 'twixt head and keyboard.  Probably, as you surmised, because of "magical scrolls."




No worries.

I'd agree that a waterproof scrollcase is going to be pretty cheap (although I'd also suggest that "waterproof" is a matter of degree IME [real-world experience, not in-game!]).....assuming that a scrollcase *is* waterproof.  Is "waterproof" part of the rules, or are you Rule 0ing that?  Also, what sort of action is removing the scroll from the tube in 3.x?  I couldn't find it using my Google-fu, and it's been a while since I quit playing 3e.


RC


----------



## Patryn of Elvenshae

Well, if worse-comes-to-worst, then a waterproof scrollcase is just a [potentially-refluffed] waterproof bag (5 sp, 10 rounds of immersion before water damage occurs).

Retrieving a stored item is a move action that provokes an AoO.  So, if your scroll case is in your backpack, you'd need to spend two actions to retrieve a scroll, but if it's on your belt, you can do it in one.


----------



## Salamandyr

Mort said:


> Batman has access to such technology that it may as well be magic. He would not be a straight fighter in 3e, he would be something like a gestalt fighter/artificer.




You know, reading this thread, it seems like every fictional character brought up who fights for a living can't actually be described by the fighter class.  I think that's a pretty good indication that the 3rd edition fighter class is woefully inadequate.


----------



## pawsplay

Neonchameleon said:


> So why do you insist that the general should be a fighter?




I didn't. I said the fighter might be a general, in line with his vocation as a fighter. The general does not have to be a fighter.


----------



## Votan

Raven Crowking said:


> EDIT:  If you want to bag on some of the boneheaded changes made in the 2e --> 3e transition, I've got no problem with that.  Indeed, I have a long history of that......going back to when 3e was the new shiny, and bagging on it was not so popular.  So much do I dislike parts of 3e (and 4e, and 2e, and, yes, 1e) that I have given up on Official Versions altogether!  (If I did go back to an Official Version, right now it would be 1e).




I think that the warrior/wizard problem is at its most extreme in 3E.  In 1E and 2E, the fighter was simply a lot tougher (relatively more hit points, relatively much faster attach progression, equal or better saving throws, multiple attacks) relative to the AD&D magic user.  In 4E, the fighter is much, much more effective with powers whereas magic (at least wizard-specific magic) has been weakened considerably.


----------



## His Dudeness

I play 2E and as a fighter I do not feel there is a balance problem between me and my mate the wizard.

I mean, he finished off a fire elemental with a prismatic wall, but I killed the dragon with an arrow of slaying. He has more proficiencies than me, but they are mostly the academic kind, I have more practical stuff.

Most of the problem solving does not revolve arround using spells to do stuff since the spell capacity if fairly limited.

I honestly don't see where this is coming from.


----------



## Mort

His Dudeness said:


> I play 2E and as a fighter I do not feel there is a balance problem between me and my mate the wizard.
> 
> I mean, he finished off a fire elemental with a prismatic wall, but I killed the dragon with an arrow of slaying. He has more proficiencies than me, but they are mostly the academic kind, I have more practical stuff.
> 
> Most of the problem solving does not revolve arround using spells to do stuff since the spell capacity if fairly limited.
> 
> I honestly don't see where this is coming from.




The spell capacity of the 3e wizard (over vs. prior edditions) is dramatically higher (especially for utility purposes) with extremely easy access to cheap scrolls and wands.

Again why I'm leaning more and more toward spontaneous casters on my next 3e go around.


----------



## Beginning of the End

Neonchameleon said:


> I have not misread the DMG in the slightest.




What your originally said: "Both of which are against the guidance given by the DMG (the four encounter adventuring day being what the game is "balanced" around indicating you shouldn't do things you do like toss wandering monsters in to pressure the PCs). (...) It also says it's balanced around that."

What you are now saying: "*The CR System* is based on the level of threat needed to use about a quarter of your resources."

Those are not the same statements. Pretending that you said the latter when you actually said the former is not clever or smart. It is transparent and dishonest.



> And _why_ do you think the advice in the DMG is _needed_ to not design your adventures round the X equal level encounters if there isn't that inherent temptation in the system?




Well, at least you're now willing to admit that you were 100% wrong in claiming that this was "against the guidance given by the DMG". As you now correctly articulate, the DMG specifically tells you NOT to play the game the way you say you play it.

Now, let's see how long it takes you to figure out that "you shouldn't do that" and "we designed the game around doing that" are basically never going to be logically applied to the same thing at the same time.


----------



## Banshee16

BryonD said:


> Well, the same thing applies here.  If you tell me this happened to you, then fine, I believe you.  But when you foolishly extrapolate that it also has to happen to everyone else, you are simply wrong.




Exactly.  This is basically an edition war in all but name....except we're all being polite about it...which is pretty incredible, given the thread is now 70+ pages.

I get frustrated to no end to get told that for the last 10 years I haven't been running the game properly, since described problems haven't occurred in my game.

Wow....I've been wrong all this time.  I don't know how to play or run a game at all, since I haven't had issues with these items.

I never knew....maybe I should just quit and find another hobby...

Seems like, based on whatever edition people like they'll just go out of their way to find problems with the editions they don't like.  Which is their prorogative.  Doesn't mean it's "true" (whatever truth is).

Banshee


----------



## Banshee16

Salamandyr said:


> You know, reading this thread, it seems like every fictional character brought up who fights for a living can't actually be described by the fighter class.  I think that's a pretty good indication that the 3rd edition fighter class is woefully inadequate.




Are we talking fantasy characters?  Comic books?  Or "historical fiction"?  There are plenty of historical fiction characters who classify very well as fighters.

Banshee


----------



## Mort

Banshee16 said:


> Exactly.  This is basically an edition war in all but name....except we're all being polite about it...which is pretty incredible, given the thread is now 70+ pages.
> 
> I get frustrated to no end to get told that for the last 10 years I haven't been running the game properly, since described problems haven't occurred in my game.
> 
> Wow....I've been wrong all this time.  I don't know how to play or run a game at all, since I haven't had issues with these items.
> 
> I never knew....maybe I should just quit and find another hobby...
> 
> Seems like, based on whatever edition people like they'll just go out of their way to find problems with the editions they don't like.  Which is their prorogative.  Doesn't mean it's "true" (whatever truth is).
> 
> Banshee




It's not really an eddition war though. It's a discussion of the relative power level of the fighter vs. the wizard (or at least that's what it has morphed into). Having issues here does not mean you dislike 3e, it means you might like 3e a lot but are having a very specific problem and would like to see some insight, possible fixes etc. (many of which have been suggested in this thread and others)

If you do not have the problem, then ok, you're doing great - play the campaign the way you've been doing and continue having fun. Not everyone has the same issues with their games, does not mean they are not issues (for example I've never seen the 15 minute adventuring day rear its ugly head, but I've seen enough people complain about it on this board that I recognise it's an issue that could come up - just not for me).

Simply put this board now has *a lot* of members. This is great, but the problems encountered within the system will not crop up for everyone (as groups differ greatly in outlook, playstyle etc.), Even though everyone involved in the discussion loves to game and loves D&D.


----------



## Fifth Element

Banshee16 said:


> I get frustrated to no end to get told that for the last 10 years I haven't been running the game properly, since described problems haven't occurred in my game.
> 
> Wow....I've been wrong all this time.  I don't know how to play or run a game at all, since I haven't had issues with these items.



From what I've read, there has been very little "you're doing it wrong" flying around, primarily from one source, and that was directed at those who do have the stated problem with 3E: blaming the players and the DM.

It's one thing to not have the problem yourself. It's quite another to assume there's something wrong with a person who does. I'm not saying you've done this, but it's been done in this thread.


----------



## Banshee16

Mort said:


> If you do not have the problem, then ok, you're doing great - play the campaign the way you've been doing and continue having fun. Not everyone has the same issues with their games, does not mean they are not issues (for example I've never seen the 15 minute adventuring day rear its ugly head, but I've seen enough people complain about it on this board that I recognise it's an issue that could come up - just not for me).
> D&D.




This I can see.  Everyone is going to have different findings.  I *do* think that part of it has to be affected by bias.  But it goes in support of different systems depending who you talk with.  Play whatever is fun for you.  

Personally, I didn't like the loss of item saving throws.  This was a big risk in earlier editions.

I did think of another fiction author's method of limiting spellcasters.  Melanie Rawness had a series where the wizards drew power from the sun.  I think they could only cast during the day and if they were in the middle of casting when they were touched by cold steel their spell would be interrupted and they'd take a lot of damage.

Banshee


----------



## Neonchameleon

pawsplay said:


> I didn't. I said the fighter might be a general, in line with his vocation as a fighter. The general does not have to be a fighter.




But the fighter isn't very good at being a general.  And that's part of the problem.



Beginning of the End said:


> What your originally said: "Both of which are against the guidance given by the DMG (the four encounter adventuring day being what the game is "balanced" around indicating you shouldn't do things you do like toss wandering monsters in to pressure the PCs). (...) It also says it's balanced around that."
> 
> What you are now saying: "*The CR System* is based on the level of threat needed to use about a quarter of your resources."




The CR system.  That part of the game that provides the DM with his guidance on strength and pacing.  The part that is supposed to tell you how strong a monster is and therefore how much you can throw without it being either boring or a TPK.

*Monsters*therefore _are_ balanced around the four encounter day.  Because that is what the CR system _means_.  That's how the game balance involving monsters is set.  And it's what the system implicitely tells the DM to throw - which is precisely why the DMG needs to say "Don't do this".



> Well, at least you're now willing to admit that you were 100% wrong in claiming that this was "against the guidance given by the DMG". As you now correctly articulate, the DMG specifically tells you NOT to play the game the way you say you play it.




When have I said I play the game that way?  I say two things.  First the CR system is balanced one way - and second using it to always throw balanced encounters is _tedious_.  The advice not to always use balanced encounters is there for a damn good reason.  This is another example of your "My Precious Encounter Model" model.  



> Now, let's see how long it takes you to figure out that "you shouldn't do that" and "we designed the game around doing that" are basically never going to be logically applied to the same thing at the same time.




You miss something huge.  _Balance is Information_.  A balanced system should provide a lot of information to the DM about the expected result of any given fight.  And what a fair fight is.  Being balanced round that tells you when you are being fair - and when you are being unfair how unfair you are being.  What's being said is "We designed it to provide this information to the DM.  This information should not be used in the most simplistic way possible."

What the guidance in the DMG we are arguing about therefore says is "It is all right to be unfair.  Making PCs run is fine.  Making PCs think their way through what are on paper overwhelming situations* is better.  And lots of small encounters play faster than a few big ones and produce a nice effect."  And that advice is _needed_ because the game is balanced round CR = 1/4 of the resources of a party (which means the four encounter adventuring day) of that level and new DMs in particular are often conservative.

* As mine have been doing for the last three sessions - a fort with 30 bandits including five elites against five PCs.  They spent a week (in game time - two and a half sessions real time) terrorizing the place, and were then charismatic enough to turn one of the elites while the mooks ran.


----------



## Votan

Mort said:


> It's not really an eddition war though. It's a discussion of the relative power level of the fighter vs. the wizard (or at least that's what it has morphed into). Having issues here does not mean you dislike 3e, it means you might like 3e a lot but are having a very specific problem and would like to see some insight, possible fixes etc. (many of which have been suggested in this thread and others).




I should also point out that the 3E fighter is an odd creature.  I find the Paladin and Ranger less of an issue at high levels than the Fighter as they can both fulfill their archetypes better.  

I never did enjoy the weak will saves of the core martial classes (with the notable exception of Paladins) but I can easily imagine games in which it never really came up.  In my first 3.5 E game I used a lot of vampires (DC 13 domination) so it appeared like a massive flaw in class design.  But that could also have been a poorly chosen type of opponent.

I did find, in real play, that wizards tended to disappoint a bit.  This was especially true if their spellbooks were targeted.  I never really managed to make a cleric disappoint, though.  

The most raw fun we ever had involved a ranger, a psion, a paladin, and a cleric.  No wizard to be found.  [Earlier in the game, replace psion with Druid].

The most optimized party that I ever DMed did have two wizards (and nothing close to a fighter) -- that was the closest I ever got to seeing issues.   

My most enjoyable 3.5 character (as a player) was an Elf Druid (archer more than anything else).  

In real play, the wizard as "Batman" was rare.  But the poor performance of the Fighter persisted and the class seemed to never really shine in actual play.  I observed this in several cities across a long period of time, so if I misunderstood the class it wasn't a rare misunderstanding.  But I see this as an issue with 3.X, rather than evidence that 3.X was bad.  While my favorite edition is likely 1E, there is a lot to like and enjoy about 3.X (and these days I DM Pathfinder so I am hardly an opponent of the system).


----------



## BryonD

Neonchameleon said:


> But the fighter isn't very good at being a general.  And that's part of the problem.



Good to see I haven't missed anything in the past three pages.... 



Just as before, I'll happily accept that this is a problem to you.

But the opposite would be a problem to me.
The raw concept of a fighter is a guy who fights.  Being good at being a general is nowhere to be found in this.
Now, a guy who is great at fighting may also be a great general.  An lo and behold, this concept is easily created in 3E.
But a guy who fights may also just be a seriously tough and skilled combat machine.  When you start presuming that the fighter as a class implicitly carries with it the "good at leading" component, then you are reducing the options.

I want fighters who can lead and fighters who can't.  You are saying you are not satisfied unless they come with it.

I want bad ass staff swinging skull crushing wizards AND I want 16th level tower sheltered wizards who suddenly find themselves thrust into the position of reluctant adventurer.  Or maybe the scrawny guy who just always makes good use of meat shields and intends to keep it that way.  You said that the wizard needs to be fighting with the staff along the way and must gain this skill.  In effect my reluctant adventurer is not permitted within your design space.

It is cool that you are thrilled with your game of choice.

But if the fighter class is required to be capable at leading, then I'll pass.  There are wider options to be explored than that.


----------



## Fifth Element

BryonD said:


> But if the fighter class is required to be capable at leading, then I'll pass.  There are wider options to be explored than that.



I think the point is not that all fighters _must be_ capable leaders; just that it should not be too much trouble to make a fighter who's a good leader, given the numerous archetypes of such. And in 3E, a fighter will never be the best leader, and it eats up resources to even make him a passable one. You say the concept is easily created in 3E, but only to some extent.

The leader-fighter does not really fit in the 3E design space. That's an issue to some. You're content with all fighters only being good at fighting, but there are wider options to be explored than that. 	Why do we restrict the fighter with boundaries that don't apply to other classes? Why does he get fewer options?


----------



## Hussar

Raven Crowking said:


> That is a VERY edition-dependent observation.  And another example of things 3e got wrong (IMHO)....If I'm caught in a dragon's fiery breath while holding a scroll, the scroll should be the _*first thing *_to go up!
> 
> EDIT:  If you want to bag on some of the boneheaded changes made in the 2e --> 3e transition, I've got no problem with that.  Indeed, I have a long history of that......going back to when 3e was the new shiny, and bagging on it was not so popular.  So much do I dislike parts of 3e (and 4e, and 2e, and, yes, 1e) that I have given up on Official Versions altogether!  (If I did go back to an Official Version, right now it would be 1e).
> 
> 
> 
> Perhaps, but if so, they must be added to the cost in order to carry Hussar's point.
> 
> 
> RC




But, even in earlier editions, this sort of thing was ridiculously easy to get around.  Metal scroll tubes with screw caps - there, fire and water no longer are an issue.  You'd have to fail several saving throws, even by 1e rules, before you lose your scrolls.


----------



## Beginning of the End

Neonchameleon said:


> And it's what the system implicitely tells the DM to throw - which is precisely why the DMG needs to say "Don't do this".




You're actually trying to claim that the DMG contains an unwritten subtext which is 100% diametrically opposed to what the written text actually says?

Dude. That's tinfoil hat crazy.

But if you've reached the point where you're honestly reading "you should do X" to mean "you shouldn't do X" (or vice versa), than I can only imagine what horrific mutilations your subconscious must be inflicting upon posts here at ENWorld.

Which makes any further attempt to discuss this with you pointless. I hope others will follow my lead in simply ignoring anything else you have to post in this thread.

Ciao.

This is rude and unwelcome. - Rel


----------



## Hussar

Banshee16 said:


> Are we talking fantasy characters?  Comic books?  Or "historical fiction"?  There are plenty of historical fiction characters who classify very well as fighters.
> 
> Banshee




Name three.  Seriously, name three fantasy characters, or, heck, even with your caveat of historical fiction, characters that can be modeled well using a plain jane 3e fighter.



Mort said:


> The spell capacity of the 3e wizard (over vs. prior edditions) is dramatically higher (especially for utility purposes) with extremely easy access to cheap scrolls and wands.
> 
> Again why I'm leaning more and more toward spontaneous casters on my next 3e go around.




It's interesting to note that every single caster after core is significantly weaker than core casters and significantly more limited in capabilities.  I'd point to this as pretty solid evidence that there is something to the idea that 3e casters were a tad overpowered.

I mean, the non-caster classes got big power jumps in splats.  Yet the caster classes all got turned into things like War Wizards (blasting only), Warlocks (blasting only), and that cleric sorcerer variant whose name escapes me right now - soul forged?  Something like that.



Fifth Element said:


> I think the point is not that all fighters _must be_ capable leaders; just that it should not be too much trouble to make a fighter who's a good leader, given the numerous archetypes of such. And in 3E, a fighter will never be the best leader, and it eats up resources to even make him a passable one. You say the concept is easily created in 3E, but only to some extent.
> 
> The leader-fighter does not really fit in the 3E design space. That's an issue to some. You're content with all fighters only being good at fighting, but there are wider options to be explored than that. 	Why do we restrict the fighter with boundaries that don't apply to other classes? Why does he get fewer options?




Just to add to this.  It's not that fighters must be good leaders.  But, it would be nice if they could be good leaders AT ALL.  Sure, I can make a likeable fighter if I sacrifice all my skill points into that one thing and burn a feat or two.  But, at the same time, I cannot tell a lie to save my life, cannot intimidate anyone and cannot tell if someone is lying to me.  Plus I have absolutely no tactical knowledge, no education and eat with my fingers.

Sure, if you're happy with a fighter being a guy that swings a lumpy metal thing, then fine.  But, that doesn't change the fact that you have one class that is limited to one single schtick - swing lumpy metal thing, while every other class can encompass a large variety of concepts.


----------



## fanboy2000

Hussar said:


> Name three.  Seriously, name three fantasy characters, or, heck, even with your caveat of historical fiction, characters that can be modeled well using a plain jane 3e fighter.



Dark Agnes de Chastillon, Solomon Kane, and Fafhrd.


----------



## pemerton

I don't know the Fafhrd and Mouser stroies outside of D&D's interpretation of them - but those interpretations always gave me the impression of Fafhrd being able to skulk (Stealth skill, on in 1st ed AD&D thief levels, as per DDG - which, from memory, also made him a ranger rather than a fighter, suggesting that he's also a tracker).

And doesn't Solomon Kane have reasonable religious/historical knowledge?


----------



## Mort

fanboy2000 said:


> Dark Agnes de Chastillon




Not familiar with this one [edit: apparantly I should be - love Robert E. Howard, well now I know my next set of stories to read!]



fanboy2000 said:


> Solomon Kane




The fighting abilities maybe. But not the sense motive or the tracking abilities and the religious knowledge - the fighter would never have enough skill points to keep up. A spell-less ranger is a much closer fit.



fanboy2000 said:


> and Fafhrd.




Skald (Bard)/barbarian is a closer fit. You could do it with a fighter - but again you'd be missing out on the skill points (Fafhrd does a lot of rogue things that would be very difficult to model with the fighters 2 skill points even with a high int).

In the above cases both could be better modelled with a fighter by the simple expediant of giving the fighter a few more skill points and some more class skills (then again in my game I abolished class skills entirely and gave each player an extra "signature skill" to boot- and it only seemed to add to players enjoyment of the game).


----------



## Hussar

I wonder if Mike Mearls reads Enworld:

Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (Fighters vs. Wizards)


----------



## Banshee16

Hussar said:


> Name three.  Seriously, name three fantasy characters, or, heck, even with your caveat of historical fiction, characters that can be modeled well using a plain jane 3e fighter.





You mean guys like Charlemagne, Beowulf, Sigurd, Ivanhoe, etc.?  What about Arn Magnusson?

Now, some of these guys I'd term "Cavaliers"......but that's not a class in core 3E......so, fighter.

Then there's Lancelot, Gawain, and several others of the Knights of the Round Table.  Some, such as Galahad would be more like paladins....but Gawain wouldn't have been.....most of them were fighters or cavaliers, without a stitch of spellcasting ability.

Cuchulainn, I assume, would be a barbarian, rather than a fighter.

Myth is full of powerful warriors....

That having been said, I think the game lacks by not having a social class/nobility type aspect, knights, politics, and proper use of strongholds etc.  This stuff really wasn't there in 3E, aside from optional supplements.  I do think the inclusion of such would have helped to establish fighters as natural leaders.  Back in 2nd Ed. it was the fighter who gained the most followers out of anybody.  And that meant something.  It was cool to have a castle and your own personal army.  I kind of missed that.

Even so....unless the fighter is competing against a bard in diplomacy, he can hold his own against commoners.  It's not likely he's going to be competing against lvl 15 commoners to command people.  Thus, he might be c ompeting against commoners of lvls 1-4, and for that, his limited diplomacy ranks will likely do fine.  And that's without even changing any of the rules.

Banshee


----------



## billd91

Neonchameleon said:


> Subodai, arguably the greatest general the world has known, was carried into battle on a litter.  Napoleon was known as "The Little Corporal" and I may be wrong but I don't recall evidence that he was a great hand to hand fighter.  Wellington was a notoriously poor shot.  I see little evidence that any of these men was a fighter.  Yes, they could wield weapons.  But that was about it.  And classes other than fighters can wield weapons - so why insist that generals need to be fighters?  There is, so far as I can tell, little mechanical support for this.




Little support if you change the milieu from fantasy swords and sorcery to real world history without changing any of the details. Guys like Wellington were aristocrats. Napoleon, however, having come up the ranks could easily be a fighter - with a good intelligence and feats/weapons based around artillery and using a whole new set of fighter bonus feats geared around the weapons of 18th-19th century war rather than fantasy.

Trying to build Napoleon as a fighter using the feats in D&D is like buildilng the Empire State Building using the materials of the the Lighthouse of Alexandria. While the materials of the lighthouse may have produced impressive results back in their day, they aren't up to the different environment of Depression-era New York City. New materials have to be added or the comparison becomes not only futile but foolish.


----------



## billd91

Hussar said:


> Name three.  Seriously, name three fantasy characters, or, heck, even with your caveat of historical fiction, characters that can be modeled well using a plain jane 3e fighter.




Most of the principle Greek characters from the Iliad could be done as fighters quite easily.


----------



## pemerton

Banshee16 said:


> You mean guys like Charlemagne
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Then there's Lancelot, Gawain, and several others of the Knights of the Round Table.  Some, such as Galahad would be more like paladins....but Gawain wouldn't have been.....most of them were fighters or cavaliers, without a stitch of spellcasting ability.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Myth is full of powerful warriors....



I agree that myth is full of powerful warriors. I'm not sure a 3E fighter does them full justice though. As someone noted upthread, the poor Will save is at odds with the mythical presentation of at least the Christian heroes as very strong-willed, able (in most cases) to resist the lures of witches etc.

There is also the issue of Charisma. These historical figures tend to have a lot of it, whereas 3E fighters who are optimised for fighting will tend to have less of it.

I don't think that in core 3E there is a way for a fighter to use Charisma to boost Will saves and to debuff opponents (eg by intimidating them). That sort of feat or class feature would go a long way to letting the 3E fighter model a Knight of the Round Table.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:


> But, even in earlier editions, this sort of thing was ridiculously easy to get around.  Metal scroll tubes with screw caps - there, fire and water no longer are an issue.  You'd have to fail several saving throws, even by 1e rules, before you lose your scrolls.




Assumes the equipment exists.  It certainly doesn't in the 1e PHB!

This is a bit later in history than the implied setting of 1e D&D:  Kilner jar - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


RC


----------



## Votan

Banshee16 said:


> You mean guys like Charlemagne, Beowulf, Sigurd, Ivanhoe, etc.?  What about Arn Magnusson?
> 
> Now, some of these guys I'd term "Cavaliers"......but that's not a class in core 3E......so, fighter.
> 
> Then there's Lancelot, Gawain, and several others of the Knights of the Round Table.  Some, such as Galahad would be more like paladins....but Gawain wouldn't have been.....most of them were fighters or cavaliers, without a stitch of spellcasting ability.
> 
> Cuchulainn, I assume, would be a barbarian, rather than a fighter.
> 
> Myth is full of powerful warriors....
> 
> That having been said, I think the game lacks by not having a social class/nobility type aspect, knights, politics, and proper use of strongholds etc.  This stuff really wasn't there in 3E, aside from optional supplements.  I do think the inclusion of such would have helped to establish fighters as natural leaders.  Back in 2nd Ed. it was the fighter who gained the most followers out of anybody.  And that meant something.  It was cool to have a castle and your own personal army.  I kind of missed that.
> 
> Even so....unless the fighter is competing against a bard in diplomacy, he can hold his own against commoners.  It's not likely he's going to be competing against lvl 15 commoners to command people.  Thus, he might be c ompeting against commoners of lvls 1-4, and for that, his limited diplomacy ranks will likely do fine.  And that's without even changing any of the rules.
> 
> Banshee




I think that the issue is partially who the fighter competes against.  A cleric who decides to be a leader is infinitely better suited for the role than a fighter (despite the weak skill points of the cleric).  Ignoring spells that can assist, the presence of diplomacy and sense motive as class skills plus a strong will save make the clergy way better commanders than then the fighters.  In a Drow city that simply makes sense.  But it does not necessarily make it easy to model common "fighting man" archetypes.

Consider:

The grizzled NCO (who can't make a fear save)
The officer (who is a poor leader compared to the court musician)
The noble knight (who is tongue tied next to the cut-purse)
The seasoned mercenary (who is a poor judge of men next to the Druid)
The sentry (who has weaker perception skills than a commoner)

Even the barbarian (with will save adds in rage and 4 skill points per level) can be better at these roles.  

In a sense, it is like phased in incompetence.  A fighter will be hopeless at level appropriate challenges compared to the classes with a focus here.  It's not that any of these is a particular issue -- it is that all of them are.  

Now you could multi-class in Bard or Rogue.  Few fantasy characters can actually be modeled without doing this and still have them as capable as they are.

Now why am I picking on the Fighter?  Because it is the one class that seems to have been carefully slotted into a very narrow role whereas the other core classes do neat things in battle plus more.  

The real competition is the rest of the party (at the levels that we are discussing where the fighter breaks down, the fighter is a fine class from levels 1 to 8).  At 15th level, the CHA 8 rogue could still have a +17 Diplomacy check (making her easily able to do checks that the fighter cannot do).  Level 4 commoners could easily have a +8 spot, that would be a major skill investment for a level 15 fighter.  A wizard can't spot but they can use spells (e.g. Alarm, foresight, Moment of Prescience) to compensate.  

Not to mention the Paladin or the Cleric who might be looking at a +25 sense motive check (18 ranks plus a 24 wisdom) ; the fighter will never be able to compete with this.  EDIT: Only the Paladin and not the Cleric.  Other Sense Motive classes were the Monk, the Bard and the Rogue.  Of thsse, the Monk is the most obvious example.  

I used to argue that (if there were not prestige classes of great merit floating around or anything special in epic) that a Fighter 16/Rogue 4 was superior to a Fighter 20 by so much it was painful.  It also models a lot of historical warriors way, way better (giving some some competence at stealth or perception or judging people or diplomacy).


----------



## BryonD

Fifth Element said:


> I think the point is not that all fighters _must be_ capable leaders; just that it should not be too much trouble to make a fighter who's a good leader, given the numerous archetypes of such. And in 3E, a fighter will never be the best leader, and it eats up resources to even make him a passable one. You say the concept is easily created in 3E, but only to some extent.
> 
> The leader-fighter does not really fit in the 3E design space. That's an issue to some. You're content with all fighters only being good at fighting, but there are wider options to be explored than that. 	Why do we restrict the fighter with boundaries that don't apply to other classes? Why does he get fewer options?



I disagree that it is that hard in 3E.  As a matter if fact, I know it is not.  If you want to talk about improving the 3E skill system, I'm interested.  It can certainly be improved.  But making a a great leader fighter easily fits in the 3E design space using pure fighters.  And, on top of that, since the 3E design space presumes the existence of multi-class and PClass characters, the challenge quickly becomes trivial.  The fighter fights.  That is a good thing.  And part of the reason it is a good thing is it is a base piece that you have tons of tools for building on.  You want pure combat machine?  Then that core is there without leadership automatically tacked on, you can add it or not.

I also disagree that you are accurately characterizing "the fighter isn't very good at being a general".  And, this all gets back to one of my long time complaints about 4E in general in that a foundation design assumption is that everyone is capable at everything.  Every fighter gains in skill at leading.  Every single one. 
Just as every single wizard gets better at hitting things with a stick and climbing walls and picking locks.


----------



## BryonD

Votan said:


> The grizzled NCO (who can't make a fear save)
> The officer (who is a poor leader compared to the court musician)
> The noble knight (who is tongue tied next to the cut-purse)
> The seasoned mercenary (who is a poor judge of men next to the Druid)
> The sentry (who has weaker perception skills than a commoner)
> 
> In a sense, it is like phased in incompetence.  A fighter will be hopeless at level appropriate challenges compared to the classes with a focus here.



"Can't"?  "Hopeless"?  First you are way overstating the case here.
Just comparing classes straight up the fear save is only 4 points behind any other class at 10th level through 13th level.  "Can't" is not remotely accurate.

One feat, which the fighter has plenty of, and you erase half the difference right there.  And if you design a grizzled NCO (defined in this case by ability to resist fear) with an 8 WIS, then you are not making an effort to design what you claim.  So the disadvantage is quite minor and quite acceptable.  The claim of "can't" is either poorly considered or disingenuous.

(As an aside, the fighter in Pathfinder gets a bonus specifically to fear saves that keeps them at or just -1 behind a good will save at every level)

When you talk about skills you are apparently presuming a generic build fighter and then declaring him poor at given specialties.  You can easily build these options.  Certainly I've always found it common that gaining a class skill is easy.  But even without that an appropriate character build for the concept and simply taking skill focus goes a long way.  Depending on how you build it, there may be no difference, or the pure fighter may lag slightly.  But, again, "incompetence" is either an incredibly poor choice of words, or is not an honest presentation.

But then we get to the real issue, because all this above is just playing with a deck stacked in your favor.



> Now you could multi-class in Bard or Rogue.  Few fantasy characters can actually be modeled without doing this and still have them as capable as they are.



The system was designed with multi classing and prestige classes from the start.  The presumption that these tools are there to complete a concept is a core element of the game.  So taking that away isn't a quality assessment of the system.

I'd quibble over the bard because there is plenty of merit in avoiding any magic in a lot of concepts, and even if we assume you can simply reskin the abilities of a couple levels of bard, that is still a whole separate discussion.

But there is nothing whatsoever wrong in taking a few levels of rogue or barbarian or ranger or, of course, a PClass.  It is assumed.

The fighter fights.  That is what he does.

Frankly, if you just want to say that a Fighter16/Rogue4 is a better character than a Fighter20, you could quite possibly find me in agreement with you.  But the pure fighter does put all his eggs in the "I fight" basket.  And at very high levels you can also say that feats get a diminishing return.

But that doesn't hold nearly as true at 8/2 and 10.  Not that there is anything wrong with a F8/R2, but the F10 works just fine and can be designed with a variety of concepts in mind, all before you get into the presumed idea of multiclassing and PClasses.

But when you say "can't", "tongue-tied", "hopeless", "incompetent", then you are way off base.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Beginning of the End said:


> You're actually trying to claim that the DMG contains an unwritten subtext which is 100% diametrically opposed to what the written text actually says?
> 
> Dude. That's tinfoil hat crazy.
> 
> But if you've reached the point where you're honestly reading "you should do X" to mean "you shouldn't do X" (or vice versa), than I can only imagine what horrific mutilations your subconscious must be inflicting upon posts here at ENWorld.
> 
> Which makes any further attempt to discuss this with you pointless. I hope others will follow my lead in simply ignoring anything else you have to post in this thread.
> 
> Ciao.




Apparently you have no interest in listening and learning.  D&D is not the only thing to give you instructions and then encourage you not to use them.  I wonder why you bother discussing things at all rather than just post your sometimes interesting material on your blog.

To take another example that does exactly the same thing, think of lego.  When you buy lego, you buy a kit with a specific model on the front and a set of instructions.  If you follow the instructions on the packet of lego you bought you get a pre-packaged single model.  Which is equivalent to following the instructions on the meaning of the CR system and getting four CR-equivalent encounters per day.

But is following the instructions to get the pre-packaged result the most fun way to play with lego?  Although tastes differ, I know _no one_ who just follows the instructions.  It's dull.  This is despite the instructions in the box.  _Everyone_ I know who has or had lego might have followed the instructions once - but after that the lego would always end up in a big tub.  Because making your own stuff is far more fun.  And every kid would do so _whatever the instructions said_.  And the makers of lego know this - they neither expect you nor want you to follow the instructions on the box of lego.  The subtext and expectation in lego (throw all your legos into a tub and make whatever you want with them) is therefore diametrically opposed to the instruction leaflet to make this one specific toy with the lego you bought.  Call this tinfoil hat crazy if you like.

D&D is slightly different but along the same lines for a lot of reasons.  Like Lego it pre-packages monsters with their instructions for the most basic use.  That's the CR.  It is also much more fun if you mix things up and do other things than the most basic one the designers laid out.

However unlike lego there's a penalty for screwing up.  The penalty being boring or irritating your friends - and destroying their toys.  As far as I know in order to get lego wrong you have to feed it to people (or make a crossbow, but that's another story).  This means that new DMs are going to be much more worried about messing up than kids playing with lego.  So they need a second set of guidance - this saying that varying within a given range is a good idea and that you don't always have to follow the very basic instructions.   It also itself gives a set of instructions for how much to vary what's printed on the box.  This is because starting to DM is _scary _and structures and instructions give you some sort of security.  And it's abstract.  Any idiot can stick two lego blocks together.

You effectively have concentric circles of instructions about balance.  Circle 1: "This is what the game is balanced around." (The four encounter day)  Circle 2: "Mix it up.  Here's a way that works."  (The encounter range in the DMG).  Circle 3: "Pitch to your PCs and if everyone's having fun that's the goal."  Note that circle 2 is in tension with circle 1 and if you take circle 1 as gospel (rather than a part of the game) you are going to see those in circle 2 as heretics.  And Circle 3 is in tension with circle 2 and if you treat circle 2 as rigid you're going to have problems with circle 3.  It's not crazy to accept that all these rings of guidance are within the game - and aimed at different people.

One of the marks of mastering a skill is knowing how tightly to stick to the guidance.  And when you teach you sometimes contradict later.  What happens if you take four from three?  Ask a young kid who's started to learn arithmetic and he'll (or she'll) tell you you can't.  It's only later you teach about negative numebrs.


----------



## BryonD

Neonchameleon said:


> This means that new DMs are going to be much more worried about messing up than kids playing with lego.  So they need a second set of guidance
> ...
> 
> This is because starting to DM is _scary _and structures and instructions give you some sort of security.




This is an idea I have heard numerous times since 4E was announced.  And it makes me wonder how these people think we ever reached a point of having a *fourth* edition.

For decades now we have done just fine.  There is no need to go lowering the bar now.

And, frankly, if anyone NEEDS the bar lowered, then they are probably never going to be a great DM anyway.  Sure, 4E will compensate for their lack of skill.  I do agree with that.  But I'd vastly prefer to play with a quality DM than play a system that is designed to be a security blanket because it presumes the DM is scared.  (And even if I played 4E, I'd rather play with a DM who didn't find other systems scary.  Compensating for not being a good DM is not the same as being a good DM.)


----------



## Fifth Element

BryonD said:


> I disagree that it is that hard in 3E.  As a matter if fact, I know it is not.  If you want to talk about improving the 3E skill system, I'm interested.  It can certainly be improved.



It's possible, but of course at the expense of fighting ability. 3E Fighters need Strength, Constitution, Dexterity. They can't afford high Intelligence or Charisma, unless they want to give up some combat effectiveness. Their usually low Intelligence means they have few skill points, and the good leader ones are cross-class. They can improve skills with feats, but this again reduces their combat effectiveness.

It's also true that you can multiclass to make up some of the difference, but why should the fighter have to multiclass to reach a well-established archetype when the wizard can just keep going in his class and do whatever he likes? If you want to talk about exploring options, the fighter probably has the least of them: he's good at hitting things. If you want to do more than his primary schtick, unlike other classes you have to find some work-around rather than just doing it.


----------



## Fifth Element

BryonD said:


> This is an idea I have heard numerous times since 4E was announced.  And it makes me wonder how these people think we ever reached a point of having a *fourth* edition.
> 
> For decades now we have done just fine.  There is no need to go lowering the bar now.



If I'm reading this part of the discussion correctly, you've completely missed Neonchameleon's point. He's saying that there are two sets of guidelines: one for new players and one for experienced ones, and that it's not incongruous for both to be in the same game. It's not that the bar is lowered and must stay lowered for everyone; it's that the guidelines offered for new players are not necessarily the best ones for experienced players to use.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Banshee16 said:


> You mean guys like Charlemagne, Beowulf, Sigurd, Ivanhoe, etc.? What about Arn Magnusson?
> 
> Now, some of these guys I'd term "Cavaliers"......but that's not a class in core 3E......so, fighter.
> 
> Then there's Lancelot, Gawain, and several others of the Knights of the Round Table. Some, such as Galahad would be more like paladins....but Gawain wouldn't have been.....most of them were fighters or cavaliers, without a stitch of spellcasting ability.
> 
> Cuchulainn, I assume, would be a barbarian, rather than a fighter.
> 
> Myth is full of powerful warriors....




The problem here is that you're conflating "fighter" with "3E fighter". In 1e or 4e I'd agree with you that they are generally fighters. (This includes Slayers and Knights).  In 3e, the Warblade class does a far better job of mythological fighters than the fighter does.



billd91 said:


> Little support if you change the milieu from fantasy swords and sorcery to real world history without changing any of the details. Guys like Wellington were aristocrats. Napoleon, however, having come up the ranks could easily be a fighter - with a good intelligence and feats/weapons based around artillery and using a whole new set of fighter bonus feats geared around the weapons of 18th-19th century war rather than fantasy.




Fine. I simply know more more modern military history. How about Julius Caesar (a politician as much as a general), Belisarius, Subodai, Charlemeign (sp?), Hannibal? Being a general in antiquity was more about being a politician than being a fighter.



BryonD said:


> And, this all gets back to one of my long time complaints about 4E in general in that a foundation design assumption is that everyone is capable at everything. Every fighter gains in skill at leading. Every single one.
> Just as every single wizard gets better at hitting things with a stick and climbing walls and picking locks.




To put this into perspective, first it's not every single wizard. It's every single _PC_ wizard. NPC wizards use whatever rules the DM likes. And second, the rate you gain ability is slow. A first level PC with skill training and a 18 basic stat has +9. (E.g. a 1st level thief). A wizard with dex 10 and no training needs to reach level _eighteen_ before he can match that thief. I fail to see why it's a problem that an 18th level wizard can point at a simple lock and order it to open. Or why the charisma 10 fighter who has literally been through hell and back and can take on half the enemy army single handed shouldn't inspire people by his very presence as much as the sociable first level bard. The fighter is after all a living legend by that point and having him on their side should be incredibly inspiring.

These skills don't come up in play because there's always someone in the party who can actually do it well. But I feel the character is more rounded for having them.


----------



## billd91

Neonchameleon said:


> Fine. I simply know more more modern military history. How about Julius Caesar (a politician as much as a general), Belisarius, Subodai, Charlemeign (sp?), Hannibal? Being a general in antiquity was more about being a politician than being a fighter.




Guys like Caesar and Pompey would have started out as aristocrats without a doubt. But, particularly in Caesar's case, I have no doubt he'd be well written up in 3e D&D with a few aristocrat levels and a few fighter levels as well. Roman officials frequently spent years with legions, often fighting with them. So fighter levels would definitely be a complement to most Romans officers even if they were fundamentally aristocrats.


----------



## Neonchameleon

BryonD said:


> And, frankly, if anyone NEEDS the bar lowered, then they are probably never going to be a great DM anyway.




Most people are probably never going to be great DMs. But that's no reason to throw caltrops in the way of some that might be. Or to give the DMs arbitrary problems just because they've always been so.



> Sure, 4E will compensate for their lack of skill. I do agree with that. But I'd vastly prefer to play with a quality DM than play a system that is designed to be a security blanket because it presumes the DM is scared.




I'd rather play just about any system with a quality DM than a better system with a mediocre DM. (There are exceptions - mediocre Dread or Wushu beats a good DM trying to run FATAL but you need to be of that sort of order). However different DMs find different parts of games problems. And a system that supports them rather than hinders and causes masses of prep time will help bring good things out of DMs.



> (And even if I played 4E, I'd rather play with a DM who didn't find other systems scary. Compensating for not being a good DM is not the same as being a good DM.)




If the system compensates properly to the point that the players don't see the difference, then how isn't it? To take an example I'll never be more than a passable horror DM. Horror isn't my thing. But if I put down the GURPS rules and use Dread instead, I can run a very good horror game.

And apparently you want there to be only two types of people. Great DMs and no DMs. But like most other skills, DMing takes practice, and has barriers for entry. It's much easier to become a competent DM in 4e than 3.X - and this means that many more people will give it a go. (Which has the side effect of helping weed out the poor but bull headed DMs who do it because no one else wants to). In all my current games, more than half of each table DMs. And thus has the opportunity to become good or even great. And I've yet to see two DMs with exactly the same range of skills.  Would otherwise talented DMs not DM with a higher barrier to entry?  I think so.

Edit:

Caesar might be a fighter/aristocrat (I'd question that - aristos can fight pretty well and I don't think Caesar was often on the front lines), but in that case it's the aristocrat part that provides any mechanical generalship in 3.X.  That means that levels in fighter are actively holding him back.

Of course a house-rule to fix the fighter to make a military commander would be a line of commanding and leadership feats that also counted as fighter feats.  And that stacked effectively.


----------



## Votan

BryonD said:


> "Can't"?  "Hopeless"?  First you are way overstating the case here.
> Just comparing classes straight up the fear save is only 4 points behind any other class at 10th level through 13th level.  "Can't" is not remotely accurate.
> 
> One feat, which the fighter has plenty of, and you erase half the difference right there.  And if you design a grizzled NCO (defined in this case by ability to resist fear) with an 8 WIS, then you are not making an effort to design what you claim.  So the disadvantage is quite minor and quite acceptable.  The claim of "can't" is either poorly considered or disingenuous.
> 
> (As an aside, the fighter in Pathfinder gets a bonus specifically to fear saves that keeps them at or just -1 behind a good will save at every level)
> 
> When you talk about skills you are apparently presuming a generic build fighter and then declaring him poor at given specialties.  You can easily build these options.  Certainly I've always found it common that gaining a class skill is easy.  But even without that an appropriate character build for the concept and simply taking skill focus goes a long way.  Depending on how you build it, there may be no difference, or the pure fighter may lag slightly.  But, again, "incompetence" is either an incredibly poor choice of words, or is not an honest presentation.
> 
> But then we get to the real issue, because all this above is just playing with a deck stacked in your favor.




Well, let us consider a 15th level Fighter, then.  Elite Array is the design statistics for 3rd edition (let's ignore Pathfinder for a moment and look @ 3.5E).

So S 15 (+3 leveling) D 13 Cn 14 I 10 W 12 C 8 

would be a normal array.  Presume you have spent a feat on Iron Will (you have a lot of feats) and have a +3 save item.  I would expect a will save of +5 (base) + 3 item +2 feat and +1 stat.  That is +11.  

What are some level appropriate challenges to will?  A Horned Devil is about the right CR has a DC 23 fear aura (need a 12 to save), just walking into the aura.  And that is with a strong focus on saving throws, taking the extra feat and focusing on wisdom instead of intelligence or charisma.  Without the feat and with a wisdom of 10, the odds are much worse (needs a 15 to pass) and that isn't a ridiculous fighter build.  A level appropriate Red Dragon is worse (DC 24) although I amdit the consequences are minor.  

The wizard, on the other hand, also gets bonus feats (from a different slect list) and has a +9 base save at this level (which is picked to make the save difference minimal; it's worse one level up or down) so, with a 10 wisdom is better than the fighter at standing his ground despite lacking a feat and having a weaker wisdom score (presuming that the wizard also invests in save boosting items).  

But the killer is a dominate person spell from a level appropriate NPC wizard (DC is 10 + 5 + between 5 and 7 for INT) = 20 to 22 (roughly even odds).  

Or what about social skills?  Sense Motive is DC 25 to detect a charmed person.  Even with 2 ranks in the skill (even if humn, we are talking only 48 skill points total), the fighter can't ever make this check.  For a DC 15 domination effect, he has a +3 (and that is with actually investing in it).  

Or what about spot and listen?  A CR 11 Dread wraith has a Hide of +24 (versus a spot of +1, maybe plus +3 with a couple of ranks).  

A 15th level rogue with 8 wis would likely have spot +17, listen +17 and would be quite competent to spot the Dread Wraith (impossible for the Fighter).  

It is true that saves are not as bad as the skills (and I apologize for any hyperbole).  But the skills are pretty bad.  Some of this is niche protection (the rogue is really needed to detect problems upfront).  But it also means that the fighter lags way behind the rest.  

Consider, spot and listen.  A rogue with normal wisdom will still likely have a +18 to spot a hidden foe.  A Fighter who wants combat expertise is unlikely to have more than a 10 in wisdom and might well have a +0 spot modifier.  Rolls of 1 or 2 by the rogue are as effective as rolls of 19 or 20 by the fighter.  That slowly makes things that challenge the rogue, impossible for the fighter.  

Even worse happens if the skill aligns with a attribute that the class pushes.  Imagine a Druid investing in spot (likely with a 22 wisdom by level 15) or a bard investing in diplomacy.  Since a "1" is not an automatic failure, these classes can do better than a fighter with a modest investment in the skill (say 5 ranks) without even rolling.  And 5 cross class skill ranks is 10 skill points from a class with a base of 2 and few advantages to intelligence (and which benefits from being a dwarf, for example).

It's not that this is necessarily unrealitic nor that the class is unplayble but that it does seem to fit fictional archetypes poorly.  There are some exceptions (the Iliad seems to be one, Roman gladiators would be another).  

This, by the way, is not a comment on the power level of the class.  It's capable of being really brutally strong, especially if the full array of 3.5E feats are permitted.  

But it is an odd design space for the class, especially since other classes in 3.5E don't have the same issues (Rangers and Monks, for example).    

But your mileage may vary.


----------



## Salamandyr

fanboy2000 said:


> Dark Agnes de Chastillon, Solomon Kane, and Fafhrd.




Don't know the first one, but Solomon Kane's skillset is considerably broader than the vanilla fighter, his knowledge of both religion and dark beasties is considerably greater than a vanilla fighter, and his bravery is considerably more than the average fighter (really, do you think Solomon Kane is even capable of failing a will save?)

As for Fafhrd, a character I know considerably well; No, just...no.  Off hand, Fafhrd needs Perform, Stealth, Spot, Listen, Search, Diplomacy _and_ Bluff, Climb (okay the fighter gets this one), Knowledge (Nature) and Survival, tracking, multiple languages, and regional knowledge skills.  I don't think he ever picked a pocket or picked a lock, after all he hung out with the Gray Mouser, but if the Mouser was off on his own, I bet he could at least _try_.  He also never failed a will save when it mattered.  Fafhrd can't be simulated without at least a smattering of rogue and bard levels...all to make a character whose primary schtick was being a fighting man and slayer of beasties.


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## Hussar

Raven Crowking said:


> Assumes the equipment exists.  It certainly doesn't in the 1e PHB!
> 
> This is a bit later in history than the implied setting of 1e D&D:  Kilner jar - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
> 
> 
> RC




But isn't that where player skill comes in?

One doesn't need to go all the way to jam jars to find this.  A screw top tube is not exactly a huge technological jump.

Or, for that matter, a _cork_.  

My point is, while you can certainly destroy equipment, there are some fairly simple ways around it as well.  Then again, if my MU is getting fireballed, I'm probably more concerned about the whole dying thing, more than losing my scrolls.  

Leather backback to store stuff has to fail save vs fire, then whatever container I put the scrolls in has to fail the saves, then the scrolls themselves have to fail their saves.  That's a pretty low chance of losing scrolls.

And, of course, that's assuming that my scrolls are using paper.  Vellum works so much better, looks cooler and doesn't matter if it gets wet.  Bamboo sheafs, similar to the way Buddhist texts are written work as well, although, they are a smidgeon easy to burn.  But, whack them inside a metal case and you're good to go.

The problem with this becomes the constant upping of the ante between the antagonistic DM and player.  I have no interest in this style of game anymore.


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## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:


> But isn't that where player skill comes in?
> 
> One doesn't need to go all the way to jam jars to find this.  A screw top tube is not exactly a huge technological jump.




Actually, AFAICT, the screw-top lid was invented by Kilner.  So, yes, it actually is a larger technological jump than might at first be apparent.  The pieces have to match properly, which in and of itself implies a post-industrial level of technology.

You are better off with a cork, as you suggest.

Which is fine for utility spells, but the more you protect a combat spell scroll, the less at hand it is for actual combat.

(Although, of course, I'll readily agree that, in 1e, the largest difficulty comes from in having the scrolls in the first place.)

Even so, equipment saves in 1e are not based on character level, so it would not be at all unusual for a leather backpack, a scroll tube, and a scroll to be incinerated per RAW......from normal fire, let alone magical fire.  

In some cases, post-_fireball_, the real trick is to seperate out the precious metals from the rest of the slag!  

Re: Vellum, it must be remembered that danger to a scroll comes from both loss of the scroll itself, and loss of the writing (i.e., ink running or being lost).  Although, again, the level of danger of losing scrolls is milieu-dependent.  The map found in Area 2 of the 1e DMG sample adventure (which is the basis for the 3e sample adventure) is in a scroll tube which has leaked somewhat, obscuring part of the map, so the idea isn't completely foreign to 1e.



> The problem with this becomes the constant upping of the ante between the antagonistic DM and player.  I have no interest in this style of game anymore.




While I won't dispute that this may be true, I would certainly dispute that it must be true.

IMHO and IME, the goal is to provide an engaging and interesting situation to explore (regardless of the type of exploration) in which both good and bad things may happen.  I much prefer the 1e model, in which the game is intended to challenge both players and characters, and in which the RAW is designed to facilitate interesting things happening without proscribing what may happen within the game milieu.

I certainly do not consider myself an adversarial GM.



RC


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## Banshee16

Neonchameleon said:


> The problem here is that you're conflating "fighter" with "3E fighter". In 1e or 4e I'd agree with you that they are generally fighters. (This includes Slayers and Knights).  In 3e, the Warblade class does a far better job of mythological fighters than the fighter does.




Warblade?  All the classes from BoNS utilize nigh magical type melee abilities.  Warblade is likely the least mystical of them, but many of the abilities in the Diamond Mind school and Stone Dragon school are pretty magical in nature.

I thought we were talking about fighters here....not throwing every optional class conceived in 3E into the mix.  Because if we want to do that, there are a heck of a lot of really useful feats for fighters in the Players Handbook 2 and a few other books.  And they would alleviate the difference.  Yes, the Warblade could take those feats too...but the fighter gets more of them.

The 3E fighter is perfectly capable of representing most of the characters I listed.  And that's what it was intended to do.  Again, I do think a hypothetical Cavalier class (not even considering WotC's terrible Knight class) might represent several of them better.  The warblade?  I don't know what it's supposed to be.  It and the other classes in that book appear more inspired by anime than anything else.  I mean, I'm not blasting the book....I think it's neat....but one of the things I was disappointed about with it was how everything was kind of mystical, to one degree or another.  I thought Swashbuckling Adventures, with feats for Beat, Parry, Counterattack, Riposte, Sidestep, Lunge, and all that kind of thing, in some ways accomplished what I'd like to see in terms of options in combat far better than the BoNS did (IMO).  I'd never even conceive of trying to use a Warblade classed character to convey a knight in shining armor (for instance).

The other kind of fix would have been, instead of having a Knight class, have some kind of Noble class....that way you could get your character that has a strength in Diplomacy, Bluff, Sense Motive, etc. etc. while retaining some capability in combat.  Then your Knights would be Noble/Fighter multiclasses.  But, as others have posted...the Fighter is intended as a broad class....it has to cover the Knight, the gladiator, the yeoman archer, crossbowman, mercenary soldier, heavy infantry, etc. etc.  Most of those roles don't require a skill in diplomacy etc.

To me, it's quite obvious my games games have been very different from those described by some others in this thread (I'm not saying they're wrong....just we had different experiences).  I haven't found fighters ineffective at all.  My main criticism is likely the weak will save.  But there has to be a weakness somewhere.  It's not going to be Fortitude.  And I'm pretty sure they were trying to simulate the concept in fantasy literature that the fighter can chop the wizard apart, if he can get to him, but the wizard uses a spell, and the warrior's big muscles amount to nothing.  Of course, there's a save....but in my experience, most of my players tried to shore up the save, instead of using WIS as a dump stat in fighters.

At least in how they read (given I haven't found players willing to try them), the two d20 based systems for martial combat I find most fascinating are the ones used for the Conan D20 game, and the A Game of Thrones game by Guardians of Order.  However, neither is used with standard D20 type spellcasting either.  Conan, in particular, with armor as damage reduction, and then particular weapons being better at penetrating particular armor seems to have the best "feel".  It's actually kind of reminiscent of the AD&D optional rules in the PHB for armors giving particular bonuses against particular weapon types (slashing, piercing, bashing).  In that edition, Full Plate might be AC 1, but it also applied a -7 to hit rolls by slashing weapons for instance, and I think a +0 to hit rolls by bashing weapons....so it was better to use a mace against plate armor, instead of a sword.  But, that stuff is all optional, anyways.

But that's getting way off topic.

Banshee


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## Fifth Element

Banshee16 said:


> And I'm pretty sure they were trying to simulate the concept in fantasy literature that the fighter can chop the wizard apart, if he can get to him, but the wizard uses a spell, and the warrior's big muscles amount to nothing.



Frigging Bargle.


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## Banshee16

Fifth Element said:


> Frigging Bargle.




Yes....Bargle set the paradigm 

I'm pretty sure even in earlier editions, fighters were still the ones more succeptible to charms and other types of magic.  I think anything System Shock related (ie. Save vs. Petrify/Polymorph) they had better saves than Mages and others....but for Save vs. Spells they were worse.  I could be wrong though....my 2nd Ed. books are all boxed up.

So I think the precedent of fighters being vulnerable to spellcasters was always there.

In my experience, yes, fighters are succeptible to charms etc.....but if the fighter passes that save against charm, he could conceivably kill the spellcaster in 1 round.  Depends on things like the presence of Contingent spells, Quickened Dimension Doors for escape etc.....but still.

I'm not advocating that spellcasters are weak.  They're not.  It's just that I feel sometimes the "I'm a fighter, I suck" card gets overplayed at times.  If one can contest that fighters are no good without their equipment, one can equally contest that wizards aren't nearly as good without a bunch of scrolls and bracers of armor and all that.

As to Warblades......they don't even have Heavy Armor as a feat, nor are Handle Animal or Ride class skills for them...thus, they're really no good for representing many of the sample characters I suggested in my earlier post.  Of course, that's labouring under the assumption that we're not modifying the warblade...just as the discussion seems to involve using a stock fighter.

Banshee


----------



## Neonchameleon

Banshee16 said:


> Warblade?  All the classes from BoNS utilize nigh magical type melee abilities.  Warblade is likely the least mystical of them, but many of the abilities in the Diamond Mind school and Stone Dragon school are pretty magical in nature.




Iron Heart and White Raven on the other hand are as far as I can tell meant to be (Ex) rather than (Su) or (Sp) in theme.  And the Diamond Mind counters are also (Ex).



> The 3E fighter is perfectly capable of representing most of the characters I listed.



The ones with iron wills?  The ones requring lots of skill points.



> And that's what it was intended to do.  Again, I do think a hypothetical Cavalier class (not even considering WotC's terrible Knight class) might represent several of them better.  The warblade?  I don't know what it's supposed to be.



The empowered warrior.  Ranging from the beyond merely humanly good to the supernaturally empowered.  The sort of character that appears in myths all the time.



> I mean, I'm not blasting the book....I think it's neat....but one of the things I was disappointed about with it was how everything was kind of mystical, to one degree or another.



You IMO confuse mechanisms with effects in the same way many 4e detractors do.  The swordsage is always mystical.  The Crusader is ... a Paladin.  But the Warblade ranges from the extraordinarily good warrior to the empowered warrior.



> I'd never even conceive of trying to use a Warblade classed character to convey a knight in shining armor (for instance).



I'd be more likely to pick a Crusader for that.



> The other kind of fix would have been, instead of having a Knight class, have some kind of Noble class....that way you could get your character that has a strength in Diplomacy, Bluff, Sense Motive, etc. etc. while retaining some capability in combat.



I can cover nobles with bards most of the time.  You have some fighting talent, strength in the skills you name, knowledge of the court, and you can use coincidental spells to justify them.



> I haven't found fighters ineffective at all.  My main criticism is likely the weak will save.  But there has to be a weakness somewhere.  It's not going to be Fortitude.  And I'm pretty sure they were trying to simulate the concept in fantasy literature that the fighter can chop the wizard apart, if he can get to him, but the wizard uses a spell, and the warrior's big muscles amount to nothing.



I think that should be the difference between a warrior and a fighter.  Protagonist character's big muscles very seldom amount to nothing when push comes to shove.  But NPC warriors can be puppeted easily.



> It's actually kind of reminiscent of the AD&D optional rules in the PHB for armors giving particular bonuses against particular weapon types (slashing, piercing, bashing).  In that edition, Full Plate might be AC 1, but it also applied a -7 to hit rolls by slashing weapons for instance, and I think a +0 to hit rolls by bashing weapons....so it was better to use a mace against plate armor, instead of a sword.  But, that stuff is all optional, anyways.



Aggghhhh! 0IMO  Too complex for too little extra realism.  Honestly, the best way I've seen to do this is Rolemaster with tables that give different feels to different weapons - and different crits.  Far more controllable.

Edit: And from memory low level fighters had among the worst saves in the game, high level fighters had the best saves.


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## Hussar

RC said:
			
		

> While I won't dispute that this may be true, I would certainly dispute that it must be true.
> 
> IMHO and IME, the goal is to provide an engaging and interesting situation to explore (regardless of the type of exploration) in which both good and bad things may happen. I much prefer the 1e model, in which the game is intended to challenge both players and characters, and in which the RAW is designed to facilitate interesting things happening without proscribing what may happen within the game milieu.
> 
> I certainly do not consider myself an adversarial GM.




Oh sure, it doesn't necessarily have to happen, but, at some point, one side or the other has to throw in the towel and accept things.  If the player devises a scroll tube where the two tubes simply slide over each other tightly, that pretty much does away with water issues, for example.

Either the DM accepts that and he can no longer challenge with water damage, or he ups the ante and starts chucking other stuff at the player.  Which the player responds to by closing down that avenue.  On and on.  It's a very, very easy slope to slide down.

As far as the saving throws go, well, the character has to fail his saving throw first, then each container has to fail the save (leather vs fire isn't a bad save, and metal vs fire is very good) and then the scroll has to fail.  ((Just googled a bit and discovered that items only have to make saves when the character fails his save, is that correct?))  That means you have to fail about four saving throws before you lose the scroll.  The odds here are pretty good that you're going to keep that scroll.


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## pemerton

Banshee16 said:


> I'm pretty sure even in earlier editions, fighters were still the ones more succeptible to charms and other types of magic.  I think anything System Shock related (ie. Save vs. Petrify/Polymorph) they had better saves than Mages and others....but for Save vs. Spells they were worse.  I could be wrong though....my 2nd Ed. books are all boxed up.
> 
> So I think the precedent of fighters being vulnerable to spellcasters was always there.





Neonchameleon said:


> from memory low level fighters had among the worst saves in the game, high level fighters had the best saves.



What Neonchameleon says is true for AD&D 1st ed. In Moldvay Basic, fighter started with better saves than thieves and magic-users, and (from memory) stayed pretty competitive as they levelled also.


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## Fifth Element

Hussar said:


> Oh sure, it doesn't necessarily have to happen, but, at some point, one  side or the other has to throw in the towel and accept things.  If the  player devises a scroll tube where the two tubes simply slide over each  other tightly, that pretty much does away with water issues, for  example.



Really, if you rely on things like water damage as DM to keep the number of scrolls in check, I suspect it will soon seem contrived and the players will tire of it. Which is related to Hussar's point I think, that one side or the other will finally give up and say "fine, you win".

You're probably better off saying "you can only have X scrolls at once" if you think it's something that needs to be controlled. If the wizard player asks why, tell him it's the same reason he can only use a dagger.


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## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:


> Oh sure, it doesn't necessarily have to happen, but, at some point, one side or the other has to throw in the towel and accept things.






Fifth Element said:


> Really, if you rely on things like water damage as DM to keep the number of scrolls in check, I suspect it will soon seem contrived and the players will tire of it.




(Shrug)

That's a pretty hefty jump there.  Item attrition, when appropriate, is hardly "relying on things like water damage to keep the number of scrolls in check".....or adversarial GMing that requires anyone to "throw in the towel".   I guess your experiences with the game have included some...unpleasantness, shall we say?...that mine have not.

In addition, if you had a problem with the number of scrolls in pre-3e D&D, it was your own fault for handing them out.  I agree that 3e made item creation too easy......although, if it becomes a problem in play, that is also at least partially a table problem.  It doesn't necessarily have to become a problem (it never did for me), but if it does, at some point, I guess that one side or the other has to throw in the towel and accept things.

I don't tend to play games like that, though, so I'll bow to your expertise.


RC


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## Banshee16

Raven Crowking said:


> (Shrug)
> 
> That's a pretty hefty jump there.  Item attrition, when appropriate, is hardly "relying on things like water damage to keep the number of scrolls in check".....or adversarial GMing that requires anyone to "throw in the towel".   I guess your experiences with the game have included some...unpleasantness, shall we say?...that mine
> 
> 
> RC




I guess it depends on the individuals involved and their expectations.  If the DM is open about the fact that items saves etc. are included, right from the start of the game then it's no surprise.  I told my players when they joined that I enforce item saves, I enforce encumbrance, needing to eat, and that if you don't gave the item in your inventory, you don't have it.  Period.  It was a matter of setting expectations from the beginning.


Some players like that and for others they're not interested.

Banshee


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## Bluenose

Banshee16 said:


> The other kind of fix would have been, instead of having a Knight class, have some kind of Noble class....that way you could get your character that has a strength in Diplomacy, Bluff, Sense Motive, etc. etc. while retaining some capability in combat.  Then your Knights would be Noble/Fighter multiclasses.  But, as others have posted...the Fighter is intended as a broad class....it has to cover the Knight, the gladiator, the yeoman archer, crossbowman, mercenary soldier, heavy infantry, etc. etc.  Most of those roles don't require a skill in diplomacy etc.




The Rogue is also intended as a broad class, covering pickpockets, burglars, thugs, scouts, rustlers, and con-men among others. Most of those roles don'r require a skill in Diplomacy, do they. Yet somehow it turns up on the Rogues skill list to cover the particular types that do use. So why doesn't that apply to Fighters?




Banshee16 said:


> I'm pretty sure even in earlier editions, fighters were still the ones more succeptible to charms and other types of magic.  I think anything System Shock related (ie. Save vs. Petrify/Polymorph) they had better saves than Mages and others....but for Save vs. Spells they were worse.  I could be wrong though....my 2nd Ed. books are all boxed up.
> 
> So I think the precedent of fighters being vulnerable to spellcasters was always there.




There's no specific Charm save, just spells. So fighters save as well against fireball as they do against charm person. Fighters had better saves against spells than thieves and I think the same as Magic-users, and improved faster.


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## Votan

Bluenose said:


> There's no specific Charm save, just spells. So fighters save as well against fireball as they do against charm person. Fighters had better saves against spells than thieves and I think the same as Magic-users, and improved faster.




I think Magic users ended up with a single point better (at the end) although most classes would save on anything but a "one" at high levels (due to gear).  The idea of scaling spell difficulty is 3E; in 1E and 2E you could only get bonuses to save (and the exceedingly rare fixed penalty associated with a specific trap or poison).


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## Fifth Element

Banshee16 said:


> I guess it depends on the individuals involved and their expectations.  If the DM is open about the fact that items saves etc. are included, right from the start of the game then it's no surprise.



Precisely. If a player expects to be able to have as many scrolls as his character can produce, because of the rules of the game, then it can seem adversarial for the DM to "target" the scrolls. That is, why does the wizard have to worry about his equipment while the other character don't?

But if the DM is up-front about it, then there's no worries.

Edit: I was under the impression the discussion of this has gone:

A: Wizards are very powerful because they have spells for everything.
B: But they only have limited spell slots, so they can't be prepared for everything at once.
A: But they can make scrolls very cheaply to have access to all their spells.
B: But scrolls can be damaged and destroyed, so that's not a problem.
A: But scrolls can be protected from damage in a trivial manner.

Is that not right?


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## Banshee16

Bluenose said:


> There's no specific Charm save, just spells. So fighters save as well against fireball as they do against charm person. Fighters had better saves against spells than thieves and I think the same as Magic-users, and improved faster.




It's a valid point.  I guess where I have difficulty, is that *in my campaigns*, fighters were *very* effective.  Thus, I didn't really see the need to strengthen them.

But if it's a problem in  your game, give them more class skills, or simply create feats like the ones I mentioned from Swashbuckling Adventures, that add new Class Skills to a character's skill list.

Banshee


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## Banshee16

Fifth Element said:


> Precisely. If a player expects to be able to have as many scrolls as his character can produce, because of the rules of the game, then it can seem adversarial for the DM to "target" the scrolls. That is, why does the wizard have to worry about his equipment while the other character don't?
> 
> But if the DM is up-front about it, then there's no worries.
> 
> Edit: I was under the impression the discussion of this has gone:
> 
> A: Wizards are very powerful because they have spells for everything.
> B: But they only have limited spell slots, so they can't be prepared for everything at once.
> A: But they can make scrolls very cheaply to have access to all their spells.
> B: But scrolls can be damaged and destroyed, so that's not a problem.
> A: But scrolls can be protected from damage in a trivial manner.
> 
> Is that not right?




I'd tend to agree.....except that the suggestions of manners of protecting scrolls etc. that have been suggested have been sometimes far fetched (in terms of medieval technology levels).  Yes, I know fireballs are also far fetched.  But one just has to decide what level of technology is acceptable.

People forget sometimes that things that seem simple to us now, like screw top lids and zippers may have seemed like magic 600 years ago.

So, some of the means of protecting scrolls might not work.

It's not like as DM you have to deliberately go after the party's items.  I'm just open with my players that I enforce those saving throws.

Does it mean that every adventure the wizard is losing all his scrolls?  No.  Absolutely not.  Does it mean that over an adventurer's career, as he loses saves vs. fireballs and lightning bolts and such, that he's going to suffer item attrition?  Yes.

Robes, scrolls, books, and wooden staves are all highly flammable.  And not nearly as robust as adamantine items.

It's surprising how often people forget about those rules in game.  I find it makes a difference when you track that stuff every session.

Same thing with carrying stuff......when you start enforcing encumbrance, people stop carrying a sword for every occasion.

That's all I'm saying.

In my campaign, my players typically didn't have a lot of item creation feats.  It just wasn't an aspect of the game they were interested in.  Now, every wizard gets Scribe Scroll.  But aside from that, most of their feats were metamagic casting feats, not item creation.  And even when they had Scribe Scroll, they rarely used it.

Banshee


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## Raven Crowking

Fifth Element said:


> Precisely. If a player expects to be able to have as many scrolls as his character can produce, because of the rules of the game, then it can seem adversarial for the DM to "target" the scrolls. That is, why does the wizard have to worry about his equipment while the other character don't?




Paper tends to be easier to damage than steel.

However, given a humid environment, a fighter needs to worry about his metal rusting.  And given a shipboard environment, wearing plate mail can be a bad idea indeed.



> Is that not right?




Not at all.  It's more like:

This problem can arise as the result of how your playstyle interacts with the ruleset you are using.  AFAICT and IMHO, changes made in 3e make achieving balance between warriors and wizards more difficult to achieve for some (perhaps even for many), but certainly not for all.​
Using scrolls, esp. in TSR-D&D, is less of a problem because (1) scrolls are much harder to come by (let alone the specific scrolls you want) and (2) there is always a strategic tension between keeping said scrolls handy and keeping them safe.  I.e., the more you do to keep your scrolls safe, the less handy they are when needed quickly.

I fully accept that there are people who had problems with the warrior/magic-user divide in TSR-D&D, but I would also argue that (1) these were probably a smaller percentage of groups, because (2) TSR-D&D provided more tools to deal with the problem should it arise and/or prevent the problem from ever arising in the first place.


RC


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## Hussar

Something that occurs to me about this entire conversation.  Every element that gets brought up focuses on one single game element - how to keep the casters from dominating the game.  This single thing influences so much of the game.

I mean, take this sidebar about item attrition.  No one really worries about the fighter's items because, well, it doesn't really matter that much if he has a +2 or +3 sword by and large (other than those occassions where you REALLY need a +3 weapon.   )  But, we're stuck focusing on the idea that we have to enforce item destruction rules targetted pretty specifically at the casters (after all, their items are the ones that break the easiest) simply to keep the casters in line.

((On a totally side note, scrolls weren't all THAT rare in the treasure tables - many included scrolls in addition to random magic items, and, scrolls often contained multiple spells, something you don't see in 3e.  It's not like we're talking about something that never occurs.  But, let's not lose sight of the fact that what brought this up was the discussion of the caster using about 10% of his wealth to create ONE HUNDRED scrolls - mostly a 2e and higher (2e allowed clerics to craft scrolls at 6th level) issue))

Sorry about that sidebar.

Look at the things that have been brought up in this thread.  The idea of tying doors shut, not to stop the rogue, but specifically to stop the Knock wand wielding wizard.  The rogue is fine, we want him to be able to open locks.  But, we have to go out of our way to make sure that the wizard isn't doing a better job of it than the rogue.

Or, for another example, look at random encounters.  Why have random encounters if not to interrupt casters from regaining their spells.  People have specifically mentioned that 3e, with its lack of random encounters, has promoted the nova-caster.  But, the main reason we have random encounters in the first place isn't because it makes the setting more dynamic, because while there may be situations where having a random encounter check every ten minutes makes sense, there are many other situations where it doesn't, is to limit the casters.  Take the casters out of the equation, and you no longer need random encounters as a balancing mechanic.

This informs adventure design as well.  The idea of time constraints and whatnot to make sure the casters don't take lots of time to rest between casting.  This has nothing to do with the non-casters.  A time constrained or non-time constrained adventure doesn't affect the non-casters whatsoever.  But, if we don't add in something like a time constraint, the casters can totally dominate many encounters.

In other words, everything in this thread is in service to one thing - how do we limit the casters?  Do we really want the magic system to play such a massive role in the game?  Sure, you can continuously patch over the magic system - this thread shows lots of ways to keep the casters on par, but, at the end of the day, that means that the casters are the ones driving the campaign, even if it's only because the roadblocks are there to catch the casters.

For my money, I'd much rather simply change the magic system in the first place.  Make it so that the game doesn't need to continuously try to patch over the casters dominating the game.  Sure, the wizard can cast Knock, fair enough.  But, Knock should give you Level +3 on a single Open Locks check.  There, now you gain the abilities of an equal level Rogue (almost) for the price of a spell.  Charms should whack on a great Diplomacy check, not be mind control (which they do eventually become).  Clerics don't really need the whole "I'm a better Fighter than you" spells to remain competitive.  Give them buffs, or better yet, group buffs, but ease up on the whole thing and let the fighters shine.

Spells should not make you better than other classes at doing what those other classes do best.  They should bring you up to the same level for a little while, no problems there, but they shouldn't make me BETTER than the other classes.


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## Hussar

RC said:
			
		

> Using scrolls, esp. in TSR-D&D, is less of a problem because (1) scrolls are much harder to come by (let alone the specific scrolls you want) and (2) there is always a strategic tension between keeping said scrolls handy and keeping them safe. I.e., the more you do to keep your scrolls safe, the less handy they are when needed quickly.
> 
> I fully accept that there are people who had problems with the warrior/magic-user divide in TSR-D&D, but I would also argue that (1) these were probably a smaller percentage of groups, because (2) TSR-D&D provided more tools to deal with the problem should it arise and/or prevent the problem from ever arising in the first place.




You are making some rather serious presumptions there.  Why am I using scrolls in combat?  That's what my memorized spells are for.  Scrolls are for all those things where you have a bit of time, but not necessarily the right tools for.  A scroll of Fly and Invisibility aren't really needed in combat (usually) but they are great when you have a bit of time.

In TSR-D&D, isn't it written right in the rules that the wizard is going to achieve Great Cosmic Power?  Isn't that the whole point of the class?  It's right there in the book after all.  Mike Mearl's quotes this:



> In the original D&D rulebook (Volume 1: Men & Magic), this sentence leads off the description of the magic-user:
> 
> “Top level magic-users are perhaps the most powerful characters in the game, but it is a long, hard road to the top, and to begin with they are weak, so survival is often the question, unless fighters protect the low-level magic types until they have worked up.”




The imbalance between the classes wasn't a bug, it was built right into the rules.  Claiming that it wasn't there seems a bit strange after the fact.


----------



## pawsplay

Hussar said:


> Name three.  Seriously, name three fantasy characters, or, heck, even with your caveat of historical fiction, characters that can be modeled well using a plain jane 3e fighter.




Sir Percival, Ajax, Madmartigan, Boromir, Prince Talon, Blackbeard the Pirate, Goliath, John Carter, Caramon, Red Sonja, Groo the Wanderer, Paksenarrion (early career), and Miyamoto Musashi.


----------



## Nemesis Destiny

pawsplay said:


> Sir Percival, Ajax, Madmartigan, Boromir, Prince Talon, Blackbeard the Pirate, Goliath, John Carter, Caramon, Red Sonja, Groo the Wanderer, Paksenarrion (early career), and Miyamoto Musashi.



Minor nitpick - Madmartigan had a few levels of thief or some roguish class. He was crazy and kind of dumb, but he had some charisma skills (bluff at the least) as well.


----------



## pawsplay

Nemesis Destiny said:


> Minor nitpick - Madmartigan had a few levels of thief or some roguish class. He was crazy and kind of dumb, but he had some charisma skills (bluff at the least) as well.




He was able to bluff a meathead. He was unsuccessful at bluffing two desperate Nelwyn, even after hours if not days of cajoling. I think a few cross-class ranks cover this bluffing ability well enough. Especially since he's like 12th level or something.


----------



## Votan

Hussar said:


> I mean, take this sidebar about item attrition.  No one really worries about the fighter's items because, well, it doesn't really matter that much if he has a +2 or +3 sword by and large (other than those occassions where you REALLY need a +3 weapon.   )  But, we're stuck focusing on the idea that we have to enforce item destruction rules targetted pretty specifically at the casters (after all, their items are the ones that break the easiest) simply to keep the casters in line.




One of the ironies of 15+ level 3.E D&D is that Mage's Disjunction shows up.  It's based on a will save.  Fighters and Rogues have a hard time making such a save whereas Clerics and Wizards are pretty decent.  Winning a fight without magical gear is a lot more viable for the wizard than the fighter at that level.  But the impact on the Fighter is much higher.  

[and, when you consider a 17th level wizard is an appropriate encounter and that he can surely tell he is wildly outnumbered plus has a high intelligence, the use of a debuff like this makes total sense.  If you gave the players a CR+4 or higher encounter with NPCs they would consider it too]


----------



## Neonchameleon

pawsplay said:


> Ajax,




Stupid meathead, granted.  I'd have said Barbarian from memory.  And didn't he have a tangle with the gods?



> Boromir




Aristocrat rather than fighter IMO.  Yes, he could fight well.  _But so can other classes_.  And Boromir wasn't centred on fighting to the exclusion of all else.  Which fighters ... pretty much are.  Boromir was persuasive (not quite good enough for Frodo backed by the ring).



> Blackbeard the Pirate




Too much of a leader.  This requires skills not on the fighters' list.  And precious few things that being a fighter helps with.  Remember that in a world where third level is average, a third level fighter stands out - but only has the BAB of a fourth level bard.



> Goliath,




NPC put in there for one battle and given a rep.  Possibly a fighter.  But I'd just say "Ogre" and have done.



> Caramon




A D&D fighter   This I'll grant.



> Paksenarrion (early career),




She's a down the line Paladin.  I can make a case for Aura of Good, for Divine Grace, for Aura of Courage, and even for Lay on Hands happening very early on (through the medallion).  I can see the case for a Prestige Paladin who started out as a fighter.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:


> Something that occurs to me about this entire conversation.  Every element that gets brought up focuses on one single game element - how to keep the casters from dominating the game.  This single thing influences so much of the game.




If I continually mentioned how giant spiders dominated the game, and you continually gave reasons why giant spiders did not, I could then say

Something that occurs to me about this entire conversation.  Every element that gets brought up focuses on one single game element - how to keep giant spiders from dominating the game.  This single thing influences so much of the game.​
but that would still not make it true.

Yes, I could run a game dominated by giant spiders.  That would not mean that your game was dominated by giant spiders, even using the same ruleset.



> I mean, take this sidebar about item attrition.  No one really worries about the fighter's items because, well, it doesn't really matter that much if he has a +2 or +3 sword by and large (other than those occassions where you REALLY need a +3 weapon.   )  But, we're stuck focusing on the idea that we have to enforce item destruction rules targetted pretty specifically at the casters (after all, their items are the ones that break the easiest) simply to keep the casters in line.




Um, no.

Scrolls came up specifically because, being made of paper (or similar) they are fragile.  The same is also true of the party map, should the party be creating/carrying one.  It is a truly sucktacular moment for a group to be miles below ground in the Twisting Caverns of Doom when their map is burned to ashes.

However, one has only to look at the TSR Modules of Yore to see that fighter gear was targetted by such things as Heat Metal conditions, strong magnetism, etc.  And let us not forget the humble rust monster.  The beginning of Module A4 is as hard on fighters as on casters....harder in some ways, because a few spell components (pinch of sand for Sleep, for example) are trivially easy to find.

No, in early D&D, everyone is more-or-less targetted equally.



> On a totally side note, scrolls weren't all THAT rare in the treasure tables




Cool.....As long as you don't make the mistake of treating a limited resource as an unlimited resource.  Much of the strategic play in early D&D is about how and when you use your limited resources.....Something that is certainly "softened" in 3e, and largely removed (intentionally) from 4e.



> Look at the things that have been brought up in this thread.  The idea of tying doors shut, not to stop the rogue, but specifically to stop the Knock wand wielding wizard.  The rogue is fine, we want him to be able to open locks.  But, we have to go out of our way to make sure that the wizard isn't doing a better job of it than the rogue.




It's never come up in any game I have either run or played in.  

This is, IMHO, similar to "Look how many reasons you have to come up with to keep giant spiders from dominating the game!  There's antivenom in the equipment list!"

Pointing out how trivially easy it is to solve a problem should never be taken as proof that a problem is widespread.  Actually, it should be taken as evidence to the contrary, if anything.



> Or, for another example, look at random encounters.  Why have random encounters if not to interrupt casters from regaining their spells.




Hold on there, Tex.

Random encounters occur for the specific reasons of (1) verisimilitude and (2) strategic resource management.  Spells are a strategic resource, but they are hardly the only one.

Without (2), there is no reason not to throw everything you have at every encounter.  You do not need casters for this to be the case.  If a party consists entirely of fighters, and those fighters can rest enough to heal all damage between encounters, hit points cease to be of strategic importance, and are only of tactical importance within each given encounter.

As soon as this happens, the GM needs to adjust encounters so that every encounter is designed to potentially use up the party's total strategic resources, lest every encounter otherwise become trivial.  This means that the fights have to last long enough to use those resources (leading to long, grindy combats) and that they have to be all roughly the same in terms of challenge (leading to long, boring, grindy combats).

You might add some kind of easily defeated creature into the mix, to give the illusion of numerical superiority on one side without unbalancing the combat.  They might also allow you to control the pace of the combat a little, so as to make it less boring.  And you might design some powers specifically to counter these easily defeated creatures, to give the players an illusion that their characters are effective.

(The reason this must be illusory is that the combat system, designed to use all resources without resulting in a TPK, must reduce swinginess, and must therefore occur over a greater time frame.  This greater time frame means that the cost, to the players rather than their characters, in time for any fight in which the characters can truly demonstrate effectiveness is greater than the gain, to the players, for that fight.  Thus fights where the characters are truly effective are largely tossed to the wayside.)

If you are going to design commercial adventures for such a game, you need to know, therefore, what the party's strategic resources are likely to be to a very high degree of accuracy.  Let's call this the "party balance point".  This means you need to know how much wealth they have per level, and you need to remove anything that potentially "unbalances" the "party balance point".

If, at the same time, you expect the PCs to level during an adventure, it then becomes critically important that the PCs face the encounters in a set order, so that they meet only those encounters that are balanced for the strategic resources at their level.  Otherwise, again, the game is no longer balanced around the "party balance point" and you end up with either a TPK or GM intervention to prevent the same.

These last two factors lead to railroady adventure design, possibly along some kind of path or format that controls how the encounters are handled, possibly down to the starting position of each individual piece.

Now, I'm not exactly sure what such a game would look like, but if that was the cost of resolving the warrior vs. wizard "problem" (which has never been a problem for me), it is a cost I am entirely unwilling to pay!  So, I will hold fast to my strategic resources, thank you!



> People have specifically mentioned that 3e, with its lack of random encounters, has promoted the nova-caster.




Now, this is true specifically because the design of the casters in TSR-D&D, from OD&D on, is designed around strategic resources.  But, as shown above, this is true for all classes if the strategic resource element is removed.  Certainly, evening out the casters and warriors can result in a game where everyone's resources feel more "balanced", but in practice this actually limits the kinds of "balance" a game can achieve to a rather narrow focus.

Again, if you have no problem with giant spiders, modifying everything else to resolve that "problem" makes little sense, and can damage the things you do enjoy about the game.

Which doesn't mean that a ruleset shouldn't be created to help folks who have problems with giant spiders......but it does mean that those folks shouldn't assume (A) that their problems are universal, or (B) that their solution is going to be universally applauded.



> Take the casters out of the equation, and you no longer need random encounters as a balancing mechanic.




Again, as described above, this is simply not true.

If there was a game that had attempted this, with the predicted results of long grindy combats and micromanaged railroady commercial adventures, I would point it out as an example of the results of removing (or largely removing) strategic resource management.  Unfortunately, no such game exists at this time.



Hussar said:


> You are making some rather serious presumptions there.  Why am I using scrolls in combat?  That's what my memorized spells are for.




You are right; I am presuming a game that deals in strategic resource management, such as Dungeons & Dragons (any TSR edition) or RCFG.  There is also, as you note, the fact that TSR-D&D scrolls are random and contain more than one spell.  If you have a scroll of Fireball and Invisibility, do you store it with your combat-ready scrolls, or with your better-protected utility scrolls?  That is the sort of strategic decision that makes play interesting, to me.  YMMV.



> “Top level magic-users are perhaps the most powerful characters in the game, but it is a long, hard road to the top, and to begin with they are weak, so survival is often the question, unless fighters protect the low-level magic types until they have worked up.”




Interestingly enough, this quote doesn't say

“Top level magic-users *dominate* the game, but it is a long, hard road to the top, and to begin with they are weak, so survival is often the question, unless fighters protect the low-level magic types until they have worked up.”​
It doesn't even say that they are the most powerful characters, it qualifies that they are *perhaps* the most powerful characters.

That is, I agree, an interesting counterpoint to your argument.


RC


----------



## billd91

Hussar said:


> People have specifically mentioned that 3e, with its lack of random encounters, has promoted the nova-caster.  But, the main reason we have random encounters in the first place isn't because it makes the setting more dynamic, because while there may be situations where having a random encounter check every ten minutes makes sense, there are many other situations where it doesn't, is to limit the casters.  Take the casters out of the equation, and you no longer need random encounters as a balancing mechanic.




I really don't know where people get the impression that 3e did away with random encounters. They're right there in the 3.5 DMG on page 77, followed by several tables. And then we encounter more encounter tables in the section on the wilderness several pages later, including a detailed treatment on page 95.


----------



## Raven Crowking

billd91 said:


> I really don't know where people get the impression that 3e did away with random encounters. They're right there in the 3.5 DMG on page 77, followed by several tables. And then we encounter more encounter tables in the section on the wilderness several pages later, including a detailed treatment on page 95.




I think that the time frame for completing a combat, especially as levels increase, was/is a major disincentive for some folks.  And then there was a WotC web column that suggested dropping wandering encounters.

I think the actual argument that Hussar is talking about is "IF you choose not to use wandering encounters, THEN there is little reason for the characters not to go nova."  It doesn't presuppose the IF part of the statement, and offers a solution as well:  "IF you use random encounters (i.e., if the characters cannot predict an ability to restore all used resources between encounters), THEN the characters are likely to hold something in reserve (i.e., not nova)."


RC


----------



## korjik

Raven Crowking said:


> I think that the time frame for completing a combat, especially as levels increase, was/is a major disincentive for some folks. And then there was a WotC web column that suggested dropping wandering encounters.
> 
> I think the actual argument that Hussar is talking about is "IF you choose not to use wandering encounters, THEN there is little reason for the characters not to go nova." It doesn't presuppose the IF part of the statement, and offers a solution as well: "IF you use random encounters (i.e., if the characters cannot predict an ability to restore all used resources between encounters), THEN the characters are likely to hold something in reserve (i.e., not nova)."
> 
> 
> RC




Which is just silly. You dont need random encounters to keep players from going nova, all you need is to let them know that trying to rest without taking out the bad guys ability to retaliate is going to get the camp attacked.

Now before anyone pulls out the old, tired list of all the foolproof ways of keeping that from happening, please realize that the bad guys should know all those tricks too, and should know the ways around them. 

Nova was never a rules issue.


----------



## Fifth Element

Neonchameleon said:


> A D&D fighter   This I'll grant.



I guess the qualifier "fighter from _fiction not based on D&D_..." needs to be added.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Raven Crowking said:


> As soon as this happens, the GM needs to adjust encounters so that every encounter is designed to potentially use up the party's total strategic resources, lest every encounter otherwise become trivial. This means that the fights have to last long enough to use those resources (leading to long, grindy combats) and that they have to be all roughly the same in terms of challenge (leading to long, boring, grindy combats).




Hold right there.  Long grindy combats are an antidote to a different problem.  Long grindy combats are an antidote to combat being Russian Roulette decided on a mere couple of die rolls due to having minimal hit points and dying in one hit.  And then replacing the deceased Knuckles-22 with Knuckles-23.  

Length and grind of the combat is about _risk_.  Grindy combats are almost risk-free and that's the problem.  Strategic resource management and recovery is a different issue entirely.  And frankly I like having more than d4 hit points and dying in a hit off a random die roll.



> but if that was the cost of resolving the warrior vs. wizard "problem" (which has never been a problem for me), it is a cost I am entirely unwilling to pay!




You, so far as I can tell, seem to take the other approach.  Fighters hit people.  Wizards cast spells and handle strategic resources, but are only truly effective in combat from ambush.  Different parts of the game for different characters.  Which can work or can suck. But neither your problem nor your solution is what you seem to say it is.  (IMO the biggest mistake made in 3.X is fitting spells into something easily cast in six seconds.  I like the Ritual Casting method of 4e where rituals take a minute or more to cast.)


----------



## Raven Crowking

korjik said:


> Which is just silly.




Perhaps, but equally true, it is a problem which has been mentioned by several people here and elsewhere.....and the root cause is obvious:  No need for strategic resource management.

You could, of course, design a game in which "going nova" for every combat was the expected norm, by severely reducing strategic resource management, for example, coupled with knife-edged "encounter balance", and long grindy combats, as described above.

Or, you could make strategice resource management meaningful.

I imagine that there are people who will prefer both solutions.


RC


----------



## Neonchameleon

As I said in my previous comment, grindy combat is little to do with strategic resource management.  It's more to do with combat lethality.  You can have strategic resource management and encounter balance.  Or indeed a system where the strategic resource was which combat to end fifteen rounds early (or avoid).


----------



## Stormonu

Raven Crowking said:


> I imagine that there are people who will prefer both solutions.
> 
> 
> RC




Quite possibly, within the same game.  That would be interesting to seen done.


----------



## fanboy2000

Raven Crowking said:


> ...strategic resource management....strategic resources...strategic resources ...strategic resource...I am presuming a game that deals in strategic resource management...strategic decision that makes play interesting, to me.



*Luke:* You told me that wizard's didn't dominate the game!

*Obi-Wan:* Wizards don't dominate the game if you play it as a strategic resource management game. So what I told you was true, from a certain play style.

*Luke:* A certain play style!

*Obi-Wan:* Luke, you're going to find out that a great many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own play style.


----------



## Crazy Jerome

Raven Crowking said:


> Or, you could make strategice resource management meaningful.
> 
> I imagine that there are people who will prefer both solutions.
> 
> 
> RC




I prefer both, provided that it is a conscious design decision from the very beginning, and then that design is implemented fairly well. Those are bigger caveats than they first appear. 

For example, part of this whole original topic as it plays out in 3.* implementation is that gestalt rules were tacked onto 3E instead of built in from the beginning.  (Not blaming anyone here, since the goals of gestalt are not the goals of the original design.  But changing goals midstream has its own problems.)

If I'm playing 3E at all, I'm playing with some kind of limited gestalt.  Take the basic gestalt framework, and then knock off some of the sheer power that it gives.  Because there are very few characters that you can't get at least a decent representation of using gestalt, and if I'm playing with D&D Lego (which 3E is), then I want to make detailed characters.  All the limits of the fighter become moot* when paired in a gestalt, and the advantages of the wizard (and even moreso the cleric and druid) are muted.  (You can get an almost GURPS-like slew of options in 3E gestalt by simply saying that everyone has "side 1" of a gestalt which is always single-classed, and "side 2" of a gestalt which can never take the same class twice in a row.)

*Indeed, the fighter is one of the things that has to be reined in with gestalt, and this is not surprising.

But almost all of the problems that stem from RAW gestalt tie into what has been referenced earlier.  You can advocate that the fighter is "merely a fighter".  He fights.  He gets a few bones thrown his way for characterization, but they are always substandard.  Or you can say that the fighter is supposed to be a good way (or at least a decent option) for representing a host of "fighting" characters from fantasy media, and thus the class should contain elements that make that possible when played as a single class.

The problem with 3E is that it tries to split the middle on that issue.  It can't be split well.  If you go the second choice, and say that every class is supposed to be able to represent something with character depth and/or reskinning, you can do something like 4E.  4E is almost rabidly opposed to multiclassing in some ways.   Or you can do something like 1E.  There are many possibilities for making single classes viable, and they will all have strengths and weaknesses depending upon what else you want to favor or discourage.

Or you can go the 3E gestalt route, and say that classes are building blocks.  Building blocks, by definition, are often small slices of the whole.  Design seriously for gestalt, and you will cut out single classes as viable options.  As just one example, the fighter (or fighting alternatives) would be a lot more impressive in such a hypothetical system if the casters didn't get so much base attack and hit points. Caster keep those things to remain viable as single classes.  

To a lesser extent, this applies to multiclassing as well, and explains why the fighter is as relatively weak as he is in base 3E.  The implementation decisions that keeps the fighter from being a veritable treasure of cherry picking goodness in the original multiclassing are the exact same things that keep him subpar as a single-class.  And while you can play around the edges to compensate, if you want, by giving the fighter more abilities at higher level, this is explosed by RAW gestalt rules as a multi-classing kludge rather than a real fix.  (Though in the context of straight 3E, probably a very effective kludge, and thus worth considering if you don't intend to redesign a gestalt-centric system from the ground up.)


----------



## Raven Crowking

fanboy2000 said:


> *Luke:* You told me that wizard's didn't dominate the game!




Sadly, I have XPed you too recently to do so again for this bit of dah funny!



Crazy Jerome said:


> I prefer both, provided that it is a conscious design decision from the very beginning, and then that design is implemented fairly well. Those are bigger caveats than they first appear.




No, that makes perfect sense to me.



> The problem with 3E is that it tries to split the middle on that issue.




You know what?  I think that I agree with you here.

I'll go you a step further:

I have no interest in running a 4e game.  BUT, if I was given the option between playing in a 4e game or a 3e game, where both were run by folks I knew were excellent GMs, and I couldn't say "both", I am leaning right now toward giving 4e another shot.

But if both GMs were merely "good" (or worse), I would choose 3e.  Simply put, 3e has better adventures.


RC


----------



## pawsplay

Neonchameleon said:


> Stupid meathead, granted.  I'd have said Barbarian from memory.  And didn't he have a tangle with the gods?




Is the one who wounds Aphrodite? Can't remember.



> Aristocrat rather than fighter IMO.  Yes, he could fight well.  _But so can other classes_.  And Boromir wasn't centred on fighting to the exclusion of all else.  Which fighters ... pretty much are.  Boromir was persuasive (not quite good enough for Frodo backed by the ring).




So... he fails to persuade the circle, fails to persuade/Bluff Frodo, fails a couple of Will saves, then dies after killing a ridiculous number of orcs. Sounds like a fighter to me. He is nominally an "aristocrat," from a land where political acumen means fighting off weekly raids by wild riders. I don't see him do anything more than is suggested by a few ranks of cross-class skills, even if he were low-level--which he is not. Based on the body count, he had to be at least 6th level, possibly higher if you think he took a bad crit early in the fight.



> Too much of a leader.  This requires skills not on the fighters' list.  And precious few things that being a fighter helps with.  Remember that in a world where third level is average, a third level fighter stands out - but only has the BAB of a fourth level bard.




Blackbeard was not known for his skilled personnel managment. He was a leader, but not a _skilled_ leader. In a pinch, he relied on Intimidate.



> She's a down the line Paladin.  I can make a case for Aura of Good, for Divine Grace, for Aura of Courage, and even for Lay on Hands happening very early on (through the medallion).  I can see the case for a Prestige Paladin who started out as a fighter.




Indeed, since the first book has her exhibiting zero supernatural abilities of her own. She is explicitly a soldier, who later, after having gained considerable skill, has an epiphany and is given the option of training as a paladin. She certainly does not have Aura of Courage, and indeed suffers from considerable doubt in herself as a fighter.


----------



## Votan

RE: Boromir



pawsplay said:


> So... he fails to persuade the circle, fails to persuade/Bluff Frodo, fails a couple of Will saves, then dies after killing a ridiculous number of orcs. Sounds like a fighter to me. He is nominally an "aristocrat," from a land where political acumen means fighting off weekly raids by wild riders. I don't see him do anything more than is suggested by a few ranks of cross-class skills, even if he were low-level--which he is not. Based on the body count, he had to be at least 6th level, possibly higher if you think he took a bad crit early in the fight.




I think it is challenging to model Lord of the Rings characters with 3E but I think that Fighter is a possibility for Boromir.  The love of songs and lore seen in Gondor could add in a level of Bard, which would easily explain his leadership skills (and he even has a horn as an instrument).  But a pure fighter would also be a reasonable interpretation.  

Aragorn is much harder to decide on (and Gandalf is the source of many spirited discussions).  

My real take on 3E fighters is that they work really well for mixing with other classes.  

In some ways, the 3E fighter is a real break from the other editions as 1E/2E fighters explicitly get to be leaders (and, if you count the revenue raised per inhabitant in the 1E rulebooks as a guide, they are intermediate between clerics and wizards as rulers).  In 4E, the fighter can easily take feats to handle any gaps (which is a good way to separate the pure martial fighter and the other types).  Plus, 4E has other martial classes that don't cast spells (Ranger, Warlord) to further diversify the class.


----------



## Banshee16

korjik said:


> Which is just silly. You dont need random encounters to keep players from going nova, all you need is to let them know that trying to rest without taking out the bad guys ability to retaliate is going to get the camp attacked.
> 
> Now before anyone pulls out the old, tired list of all the foolproof ways of keeping that from happening, please realize that the bad guys should know all those tricks too, and should know the ways around them.
> 
> Nova was never a rules issue.




Exactly....if the bad guys have wizards, they're going to know about Rope Trick and the other means of making camps, and they're going to be looking for them.  It's not going to be a mystery.

Banshee


----------



## Hussar

RC said:
			
		

> However, one has only to look at the TSR Modules of Yore to see that fighter gear was targetted by such things as Heat Metal conditions, strong magnetism, etc. And let us not forget the humble rust monster. The beginning of Module A4 is as hard on fighters as on casters....harder in some ways, because a few spell components (pinch of sand for Sleep, for example) are trivially easy to find.
> 
> No, in early D&D, everyone is more-or-less targetted equally.




I wondered if this would come up.  Let's take a closer look shall we?  Heat metal, for example, does damage, but, does not actually damage the item.  So, that's a bit of a non-sequitor right there.  How many other spells are there in 1e that specifically destroy equipment?  One monster, sure, but, outside of oozes (which are deadly to pretty much everything), how many monsters actually specifically target equipment?

I just happen to have my copy of Isle of the Ape right here.  Bear with me for a moment while I get to my point.  In IotA, the first couple of pages details what changes are made to the standard rules.  First off, the following spells do not function at all:



			
				IotA page 3 said:
			
		

> Alter Reality
> Animal Summoning
> Astral Spell
> Augury
> Cacodemon
> Chariot of Sustarre
> Commune
> Commune with Nature
> Contact Higher Plane
> Dimension Door
> Divination
> Dramij's Instant Summons
> Find the Path
> Gate
> Invisiblity to Animals
> Legend Lore
> Limited Wish
> Locate Object
> Monster Summoning
> Plant Door
> Teleport
> Teleport without Error
> Transport
> Wish
> Word of Recall




Additionally, 







> Illusions applied to reptiles are virtually useless... Invisibility type magic of any sort is also virtually useless... Spell components must be kept track of ... Divine Intervention will not happen, regardless of any claims to the contrary...




Note,"scrolls and spell books are only affected if they remain unprotected and traveling spell books and Boccob Blessed Books are not affected by the attrition condition unless abandoned open".  

Look at that list for a second.  He's basically stripped out any information gathering spell and any transportation spell.  Gee, kinda the exact same problematic spells we're talking about right now aren't we?

Now, that's how the casters get screwed over.  How about the non-casters?  Well, there's a 20% chance every two weeks that metal items will rust and be destroyed.  That's pretty nasty.  Except that magic items multiply the duration between checks by 10.  So, it's a 20% chance of losing your unprotected (items kept in storage places, protected by oil or the like count only exposure time) metal items every TWENTY weeks.

So, basically, it'll take two years for the fighter to lose all his magic metal items, presuming he does nothing to protect them in the meantime.  Was there a Make Whole spell in 1e (including Unearthed Arcana)?

Yeah, it's totally equal.  

Or, move over to Queen of the Demonweb pits, another high level adventure.  The non-casters lose two pluses on any of their plussed items.  That's it.  The casters have a shopping list of effects they lose and clerics can't memorize any spell over 2nd level.

That's what you consider equal?

Way back in the early days of the hobby, the power disparity was recognized and adventures were designed in such a way to counter the disparity.  They patched the problem instead of fixing it.


----------



## Hussar

Banshee16 said:


> Exactly....if the bad guys have wizards, they're going to know about Rope Trick and the other means of making camps, and they're going to be looking for them.  It's not going to be a mystery.
> 
> Banshee




What's with all the playstyle presumptions here?  Sure, if the bad guys have wizards, but, while there might be some adventures where that's true, there's loads and loads of scenarios where that isn't.

Again, the problem is that it simply feeds the vicious circle.  You nova, so the DM counters by chucking random encounters at you, so you counter by hiding better, the DM counters by adding in more stuff to find you, so you counter....

Again, the game is being dictated by the magic system and not by any sort of in game play.  It's not, "Does it make sense that there are random encounters here" it's, "Well, if I don't chuck in random encounters, I cannot attrit this party resource that is only in the hands of one or two players".  I'd rather the system didn't dictate my adventures to me.



			
				Pawsplay said:
			
		

> Blackbeard was not known for his skilled personnel managment. He was a leader, but not a skilled leader. In a pinch, he relied on Intimidate.




Blackbeard was a sailor and a captain.  Your fighter has zero skills that allow him to be a sailor.  Never mind that Blackbeard also could navigate and pilot a ship.  Again, your fighter cannot do that.  He cannot take Profession Sailor as a class skill, Balance is cross class, Kn Geography is cross class.

I totally agree that a pirate captain SHOULD be a fighter.  But, no fighter can ever be a pirate captain with his skill list.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:


> I wondered if this would come up.




How could it not?  You essentially brought it up, when you claimed only casters were targeted.  Interestingly enough, you are now willing to accept that casters are not only targeted, and have changed the bar to "casters are targeted more".



So, out of curiosity, how do you deal with the problem of giant spiders?  I mean, giant spiders totally dominate the game.  They have poison.  And webs.  They're so terrifying that 3e specifically included a creature to hunt them down and destroy them.....the spider eater!  Surely, giant spiders are the greatest threat to good gameplay that D&D has ever faced!


RC


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:


> I totally agree that a pirate captain SHOULD be a fighter.  But, no fighter can ever be a pirate captain with his skill list.




FIghters can't take the Profession skill?  Huh.


----------



## Neonchameleon

pawsplay said:


> So... he fails to persuade the circle, fails to persuade/Bluff Frodo, fails a couple of Will saves, then dies after killing a ridiculous number of orcs. Sounds like a fighter to me. He is nominally an "aristocrat," from a land where political acumen means fighting off weekly raids by wild riders. I don't see him do anything more than is suggested by a few ranks of cross-class skills, even if he were low-level--which he is not. Based on the body count, he had to be at least 6th level, possibly higher if you think he took a bad crit early in the fight.




You miss the quality of his opposition. Elrond. Gandalf. Glorfindel. Aragorn. The One Ring Itself.



> Blackbeard was not known for his skilled personnel managment. He was a leader, but not a _skilled_ leader. In a pinch, he relied on Intimidate.




He was enough of a leader to get a gang of literal pirates following him rather than stabbing him in the back. And he was a boatman. This comes to the core problem of the 3.X fighter. They are good at fighting _and nothing else_. They suck as pirates - no Profession (Shiphandling) or equivalent skill.



> Indeed, since the first book has her exhibiting zero supernatural abilities of her own.




You mean other than praying and providing someone else with healing through the medallion of Gird? That's your Lay On Hands, right there. And then if I remember rightly she also manages to resist and see through some cloaking magic when the bad guy tries to escape.



> She is explicitly a soldier, who later, after having gained considerable skill, has an epiphany and is given the option of training as a paladin.




And was offered that chance because she was already demonstrating things that no ordinary fighter ought to be able to do. And throwing off magic that people ought not to be able to.



> She certainly does not have Aura of Courage, and indeed suffers from considerable doubt in herself as a fighter.




Immune to fear isn't the same as immune to self-doubt. She fears - but I'm trying to recall a single time she lets that fear master her.

Edit: For RavenCrowking and from the SRD:  
The fighter’s class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Handle Animal (Cha), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Ride (Dex), and Swim (Str). 

(The Barbarian at least gets Listen and Survival).

Also Hussar's point is that you deal with Giant Spiders with the same tools you deal with any other monsters in their size class.  You don't deal with them by going through at a metagame level and saying "They can't use Web or climb walls."  (See Isle of the Ape).  And you may have spider eaters.  They may be part of the ecosystem.  But you don't need to base almost all your tactics around giant spiders if there's simply one giant spider facing you.  Your analogy fails at the important points.


----------



## pawsplay

Neonchameleon said:


> He was enough of a leader to get a gang of literal pirates following him rather than stabbing him in the back.




This is a feat regularly accomplished by orc war leaders. Does this involve anything more than Intimidate, maybe a rank or two in Diplomacy, and being tougher than the other pirates?



> And he was a boatman. This comes to the core problem of the 3.X fighter. They are good at fighting _and nothing else_. They suck as pirates - no Profession (Shiphandling) or equivalent skill.




So? He doesn't need a +30 Profession (Shiphandling) bonus. In fact, all he really needs is bare competence, since crew members likely supplied expertise in navigation, shiphandling, and so forth. Primarily, he is known for being extremely scary, shrewed in his political dealings, and requiring multiple major wounds to finally defeat.

Given that he started his career as a Jamaican sailor, Blackbeard could be:

Edward Teach
Human Fighter 1
Str 14, Dex 10, Con 15, Int 12, Wis 10, Cha 11
Feats: Skill Focus (Profession[Sailor]), Negotiator
Skils: Balance +2, Climb +4, (Diplomacy +2), Intimidate +4, Profession (Sailor) +5, (Sense Motive) +2, Swim +4


----------



## LostSoul

pawsplay said:


> This is a feat regularly accomplished by orc war leaders. Does this involve anything more than Intimidate, maybe a rank or two in Diplomacy, and being tougher than the other pirates?




I think it depends on your reading of "in your presence":

The effect lasts as long as the target remains in your presence, and for 1d6×10 minutes afterward. After this time, the target’s default attitude toward you shifts to unfriendly (or, if normally unfriendly, to hostile).​
On the same ship would be a pretty reasonable interpretation.  Once you hit port, the crew disperses to spend their ill-gotten gains; that makes a lot of sense.  You might have a few loyal crew members - the ones you actually make some good Diplomacy checks against - who stick by your side and back you up.


----------



## pawsplay

Also, pirate ships were democratically run. Blackbeard may have been the favored captain because he was preferred by a couple of high-Diplomacy rogues on the crew.


----------



## Stormonu

pawsplay said:


> This is a feat regularly accomplished by orc war leaders. Does this involve anything more than Intimidate, maybe a rank or two in Diplomacy, and being tougher than the




Has the Leadership feat been overlooked in this discussion?


----------



## Mort

Stormonu said:


> Has the Leadership feat been overlooked in this discussion?




It was actually discussed:

1) The leadership feat is, frankly, overly powerful as a feat compared to any other feat (though I think too many feats are underpowered so I wish this was not the case); but more importantly

2) Since anyone can take it, it's mooted as an equalizer for the fighter. The morphing of the original topic has become: what does a fighter bring to the table and is it enough. With a decent side tanget of can non-D&D characters that one would consider a "fighter" be adequately modeled by the fighter class as presented in 3e?.


----------



## pawsplay

I think many classic "fighters" are difficult to shoehorn into the 3e Fighter class. However, I think Boromir, Madmartigan, and Blackbeard the Pirate are not examples. They are among the subset whose principal abilities are to fight really well, which in turn convinces other people to fight alongside them.


----------



## Stormonu

I'd certainly consider the Spartans from 300 as fighters.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

I think a lot of mythological warriors are well modeled by the fighter class.  They just happen to have abilities above and beyond those classes due to things like having divine ancestry and/or having had rituals performed upon them.  In D&D terms, they're either not mere humans or have had permanent ritual magics done to them.

Some others even have gods taking an active interest in their futures, tipping the scales this way and that...mechanically, that's just having a powerful ally, not a class ability.


----------



## Stormonu

This is sounding almost like a variation on the "no true Scotsman" argument; if the person in question has abilities beyond being able to fight in decent armor and with a sword, "they can't really be a fighter, they have to be something more".


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

It's as if nobody ever heard of dual-classing/multiclassing/gestalting...


----------



## pawsplay

Dannyalcatraz said:


> I think a lot of mythological warriors are well modeled by the fighter class.  They just happen to have abilities above and beyond those classes due to things like having divine ancestry and/or having had rituals performed upon them.  In D&D terms, they're either not mere humans or have had permanent ritual magics done to them.




I don't think that should bar them from discussion any more than Gandalf's angelic nature, Merlin's half-fiend blood, or Belgarion's divine gifts make them ineligible to be spellcasting archetypes. The Greek heroes simply live in a world where "My Dad (or Greatgrandfather) is a God" is a fairly common feat/race/template/path for PCs. 

In fact, I wrote up a cute Heroic template for 3.5 once, that mirrored half-fiend and half-celestial, using a single Domain associated with their parent as the source of their spell-like abilities. Hercules, as a fighter/barbarian with the ability to use the Strength domain as spell-like abilities, works out pretty well.


----------



## Bluenose

It's also noticeable that you don't really need to invoke Merlin's half-fiend nature, or Gandalf's angelic status, to make a D&D-style spellcaster that can do the sort of things they do. In fact Merlin can be done without several whole schools of magic, if you make him a Wizard, and still match up to most of the things he does in the tales (flying Stonehenge across from Ireland might be a little hard). 

You can look at this with most of the classes, in a way. They're wide enough in scope to cover a wide range of heroic archetypes. Wizard covers a huge range of spellcaster types, who are often in practice specialised in a few sorts of magic, and gives access to them all. Rogue covers con-men, pickpockets, spies, scouts, burglars, detectives, and a lot of other skilled and cunning types. Fighter covers people who use weapons really well - and disregards the warriors who have something extra about them, whether it's extraordinary abilities or leadership talents.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> I don't think that should bar them from discussion




That actually wasn't my point: I was just observing that some of what they do is not because of what they have trained to be, but because of what they inherently are...just like how first level Human, Half-Orc and Elf fighters with the same feat, weapon, and armor choices will have different abilities.

So if you look at Mythological Warrior X, and note that he can fly, the mere fact that he can fly doesn't mean he isn't a pure fighter- it may be that his flight is an innate racial ability, not something from his class (in D&D terms).


----------



## Fifth Element

Stormonu said:


> This is sounding almost like a variation on the "no true Scotsman" argument; if the person in question has abilities beyond being able to fight in decent armor and with a sword, "they can't really be a fighter, they have to be something more".



That's based on the fact that 3E fighters are really good at fighting with armor and a sword, but little else. And if they invest their feats to make them a bit good at something else, they're no longer really good at fighting with armor and a sword.


----------



## billd91

Fifth Element said:


> That's based on the fact that 3E fighters are really good at fighting with armor and a sword, but little else. And if they invest their feats to make them a bit good at something else, they're no longer really good at fighting with armor and a sword.




Depends. How many feats do *you* think it takes to be really good at fighting with armor and a sword?


----------



## Fifth Element

billd91 said:


> Depends. How many feats do *you* think it takes to be really good at fighting with armor and a sword?



Going on the assumption that fighters need their feats to even keep up with buffy clerics or what have you at higher levels (a fairly common position I think), then any feat invested in Skill Focus or what have you detracts from their fighty ability.

But rogues get to their thing in combat and still have many options outside of combat, even if they don't invest their resources heavily there. Same with the casters. Fighters are the most restricted in this regard. Invest too much in out-of-combat effectiveness and you've lost your in-combat effectiveness. Other classes do not face this choice to nearly the same degree.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Dannyalcatraz said:


> It's as if nobody ever heard of dual-classing/multiclassing/gestalting...




Oh, we have.  But these lead to the same fundamental result - the way to make a fighter able to do the sort of things a fighter ought to be able to do is ... not be a fighter.  And as even medium BAB classes are pretty good at fighting, this underlines the problem in 3.X.  (In 2e of course, fighters are leaders).


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Neonchameleon said:


> Oh, we have.  But these lead to the same fundamental result - the way to make a fighter able to do the sort of things a fighter ought to be able to do is ... not be a fighter.  And as even medium BAB classes are pretty good at fighting, this underlines the problem in 3.X.  (In 2e of course, fighters are leaders).




A fighter should be able to fight.  End of story.  Everything else is gravy.

Sure, you can assert that a fighter should be able to lead, but leadership is a rarer commodity than fighting skill.  You need only to look at the ranks of a military organization to get an inkling of how rare it is.

Or look at pro sports, into which we have a much better window.  Many athletes try the fields of coaching or management after their playing days are over, but few have any true success.  Even great ones fail to translate their on-field experience into sideline success.  That's because the ability to do something does not necessarily translate into the ability to train others; to lead.


----------



## Fifth Element

Dannyalcatraz said:


> A fighter should be able to fight.  End of story.  Everything else is gravy.



But why should that only apply to fighters? Shouldn't a rogue be happy with his sneaky skills? Why should he be able to do buckets of damage with his sneak attack as well? Why should he be able to put skill points in to so many different things other than being sneaky?

And this doesn't work at all with casters. Even if all casters could do it cast, the variety of things they can do simply by casting is vast compared to the range of "swing a weapon".


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Fifth Element said:


> But why should that only apply to fighters? Shouldn't a rogue be happy with his sneaky skills? Why should he be able to do buckets of damage with his sneak attack as well? Why should he be able to put skill points in to so many different things other than being sneaky?




In the rogue's case, killing quickly is part of the expected skillset, since- absent an assassin class- that is the class expected to take up that role.



> And this doesn't work at all with casters. Even if all casters could do it cast, the variety of things they can do simply by casting is vast compared to the range of "swing a weapon".



So what?

Look at the fiction that inspired the games and you'll find that spellcasters of all cultures were able to do things beyond the ken of mortal men: heal with a touch, fly, become invisible, summon otherplanar beings, turn sticks to snakes, start fires without fuel.  It's the nature of spellcasting.

Are there noncasters in myth & legend that can do some of this stuff?  Sure- some of which is explained by their supernatural nature or the aid of others- but they're the exception rather than the rule. In contrast,  ALL spellcasters are like this.


----------



## Fifth Element

Dannyalcatraz said:


> In the rogue's case, killing quickly is part of the expected skillset, since- absent an assassin class- that is the class expected to take up that role.



If you expect it to, sure. And if you expect the fighter only to fight, then that's what you'd expect as well. But what if you don't expect that from either class? 

That is, if this happens to meet your expectations, you won't see a problem. But each player's expectations are not the same, and there's a quite a wide range of reasonable expectations here. For example, if you look at the definition of the word 'rogue', it in no way implies killing quickly as a part of it. Especially if you know the class developed from the 'thief', another term which does not include quick murder.



Dannyalcatraz said:


> Are there noncasters in myth & legend that can do some of this stuff?  Sure- some of which is explained by their supernatural nature or the aid of others- but they're the exception rather than the rule. In contrast,  ALL spellcasters are like this.



And that's great, for fiction.


----------



## billd91

Fifth Element said:


> Going on the assumption that fighters need their feats to even keep up with buffy clerics or what have you at higher levels (a fairly common position I think), then any feat invested in Skill Focus or what have you detracts from their fighty ability.
> 
> But rogues get to their thing in combat and still have many options outside of combat, even if they don't invest their resources heavily there. Same with the casters. Fighters are the most restricted in this regard. Invest too much in out-of-combat effectiveness and you've lost your in-combat effectiveness. Other classes do not face this choice to nearly the same degree.




So your answer is "all of them?" With 11 bonus feats over 20 levels, the fighter doesn't have even one of his 7 general feats to spare?


----------



## BryonD

Fifth Element said:


> Going on the assumption that fighters need their feats to even keep up with buffy clerics or what have you at higher levels (a fairly common position I think)



I'd not agree that is a common position.

I *would* agree it is a common position if you only talked to people who have significant issues with 3E.  But you have to wonder about the quality of the understanding that would bring.


----------



## Bluenose

Dannyalcatraz said:


> In the rogue's case, killing quickly is part of the expected skillset, since- absent an assassin class- that is the class expected to take up that role.




I thought Fighters were the people who were supposed to be expert at fighting. Isn't killing quickly part of that skill set?



> Look at the fiction that inspired the games and you'll find that spellcasters of all cultures were able to do things beyond the ken of mortal men: heal with a touch, fly, become invisible, summon otherplanar beings, turn sticks to snakes, start fires without fuel.  It's the nature of spellcasting.
> 
> Are there noncasters in myth & legend that can do some of this stuff?  Sure- some of which is explained by their supernatural nature or the aid of others- but they're the exception rather than the rule. In contrast,  ALL spellcasters are like this.




No, they're *not *all like that. In fact, I have some doubt whether you could find a single one who could do all those things. Gandalf doesn't, Merlin doesn't, Circe doesn't, Koschei doesn't, I don't think even Harold Shea manages it. Possibly there are some in superhero comics, I don't know because I don't follow them. But the skill set of most spellcasters is a lot narrower than you're suggesting.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> I thought Fighters were the people who were supposed to be expert at fighting. Isn't killing quickly part of that skill set?




There is overlap, to be sure.

Fighting is the business of fighters, and since that covers a lot of things- ranged combat, melee, delaying engagements, versus single or multiple targets and so forth- they are generalists in the realm of combat.  But killing quickly, with precision, stealth & speed, against single targets with a minimal chance of retribution, is a different skillset.

It's the difference between a bastard sword and a straightrazor...or a commando with an AK-47 and some grenades who kills everyone in sight and a sniper with a 50 cal single-action rifle who takes out the Colonel...and nobody else.



> No, they're not all like that. In fact, I have some doubt whether you could find a single one who could do all those things




My apologies for being unclear- I wasn't saying that they all fly, produce fire ex nihilo, etc., but rather that they all break the rules of normal physics.  Whether its a broad bag of tricks or just a few things they do very well, they're all rulesbreakers and reality benders who have more options than a normal Joe.


----------



## pawsplay

Given all a fighter's bonus feats, they are probably in the best position to spend a feat or two on skills or other abilities. Blackbeard, above, should still have no problem grabbing Power Attack, Cleave, Improved Critical and anything else he wants down the road.


----------



## Stormonu

Dannyalcatraz said:


> or a commando with an AK-47 and some grenades who kills everyone in sight and a sniper with a 50 cal single-action rifle who takes out the Colonel...and nobody else.




I agree that this _should_ be the way the rogue and the fighter work in combat.  However, with the way hit points work, I feel this isn't how it works in actual play.  The rogue is popping enemies one by one with sneak attack, while the fighter's got to lay his whole clip into a single enemy, instead of spraying everyone in sight.  They're both taking down one enemy at a time, but the fighter's got to throw a lot more at his opponent at once.  And he certainly doesn't have any grenades - that's in the wizard's toolbox.

Also, I think several things happened in 3E that the designers didn't really think about how they negatively impacted the fighter class, which created so much hate for it in 3E.  Giving multiple attacks to all classes, relaxing the setup the rogue needed to perform sneak attack as the edition went on (the rogue's schtick was supposed to be skills, with sneak attack a secondary ability - not sneak attack being the classes primary ability) and not giving fighters access to feats that had requirements beyond 6th level (nor being powerful enough as even a 1st level spell) hurt the fighter class in many ways.  In a manner of speaking, the fighter's schtick was passed out to all the other classes so he had nothing unique.  

4E found its own solution, but I don't think 3E ever really fixed the problem (and I think Tome of Battle was the wrong direction to go).  And I can't say (or at least remember) that being a fighter was a problem back in basic/1E/2E days.

I also think that is one of the sticking points of this argument.  Since the fighter's thing is to fight, and since all the other classes can do that to some extent, why would you classify a literary figure as only a fighter?  If the fighter class had something unique to it - say combat tricks such as tripping, bull rushing, hitting multiple enemies at once - then we can point at literary figures much easier and say "yup, he _had_ to be fighter, because only fighters can do _that._"


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> I agree that this should be the way the rogue and the fighter work in combat.




In a way, it does.

Fighters damage output is rarely decreased; it's a fairly consistent flow due to their better to-hit numbers and so little of their damage being conditional.

In contrast, to get his full damage output- moreso prior to 4Ed- the rogue types need to have a positional advantage and hope they're not facing beings immune to their bonus damage (constructs, undead, etc.).

This is analogous to the commando and the sniper: the former can spray rounds everywhere and toss his grenades as he sees fit, any old time, but if the sniper cannot get a clean shot, he can't do his job, and in certain situations, his expensive sniper rifle, while awesomely powerful, is inferior to the cheaply made AK-47.  (A single action rifle is not what you want fighting in close quarters, against large numbers of foes, in a moving firefight...)


----------



## WayneLigon

Iota said:


> *How have you seen warior characters in fantasy books overcome spellcasters?*




Usually by being faster than they are, and getting off an arrow or sword blow before the wizard can do much of anything. Or they have a McGuffin that lets them escape the brunt of the wizard's power in time to finish him off. 

'Need' is a good example of that in the Tarma and Kethry books. It's a minor artifact that makes a warrior almost invulnerable to magic (and conversely makes a wizard the equal of a superb warrior), as long as the warrior is working towards that sword's special purpose ('Protect all women'). 



Iota said:


> So, in that case, spellcasting probably took more than the typical "Standard Action" and the wizard had *very* low Hit Points and no protective magic in place (even though he was anticipating the encounter).




Most magic in fantasy books is not the all-combat-oriented magic you see in D&D. I've seen very, very few mages in books with any sort of shielding spell against physical attacks except items they've created. The ones that do (Harry Dresden's shielding charm comes to mind) have limited charges or effects. They'll provide perfect protection from 1, 2 maybe 3 attacks and then it goes down.

Spellcasting in classic fantasy is almost never quick stuff useful in combat. In modern fantasy, you'll see it a lot but it's usually inversely proportional - quick spells do little damage or they are over soon as well. Usually there will be dire 'in game' penalties for using magic to kill, so a lot of magic stuns, blinds or paralyzes people.

There are some times that mages tap into hidden forces or deep emotions to do large, quick, devastating combat magic. In those cases, warriors run or they die, no question about it. Typically this is not something someone can just do off the cuff, though, and comes at major climaxes. And a lot of times the mage in question pays for it by either being powerless for a time thereafter or other side effects. 

Characters in books never have the huge buckets of hit points they do in D&D, so a fist to the jaw or a dagger in the back is enough to put down or kill pretty much any normal person. Think if you had the hit points you had in AD&D (fighter, maybe 12; mage, 3-4) and then it never, ever got any better. You'd be closer to the way most books work. People live through fights by having good armor, avoiding blows, or by never letting a fight occur in the first place.

Another 'balancing' thing you'll see now and again is 'all spells are not created equal'. In D&D, every spell is just as easy to learn as any other. In most books, that's just not the case. In a series I just finished 'A Young Man Without Magic' by Lawrence Watt-Evans, glamor and illusion magic is very rare because it requires a very powerful sorcerer to create them. Any hedge witch can do a little healing and some simple beguilement, but a major gut wound is beyond them. Similarly, in most books the death-dealing combat spells are usually rare; hard to find and/or hard to learn.


----------



## Hussar

pawsplay said:


> This is a feat regularly accomplished by orc war leaders. Does this involve anything more than Intimidate, maybe a rank or two in Diplomacy, and being tougher than the other pirates?
> 
> 
> 
> So? He doesn't need a +30 Profession (Shiphandling) bonus. In fact, all he really needs is bare competence, since crew members likely supplied expertise in navigation, shiphandling, and so forth. Primarily, he is known for being extremely scary, shrewed in his political dealings, and requiring multiple major wounds to finally defeat.
> 
> Given that he started his career as a Jamaican sailor, Blackbeard could be:
> 
> Edward Teach
> Human Fighter 1
> Str 14, Dex 10, Con 15, Int 12, Wis 10, Cha 11
> Feats: Skill Focus (Profession[Sailor]), Negotiator
> Skils: Balance +2, Climb +4, (Diplomacy +2), Intimidate +4, Profession (Sailor) +5, (Sense Motive) +2, Swim +4




Umm, would you sail with a captain that can't read a map?  He still doesn't have Knowledge Geography.  And, would you sail with a captain that has no way of knowing if anyone is lying to him?  And, would you sail with a captain that gets washed overboard every time there are high seas?  A +2 balance check isn't going to cut it.

And, really, what's he doing with a +2 Diplomacy check?  OOooo, he has about a 50/50 chance of getting a friendly person to help him.  

Let's see you raise him up to about tenth level, and make him an effective captain.  It's all very well and good to make a poor sailor with no more combat effectiveness than the average warrior, but, let's see him as a captain.


----------



## BryonD

Hussar said:


> Umm, would you sail with a captain that can't read a map?



I think you are missing his point.



			
				pawsplay said:
			
		

> Primarily, he is known for being extremely scary, shrewed in his political dealings, and requiring multiple major wounds to finally defeat.




Now, I don't know that this example does *that* either, but Blackbeard was not a Captain because he was the most awesome of map readers.  He was captain because he was a scary, tough badass who could get people to do what he wanted.  That included getting people to just give up and hand over their stuff.  But it also included getting that really good map reader to understand that he was now a pirate and was going to read the damn map for him.

Again, there is a real interest in playing games in which characters need not be masters of all things in order to be very good at what they do.

(not to mention that most of the guys sailing with Blackbeard were not exactly asked if they would like to sail with him....)


----------



## Neonchameleon

pawsplay said:


> Edward Teach
> Human Fighter 1
> Str 14, Dex 10, Con 15, Int 12, Wis 10, Cha 11
> Feats: Skill Focus (Profession[Sailor]), Negotiator
> Skils: Balance +2, Climb +4, (Diplomacy +2), Intimidate +4, Profession (Sailor) +5, (Sense Motive) +2, Swim +4




Um.  That isn't Edward Teach.  That's Roger the Cabin Boy.  First level fighters have no more BAB or hit points than second level rogues; they simply aren't that good at fighting.  And he's not going to scale well at all - he has feat bonusses to diplomacy, profession, and sense motive.  He's more or less capped on these cross class skills.  And for another skill Roger is lacking, Use Rope.  A pirate captain with only a 50% chance of tying a firm knot?  (Plus a balance of +2 is going to make him a joke on a ship with a rolling and slippery deck).


----------



## Neonchameleon

BryonD said:


> Again, there is a real interest in playing games in which characters  need not be masters of all things in order to be very good at what they  do.




And again I can't think of a game where people get to be masters at all thigns short of exalted.  I've already demonstrated that you need to be a level _18_ wizard or fighter if your starting dex is 10 to match a competent first level thief at stealth.  That isn't mastery, nor is being a good dozen points lower on a d20 roll for things you'd expect to be facing.

It does not take mastery of bluff to bluff the villiage idiot.  Or to bluff the hick from the sticks.



> Now, I don't know that this example does *that* either,




It really, really doesn't.



> but Blackbeard was not a Captain because he was the most awesome of map readers.




Who said he had to be even the best map reader on his ship?  That's why he had a navigator.  He just needs to know something about mapreading.  (Although I'd rank that little something under the Profession skill).



> He was captain because he was a scary,




Intimidate +4?  *snicker*



> tough badass




12 hit points?  *snort*



> who could get people to do what he wanted.




Diplomacy +2?!?  Bluff +0!



> That included getting people to just give up and hand over their stuff.  But it also included getting that really good map reader to understand that he was now a pirate and was going to read the damn map for him.




He really needs those social skills.  Which he sucks at.



> (not to mention that most of the guys sailing with Blackbeard were not exactly asked if they would like to sail with him....)




Which means he needed a damn good diplomacy skill to get them to not stab him in the back - after all they were all armed.

Honestly, the descriptions of teach to me aren't saying fighter.  They are saying Barbarian/Rogue who was raging when he was brought down.  That's because the fighter might be good at combat.  _But so is everyone else_.  

And honestly?  Unless you want heavy armour for some reason (as Blackbeard emphatically does not) the fighter is no match for the barbarian at low levels; rage, uncanny dodge, and fast movement are all worth at least a feat each.  And the barbarian gets more hit points and more skills per level (even after buying off illiteracy).  Part of the problem we're discussing is that wizards (and other primary spellcasters) are insanely fast casting.  Another part is that fighters suck.  Without heavy armour, barbarians are tougher, fitter, stronger, and generally better at beating people to a pulp.  And have more hit points.  The very things the fighter is meant to be good at.


----------



## BryonD

Neonchameleon said:


> And again I can't think of a game where people get to be masters at all thigns short of exalted.  I've already demonstrated that you need to be a level _18_ wizard or fighter if your starting dex is 10 to match a competent first level thief at stealth.  That isn't mastery, nor is being a good dozen points lower on a d20 roll for things you'd expect to be facing.



And I like that about D20.

But the quote I was responding to seemed concerned that Blackbeard was not a master of quite a list of things.  So that was my point and we seem to at least somewhat agree on this.



> It really, really doesn't.



I completely agree.




> Who said he had to be even the best map reader on his ship?  That's why he had a navigator.



Hussar questioned whether someone would sail with the captain.  He didn't say "unless he had a good navigator with him".  He challenged the idea that anyone would sail with him unless he personally was a good enough map reader.





> Intimidate +4?  *snicker*
> 
> 12 hit points?  *snort*
> 
> Diplomacy +2?!?  Bluff +0!
> 
> 
> He really needs those social skills.  Which he sucks at.



I agree that this example sucks.  I already said I didn't think it did a good job and you agreed.  So bothering to point out the details just wastes time.



> Which means he needed a damn good diplomacy skill to get them to not stab him in the back - after all they were all armed.



Depends.  In a seriously gritty e6 type campaign, the example might even be passable.  I certainly would still not do it that way, but maybe.  But if you are in a mid level traditional D&D campaign, then yes, I agree with you very much.



> Honestly, the descriptions of teach to me aren't saying fighter.  They are saying Barbarian/Rogue who was raging when he was brought down.



I buy that also.




> That's because the fighter might be good at combat.  _But so is everyone else_.



Again, this is just deception.  By design and intent every class is very worthwhile "in a fight".  The fighter concept is about individual martial combat.  It works just fine.



> And honestly?  Unless you want heavy armour for some reason (as Blackbeard emphatically does not) the fighter is no match for the barbarian at low levels; rage, uncanny dodge, and fast movement are all worth at least a feat each.  And the barbarian gets more hit points and more skills per level (even after buying off illiteracy).  Part of the problem we're discussing is that wizards (and other primary spellcasters) are insanely fast casting.  Another part is that fighters suck.  Without heavy armour, barbarians are tougher, fitter, stronger, and generally better at beating people to a pulp.  And have more hit points.  The very things the fighter is meant to be good at.



You can have a very reasonable debate about the balance between the fighter and the barbarian.  I'd actually agree with that issue far more readily than the fighter/wizard "issue".


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:


> Umm, would you sail with a captain that can't read a map?  He still doesn't have Knowledge Geography.  And, would you sail with a captain that has no way of knowing if anyone is lying to him?  And, would you sail with a captain that gets washed overboard every time there are high seas?  A +2 balance check isn't going to cut it.




Ah, so suddenly you need to roll a skill check to do something ordinary, rather than something extraordinary.  I see.  And, no doubt, when your players want to map the space they are in, you demand Knowledge Geography checks for them to do so.

Equally obviously, Sense Motive is (or should be) reserved for when there is a real question as to whether or not someone is lying, and anyone with an Intelligence over 6 is likely to be able to guess circumstantially (this is a cargo ship, therefore there is likely to be a cargo, even if Seaman Bob says there is nothing belowdecks) with a relatively high degree of accuracy.

Really, you are making the "There is no Profession: Soapmaker skill in 4e, therefore no one in 4e can make soap" argument here.  Pardon the pun, but it just won't wash.



RC


----------



## Hussar

BryonD said:


> (not to mention that most of the guys sailing with Blackbeard were not exactly asked if they would like to sail with him....)




You do realize that pirate captains were elected democratically don't you?  That kidnapping crew was something that the Royal Navy did, not typically pirates.  Most pirates were entirely free to come and go.  That's why they were pirates.



> Hussar questioned whether someone would sail with the captain. He didn't say "unless he had a good navigator with him". He challenged the idea that anyone would sail with him unless he personally was a good enough map reader.




Again, would you sail with a captain that CANNOT read a map?  Not, kinda sorta can read a map, but, has absolutely no idea how to read a naval chart that shows all sorts of dangers like sandbars and shallows.  And knows things about tides and currents and whatnot?

Map reading is a basic skill of ANY naval captain of the period.  You would never dream of having a captain that is incapable of reading a map.



Raven Crowking said:


> Ah, so suddenly you need to roll a skill check to do something ordinary, rather than something extraordinary.  I see.  And, no doubt, when your players want to map the space they are in, you demand Knowledge Geography checks for them to do so.
> 
> Equally obviously, Sense Motive is (or should be) reserved for when there is a real question as to whether or not someone is lying, and anyone with an Intelligence over 6 is likely to be able to guess circumstantially (this is a cargo ship, therefore there is likely to be a cargo, even if Seaman Bob says there is nothing belowdecks) with a relatively high degree of accuracy.
> 
> Really, you are making the "There is no Profession: Soapmaker skill in 4e, therefore no one in 4e can make soap" argument here.  Pardon the pun, but it just won't wash.
> 
> 
> 
> RC




I'm really not sure where you're going with this RC.  Kn Geography is a trained skill.  Without at least one rank in it, you cannot do it at all.  Again, reading a map on a ship is a basic skill requirement for the captain.  I certainly don't want to sail with some guy that cannot figure out a naval chart.

As far as sense motive, again, basic skill for a PIRATE captain.  Considering there is no price list for stolen goods, how does the captain know if he's getting screwed over or not?  Again, I don't want to sail with a captain that has no idea if 3gp per bale of cotton is a good price or not.

And I really don't want to sail with a pirate captain that is so naive that he would entrust the details to someone else.

But, at the end of the day, we're quibbling here.  Even BryonD, who never agrees with me, agrees that this is a piss poor example of a pirate.  The why isn't quite so important I suppose.


----------



## Hussar

Rolling back to the main issue.

Really, the evolution of the game has led to this issue, at least IMO.

In AD&D and older versions of the game, there wasn't such a large discrepancy between the usefulness of classes because so little of the stuff outside of combat was codified.  A fighter was just as good as a cleric at being a pirate captain (to use the current example) simply because the DM said so.  You didn't have skill lists and whatnot getting in the way.  The fighter was just as good as any class outside of combat, outside of certain elements that were the purview of the thief (open locks etc.).

Could your character bluff the guard?  Play it out and let the DM decide.  Could you tell if the merchant was screwing you on the price of wool?  Again, play it out and let the DM decide.  Your class didn't really matter here.

On the other side of the street, the casters were also MUCH more limited.  For one, their spell lists were a heck of a lot shorter.  Not just the spells known, but, the actual number of spells available.  I just opened my Expert rules and took a look.  12 spells per spell level and that was it.  TWELVE spells.  That's tiny.  There's more 1st level spells in 3e than there were in most of the Expert rules.  That has a large impact.  Additionally, memorization was problematic and casters lacked the deep resources (scrolls, wands, etc) available to 3e casters.  All these things keep the casters largely in check.

2e changed this a bit by giving casters a great deal more spell choices and adding in things like Sphere spells and specialist wizards, which did give them more spells per day.  But, the skills rules were still very rudimentary and, really, the fighter was no further back than anyone else - 3 NWP vs 4 NWP to start and NWP didn't really deal with things like bluffing the guard or in-character talky stuff.  That was still mostly ad hoc by the DM.

Plus, let's not forget, fighters got a HUGE bump in firepower in 2e with weapon specs and two weapon fighting rules.  The monsters, by and large, didn't change that much from 1e to 2e (with giants and dragons being the exception) so the fighter getting a big offensive bump makes a large difference.

But, then 3e comes along.  3e takes away the free form roleplay that characterizes earlier D&D and replaces it with skills.  But, the idea that "Fighters only Fight" stays with us and fighters get pretty much no skills related to talking.  So, now the fighter is way behind the other classes when it comes to out of combat stuff.  And, as the levels go up, the disparity gets even longer.  

Suddenly, instead of modeling archtypal big assed dudes as fighters, now we model them with multiclasses to make up for their lack of social skills (or any skills outside of combat really).  

Add to that, the monsters get a HUGE bump in firepower compared to AD&D monsters and suddenly the fighter isn't dominating combat so much anymore either.  The fighter isn't obliterating demons in a single round, by and large, which was possible in AD&D.  And the bad guys are quite capable of ripping the fighter a new one very, very quickly.  Having double digit hit points doesn't help when the baddies are doing triple digit damage.

On the other side of the street, all the limitations that casters operated under become much less stringent.  Casters gain bonus spells, casters can choose their spells (2/level for wizards) and gain a spell list longer than anything that came before.  Additionally, you can add in feats to make your spells even more effective.  Plus, the casters gain the possibility of very, very deep resources (10% of PC wealth gains about a HUNDRED scrolls, so much for not having the right spell all the time).

Additionally, the non-casters gain direct access to all the non-combat skills.  While clerics might not have lots of skill points to burn, wizards, with their high int, certainly do.  

And the power disparity gets very wide.  As you go up levels, that disparity gets even wider.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:


> I'm really not sure where you're going with this RC.




It's pretty simple.  Knowledge Geography isn't needed to read a map, you would not require your PCs to have the skill to read a map, and the entire line of reasoning is about as questionable as possible.

And, honestly, I think we both know that.


RC


----------



## BryonD

Hussar said:


> You do realize that pirate captains were elected democratically don't you?  That kidnapping crew was something that the Royal Navy did, not typically pirates.  Most pirates were entirely free to come and go.  That's why they were pirates.



Actually, that is a myth.  I mean, yeah, the navy was really really bad and a lot of pirates "choose" that as a lesser evil, but it was still a miserable life that few people with better options selected for themselves.

but whatever....




> Again, would you sail with a captain that CANNOT read a map?  Not, kinda sorta can read a map, but, has absolutely no idea how to read a naval chart that shows all sorts of dangers like sandbars and shallows.  And knows things about tides and currents and whatnot?



I see Prof: Sailor  5 ranks.  

I also really hope that this line of thinking doesn't describe your DMing style.


----------



## BryonD

Hussar said:


> Even BryonD, who never agrees with me, agrees that this is a piss poor example of a pirate.



Wrong.

I said it was a poor example of Blackbeard.
It is a perfectly valid "pirate".


----------



## pemerton

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Some others even have gods taking an active interest in their futures, tipping the scales this way and that...mechanically, that's just having a powerful ally, not a class ability.



Well, isn't this exactly what is up for grabs?

Wizards and clerics, after all, _do_ get powerful divine or similar allies as class abilities: Commune, Contact Other Planes, Summon, Gate etc.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

pemerton said:


> Well, isn't this exactly what is up for grabs?
> 
> Wizards and clerics, after all, _do_ get powerful divine or similar allies as class abilities: Commune, Contact Other Planes, Summon, Gate etc.



Not really- in the cases of heroes (read as "non-spellcaster warriors") of myth who had allies of that sort...well, they had them because of who they were, not what they did.  Their parents or the agents of their parents tipped things in their favor, sometimes from before they had reached the age of reason, sometimes interceding as they adventured.

They didn't so much ask for help or bargain for it like wizards & priests, it was their birthright.  That isn't really something you put in a class; it's your ancestry in some cases, your connections in others.

IOW, it's one thing to study tomes and scrolls to become "Angel Summoner", and quite another to be the son of the greatest god in the pantheon and the apple of his eye so that he sends help whenever you need it.

If magic as a force were dropped from the game and replaced with wealth, the same issue would crop up between the Noble class and everyone else- why has he got so much gold and we don't?  He can solve any problem with GP that it infringes in the roles of other PCs.  Etc.


----------



## Mort

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Not really- in the cases of heroes (read as "non-spellcaster warriors") of myth who had allies of that sort...well, they had them because of who they were, not what they did. Their parents or the agents of their parents tipped things in their favor, sometimes from before they had reached the age of reason, sometimes interceding as they adventured.
> 
> They didn't so much ask for help or bargain for it like wizards & priests, it was their birthright. That isn't really something you put in a class; it's your ancestry in some cases, your connections in others..




Why should "magic" be the only method built into any class to trancend normalcy? While myths can and should be built through roleplaying and campaign progression, why not have a few options, built into the classes themselves, that allow this to be done mechanically (build wise) other than through magic? For example allow an option for rogues to build a network of informants as they go up in level, and/or give fighters some kind of mythic renown score that may provide aid - even in a foreign land. Where the spellcasters can have access to magic the non-spellcasters may have access to other mythic, but not necessarily magical options. Heck this was the way it was done 2e back, with fighters gaining followers etc. and rogues (I believe I don't have access to my older eddition books at the moment) gaining access to a thieves guild etc. through mechanics of the game.




Dannyalcatraz said:


> If magic as a force were dropped from the game and replaced with wealth, the same issue would crop up between the Noble class and everyone else- why has he got so much gold and we don't?  He can solve any problem with GP that it infringes in the roles of other PCs.  Etc.





In 3e spellcasting power is quite a bit more immediate gratification than ability to buy stuff. The mage can do all the stuff himself - usually in 6 seconds or less. If there were more constraints placed on magic - well then there would not be this argument (as has been mentioned repeatedly 3e took many of the constraints of prior edditions away).

That said, your analogy has merit and it kind of illustrates the point. 3e takes pains to equalize wealth between the classes as levels progress - and stresses over and over that one must watch the unequal distribution of wealth between PCs because it can lead to a serious power differential (note I'm not arguing it should never be done, simply that there are consequences that need to be kept in mind). 

Yet the progression of the wizard vs. the fighter as levels increase is treated as equal, despite the fact that the wizard gains exponentially more abilities and options. A level 18 fighter and a level 18 mage are treated as the same CR rating for ex. when clearly this is not remotely the case. 

Essentially, going with your analogy, the classes are "equal" well except the fact that by mid-high levels some have 1000x the gold of the other classes (but we'll pretend that makes no difference).

And on another note: what exactly is wrong with giving high level fighters "mythic" options beyond "I hit it pretty hard?" Options could be "leader of men" or "mythic combatant" or "slayer of beasts" (with appropriate bonuses) essentially stuff that truly suits a high level fighter but may/or may not be magical depending on the flavor of the campaign. I suppose that that's what prestige classes/multi-class options are for, and they work ok for the purpose. But it irks me that the mage doesn't really need prestige classes or multiclassing (heck most multi-class options are bad choices for the mage) to do his schtick while the fighter can't get far beyond "big bruiser" without using means other than progression in fighter levels.


----------



## Hussar

Raven Crowking said:


> It's pretty simple.  Knowledge Geography isn't needed to read a map, you would not require your PCs to have the skill to read a map, and the entire line of reasoning is about as questionable as possible.
> 
> And, honestly, I think we both know that.
> 
> 
> RC




Then what is Kn Geography for then?

I would point out that Paizo disagrees with you here.  In the Savage Tide AP, it requires Kn Geography checks to chart a course from point A to B.  You then need Profession Sailor checks to actually follow the course.

I also believe that the WOTC book that deals with naval stuff, Stormwrack, uses the same rules.  Someone with that book can look that up.

So, in 3ed D&D, you would actually be wrong here.  Even looking at the d20 SRD, you find the following:



			
				D20 SRD said:
			
		

> Difficult Terrain
> 
> Any character in forest, moor, hill, or mountain terrain may become lost if he or she moves away from a trail, road, stream, or other obvious path or track. Forests are especially dangerous because they obscure far-off landmarks and make it hard to see the sun or stars.
> Table: Getting Lost Circumstance 	Survival
> DC
> Moor or hill, map 	6
> Mountain, map 	8
> Moor or hill, no map 	10
> Poor visibility 	12
> Mountain, no map 	12
> Forest 	15
> Chance to Get Lost
> 
> If conditions exist that make getting lost a possibility, the character leading the way must succeed on a Survival check or become lost. The difficulty of this check varies based on the terrain, the visibility conditions, and whether or not the character has a map of the area being traveled through. Refer to the table below and use the highest DC that applies.
> 
> A character with at least 5 ranks in Knowledge (geography) or Knowledge (local) pertaining to the area being traveled through gains a +2 bonus on this check.
> 
> Check once per hour (or portion of an hour) spent in local or overland movement to see if travelers have become lost. In the case of a party moving together, only the character leading the way makes the check.




By the book, I need to be making Survival checks as soon as I'm out of sight of land.  And, again, our poor fighter doesn't get Survival as a class skill.



BryonD said:


> Actually, that is a myth.  I mean, yeah, the navy was really really bad and a lot of pirates "choose" that as a lesser evil, but it was still a miserable life that few people with better options selected for themselves.
> 
> but whatever....
> 
> 
> I see Prof: Sailor  5 ranks.
> 
> I also really hope that this line of thinking doesn't describe your DMing style.




Profession Sailor does not allow you to read a map according to the rules.  Now, since we're bringing in DMing style, I changed the rules and allowed Profession Sailor to do much more than simply let me make xdx sp/time period, which is what the rules say.

But, thanks for the cheap shot.  If you want to discuss BryonD&D, I'm more than willing to start a new thread, but, I thought we were actually discussing the rules and not what you think they are.



BryonD said:


> Wrong.
> 
> I said it was a poor example of Blackbeard.
> It is a perfectly valid "pirate".




My bad.  I meant to say Blackbeard.

Funny thing is, you can make a cleric or wizard Blackbeard very, very easily, without all the round the corner backflips it takes to make a fighter Blackbeard.


----------



## billd91

Hussar said:


> Funny thing is, you can make a cleric or wizard Blackbeard very, very easily, without all the round the corner backflips it takes to make a fighter Blackbeard.




There are no backflips necessary to make a fighter Blackbeard. The 1st level start isn't a bad start on him at all. You just have to figure he'd have a few more levels on him, probably a bit more natural charisma. The rest works pretty easily with skill points.

Trying to make him out of a spellcasting class and you have to somehow get rid of the spellcasting to make it credible.


----------



## billd91

Hussar said:


> By the book, I need to be making Survival checks as soon as I'm out of sight of land.  And, again, our poor fighter doesn't get Survival as a class skill.




You realize this is why a captain has a good navigator, right? To have those particular skills. Same with having a quartermaster for handling day to day management and discipline. Cap'n Blackbeard doesn't have to be the best guy with any of those skills - he can can delegate.


----------



## Hussar

billd91 said:


> There are no backflips necessary to make a fighter Blackbeard. The 1st level start isn't a bad start on him at all. You just have to figure he'd have a few more levels on him, probably a bit more natural charisma. The rest works pretty easily with skill points.
> 
> Trying to make him out of a spellcasting class and you have to somehow get rid of the spellcasting to make it credible.




Thus, my point.  The casters make a better Blackbeard than the class that SHOULD be a better Blackbeard.  That's backward.

No, it really, really doesn't work easily with skill points.  He can, at best, gain ONE rank in any cross class skill PER LEVEL.  That's it.  That's all he can do.  Those ranks that you gave him at 1st level?  Those are going to be virtually identical by 10th level.  Just how high of a level should Blackbeard be?  Even by 20th level, at best, he's got 10 more cross class skills.  

Oh, sorry, 20, because you gave him an Int bonus.  Let's see, we're spreading this across Profession Sailor, Knowledge Geography, Diplomacy, Sense Motive, and Balance.  That's +4 to each of these skills by the time he's TENTH level.

Ooh, a +4 Sense Motive in your captain.  Yeah, you're not going to get fleeced at every port.  +4 Kn Geography (presuming we don't need the Survival checks) means he gets lost about 40% of the time.  Or, put it another way, any time his navigator fails a check, he's not going to be able to help at all.  At least with a +6 balance check, he's only falling overboard about half the time in rough weather as opposed to almost all the time.

Yeah, that's one famous pirate captain all right.



billd91 said:


> You realize this is why a captain has a good navigator, right? To have those particular skills. Same with having a quartermaster for handling day to day management and discipline. Cap'n Blackbeard doesn't have to be the best guy with any of those skills - he can can delegate.




Problem is, firstly, the Captain is expected to navigate, this is a basic skill of a captain, and, second, as a pirate, it's not like he's got a lot of choices in crew.  

Sure, he doesn't have to be the best.  But, there is a difference between being the best at it and being able to do it AT ALL.

Or, put it another way, why on earth would I vote to make Blackbeard my captain when the navigator can do everything Blackbeard can do, PLUS he can navigate?


----------



## Stormonu

Perhaps Blackbeard is not the best example; there's a good chance he'd be a mix fighter/rogue anyway (which is, I imagine, a good bit of this argument).  Certainly, several of the skills he need would qualify as more "roguish" in nature.

A more "pure" example of a fighter to test might be the likes of Beowulf, King Arthur, Charlemange, Roland, Achilles and similar characters.  Can even these live up the expectation of "fighter" without having to dip into other classes to express their out-of-combat skills or abilities?


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Mort said:


> Why should "magic" be the only method built into any class to trancend normalcy?



Because, _by definition_, magic is what allows the rules of normalcy to be bent or broken.  If you're not using magic of some kind, normalcy defines your limitations.



> For example allow an option for rogues to build a network of informants as they go up in level, and/or give fighters some kind of mythic renown score that may provide aid - even in a foreign land.



It doesn't have to be a mechanical feature- I can do that in any RPG with roleplay- but in some, it IS a mechanical feature.



> In 3e spellcasting power is quite a bit more immediate gratification than ability to buy stuff. The mage can do all the stuff himself - usually in 6 seconds or less. If there were more constraints placed on magic - well then there would not be this argument (as has been mentioned repeatedly 3e took many of the constraints of prior edditions away).



Nothing wrong with putting the restraints back in or using the ones still extant to the fullest.



> Essentially, going with your analogy, the classes are "equal" well except the fact that by mid-high levels some have 1000x the gold of the other classes (but we'll pretend that makes no difference).



And were I playing in a game where wealth = power and I wasn't playing an aristocrat, I wouldn't be complaining that my PC didn't have money.  After all, it was _my decision to play something besides an aristocrat._

If that PC's lack of wealth bugged me, I'd find a way to increase my $$$, play aristocrat PCs, or play something else.



> And on another note: what exactly is wrong with giving high level fighters "mythic" options beyond "I hit it pretty hard?" Options could be "leader of men" or "mythic combatant" or "slayer of beasts"



Nothing is wrong with that.  Some games do that.  D&D doesn't.

So your options are:

Play a different game
Play differently within the game
HR things in your game to make them what you want

I say that because there isn't much point in playing a game that makes you unhappy.


----------



## pawsplay

Neonchameleon said:


> Um.  That isn't Edward Teach.  That's Roger the Cabin Boy.  First level fighters have no more BAB or hit points than second level rogues; they simply aren't that good at fighting.




You are correct. This is Edward Teach, the sketchy Jamaican sailor. He won't be Captain Blackbeard for a few more levels.



> And he's not going to scale well at all - he has feat bonusses to diplomacy, profession, and sense motive.  He's more or less capped on these cross class skills.  And for another skill Roger is lacking, Use Rope.  A pirate captain with only a 50% chance of tying a firm knot?




I believe we'll be taking 10 there.



> (Plus a balance of +2 is going to make him a joke on a ship with a rolling and slippery deck).




Are you implying that a competent sailor walks around with three or more ranks of Balance? What is this, a pirate circus ship?

Really, what's to scale? His diplomacy and sense motive only need a couple of more ranks to be consistently useful. Probably, Profession (sailor) should keep going up, at least for a while. What scales is full BAB, d10s for hit dice, Power Attack, Cleave, Improved Initiative, Point Blank Shot, etc. That is the point. His Diplomacy, Sense Motive, and Profession check totals only have to be high enough to make routine DCs. He is never going to be epically Diplomatic, detecting lies by Rakshasa assassins, or sailing his ship between Scylla and Charybis. You are thinking of maybe Sinband, the Rogue pirate. This is Edward, the Fighter pirate. He kills people. He'll keep his Intimidate maxed out and sprinkle skill ranks here and there as he sees fit.


----------



## pawsplay

Hussar said:


> Then what is Kn Geography for then?




NOT needing a map. It's a common misconception that Knowledge skills have useful applications. For instance, some people think Knowledge (arcana) would help you research ancient sorcerers, and that Knowledge (geography) would help you read a map. This is incorrect. Knowledge skills do just one thing: 



> Answering a question within your field of study has a DC of 10 (for really easy questions), 15 (for basic questions), or 20 to 30 (for really tough questions).
> 
> In many cases, you can use this skill to identify monsters and their special powers or vulnerabilities. In general, the DC of such a check equals 10 + the monster’s HD. A successful check allows you to remember a bit of useful information about that monster.
> 
> For every 5 points by which your check result exceeds the DC, you recall another piece of useful information.




Hence, actual ranks in Knowledge (geography) are useful for that +2 bonus, but you don't actually make a geography check to read a map. Apparently, Survival is used for that, since the Survival DC varies as to whether you have one. It does not vary as to whether you make a Knowledge (geography) check.


----------



## Patryn of Elvenshae

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say you've never read any Napoleonic sea fiction, have you, pawsplay?

Because if you had, you wouldn't be asking "Are you implying that a competent sailor walks around with three or more ranks of Balance? What is this, a pirate circus ship?"


----------



## pawsplay

Patryn of Elvenshae said:


> I'm going to go out on a limb here and say you've never read any Napoleonic sea fiction, have you, pawsplay?




Sadly, I have read little. Most of my knowledge in the area comes from reading NON-fiction books about the Age of Sail, including a big stack of books on pirates I read in high school for my history report on the Age of Piracy.



> Because if you had, you wouldn't be asking "Are you implying that a competent sailor walks around with three or more ranks of Balance? What is this, a pirate circus ship?"




So, here's my challenge to you. Stat me Blackbeard's crew. 2nd level human warriors.


----------



## pawsplay

Oops, I forgot to give Edward his 1st level Fighter feat. Let's go with Weapon Focus (cutlass).

Blackbeard the Pirate
Human Fighter 9
Str 14, Dex 10, Con 16, Int 12, Wis 10, Cha 12
Hp 81
Feats: Skill Focus (Profession[Sailor]), Negotiator, Alertness, Skill Focus (Intimidate), Leadership, W Focus (Cutlass), W Spec (cutlass), Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Quick Draw
Skils: Appraise +2, Balance +3, Climb +4, Diplomacy +4, Intimidate +16, Knowledge (Geography) +2, Listen +3, Profession (Sailor) +5, Sense Motive +3, Spot +3, Survival +4, Swim +4


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Another observation: you might not need to spend skill points on Swim.  Most people, including sailors, didn't know how to swim.  And most of those who did, didn't do it well.


----------



## pawsplay

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Another observation: you might not need to spend skill points on Swim.  Most people, including sailors, didn't know how to swim.  And most of those who did, didn't do it well.




True, I just wanted to make sure Edward here would die of five pistol wounds and at least twenty saber cuts, and not from falling overboard.


----------



## pemerton

Stormonu said:


> A more "pure" example of a fighter to test might be the likes of Beowulf, King Arthur, Charlemange, Roland, Achilles and similar characters.  Can even these live up the expectation of "fighter" without having to dip into other classes to express their out-of-combat skills or abilities?



The first three are great kings - two legendary, one historical although well-embellished by fiction.

Presenting a King of the Geats, King Arthur or Charlemagne without real ability in Diplomacy, Insight/Sense Motive and in the latter two cases also Riding and Religious Knowledge wouldn't strke me as very plausible. Depending on how your particular game handles it they might also need ability in History/Genealogy/Heraldry.

Some of this can be handled by giving them raw mental abilities that wouldn't be available to PC fighters under points-buy rules. I'm not sure whether or not that resolves the issue, though.


----------



## Bluenose

Stormonu said:


> A more "pure" example of a fighter to test might be the likes of Beowulf, King Arthur, Charlemange, Roland, Achilles and similar characters.  Can even these live up the expectation of "fighter" without having to dip into other classes to express their out-of-combat skills or abilities?




Beowulf has some pretty supernatural abilities. Diving down to Grendel's underwater lair and remaining there for quite some time suggests he could breathe water, beating Grendel with his bare hands isn't exactly normal. Maybe a fighter.

Roland is surely a Paladin, isn't he? One of the prototypes for the class.

Achilles is perfectly solid as a fighter. Except for the slight problem of his invulnerability to weapons, unless you can hit his heel.

King Arthur might be. Note though that he's famous for his courtesy, his hospitality, the splendour of his court, he's a succesful general, a law-giver, diplomat, and administrator as well as a pretty solid warrior in his own right. Some of those of course he develops over the course of his reign, rather than having them from the start. Charlemagne is actually quite similar to Arthur, another who is a competent warrior but better known for kingship. 

It's notable that a lot of elite warriors (Knight, Samurai, Ghulam, Yeni-Ceri, etc) train from youth and are expected to be capable of a lot more than just fighting. Egil Skallagrimson, poet extraordinaire and highly skilled warrior, is a Icelandic example.


----------



## BryonD

Hussar said:


> Profession Sailor does not allow you to read a map according to the rules.  Now, since we're bringing in DMing style, I changed the rules and allowed Profession Sailor to do much more than simply let me make xdx sp/time period, which is what the rules say.
> 
> But, thanks for the cheap shot.  If you want to discuss BryonD&D, I'm more than willing to start a new thread, but, I thought we were actually discussing the rules and not what you think they are.



I'd say that is missing the forest for the trees.

To me, and I'd daresay anyone else I've ever gamed with, the ability to "make xdx sp/time period" implies that the character actually has the associated competencies that contribute to that earning.  To go through the rules and detail every skill that is associated with every profession skill would be a massive waste of space, as well as a bit of an insult to the DM.

I mean, seriously, are you claiming that the skill is supposed to represent a supernatural capacity to generate revenue without actually doing anything?

And that is where you started your case.  You said that people would not want to sail with this guy.

If you want to call it BryonD&D, fine.  But it is also everygooddmeverD&D.

Good DMs are not slaves to the space limits of the rule books and don't demand that writers of the books explain obvious cause and effect matters.


----------



## BryonD

Bluenose said:


> Diving down to Grendel's underwater lair and remaining there for quite some time suggests he could breathe water



You are the first person I have ever heard suggest that he was able to breathe water.  The assumption that he simply held his breath a really, really long time is pretty standard.

Not that a 1-20 fighter can hold his breath that long.  But that isn't really relevant because one could very easily argue that Beowulf is the icon of "epic" fighter.  

Anyone can hold their breath.  Beowulf does something anyone can do, just to epic proportions.  

And, really, I don't think that adds anything to the wizard / warrior debate. He just certainly doesn't need to be assumed to have a water breathing ability.

I also really liked the 13th warrior spin on it in which he swims down to a cave and holding his breath was just the impression the story teller gets from the sideline.


----------



## Raven Crowking

BryonD said:


> I'd say that is missing the forest for the trees.




Yup.  And obviously so.

[MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]:  I am still waiting to hear if you tell your players that their characters need Knowledge Geography to read a map.  

I'm betting that you do not.  I'm betting that you didn't answer that because we both know you do not.

That entire line of argument is wrong; it is pretty easily established that you can make a fighter (even if he happens to be a pirate) using the fighter class.  


RC


----------



## Votan

pawsplay said:


> Sadly, I have read little. Most of my knowledge in the area comes from reading NON-fiction books about the Age of Sail, including a big stack of books on pirates I read in high school for my history report on the Age of Piracy.
> 
> So, here's my challenge to you. Stat me Blackbeard's crew. 2nd level human warriors.




Why can't they be 2nd level rogues?  Or Warrior 1/Expert 1?  

The issue with Pirates, which makes them a bad example, is that they are classes that are focused on a highly skilled profession (sailing in the age of sail was an incredible mix of technology and skill).  They need skills like use rope because keeping a sailing ship going during a storm (where deaths among the crew were no uncommon) required skill checks were taking a 10 wasn't really feasible.

But a highly skilled group of people who happen to be good at dirty fighting sounds a lot like rogues.  

Pirates also seem to get extremely worried when they meet actual soldiers in any numbers (which would be the expected reaction to a gang of rogues meeting a company of fighters) and often try to use tricky to solve this (which, given the skills available to the fighters, is just the natural course of events).


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> The issue with Pirates, which makes them a bad example, is that they are classes that are focused on a highly skilled professio...




"Pirate" is a job description, like "assassin", and if you were actually able to do a "job skills" survey for them, you'd find they had members represented by a variety of classes...probably a lot of them multiclassed...with a healthy dollop of rogue.


----------



## JamesonCourage

SRD said:
			
		

> *Profession (Wis; Trained Only)*
> 
> Like Craft, Knowledge, and Perform, Profession is actually a number of separate skills. You could have several Profession skills, each with its own ranks, each purchased as a separate skill. While a Craft skill represents ability in creating or making an item, *a Profession skill represents an aptitude in a vocation requiring a broader range of less specific knowledge.*
> 
> *Check*
> You can practice your trade and make a decent living, earning about half your Profession check result in gold pieces per week of dedicated work. *You know how to use the tools of your trade, how to perform the profession’s daily tasks, how to supervise helpers, and how to handle common problems.*






			
				Player's Handbook said:
			
		

> *Profession (Wis; Trained Only)*
> 
> *You know how to use the tools of your trade, how to perform the profession’s daily tasks, how to supervise helpers, and how to handle common problems. For example, sailor knows how to tie several basic knots, how to tend and repair sails, and how to stand a deck at sea. The DM sets DCs for specialized tasks.*




Looks like, by the rules, you can use Profession for basic trade related things. If you can repair sails, I'd venture a guess that you can read some naval charts with it as well. In fact, the last sentence I quoted seems like it would fall into the "specialized tasks" portion.

But, by all means, continue to play how you like, even if it's not RAW. I certainly don't play by RAW. If you want to nerf the Profession skill for being overpowered, more power to you. Play what you like


----------



## Fifth Element

I have to say I agree that Blackbeard is a poor example of a fighter - rogue (at least muticlassed) does seem much more appropriate. This would certainly alleviate any the lack of skills associated with a fighter.


----------



## Votan

Dannyalcatraz said:


> "Pirate" is a job description, like "assassin", and if you were actually able to do a "job skills" survey for them, you'd find they had members represented by a variety of classes...probably a lot of them multiclassed...with a healthy dollop of rogue.




Then let me say "Sailor in the age of Sail" (say the British Navy between 1700 and 1800) and the ship-board pirates that they fought.  It's true that a ship would have a variety of different specialists on board (including marines and gunners which start looking more like good choices for fighter).  

But the bulk of the crew is about making the ship work.  The officers need to be able to navigate; a good period example of the skill set of a captain is William Bligh:

William Bligh - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Consider this passage from the wikipedia article:

"Bligh had confidence in his navigational skills, which he had perfected under the instruction of Captain Cook. His first responsibility was to survive and get word of the mutiny as soon as possible to British vessels that could pursue the mutineers. Thus, he undertook the seemingly impossible 3,618 nautical mile (6,701 km) voyage to Timor. In this remarkable act of seamanship, Bligh succeeded in reaching Timor after a 47-day voyage, the only casualty being the crewman killed on Tofua. Several of the men who survived this ordeal with him soon died of sickness, possibly malaria, in the pestilential Dutch East Indies port of Batavia, as they waited for transport to Britain"​
I think, whether Blackbeard was an exception or not, that is the type of skillset that the naval officers of the time would be at risk of having.  Not being able to compete with these skills would be a pretty unfortunate trait in a pirate who was going to have to evade naval vessels.  

But that doesn't mean he can't be modeled as a Fighter/Rogue or a Barbarian/Rogue (or, even better, with the Able Learner feat he could have his first level in Rogue, the rest in Barbarian and just have been smart).


----------



## BryonD

Fifth Element said:


> I have to say I agree that Blackbeard is a poor example of a fighter - rogue (at least muticlassed) does seem much more appropriate. This would certainly alleviate any the lack of skills associated with a fighter.



True.

And I would readily agree that the fighter class itself does not nearly as readily fit a wide range of archetypes as many of the other classes do.  The fighter fights and most archetypes do more than fight.

But the question: "can I do as many archetypes with the fighter as the wizard?" is a very different question from "is the fighter adequately balanced against the wizard?".

And since 3E was designed with the presumption that multiclassing and PClasses would round out archetypes, I don't think there is any problem with expecting that.  And, when considered as a whole, it does an excellent job.

I'd be a lot less likely to play a L15 fighter than I would L15 Wizard.  But not because of balance issues.


----------



## billd91

Fifth Element said:


> I have to say I agree that Blackbeard is a poor example of a fighter - rogue (at least muticlassed) does seem much more appropriate. This would certainly alleviate any the lack of skills associated with a fighter.




Rogue? I doubt it. Chances are he was an expert (or even aristocrat because there is speculation he comes from a well-to-do family) before embarking on piracy. I'd probably stat him up as a fighter/expert were I to make him an NPC.
But that's a question of art, not science. He can be done numerous ways and without any spellcasting at all.


----------



## BryonD

JamesonCourage said:


> Looks like, by the rules, you can use Profession for basic trade related things. If you can repair sails, I'd venture a guess that you can read some naval charts with it as well. In fact, the last sentence I quoted seems like it would fall into the "specialized tasks" portion.)



Interesting that they actually reference sailors.  I had forgotten that part, not having gone back to read it recently.

I particularly note the comment about standing a "deck at sea".  Interesting considering there was just a question of the need for "balance".  To me anyone with ranks in Prof:Sailor would be presumed to have "sea legs".  
You could, depending on circumstances, require the +10 Balance Rogue to be making checks, which he might easily make but still must roll for, while the 0 ranks 1st level whatever sailor is simply not required to roll in the first place.  To him it comes with the job.  And maybe in a storm the sailor needs to roll, but gets a bonus that the DM needs to make up to fit the game.  

And that is the real point.  The rules are not intended to answer every question, but rather to provide the information needed so that a good DM CAN answer any question.  

Ranks in prof provides very meaningful information.


----------



## Fifth Element

billd91 said:


> Rogue? I doubt it. Chances are he was an expert (or even aristocrat because there is speculation he comes from a well-to-do family) before embarking on piracy. I'd probably stat him up as a fighter/expert were I to make him an NPC.
> But that's a question of art, not science. He can be done numerous ways and without any spellcasting at all.



Sure, I was working under the assumption that it must be a PC class, since we were statting him as a fighter rather than a warrior to begin with.

Since he's an NPC, statting him as a warrior would be much worse than a fighter since he'd have no bonus feats and the same piddly number of skill points.


----------



## Hussar

Raven Crowking said:


> Yup.  And obviously so.
> 
> [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]:  I am still waiting to hear if you tell your players that their characters need Knowledge Geography to read a map.
> 
> I'm betting that you do not.  I'm betting that you didn't answer that because we both know you do not.
> 
> That entire line of argument is wrong; it is pretty easily established that you can make a fighter (even if he happens to be a pirate) using the fighter class.
> 
> 
> RC




Actually, that's precisely what the rules tell me.  Stormwrack says exactly that.  You are required to make a Kn Geography check to chart the course and a Profession Sailor check to follow the course.

Can we please refrain from calling each other liars and whatnot?  For one, I'd rather not see this thread degenerate into name calling and get shut down and for another, you're much better than that.  

Heck, I actually did answer you.  This entire post answered you once already.  So, how many times do I actually have to repeat myself?


----------



## Hussar

pawsplay said:


> Oops, I forgot to give Edward his 1st level Fighter feat. Let's go with Weapon Focus (cutlass).
> 
> Blackbeard the Pirate
> Human Fighter 9
> Str 14, Dex 10, Con 16, Int 12, Wis 10, Cha 12
> Hp 81
> Feats: Skill Focus (Profession[Sailor]), Negotiator, Alertness, Skill Focus (Intimidate), Leadership, W Focus (Cutlass), W Spec (cutlass), Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Quick Draw
> Skils: Appraise +2, Balance +3, Climb +4, Diplomacy +4, Intimidate +16, Knowledge (Geography) +2, Listen +3, Profession (Sailor) +5, Sense Motive +3, Spot +3, Survival +4, Swim +4




That's what you consider a Pirate Captain?  Really?  +3 sense motive?  Yeah, he's going to get fleeced at every port.  +5 Profession Sailor, gee, I hope he never really has to do anything important like avoid those reefs during a storm.  Oh, right, he delegates piloting the ship because he's absolutely pants at actually doing anything nautical.

I mean, he gets lost 50% of the time with a survival of +4, even going by basic Core rules.  

Of course, then there's those pesky things like trying to actually CATCH another ship.  Because, if the enemy captain is a 3rd level pretty much any other class, he's got a better Profession Sailor skill than our captain here and will sail circles around our Good Captain.  OTOH, the crew will see lots of action because our Good Captain can't sail to save his life and every pirate hunter out there can catch them with ease.

But, yeah, that's a captain all right.  

Interestingly, if you actually look at the entirety of the Profession skill, it shows a bit more than JasonCourage would like to admit.  Of course, with some people not bothering to actually look at the rules and posrepping, it's all the more funny.



			
				[url=http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/profession.htm said:
			
		

> Hypertext SRD[/url]
> 
> Profession (Wis; Trained Only)
> 
> Like Craft, Knowledge, and Perform, Profession is actually a number of separate skills. You could have several Profession skills, each with its own ranks, each purchased as a separate skill. While a Craft skill represents ability in creating or making an item, a Profession skill represents an aptitude in a vocation requiring a broader range of less specific knowledge.
> Check
> 
> You can practice your trade and make a decent living, earning about half your Profession check result in gold pieces per week of dedicated work. You know how to use the tools of your trade, how to perform the profession’s daily tasks, how to supervise helpers, and how to handle common problems.
> 
> *Action
> 
> Not applicable. A single check generally represents a week of work.
> Try Again
> 
> Varies. An attempt to use a Profession skill to earn an income cannot be retried. You are stuck with whatever weekly wage your check result brought you. Another check may be made after a week to determine a new income for the next period of time. An attempt to accomplish some specific task can usually be retried.
> Untrained
> 
> Untrained laborers and assistants (that is, characters without any ranks in Profession) earn an average of 1 silver piece per day. *




Not really sure what you guys are reading.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:


> Actually, that's precisely what the rules tell me.  Stormwrack says exactly that.  You are required to make a Kn Geography check to chart the course and a Profession Sailor check to follow the course.
> 
> Can we please refrain from calling each other liars and whatnot?  For one, I'd rather not see this thread degenerate into name calling and get shut down and for another, you're much better than that.
> 
> Heck, I actually did answer you.  This entire post answered you once already.  So, how many times do I actually have to repeat myself?




Neither the above, nor the post you linked to, answers the question:

*Do you require your players to take Knowledge Geography so that their characters can read a map?*

It is a pretty simple question, which can be answered with one word:  Yes or No.


RC


----------



## Hussar

Raven Crowking said:


> Neither the above, nor the post you linked to, answers the question:
> 
> *Do you require your players to take Knowledge Geography so that their characters can read a map?*
> 
> It is a pretty simple question, which can be answered with one word:  Yes or No.
> 
> 
> RC




Yes, I require players to take Kn Geography to read a naval chart.  Note, that this should be obvious in context with what we were talking about, but, since we're getting all pedantic and such, I just thought I'd be extra clear.

I do this because the rules in Stormwrack say that you need Kn Geography to plot your course followed by the Prof Sailor check to sail that course.

Clear enough?


----------



## Hussar

Ok, this sidebar about maps and such is interesting, but, could we please actually roll back around to the main issue which is the discrepancy between casters and non-casters?

There's been some rumblings in this thread that this is something new.  That this is somehow something that's only come up in recent memory as a way to bash 3e.  This is simply not true.  I've already provided some examples, but, let's look at a bit of history shall we?

Casters get whack like a pinata with the nerf bat in a number of areas over the years.  High level AD&D modules have a shopping list of spells and effects that do not function (and match almost word for word the problematic spells and effects listed earlier in this thread).  Additionally, various settings also take casters to task.  Dragonlance, back in 1e, only allowed casters to reach 18th level but placed no such limits on non-casters.  Ravenloft, as I recall, also bludgeoned the casters with the nerf bat, reducing their effectiveness in the service of the setting.

I just happened to pull out an old 2e module, A Heroes Tale, which is a series of small modules centered around a single theme - a sort of really, really mini adventure path.  The highest level adventure takes place in a planar prison with the following effect:



			
				A Heroes Tale Page 57 said:
			
		

> ... The effect of the Abados becomes clear when someone casts a spell or uses a magical item with a spell-like effect.  There is a flat 25% chance that a spell's effect will be completely random.  Use the wild surge table in the Tome of Magic, or the Wand of wonder table in the Dungeon Master Guide...
> 
> If an illusion or phantasm spell is successfully cast, there is a 5% chance that the illusion will become real




Guess what happens to the non-casters... if you said nothing, give yourself a cookie.

Heck, even a quick perusal of the excellent "Let's Read the Entire Run" thread shows up examples (such as this (prophet proofing article) talking about the issues with spells in 1978!

This is an issue that has been around a REALLY long time.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:


> Yes, I require players to take Kn Geography to read a naval chart.  Note, that this should be obvious in context with what we were talking about, but, since we're getting all pedantic and such, I just thought I'd be extra clear.




Well, in the event that I later wanted to quote you, I wanted to make sure that you _*actually answered the question*_.  That doesn't seem pedantic to me.....esp. as you have a history of saying "I never actually said that" or words to that effect.



> I do this because the rules in Stormwrack say that you need Kn Geography to plot your course followed by the Prof Sailor check to sail that course.
> 
> Clear enough?




Sure.  Now, let me add a couple of follow-up questions.

(1)  I notice that you've backed off of "read a map" and changed to reading "naval charts".  I take it, then, that you _*do not *_require Knoweldge Geography to read a map?  Just this specific form of map?

(2)  Can you quote the actual text of Stormwrack for us, so that we can see what it actually says?

(3)  Did you require Knowlege Geography to read a naval chart before Stormwrack came out?  If so, why?  If not, why not?

(4)  Would you expect that a character would need Knowledge Geography to read a naval chart in a core-only game?  If so, why?  If not, why not?



Hussar said:


> Not really sure what you guys are reading.




Um.....It should come as no surprise that the Player's Handbook contains more information that the Hypertext SRD, and that it trumps the Hypertext SRD as an authority of D&D (as opposed to SRD) rules.

Unless we are going to have a discussion now about how you cannot level in 3.x because the levelling rules are not in the SRD?


RC


----------



## NoWayJose

Hussar said:


> Yes, I require players to take Kn Geography to read a naval chart. Note, that this should be obvious in context with what we were talking about, but, since we're getting all pedantic and such, I just thought I'd be extra clear.
> 
> I do this because the rules in Stormwrack say that you need Kn Geography to plot your course followed by the Prof Sailor check to sail that course.
> 
> Clear enough?



So, from what I understand, the argument is that, in 3E, fighters cannot be optimal pirates because they don't have enough relevant skill points (such as Knowledge Geography for reading naval charts).

In contrast, there was an entirely different thread where people criticized 4E mechanics for having metagame limitations that were often arbitrary and meaningless in-game/fictionally. There was a hypothetical example of a "Jump Card" that allowed your PC to jump exactly 3 x day, despite of all circumstances. The standard pro-4e counterargument was that if you're roleplaying in a campaign that involves lots of jumping, perhaps you shouldn't be playing 4E with "Jump Cards". That is, that 4E should be played within the confines of its paradigm. 

I guess my point is that 3E should also be played within the confines of its paradigm. 3E is about heroic adventurers who can use skills to dabble in side-venture professions. Yet they are adventurers first and foremost. If you want to be a true 24/7 pirate, then an NPC expert is the way to go.

I find it a bit hypocritical to say that you're fully content to play within the tight confines of the 4E paradigm, and yet criticize 3E for not being a universal one-size-fits-all for everyone else.


----------



## pawsplay

Fifth Element said:


> I have to say I agree that Blackbeard is a poor example of a fighter - rogue (at least muticlassed) does seem much more appropriate. This would certainly alleviate any the lack of skills associated with a fighter.




Does he pick locks? Can he tumble? Does he backstab? Does he have evasion? A good Will save? Evasion?

Does he have high hit points? Does he have a high Intimidate? Is he proficient with martial weapons? does he have a high Fortitude save?

I might give him one level of Rogue, just for the skill points, but I wouldn't like it. He's not a Rogue, he's a Fighter. It's simply an accident of the 3e skills system that his particular background is more fiddly than most. It's no different than trying to make a Wizard from a noble background, if you would like to give him Diplomacy. 

If I were going to give Blackbeard one level in any non-fighter, WotC-published base class, it would probably be Marshal. However, there are no legends surrounding his effectiveness as a battle leader. While more appropriate than Rogue, it's still thoroughly outside his archetype.  Rather, he is famous for being 1) scary, 2) tough, and 3) pretty shrewd. Relative to his fame, he was not extraordinarily successful as a pirate. It's possible that the only wealth his crew had at the end was the cargo of the Queen Anne's Revenge. 

Note that in Pathfinder, Blackbeard's skills improve considerably, despite minor changes to the system. I reject the notion Blackbeard is "not a fighter." He is, at most, a fighter variant. He works just fine as a fighter in AD&D or Pathfinder, and presents only trivial problems in 3e.


----------



## BryonD

Raven Crowking said:


> Um.....It should come as no surprise that the Player's Handbook contains more information that the Hypertext SRD, and that it trumps the Hypertext SRD as an authority of D&D (as opposed to SRD) rules.



shocking.....


And, as Psion so well put it years ago: Use the rules, don't let the rules use you.

I still want to know what this sailor is actually DOING to generate income if the skill provides nothing except the ability to make sp appear.

So we have the rules and we have the things that shouldn't be expected of the rules.  Obviously that is not enough.

(Bet you didn't know you were playing BryonD&D all this time, did you RC?  I accept personal checks...  heh  )


----------



## pawsplay

Votan said:


> Why can't they be 2nd level rogues?  Or Warrior 1/Expert 1?




They could be 15th level wizards. I picked 2nd level Warrior because I think that is the most likely. For one thing, that's exactly what they were in AD&D. I assume they are veterans (level 2+) but not skilled fighting men (so not fighters). Some of them might be rogues, but only incidentally. Most are sailors, in this case, sailors who rob and kill people.



> The issue with Pirates, which makes them a bad example, is that they are classes that are focused on a highly skilled profession (sailing in the age of sail was an incredible mix of technology and skill).  They need skills like use rope because keeping a sailing ship going during a storm (where deaths among the crew were no uncommon) required skill checks were taking a 10 wasn't really feasible.




Maybe deaths were not uncommon because they, like most NPCs, did not have more than 2 to 4 ranks in a Profession skill. 



> But a highly skilled group of people who happen to be good at dirty fighting sounds a lot like rogues.




Whereas a bunch of thugs who travel around attacking people and taking their money sounds like a bunch of Warriors.



> Pirates also seem to get extremely worried when they meet actual soldiers in any numbers (which would be the expected reaction to a gang of rogues meeting a company of fighters) and often try to use tricky to solve this (which, given the skills available to the fighters, is just the natural course of events).




Probably because unlike RPG characters, pirates didn't want to engage in unnecessary battles. They were, after all, essentially businessmen, and dying is bad for business. Note that 2nd level Warriors would have a justifiable concern about taking on a group of 1st level Fighters led by a 2nd level Fighter (such as a group of green marines). Despite being outnumbered, Blackbeard's last crew put up a little of a fight. Note also that pirates were typically less well-equipped than soldiers; running out of powder was a big concern.


----------



## Fifth Element

Some passages potentially relevant to the sidebar.



			
				Stormwrack p.24 said:
			
		

> *NAVIGATION*
> Ships in strange waters can become as hopelessly lost as travelers in a featureless desert or deep forest. Keeping track of where you are and how to get to where you’re going are difficult challenges for many mariners.
> *
> Setting Out*: The difficulty of setting an accurate course depends on the  quality of information you have about where you’re going. See Knowledge (geography) in Chapter 4 for a list of DCs and modifiers for course setting. The DM makes this check for you, since you don’t know for certain if you have planned an accurate course.
> 
> If you don’t have any particular destination in mind, you don’t need to set a course. As long as you keep a record of course changes and distances sailed, you won’t have trouble retracing your steps or setting a new course.
> *
> Daily Piloting*: Each day of your voyage, you make a piloting check to establish your position and make the routine corrections necessary to hold to your intended course. Refer to Knowledge (geography) in Chapter 4 for DCs and modifiers.
> 
> Failing your piloting check once is not a problem; you simply failed to establish your location for the day, but you can go back to your previous day’s established position and estimate your current position given the course and speed you think you’ve followed since. You do not become lost until you fail your piloting check on three consecutive days.






			
				Stormwrack p.81 said:
			
		

> There are two key skills for travel on board ships: Profession (sailor) and Knowledge (geography). Profession (sailor) covers all aspects of shiphandling—maneuvering close to the wind, steering through a storm, passing through hazardous waters such as crossing a river bar or threading one’s way through ice floes. Knowledge (geography) covers the rare art of piloting and navigation—knowing where you are, where you’re going, and how to get there from here.






			
				Stormwrack p.82 said:
			
		

> *Captain*: A ship’s captain is usually an experienced sailor, navigator, and commander. There is a good deal of overlap between captain and master; generally, a master is someone who owns the ship she commands, while a captain is someone who does not. A ship might sail with both a captain and a master, in which case the master generally permits the captain to exercise command and only intercedes if she feels her vessel is at risk.
> 
> A captain is usually an expert (or multiclass expert), bard, fighter, paladin, or rogue with at least 7 to 10 ranks in Profession (sailor), 4 to 7 ranks in Knowledge (geography), 2 to 4 ranks in Knowledge (nature) or Survival, and 2 to 4 ranks in an interaction skill such as Bluff, Diplomacy, or Intimidate.
> *
> Master*: The term master can overlap with the term captain in some degree. In general, a master owns her vessel, while a captain doesn’t but typically exercises complete authority over all matters of sailing, navigation, discipline, and administration of the crew.
> 
> A master is usually an expert (or multiclass expert) or rogue with at least 7 to 10 ranks in Profession (sailor), 4 to 7 ranks in Knowledge (geography), 2 to 4 ranks in Knowledge (nature) or Survival, 2 to 4 ranks in an interaction skill such as Bluff, Diplomacy, or Intimidate, and 2 to 4 ranks in Profession (merchant).






			
				Stormwrack p.83 said:
			
		

> *BALANCE*
> Boats and ships offer clumsy characters a variety of ways to fall. Many characters who spend time on or around boats pick up a rank or two in Balance, simply because you never know when your life could depend on it.
> *
> Difficult Surfaces*: Some of the more common difficult surfaces found in seafaring environments include the following:
> _Green Water_: A ship’s deck that is washed by a violent wave that covers the deck to a depth of 1 foot or more.
> _Heeling Deck_: A ship that is heeling over (the deck is sloped sharply due to the way it’s running with the wind or the ship’s maneuvers) is the same as a sloped floor; see page 67 of the Player’s Handbook.
> _Roll, Heavy_: A ship that is violently rolling from side to side, as opposed to simply heeling in one direction and staying there.
> _Sargasso_: Floating mats of seaweed come in two varieties: light and heavy (see page 19). Only those who are truly light of foot can remain standing on light mat sargasso, but heavy mat sargasso is thick enough to support anyone walking with a little care.
> _Surf_: Moving water between 1 foot (light surf) and 4 feet deep (heavy surf); see page 17.
> _Yardarm_: The horizontal spar suspended from a ship’s mast. Deckhands taking in or setting sails generally stand on sturdy lines below the yardarm and lean into the yardarm for support; walking on top of a yardarm is a real stunt, since there isn’t anything to brace against.


----------



## Hussar

NoWayJose said:


> So, from what I understand, the argument is that, in 3E, fighters cannot be optimal pirates because they don't have enough relevant skill points (such as Knowledge Geography for reading naval charts).
> 
> In contrast, there was an entirely different thread where people criticized 4E mechanics for having metagame limitations that were often arbitrary and meaningless in-game/fictionally. There was a hypothetical example of a "Jump Card" that allowed your PC to jump exactly 3 x day, despite of all circumstances. The standard pro-4e counterargument was that if you're roleplaying in a campaign that involves lots of jumping, perhaps you shouldn't be playing 4E with "Jump Cards". That is, that 4E should be played within the confines of its paradigm.
> 
> I guess my point is that 3E should also be played within the confines of its paradigm. 3E is about heroic adventurers who can use skills to dabble in side-venture professions. Yet they are adventurers first and foremost. If you want to be a true 24/7 pirate, then an NPC expert is the way to go.
> 
> I find it a bit hypocritical to say that you're fully content to play within the tight confines of the 4E paradigm, and yet criticize 3E for not being a universal one-size-fits-all for everyone else.




First off, when did this become a 3e vs 4e debate?  Who says I'm content about 4e anything?  AFAIK, this is a discussion about a possible limitation within the 3e ruleset.

Secondly, this isn't really a hypothetical like the Jump Cards.  Fighters flat out, as shown above, DON'T have enough skill points to become effective pirate captains.  They barely qualify as pirates in the first place and most other classes make better pirates than the one class that comes to mind (possibly barring rogues, I could see the arguement there).  But, if a pirate isn't a fighter, what exactly is he?  Expert?  Really?



			
				RC said:
			
		

> Um.....It should come as no surprise that the Player's Handbook contains more information that the Hypertext SRD, and that it trumps the Hypertext SRD as an authority of D&D (as opposed to SRD) rules.




Funny how "more information" means skipping over the bits that counter your argument though.  I mean, the skill tells you EXACTLY how it's to be used.  Look what it says under "Action".  That's what the Skill does.

Since you're taking me to such task for enforcing using KN Geography skills to read charts, I wonder why you are playing so fast and loose with the other skills?

----------

Y'know what?  That's enough for me.  This is getting personal, and I've come to realize that this will yet again devolve into another discussion of The Edition That Shalt Not Be Criticised.  It's a shame we  cannot actually talk about possible issues with the game that have been around just about as long as I've been alive without people resorting to cheap pedantry and ad hominem attacks.

But, then again, that's what I should expect I suppose.

Y'all have a good time.  It was fun.


----------



## pawsplay

Hussar said:


> Y'know what?  That's enough for me.  This is getting personal, and I've come to realize that this will yet again devolve into another discussion of The Edition That Shalt Not Be Criticised.




It really isn't. I'm sorry you see things that way.



> It's a shame we  cannot actually talk about possible issues with the game that have been around just about as long as I've been alive without people resorting to cheap pedantry and ad hominem attacks.




Yes, that sure is a shame.


----------



## Fifth Element

pawsplay said:


> Does he pick locks? Can he tumble? Does he backstab? Does he have evasion? A good Will save? Evasion?



No, no?, hell yes, who knows?, maybe? and no idea.

Not all 3E rogues pick locks. Most do, but there's no requirement to spend their skill points there. They have a very high degree of flexibility as to what skills they're good at.

Does a _pirate_ sneak attack? I wouldn't think this would be a question.



pawsplay said:


> Does he have high hit points? Does he have a high Intimidate? Is he proficient with martial weapons? does he have a high Fortitude save?



Probably, yes, quite possibly not, and probably.

What weapons was he known to use? Rogues are proficient with all simple weapons, hand crossbows and shortswords. What is a cutlass? It can be finessed, so presumably it's a short sword? Hmm...Stormwrack says it's a martial weapon. No problem, he took a Weapon Proficiency feat.

Intimidate is a rogue class skill as well, so that doesn't help. Want more hit points? Give him Improved Toughness and a high Constitution.



pawsplay said:


> He's not a Rogue, he's a Fighter.



Does he wear heavy armor and use a shield? Does he wield heavy weapons?

Historical figures, even fictional characters, rarely fit neatly into the D&D class system. There's a variety of ways you could model them, and in most cases there's no obvious answer.


----------



## BryonD

Hussar said:


> I've come to realize that this will yet again devolve into another discussion of The Edition That Shalt Not Be Criticised.  It's a shame we  cannot actually talk about possible issues with the game that have been around just about as long as I've been alive without people resorting to cheap pedantry and ad hominem attacks.



That is a bunch of bull.

There are plenty of issues with 3E and I'd happily debate them.

Quite simply, there are major flaws in your argument. You can try to dust that under the rug with claims of personal attacks and "Shalt Nots", but the flaws in the actual substance don't go away.


----------



## Hussar

BryonD said:


> That is a bunch of bull.
> 
> There are plenty of issues with 3E and I'd happily debate them.
> 
> Quite simply, there are major flaws in your argument. You can try to dust that under the rug with claims of personal attacks and "Shalt Nots", but the flaws in the actual substance don't go away.




Yes, I know, pesky things like actually reading the rules are such huge flaws in the argument.   

Look, it's been shown pretty well that a fighter makes a really, really poor Pirate Captain.  I didn't do that, Pawsplay put it up.  We have a pirate captain that can't sail, can't navigate, can't tell when other pirates are lying to him and can barely convince his own grandmother to piddle on him if he was on fire.

This is a REALLY bad pirate captain.

Now, your argument boils down to a one true scotsman fallacy where a "good" DM faced with mechanics that do not resolve any of the issues put forth here would simply magically create the mechanics needed and everything would come up roses.  If that works for you, then great.  Fantastic.

To be honest, that's pretty much exactly what I did do when I ran naval campaigns- expand the Profession skill to cover a number of the issues brough up here and then give all classes Profession as a class skill.  But, again, we're not discussing my game or your game, we're discussing what the game ACTUALLY says.

-------

Sigh, I must be tired.  I'll be unsubscribing from this one now because I refuse to get sucked back into a dead end conversation that I know will not go anywhere.


----------



## NoWayJose

Hussar said:


> Secondly, this isn't really a hypothetical like the Jump Cards. Fighters flat out, as shown above, DON'T have enough skill points to become effective pirate captains. They barely qualify as pirates in the first place and most other classes make better pirates than the one class that comes to mind (possibly barring rogues, I could see the arguement there). But, if a pirate isn't a fighter, what exactly is he? Expert? Really?



I didn't intend to make it out as a 3e vs 4e debate. I only beseeched that whatever line of thinking is used to justify or tolerate limitations and inconsistencies where 4E metagame meets fiction, then you can use that same line of thinking to respect the 3E paradigm.

And one 3E paradigm is that PCs are first and foremost adventurers, not professional 24/7 pirates.

If D&D was 99% about piracy adventures on the high seas, then maybe questions of skill points per class would arise, but D&D is not about pirates or any other professional career choice, so whether it's true or not that fighters make for bad pirate captains is irrelevant, I think.

To take an extreme example, it's like saying that wizards and warriors are not balanced, because fighters don't have enough skill points for basket weaving.

So then you could say that "Well, it's not about pirates or basket weaving specifically", and I'd say, "That's fine, but D&D is not about PCs accurately modelling ANY profession whatosever... The question is about balance issues between *adventuring* wizards vs *adventuring* warriors".


----------



## billd91

Hussar said:


> Y'know what?  That's enough for me.  This is getting personal, and I've come to realize that this will yet again devolve into another discussion of The Edition That Shalt Not Be Criticised.  It's a shame we  cannot actually talk about possible issues with the game that have been around just about as long as I've been alive without people resorting to cheap pedantry and ad hominem attacks.
> 
> But, then again, that's what I should expect I suppose.




Since when has 3e ever been the edition that shall not be criticized on ENWorld? It has *always* been criticized here and probably always will be. It has also always been supported here by people who can use the rules with flexibility without always having to assume the character being built has to be super-optimized.

What the problem here is application of the rules in that (and other) editions. I think your apparent insistence that Profession (sailor) can't be used to actually sail anything is a bit bizarre and smacks of too rigid adherence to the RAW rather than good DM sense. I also think your insistence that a pirate captain *needs* to have certain skills and at levels *you* think are appropriate implies that our alternate conceptions of how a pirate captain could be constructed (or even complemented by other specialists in the crew) must be wrong. There's plenty of room to make a believable pirate within the rules, as a fighter, and have him be elected by his crew as captain.


----------



## pawsplay

Hussar said:


> Yes, I know, pesky things like actually reading the rules are such huge flaws in the argument.
> 
> Look, it's been shown pretty well that a fighter makes a really, really poor Pirate Captain.  I didn't do that, Pawsplay put it up.  We have a pirate captain that can't sail, can't navigate, can't tell when other pirates are lying to him and can barely convince his own grandmother to piddle on him if he was on fire.
> 
> This is a REALLY bad pirate captain.





Hussar said:


> Look, it's been shown pretty well that a fighter makes a really, really poor Pirate Captain.  I didn't do that, Pawsplay put it up.  We have a pirate captain that can't sail, can't navigate, can't tell when other pirates are lying to him and can barely convince his own grandmother to piddle on him if he was on fire.
> 
> This is a REALLY bad pirate captain.




I was just going to ignore your assertions, but you have failed to leave the thread as promised, so I will rebut you. You are wrong. He is a really good captain. He is very tough, he has a ridiculously high Intimidate, and he can regularly beat the skill DCs of anything you are likely to throw his way. Plus, he closely follows the benchmarks set in Stormwrack, so if he's a bad pirate captain, apparently MOST captains are bad captains. He's not a bad captain any more than someone with a Profession (Sailor) skill of 15+ is a good one, or a Ranger with Survival +18 is a pirate captain at all. 

"Doesn't have a bonus of 25+ in one skill," is not "really bad pirate captain." Being a pirate captain simply does not require really high skill totals. The notion that being decent at a non-dragon-slaying vocation requires ever-escalating skill totals is bizarre and absurd. Apart from Intimidate, the only social skills a pirate captain really needs are the ones he uses on his own crew, for the most part Friendly 1st through 4th level Warriors with the occasional Rogue or Expert thrown in. He is as good a sailor as most of his crew, and they are the ones doing the sailoring. 

The assertions you make about his competence are ridiculous. Simply having a +2 to +5 bonus in a particular skill puts you well above most NPCs. The fact that he doesn't have a high Diplomacy is consistent with what he is. As I said in the first place, he is a Fighter. Most of his skill use is very mundane. You seem to be claiming that he needs to be exceptionally accomplished in a half dozen skills just to be competent at a _job performed by real people in the real world_.


----------



## Neonchameleon

pawsplay said:


> Oops, I forgot to give Edward his 1st level Fighter feat. Let's go with Weapon Focus (cutlass).
> 
> Blackbeard the Pirate
> Human Fighter 9




Care to justify that?  Teach wasn't on the list of great pirates.  Or great warriors.  Yes, he was big and imposing.  But level 9 is pretty massive.



> Str 14, Dex 10, Con 16, Int 12, Wis 10, Cha 12




I'll buy that.



> Feats: Skill Focus (Profession[Sailor]), Negotiator, Alertness, Skill Focus (Intimidate), Leadership, W Focus (Cutlass), W Spec (cutlass), Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Quick Draw




Skill Focus (twice), Negotiator, Alertness.  As a L9 fighter you get five bonus feats.  And you've just spent four (!) on boosting your skills.  The only one of these that isn't forced on you by choosing a class that doesn't fit and forces you to bend over backwards is your Intimidate.  Assume you want to keep the massive intimidate.  That means you've gained two feats (weapon focus/spec) from your class and poured three feats into shoring up the problems of picking a very bad class for the job - for an effective 22 skill points at cross class rates.  Sounds like a lot?  A level 9 Barbarian would have 24 more skill points (never mind that one of the skills you want, Listen, isn't cross class for Barbarians).  2 more skill points makes the Barbarian literate.  And in exchange for weapon focus and specialisation you gain: 10 Hit points (+18 when raging), Improved Uncanny Dodge, Fast Movement, DR 1, and three rages/day.  All round better for the guy who takes a lot of killing than your version especially as your excuse for picking fighter is the BAB and hit points.  In short despite your bending over backwards, the barbarian makes a better version of your version of Teach than the fighter.

And why is this?  It's because the fighter isn't a general big burly guy who's good at beating things up.  That would be the barbarian.  The fighter is the monomaniac weapons specialist who eats with his sword and sleeps with his sword and is dedicated to tricks with his weapons to the exclusion of all else.  This is a 3.X issue rather than a D&D issue.  (The lack of plot power for non casters is a general issue and one that's been noticed for apparently longer than I've been alive).

And for the record, Pawsplay is right.  Knowledge (Geography) isn't the mapreading skill.  It's the skill to not need to read a map.  Regrettably, apparently Stormwrack changed this and Paizo kept it on as quoted by Fifth Element.  So if you're using the full 3.X rules, Hussar is right.

Also for the record, I don't feel disempowered by not always being able to spam my best moves.  I do feel disempowered by being baseline incompetent.  1e did not have this problem.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

NoWayJose said:


> The question is about balance issues between *adventuring* wizards vs *adventuring* warriors".



And specifically, and importantly, and _still being goddamned ignored_, about adventuring wizards and adventuring warriors adventuring _together_.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:


> Funny how "more information" means skipping over the bits that counter your argument though.




Except that they do not.



> Since you're taking me to such task for enforcing using KN Geography skills to read charts, I wonder why you are playing so fast and loose with the other skills?






No idea what you're talking about here.





> Y'know what?  That's enough for me.  This is getting personal, and I've come to realize that this will yet again devolve into another discussion of The Edition That Shalt Not Be Criticised.






Confused again.  

You can criticize 3e all you want; I have lots of criticisms about 3e myself.  So many that I have gone to enormous lengths to try to resolve them to my own personal satisfaction.  I've got criticisms of every edition that's ever been.

As someone wiser than I said, quite simply, there are major flaws in your argument. You can try to dust that under the rug with claims of personal attacks and "Shalt Nots", but the flaws in the actual substance don't go away.



> It's a shame we  cannot actually talk about possible issues with the game that have been around just about as long as I've been alive without people resorting to cheap pedantry and ad hominem attacks.




That I agree with.



> But, then again, that's what I should expect I suppose.




That I do not.



Fifth Element said:


> Some passages potentially relevant to the sidebar.




Thanks, 5th.

Page 24 talks about "Ships in strange waters", but the quote on page 81 (Knowledge (geography) covers the rare art of piloting and navigation—knowing where you are, where you’re going, and how to get there from here.) seems to extend that to all waters.  OTOH, neither quote indicates that a person without Knowledge (geography) cannot read a naval chart; simply that they lack the necessary skills to turn that ability to read into an ability to set a course by said chart.

When we look at page 82, we discover that "A captain is usually an expert (or multiclass expert), bard, fighter, paladin, or rogue with at least 7 to 10 ranks in Profession (sailor), 4 to 7 ranks in Knowledge (geography), 2 to 4 ranks in Knowledge (nature) or Survival, and 2 to 4 ranks in an interaction skill such as Bluff, Diplomacy, or Intimidate.", which seems to make explicit that a captain can be a fighter.....that, in fact, a fighter is one of the classes which is usual for that position.

So, if we appeal to the authority of Stormwrack, we see that Blackbeard can indeed be a fighter.


RC


----------



## Neonchameleon

Jeff Wilder said:


> And specifically, and importantly, and _still being goddamned ignored_, about adventuring wizards and adventuring warriors adventuring _together_.




Asked and answered about 100 pages back.

Normally wizards take time to cast spells. Warriors win once they get to sword range. The rest of the time you're playing Ars Magica with Wizars winning - these cases almost always have wizard protagonists.



pawsplay said:


> I was just going to ignore your assertions, but you have failed to leave the thread as promised, so I will rebut you. You are wrong. He is a really good captain. He is very tough, he has a ridiculously high Intimidate, and he can regularly beat the skill DCs of anything you are likely to throw his way.




You did that through brute force. At level 9 he should be about the threat _on his own_ that a Young Adult Dragon is. (Young Adult White 8, Young Adult Black 9). Give me 20 levels of fighter and I'll represent the skills of almost anyone in the real world - but that doesn't mean this is an accurate way to do it.



> Plus, he closely follows the benchmarks set in Stormwrack,




You mean other than the Profession(Sailor) one? _At least_ 7-10 _ranks_. vs at total _score_ of +5. And for the rest he's at the bottom of the range every time. Or the Knowledge(geography) one? 4-7 ranks vs a total _score_ of +2.

He's a good captain as long as he doesn't have to do anything with a ship.



> so if he's a bad pirate captain, apparently MOST captains are bad captains.




Or they actually follow the guidance in Stormwrack rather than think that the most important part of being a pirate captain is the ability to beat people over the head.



> He's not a bad captain any more than someone with a Profession (Sailor) skill of 15+ is a good one,




He'd be a superb captain's mate. Maybe not a captain - doesn't have the breadth. But when it comes to handling the boat he'd be incredible.



> or a Ranger with Survival +18 is a pirate captain at all.




Nice fisherman and weather reader you've got there.



> "Doesn't have a bonus of 25+ in one skill," is not "really bad pirate captain." Being a pirate captain simply does not require really high skill totals.




No. It doesn't. The bar isn't that high. But you didn't meet the Stormwrack ones.

For the record I'd run Teach as Rogue 2/Barbarian 4 or Rogue 3/Barbarian 3. Big and burly there and takes a lot of killing - and more than enough skill points (and the Leadership feat). And I'd say that I had more than enough levels there.



> The assertions you make about his competence are ridiculous. Simply having a +2 to +5 bonus in a particular skill puts you well above most NPCs.




That would be most NPCs who don't do that job.



> As I said in the first place, he is a Fighter.




Oh no he isn't!

This is feeling like a pantomime. You are claiming that he is a fighter and inferring that he needs an absurd real world level (9) and low-ish skills from that. The rest of us are starting with the view that he is a pirate captain and doesn't have an absurd real world level and pointing out that fighter is not fit for purpose.



> You seem to be claiming that he needs to be exceptionally accomplished in a half dozen skills just to be competent at a _job performed by real people in the real world_.




An average first level commoner who is a professional sailor probably has a Profession (sailing) score of +4 - and 8 more skill points to scatter around on things like Swim, Balance, Knowledge (geography), and the works. Based on that your Teach is _not_ exceptionally accomplished. He's only slightly more accomplished at anything other than diplomacy than a smart swab who grew up round boats.

Edit: From RC's post above


> So, if we appeal to the authority of Stormwrack, we see that Blackbeard can indeed be a fighter.




He can be a multiclass fighter.  But Fighters do not have the profession skill on their class list.  Which means they need to buy ranks in Profession at half speed.  To reach the 7 required ranks they need to be level (2*7)-3=11.  A fighter can not qualify as a Stormwrack captain before level _11_.  So for all the fluff allows it, the rules do not.  This is because the skills cripple the fighter's attempts to be what a fighter should be.

Now if you were to tell me a 4e fighter or a 1e fighter was a captain I wouldn't be at all surprised.  It's just that the 3e fighter class is buggy.


----------



## GSHamster

Fifth Element said:


> I have to say I agree that Blackbeard is a poor example of a fighter - rogue (at least muticlassed) does seem much more appropriate. This would certainly alleviate any the lack of skills associated with a fighter.




The issue is that this same gestalt process seems to be happening for *every* remotely three-dimensional character.  One or two literary physical characters being fighter/X is okay, but all of them?

I think for a fighter class to be solid, at the very least you should be able to create a knight character (Arthur, Gawain, Lancelot) without resorting to a special "noble" class to fill in the non-combat aspects.


----------



## TwoSix

GSHamster said:


> The issue is that this same gestalt process seems to be happening for *every* remotely three-dimensional character.  One or two literary physical characters being fighter/X is okay, but all of them?
> 
> I think for a fighter class to be solid, at the very least you should be able to create a knight character (Arthur, Gawain, Lancelot) without resorting to a special "noble" class to fill in the non-combat aspects.




Well, I have seen it argued that 3e classes should carry little to no archetypal weight because of the ease of multiclassing and the preponderance of PrCs.

Not 100% sure I agree, but it's a good talking point.  

Fighter might be a particularly bad class to judge by, because mechanically, it's a steaming pile of vanilla.  It's hard to look at a purely mechanical construct like the fighter and see actually _interesting_ heroes in there without a lot of tweaking.



Jeff Wilder said:


> And specifically, and importantly, and _still being goddamned ignored_, about adventuring wizards and adventuring warriors adventuring _together_.




Well, if it's about them together, I still submit that

Caster + Caster > Caster + Non-Caster >> Non-Caster + Non-Caster.

Apropos of nothing, I love your class in the Expanded Psionics Handbook!


----------



## Raven Crowking

Neonchameleon said:


> He can be a multiclass fighter.  But Fighters do not have the profession skill on their class list.  Which means they need to buy ranks in Profession at half speed.  To reach the 7 required ranks they need to be level (2*7)-3=11.  A fighter can not qualify as a Stormwrack captain before level _11_.  So for all the fluff allows it, the rules do not.  This is because the skills cripple the fighter's attempts to be what a fighter should be.
> 
> Now if you were to tell me a 4e fighter or a 1e fighter was a captain I wouldn't be at all surprised.  It's just that the 3e fighter class is buggy.




Okay, a couple of things:

(1) Absurd real-world levels:  I'm with you there.  3e suffers from a clear "average man" standard from which to compare characters, which leaves us in the problem we now face -- if you cannot determine what the average (competent) man is, how do you begin to decide where extraordinary starts?

(2)  Stormwrack tells you what skills most captains have, and what ranks they have in them.  AFAICT, Stormwrack does not say, "variations on these guidelines = BAD CAPTAIN!"

(3)  Stormwrack specifies that fighters are among the common classes from which ship's captains come.

(4)  Since we have leapt out of the Core Rules anyway, alternate ideas of what is required can be found in Experts, Seascape, and Everyone Else.  If you want to make the case that (some of) the official supplemental rules cause problems that (some of) the 3pp supplements do not, then I will agree with you.  Like it or not, though, 3e is (much!) bigger than WotC-3e, and the prospective DM has a plethora of options to choose from.

EDIT:

Oh, yeah (5) I'll also be happy to agree that there are problems with the class design of 3e.  I certainly think that my own ruleset does a better job with fighters!  But, even so, that doesn't mean that you cannot create a fighter that represents a historical, literary, or folkloric fighting man in 3e.  Just that RCFG is better!  


RC


----------



## pawsplay

Neonchameleon said:


> Care to justify that?  Teach wasn't on the list of great pirates.  Or great warriors.  Yes, he was big and imposing.  But level 9 is pretty massive.




Ah, but this is one of those rare occasions when we can benchmark a historical figure's hit points. With Con 16, he would have about 81 hit points. Five pistols shots at 2d6 and twenty saber cuts at 1d6+1 averages about 125 hit points, so if anything, I've lowballed him. Plus, level 9 is when he can take Leadership. 




> Skill Focus (twice), Negotiator, Alertness.  As a L9 fighter you get five bonus feats.  And you've just spent four (!) on boosting your skills.  The only one of these that isn't forced on you by choosing a class that doesn't fit and forces you to bend over backwards is your Intimidate.  Assume you want to keep the massive intimidate.




None of them are forced. I'm simply building to concept. A rogue or barbarian would simply have five less feats. This is simply a compromise between combat and skills to eak out some specific skill bonuses. In the end, he's still a fighter.



> That means you've gained two feats (weapon focus/spec) from your class and poured three feats into shoring up the problems of picking a very bad class for the job - for an effective 22 skill points at cross class rates.  Sounds like a lot?  A level 9 Barbarian would have 24 more skill points (never mind that one of the skills you want, Listen, isn't cross class for Barbarians).  2 more skill points makes the Barbarian literate.  And in exchange for weapon focus and specialisation you gain: 10 Hit points (+18 when raging), Improved Uncanny Dodge, Fast Movement, DR 1, and three rages/day.  All round better for the guy who takes a lot of killing than your version especially as your excuse for picking fighter is the BAB and hit points.  In short despite your bending over backwards, the barbarian makes a better version of your version of Teach than the fighter.




Barbarian is not a bad second choice. In fact, in _Unorthodox Barbarians_ I wrote up a Corsair variant barbarian. However, I don't think it really applies to Blackbeard. This version is still at least two feats ahead, and the lower Listen bonus... is quite okay, seriously. The barbarian pirate is probably one of Blackbeard's sturdier crew members.



> And why is this?  It's because the fighter isn't a general big burly guy who's good at beating things up.  That would be the barbarian.  The fighter is the monomaniac weapons specialist who eats with his sword and sleeps with his sword and is dedicated to tricks with his weapons to the exclusion of all else.  This is a 3.X issue rather than a D&D issue.  (The lack of plot power for non casters is a general issue and one that's been noticed for apparently longer than I've been alive).




Like a guy who can wield a cutlass effectively, shot a pistol at close range without picking off his own guys, and quick draw one of his bracers of pistols.



> And for the record, Pawsplay is right.  Knowledge (Geography) isn't the mapreading skill.  It's the skill to not need to read a map.  Regrettably, apparently Stormwrack changed this and Paizo kept it on as quoted by Fifth Element.  So if you're using the full 3.X rules, Hussar is right.




Weapons of Legacy also misuses Knowledge as a research skill _without stating any changes to the rules_, such that as written, there are no retries for unlocking legacies! 

Anyway. Time for a summary. IMO, in 3e, Blackbeard is probably a fighter, even though 3e steals about 20 or so skill ranks from him to which he would be otherwise entitled. But that's okay, because piracy really isn't about being a skill-monkey. Pathfinder basically gives those ranks back to a great extent. Previous versions of D&D had no problem at all with Fighter pirates. Depending on concept, rogues and/or barbarians may also be good pirates. 
Using the Rules Cyclopedia, a pirate is just a fighter or thief with Profession (sailor),  Pilot (favored type of vessel), Pilot (longboat), and one other General Skill of relevance. AD&D, same thing; maybe you can throw a Kit in there, too, if you want.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

Neonchameleon said:


> Asked and answered about 100 pages back.
> 
> Normally wizards take time to cast spells. Warriors win once they get to sword range. The rest of the time you're playing Ars Magica with Wizars winning - these cases almost always have wizard protagonists.



No, it really hasn't been.  And the fact that you continue to talk in terms of warriors "winning" or wizards "winning" is just evidence that you _still_ don't get it.


----------



## Stormonu

I'll have to agree with Hussar on one thing; the fighter got the shaft on skills in 3E - the fighter's skill list is frankly embarassing (What idiot doesn't give Profession to EVERY class as a class skill, and use rope should have probably never been a skill)

Overall, I think the Blackbeard Pawsplay presented isn't horrible, it just isn't the best captain the world's ever seen.

Fleeced selling his cargo? Possibly, if a semidescent smoothtalker comes up with a con.  Otherwise he ought to be able to walk around town for ten minutes (taking 20 on appraise) and have an idea how much his wares would normally sell for (note, he doesn't have appraise for any expensive/unusual items).  Also, he might have a quartermaster who purchases/sells cargo for him.

Navigating - do items such as sextants and such provide equipment bonuses or are they considered "standard fare" for making the check?  Again, most likely he'll have to depend on a navigator if he can't take 10 on his checks.

Part of this I put forward because I recently came away from a D&D campaign where the party wizard was the captain.  Despite his character's Intelligence, he did not have many of the skills you mentioned as required - he depended on several other crew members to handle piloting, gathering/selling supplies and such (the leadership feat was used to help fill out these jobs, and not by the cohort either.  A couple of the other PCs also lent their skills as well [no, the party rogue was not a help, and was in fact skimming sales of some of the cargo])


----------



## BryonD

Hussar said:


> Yes, I know, pesky things like actually reading the rules are such huge flaws in the argument.
> 
> Look, it's been shown pretty well that a fighter makes a really, really poor Pirate Captain.  I didn't do that, Pawsplay put it up.  We have a pirate captain that can't sail, can't navigate, can't tell when other pirates are lying to him and can barely convince his own grandmother to piddle on him if he was on fire.
> 
> This is a REALLY bad pirate captain.



Whether or not that is a bad pirate isn't even the point anymore.



> Now, your argument boils down to a one true scotsman fallacy where a "good" DM faced with mechanics that do not resolve any of the issues put forth here would simply magically create the mechanics needed and everything would come up roses.  If that works for you, then great.  Fantastic.
> 
> To be honest, that's pretty much exactly what I did do when I ran naval campaigns- expand the Profession skill to cover a number of the issues brough up here and then give all classes Profession as a class skill.  But, again, we're not discussing my game or your game, we're discussing what the game ACTUALLY says.



It's funny, I frequently get told that one of the great things about 4E is all the advice that is provided for how to run a good game.

And yet when this kind of advice is applied to 3E it is somehow a house rule.  shrug

If you think the game "ACTUALLY says" that Prof skills generate revenue with no applicable ability, then you are missing a great deal of context.  And if you think it is intended to be interpreted that way, then you are just wrong.



> Sigh, I must be tired.  I'll be unsubscribing from this one now because I refuse to get sucked back into a dead end conversation that I know will not go anywhere.



Your call.  But, frankly, if your view is that Prof skill make SP appear from nothing, then you have forced the conversation into dead end right there.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

My take: a captain doesn't need all of the skills we think of as part of the package if he does a good job of unifying and motivating his crew.

Now, while that sounds like Leadership, in a piratical society, the leader may be the one who fights best in battle (in leadership challenges or taking a ship), the one with the best political connections (getting them letters of marque from some nation so they can operate freely and openly), a man with a good eye for talent assembling a crew (finding a good cook, good navigator, and a good quartermaster), someone with deep pockets (for bribe, booze, keeping them equipped and the ship in fighting trim), and a host of other factors.


----------



## Bluenose

BryonD said:


> You are the first person I have ever heard suggest that he was able to breathe water.  The assumption that he simply held his breath a really, really long time is pretty standard.
> 
> Not that a 1-20 fighter can hold his breath that long.  But that isn't really relevant because one could very easily argue that Beowulf is the icon of "epic" fighter.
> 
> Anyone can hold their breath.  Beowulf does something anyone can do, just to epic proportions.
> 
> And, really, I don't think that adds anything to the wizard / warrior debate. He just certainly doesn't need to be assumed to have a water breathing ability.
> 
> I also really liked the 13th warrior spin on it in which he swims down to a cave and holding his breath was just the impression the story teller gets from the sideline.




So your basic proposal is to disregard the story in favour of something that fits what you want to believe. Well, that's a perfectly defensible position.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Stormonu said:


> I'll have to agree with Hussar on one thing; the fighter got the shaft on skills in 3E - the fighter's skill list is frankly embarassing (What idiot doesn't give Profession to EVERY class as a class skill, and use rope should have probably never been a skill)




Well, there I'll agree as well.  The whole "class skill" thing works better in theory than in practice, IMHO and IME.  Class and cross-class _*feats*_ might have worked better.  In creating RCFG, I made some fighter abilities things that only fighters can choose from.  Likewise rogues and sorcerers.



> Overall, I think the Blackbeard Pawsplay presented isn't horrible, it just isn't the best captain the world's ever seen.




Agreed.



RC


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

I have to go with ByronD on this one: Beowulf held his breath for an epic length of time.  Nothing in the story says he was a water-breather.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Bluenose said:


> So your basic proposal is to disregard the story in favour of something that fits what you want to believe. Well, that's a perfectly defensible position.




Around here, we call that "reading the story in context".

EDIT:  For my money, the best film version of Beowulf to date is *Gran Torino*.  


RC


----------



## BryonD

Bluenose said:


> So your basic proposal is to disregard the story in favour of something that fits what you want to believe. Well, that's a perfectly defensible position.




How in the world do you get that from what I said?


----------



## pawsplay

Ok, so I've made the argument Blackbeard is a Fighter in 3e. I stand by that. But as pointed out, certain aspects of the system are not friendly to Fighters, especially when it comes to skills. Now, as it happens, we have access to a version of 3e for comparison

Blackbeard the Pirate (Pathfinder Edition)
Human Fighter 9
Str 14, Dex 10, Con 18, Int 12, Wis 10, Cha 12
Hp 99
Feats: Skill Focus (Profession[Sailor]), Skill Focus (Intimidate), Leadership, W Focus (Cutlass), W Spec (cutlass), Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Quick Draw, Improved Critical (pistol), Improved Critical (cutlass), Vital Strike
Skils: Acrobatics +3, Appraise +2, Climb +7, Diplomacy +4, Intimidate +16, Knowledge (Geography) +2, Perception +6, Profession (sailor) +11, Sense Motive +3, Survival +7, Swim +7.

So in my view, the only way in which Blackbeard is "not a Fighter" is that in 3e, Profession and Survival are strangely not class skills for Fighters. Archetypally, all fighter.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Jeff Wilder said:


> No, it really hasn't been.  And the fact that you continue to talk in terms of warriors "winning" or wizards "winning" is just evidence that you _still_ don't get it.




And in most of the fiction I can think of the adventuring wizards in combat pick up a sword - see e.g. Gandalf and The Grey Mouser for details.  Asked and Answered - simply not an answer you want.



pawsplay said:


> Ah, but this is one of those rare occasions when we can benchmark a historical figure's hit points. With Con 16, he would have about 81 hit points. Five pistols shots at 2d6 and twenty saber cuts at 1d6+1 averages about 125 hit points, so if anything, I've lowballed him.




And as I demonstrated if you want to do this, fighter is the wrong class.  A Barbarian has effectively twenty eight more hit points at the same level (ten from the d12 and a further 18 from raging).  He's better with his cutlass and as good with his pistol.  He's just slightly easier to hit in melee.

And I've never used firearms in D&D.  Where do you get 2d6 from?  Because that seems high to me for pistols on the high seas.  I'd go for 1d6.

Finally, and this is a statistical oddity, if there's time to prepare and recover the Level 9 bard is at least as good at taking a pounding as the fighter assuming equivalent armour.  He starts 20hp down - but song of greatness gives him 2d10 + 2*con mod temp hit points (=17).  And he can do that both before and in the middle of the battle.  Throw in Inspire Courage +2 (for the crew as well) and he's on the same to hit as the fighter and doing the same damage (he lost 3 points of BAB but has +2 competence and +2 morale bonusses to hit, cancelling out the weapon focus, and +2 damage cancelling out weapon specialisation - the numbers match).  Give him the Song of the Heart option from Eberron and the temp hit points go up to 3d10+3*con (25 each time - with the second use he's more hp than our barbarian) and he's hitting better than the fighter.



> Plus, level 9 is when he can take Leadership.




 You mean level 6.



> None of them are forced. I'm simply building to concept.




The problem with claiming this is that you are not building to a character concept.  You are building to a character _and metagame_ concept.  The only reason Blackbeard even wants to be a fighter is because that is the metagame concept you have decided to shoe-horn him into.



> A rogue or barbarian would simply have five less feats.




And you spent three of those feats on shoring up the fighter's skills in a way the other classes wouldn't need.  And two on weapon focus and weapon specialisation - which other classes have abilities that counterbalance.  If you think that rage is more than a match for focus + specialisation (I do) then the fighter has effectively _no_ bonus feats over the barbarian.  Zip.  Nada.  Bupkiss.



> This is simply a compromise between combat and skills to eak out some specific skill bonuses. In the end, he's still a fighter.




Only because you went in deciding to do whatever you could to make him so.



> This version is still at least two feats ahead,




The names of those two feats?  Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialisation.  In exchange the barbarian has a higher level of damage per round (but requires more healing) from raging.  Two feats which in practice still leave him behind.



> Like a guy who can wield a cutlass effectively, shot a pistol at close range without picking off his own guys, and quick draw one of his bracers of pistols.




Oh!  You mean a barbarian?  Or even a bard?  All your fighter bonus feats have been eaten up by a mix of weapon focus, weapon specialisation, and covering for the fighter's appaling skills.  The rest of the feats you mention are covered _entirely_ by the default feats anyone gets.



> Weapons of Legacy also misuses Knowledge as a research skill _without stating any changes to the rules_, such that as written, there are no retries for unlocking legacies!




Doh!



> Anyway. Time for a summary. IMO, in 3e, Blackbeard is probably a fighter,




Why?  Your only answer here appears to be "Because I say so and because that's what a fighter _ought_ to be."



> even though 3e steals about 20 or so skill ranks from him to which he would be otherwise entitled.




A good reason he _isn't_.



> But that's okay, because piracy really isn't about being a skill-monkey.




It's a lot more about being a skill monkey than it is about being a combat specialist.  Running down unarmed merchant ships.  Running away from armed naval ships.  Knowing the shipping patterns, the waterways, and what good targets look like.  If a pirate ship is ever involved in a fair fight it means they've ed up (or gained a dose of idealism).  This is all rogue and skill monkey stuff not fighter stuff.



> Pathfinder basically gives those ranks back to a great extent.




It gives them Profession, Survival, and much less of a penalty for cross classing skills.  Oh, and actually makes them more competent with weapons and armour.  We're starting to get somewhere.



> Previous versions of D&D had no problem at all with Fighter pirates.




So?  I've already said this.  But we are talking about 3.X.



> Depending on concept, rogues and/or barbarians may also be good pirates.




Depending on concept, 3.X rogues and barbarians are almost invariably _better_ pirates.  So are rangers.  So, for that matter, are bards.


----------



## billd91

Neonchameleon said:


> *Depending on concept*, 3.X rogues and barbarians are almost invariably _better_ pirates.  So are rangers.  So, for that matter, are bards.



 (emphasis mine)

Of course, *depending on the concept*, fighters are better pirates as well. So are one-armed mutes named Charlie, assuming my pirate concept incorporates that.


----------



## JamesonCourage

Since people are still arguing over the pirate thing, I'll quote more RAW.



			
				Player's Handbook said:
			
		

> Some classes already give you plenty of room to customize your character. With your DM's approval, however, you can change some of your character's class features. For example, if you want a fighter who used to work for the thieves' guild as an enforcer who is now trying to become a legitimate bodyguard, he could be proficient only with the weapons and armor available to rogues, have 4 skill points per level instead of 2, and access to Bluff and Sense Motive as class skills. Otherwise, he would be a regular fighter.




Now, since it's a DM call, I could see a fighter have a trade-off for class skills, even by RAW. (1) Lose all class skills and all fighter bonus feats to gain all Rogue class skills and 8 + skills per level. (2) Drop skills down to 6+, lose all medium armor, heavy armor, and shield proficiencies, gain d12 hit die.

Of course, these are choices that might vary by DM. I don't worry about it when I play my game (which isn't 3.5). But, if a DM thought these were fair trade-offs, then, by RAW, you can make them.

As far as my quote from Profession being dismissed, I find it mildly amusing. Let me quote Hussar! (I got his name right, even if he thinks my name is Jason)



> *Profession (Wis; Trained Only)*
> 
> Like Craft, Knowledge, and Perform, Profession is actually a number of separate skills. You could have several Profession skills, each with its own ranks, each purchased as a separate skill. While a Craft skill represents ability in creating or making an item, a Profession skill represents an aptitude in a vocation requiring a broader range of less specific knowledge.
> 
> *Check*
> 
> You can practice your trade and make a decent living, earning about half your Profession check result in gold pieces per week of dedicated work. You know how to use the tools of your trade, how to perform the profession’s daily tasks, how to supervise helpers, and how to handle common problems.
> 
> *Action*
> 
> *Not applicable. A single check generally represents a week of work.*
> 
> *Try Again*
> 
> Varies. *An attempt to use a Profession skill to earn an income cannot be retried.* You are stuck with whatever weekly wage your check result brought you. Another check may be made after a week to determine a new income for the next period of time. An attempt to accomplish some specific task can usually be retried.
> 
> *Untrained*
> 
> Untrained laborers and assistants (that is, characters without any ranks in Profession) earn an average of 1 silver piece per day.





Let's look at what I quoted!



> Player's Handbook, 3.5
> *Profession (Wis; Trained Only)*
> 
> You know how to use the tools of your trade, how to perform the profession’s daily tasks, how to supervise helpers, and how to handle common problems. *For example, sailor knows how to tie several basic knots, how to tend and repair sails, and how to stand a deck at sea. The DM sets DCs for specialized tasks.*




It seems reasonable to me that "specialized tasks" where the "DM sets DCs" might fall into that category that Hussar mentioned where the skill breaks from it's general use (thanks, Hussar, for pointing this out!). And, if you fail a skill, it looks like you can probably retry, as you only cannot retry when trying to earn a wage (thanks again!).

It's almost like you can, by RAW, make a Fighter pirate fit what you want. Things are purposefully not written in stone. Still too rigid for my tastes, I'll grant you that. But this argument is nonetheless mildly amusing, when the core books cover things so adequately.

But, if you don't like it, don't use it. If you do like it, use it. It really is all good, as long as you're having fun. Play what you like


----------



## pawsplay

Neonchameleon said:


> And as I demonstrated if you want to do this, fighter is the wrong class.  A Barbarian has effectively twenty eight more hit points at the same level (ten from the d12 and a further 18 from raging).  He's better with his cutlass and as good with his pistol.  He's just slightly easier to hit in melee.




How have you demonstrated that? I see you asserting that, but little actual evidence apart from the hit point thing.



> And I've never used firearms in D&D.  Where do you get 2d6 from?  Because that seems high to me for pistols on the high seas.  I'd go for 1d6.




d20 Modern.



> Finally, and this is a statistical oddity, if there's time to prepare and recover the Level 9 bard is at least as good at taking a pounding as the fighter assuming equivalent armour.




Given that he must sing continuously to gain these abilities, that's awfully situational. But duly noted.



> You mean level 6.




Right you are.



> The problem with claiming this is that you are not building to a character concept.  You are building to a character _and metagame_ concept.  The only reason Blackbeard even wants to be a fighter is because that is the metagame concept you have decided to shoe-horn him into.




I named him in the first place as an example of a fighter. I wouldn't have named him if I didn't think he fit. I'm not shoehorning him in. I am, however, responding to complaints by others he doesn't qualify because... I'm not sure why. It's certainly not because Rogues are tougher or Barbarians are better sailors. Blackbeard is a tough guy, probably from an upper class background, who steers a ship, scares the crud out of people, and fights like a demon. That pretty much screams Fighter to me.

He was not a master negotiator or a genius, and in fact may have botched an attempt to claim an 11th hour pardon, resulting in his death. He was not a ninja, nor was he known for entering an animalistic rage. He had no animal companions of which I am aware, and despite his diabolic demeanor, no known spellcasting ability. He certainly didn't sing in battle.



> And you spent three of those feats on shoring up the fighter's skills in a way the other classes wouldn't need.  And two on weapon focus and weapon specialisation - which other classes have abilities that counterbalance.  If you think that rage is more than a match for focus + specialisation (I do) then the fighter has effectively _no_ bonus feats over the barbarian.  Zip.  Nada.  Bupkiss.




Rage, particularly at that level, is not super. It gives the barbarian a slight numeric edge for a few rounds, during which they may take a lot of damage, then drops the barbarian's hit points, fatigues him, and leaves him without bonuses equivalent to Weapon Focus and Specialization. I'm not sure, it may edge out W Focus/Spec to a slight degree, on the balance, but if so, not by much. 



> The names of those two feats?  Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialisation.  In exchange the barbarian has a higher level of damage per round (but requires more healing) from raging.  Two feats which in practice still leave him behind.




The barbarian does more damage only if fighting two-handed, which in practice is likely to reduce his AC further. A fighter fighting two-handed does, yes, lose effectively +1 to hit and +1 to damage, plus a few points from Power Attack if you go that route. I can live with that. Meanwhile, rage grants no advantages in ranged combat whatsoever, unless you use some kind of throwing weapon. It certainly does jack for crossbows or pistols.



> Why?  Your only answer here appears to be "Because I say so and because that's what a fighter _ought_ to be." ...A good reason he _isn't_. ...
> It's a lot more about being a skill monkey than it is about being a combat specialist.  Running down unarmed merchant ships.  Running away from armed naval ships.  Knowing the shipping patterns, the waterways, and what good targets look like.  If a pirate ship is ever involved in a fair fight it means they've ed up (or gained a dose of idealism).  This is all rogue and skill monkey stuff not fighter stuff.




Those are all primarily judgment calls, effectively, the province of the player. What skills do you think are involved in those tasks? The waterways thing I guess is Knowledge (geography), which sadly is not a class skill for the rogue. 



> It gives them Profession, Survival, and much less of a penalty for cross classing skills.  Oh, and actually makes them more competent with weapons and armour.  We're starting to get somewhere.




Somewhere? Unless your barbarian pirate manages to ambush a foe at melee range, this guy is going to outperform him respectably by most measures.



> Depending on concept, 3.X rogues and barbarians are almost invariably _better_ pirates.  So are rangers.  So, for that matter, are bards.




Depending on concept? What do you mean by that phrase? Barbarians and rogues certainly make different pirates, but I fail to see how they are simply _better_. The barbarian runs out of juice quickly, and the rogue is a wuss and probably lacks critical weapon proficiencies. "Depending on concept" seems to mean: "If I think rogue pirates sucking at ABC is okay, that's okay, but it's not okay for fighters to suck at anything." 

Now, really, if you want a very competent pirate, specifically at both sailing and thuggery, I'd go with the Corsair from _A Fistful of Denarii_, written for the Pathfinder RPG. Unlike the Unorthodox version, he is built around the fighter rather than the barbarian and has some rogue abilities.

However, Blackbeard is probably still a normal Fighter.


----------



## pemerton

NoWayJose said:


> 3E should also be played within the confines of its paradigm. 3E is about heroic adventurers who can use skills to dabble in side-venture professions. Yet they are adventurers first and foremost. If you want to be a true 24/7 pirate, then an NPC expert is the way to go.





NoWayJose said:


> And one 3E paradigm is that PCs are first and foremost adventurers, not professional 24/7 pirates.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> To take an extreme example, it's like saying that wizards and warriors are not balanced, because fighters don't have enough skill points for basket weaving.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The question is about balance issues between *adventuring* wizards vs *adventuring* warriors".





pawsplay said:


> It's simply an accident of the 3e skills system that his particular background is more fiddly than most. It's no different than trying to make a Wizard from a noble background, if you would like to give him Diplomacy.



I tend to feel that when I can't easily make a noble wizard or a pirate PC, the game is starting to fail as a game of generic fantasy adventuring. These aren't really _alternatives_ to being an adventurer. They're certainly not in the same boat as basket-weaving.

The cause of this particular issue seems fairly easy to diagnose, however - the 3E skill rules, both the cross-class rules and the skill point rules. I gather that Pathfinder tackles both of these, and it seems to me for a very obvious reason.

A further complication is that 3E doesn't provide any obvious mechanical route, in its encounter design guidelines, XP rules etc for making some of these skill-oriented issues a core part of the game.



Neonchameleon said:


> I don't feel disempowered by not always being able to spam my best moves.  I do feel disempowered by being baseline incompetent.  1e did not have this problem.



I tend to agree with this. 3E has tried to follow games like Runequest or Rolemaster or Traveller or HERO in its character build mechanics - the character's mechanical specification is meant to be a _total picture_ of the character's aptitudes and competencies - but has not really provided adequate resources on the player side (hence the monomaniacal fighter) nor on the GM side (not enough support for fully integrating these sorts of "total characters" into gameplay - and hence frequent complaints like, for example, having to trade off combat optimality for roleplaying richness).

1st ed didn't tend to have this problem because it didn't have the notion of the "totally mechanically specified character". In particular, there were no real mechanical constraints on adding roleplaying richness, or a range of mundance competencies, to a character (at least prior to Oriental Adventures and the Survival Guides).


----------



## Raven Crowking

pemerton said:


> A further complication is that 3E doesn't provide any obvious mechanical route, in its encounter design guidelines, XP rules etc for making some of these skill-oriented issues a core part of the game.




Disagree, unless you are specifically complaining that the obvious mechanical route to making skill-oriented issues a core part of the game has nothing to do (directly) with the XP system.

How to use the skill mechanics in the game, mechanically, seemed extremely obvious and intuitive, to me.  And, in many respects, the 3e skill system works exceedingly well.  IMHO.  YMMV.


RC


----------



## pemerton

RC, I've got in mind a few things. One is, as you note, the XP system. The second is that combat scales automatically with level (BAB, saves, damage to an extent via spells/feats) in a way that skill bonuses don't, meaning that there are two rather mechanically divergent action resolution contexts that the rules (at least from the original 3E DMG, which is the one I know) don't say much about how to integrate.

The third thing, related to the second, is that the skill rules for 3E tend towards the gritty (for example, there's no way to hit the DCs for the quasi-supernatural balance checks in the Epic Handbook without using magical enhancements) whereas the combat rules tend towards the gonzo (eg the classic fighter-who-can-fall-200-feet-without-dying).

I think all of this combines to create a greater likelihood, in 3E than (for example) either 1st ed AD&D or 4e, of a game in which the non-combat skill-oriented aspect of play becomes almost a separate game from the combat part.

And to link this back to the original thread topic - I think this also contributes to the martial-vs-magic problem that some see. Outside of combat, martial/mortal protagonists are stuck with a rather gritty and realism-bound skill system, while spellcasters get a gonzo, no-holds-barred and no-chance-of-failure spell system. And at least as I recall it, most of the advice in the DMG about mid-to-higher level play, as well as from the major designers of the game, is to adjust the game to accomodate those magical abilities (eg don't make the _mystery_ the plot point, but rather the _proving_ of the conclusion) rather than to adjust the game to make room for the gritty skill system.

This is what I mean when I say that the guidelines for encounter- and scenario-design don't support making skill-oriented issues a core part of the game.

A final qualification - at low levels, the points I've made will tend not to show up. The combat and magic is less gonzo, the differentials in skill bonuses won't generally have become so salient (in part because there is less magic and stat bonuses are still a bigger contributor to the overall bonus), and it is therefore probably easier to integrate skill checks into tactical encounter design in a way that makes the XP issue go away somewhat.

Personally, if I wanted to play an E6 style game I'd probably use Runequest, but I can certainly see why some people favour it as an approach to 3E. It's not just the flavour, but it really does avoid some of (what at least I regard as) mechanical problems emerging.


----------



## pawsplay

pemerton said:


> I think all of this combines to create a greater likelihood, in 3E than (for example) either 1st ed AD&D or 4e, of a game in which the non-combat skill-oriented aspect of play becomes almost a separate game from the combat part.




Disagree. If you want to emphasize skills, you can generate some really preternatural results. You can have Diplomacy enough to charm nearly all NPCs you meet, the ability to Tumble through a half dozen enemies, the ability to Climb a sheer cliff, or the chutzpath to Intimidate an ogre barbarian.


----------



## Votan

pawsplay said:


> Disagree. If you want to emphasize skills, you can generate some really preternatural results. You can have Diplomacy enough to charm nearly all NPCs you meet, the ability to Tumble through a half dozen enemies, the ability to Climb a sheer cliff, or the chutzpath to Intimidate an ogre barbarian.




I see the issue with skills as being the relative gap.  It's not a fatal issue but consider the differences in BAB: rogue to fighter (@20th level) there is a 5 point gap in BAB (which might translate into an even larger "to hit" gap depending on a lot of factors).  In the same sense, there is a 6 point gap between good and bad saving throws at this level.

There is a 23 point gap between a fully trained skill (e.g. balance) and an untrained skill (assuming equal ability scores, but they can only matter so much even at 20th level).  

This has some perverse effects.  It's why grease (which requires balance checks) is so generally effective (as, unlike saves, skills do not advance with level).  It also means that a skill challenge (for 20th level characters, DC 30 seems about right) for a trained character is automatic failure for an untrained character.  

Then there are just the odd skills (diplomacy) where core 3.5E decided not to make the skill check opposed.  So if a character can get a +60 in the skill, the one round action to convince hostile opponents that they should be friendly is now possible.  

For me, the real issue was induced incompetence.  The Fighter might actually be okay at diplomacy relative to a normal person.  But she probably cannot meaningfully contribute next to the bard.  We don't see this in combat; a 20th level mage can melee a 10th level fighter very successfully (even without extreme design choices).  A 20th level fighter can't really compete in diplomacy with a 10th level bard 9again, barring an extreme design choice).

But that isn't a skill specific issue.  No fighter can fly (no matter how much they wish to do so) but the ability is hardly exceptional in a 5th level mage.


----------



## Raven Crowking

"Relative to a normal person" is, I agree, an issue.  The lack of a clear "normal man" standard in 3e makes it difficult to determine exactly how many ranks are normal, are better than average, are good, represent a field expert, and exceed a field expert.

One should not have to be hyper-competent to be competent.

(My system allows you to choose where you advance your skills, your saves, and weapon skills -- effectively controlling your BAB.  It works in part because of a clear "normal man" standard.)


RC


----------



## Neonchameleon

pawsplay said:


> How have you demonstrated that? I see you asserting that, but little actual evidence apart from the hit point thing.




I've demonstrated the skills. Our Barbarian does better.

I've said which feats the fighter gets that the barbarian doesn't.  Other than this the barbarian has everything he does.



> d20 Modern.




OK. Although I'd say that that's a _little_ on the high side.

Edit: Looking at the D20 Modern SRD, 2d6 is the damage done by a Colt Python, a Glock 20, or a .45.  I'd expect age of sail guns to be somewhat less effective.  But thanks 



> Given that he must sing continuously to gain these abilities, that's awfully situational. But duly noted.




1: Perform does not have to be singing. Oratory works really well.
2: Inspire Courage and Inspire Greatness both last for as long as the bard sings and for five rounds after they stop. One battlecry at the start is normally enough for the fight.



> I named him in the first place as an example of a fighter.




And then demonstrated that you needed to give up three feats to do it - you only had five to start with.



> I wouldn't have named him if I didn't think he fit. I'm not shoehorning him in.




And I'm demonstrating that it's a really bad fit.



> I am, however, responding to complaints by others he doesn't qualify because... I'm not sure why.




Because a fighter doesn't have the skill unless you make him a really weak fighter.

He might be what you think a fighter _ought_ to be. But the 3.X design of the fighter screwed up badly and left a lot of ground for the barbarian to take over. Like any sort of burly generalist warrior with a range of skills.



> It's certainly not because Rogues are tougher or Barbarians are better sailors.




Although when push comes to shove, barbarians _are_ marginally better sailors.



> Blackbeard is a tough guy, probably from an upper class background, who steers a ship, scares the crud out of people, and fights like a demon. That pretty much screams Fighter to me.




To me tough guy who scares the crud out of people and fights like a demon in 3.X says Barbarian. Fighters either need highly complex tricks, weapon mastery, heavy armour, or ice water in their veins and an absurd amount of stamina to justify not being barbarians.



> He was not a ninja, nor was he known for entering an animalistic rage.




Who said anything about "animalistic"? You yourself said he fought like a demon - and he certainly took a lot of hits before he went down. Fighting like a demon and bringing an extra level over the training salle is what rage actually does mechanically. (What's scary about 3.X fighters is that they are as unruffled and unflustered as if it was a training salle and can go on like the energiser bunny).



> He certainly didn't sing in battle.




*CHAAAARRRGGGEEEEE!!!!*

All the singing a bard needs to do in battle. And the one war cry will last for five rounds. Although I do agree it is unlikely Blackbeard was a bard.



> Rage, particularly at that level, is not super. It gives the barbarian a slight numeric edge for a few rounds,




Where a few = 8 - or twice as long as most fights.



> during which they may take a lot of damage, then drops the barbarian's hit points, fatigues him, and leaves him without bonuses equivalent to Weapon Focus and Specialization. I'm not sure, it may edge out W Focus/Spec to a slight degree, on the balance, but if so, not by much.




It doesn't by much. But it doesn't have to by _much_. It just has to do it.



> The barbarian does more damage only if fighting two-handed,




Which is why I said DPR, not damage. Weapon Focus/Specialisation is +1 to hit/+2 to damage. Barbarian Rage gives +4 strength - or *+2*to hit/+2 to damage. The Barbarian does more DPR not because each hit is harder (it isn't) but because he hits more often.



> which in practice is likely to reduce his AC further.




Further than _what?_ Pirates didn't normally use shields. Or did you mean the 2 points of AC lost to raging?



> Meanwhile, rage grants no advantages in ranged combat whatsoever, unless you use some kind of throwing weapon.




Which is largely irrelevant - I have no penalties in ranged combat either compared to you so I don't use rage until melee. If we use a shoot-then-melee strategy, the barbarian shoots while not raging and then draws his cutlass and rages. While not raging the barbarian matches the fighter BAB for BAB and feat for feat. Making the difference between them 10hp, DR1, and improved uncanny dodge. Oh, and fast movement. The Barbarian wins (although not by much, granted - but it's a strict win because if you took away those things it would be a perfect mirror-match). 



> It certainly does jack for crossbows or pistols.




You mean it's exactly like Weapon Focus (Cutlass), Weapon Specialisation (Cutlass), Skill Focus (Profession (Sailor)), Alertness, or Negotiator. The five feats your fighter gets that my barbarian doesn't. I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you.



> What skills do you think are involved in those tasks? The waterways thing I guess is Knowledge (geography), which sadly is not a class skill for the rogue.




I'd use Knowledge (local) for the local waterways and trade routes and knowledge (geography) for the international ones. But even if we use knowledge (geography), the rogue has many many more skill points to use than the fighter. So he can better afford to cross-class something.



> Somewhere? Unless your barbarian pirate manages to ambush a foe at melee range, this guy is going to outperform him respectably by most measures.




Once more you are wrong. The Barbarian has the same weapon proficiencies you do, the same ranged feats you do, and is better at taking fire - he has more hit points and a point of DR. In short at range the Barbarian modelled on your fighter is strictly better than your fighter. He is exactly equal to the fighter at dishing out damage with guns and has both more hp and DR (and exactly the same AC unless you want to put your fighter into heavy armour?).



> Depending on concept? What do you mean by that phrase?




That a rogue pirate (or a ranger pirate or a bard pirate) does things differently from a barbarian or fighter pirate.



> Barbarians and rogues certainly make different pirates, but I fail to see how they are simply _better_.




Giving up the five feats I listed, the _only_ time your fighter does anything better than my barbarian with the same stats is if the barbarian is for some reason not raging. Which either means a lot of fights in the day (something pirates seldom had) or a fight that's gone on for eight rounds _after_ the barbarian started raging.



> The barbarian runs out of juice quickly,




For a value of quickly that is a lot longer than most fights. The Con 16 Barbarian can rage for eight rounds before he gets tired. 42 seconds plus another 6 to discharge both pistols at someone is a lot of concentrated mayhem and longer than most fights will last.



> "Depending on concept" seems to mean: "If I think rogue pirates sucking at ABC is okay, that's okay, but it's not okay for fighters to suck at anything."




It's not that the fighters don't suck at some things. It's that as this demonstrates, the barbarian is better than the fighter _at being a fighter_.



> However, Blackbeard is probably still a normal Fighter.




We disagree here.


----------



## I'm A Banana

> The lack of a clear "normal man" standard in 3e makes it difficult to determine exactly how many ranks are normal, are better than average, are good, represent a field expert, and exceed a field expert.




The town generation rules help give you a baseline: 99% of the world is a Commoner 1. A Commoner 1 represents a "normal person." A Warrior 1 represents a "trained combatant" (probably the equivalent of militia members). Aristocrats, Experts, and Adepts are trained specialists in more esoteric things, but they're normal people with some specialized training, too. 

The XP region of the NPC guidelines in the DMG talks about NPCs gaining XP for the same things PC's do (namely, killing). This mentions that NPCs in dangerous areas might have enough XP to push them up to level 2 or 3, but not really beyond that -- they live pretty safe lives, in comparison to the PC's. 

They also mention that the "normal human ability scores" are all 10's and 11's.

So in 3e, the far end of the "normal power curve" is a Level 3 Warrior with a 10 strength. Maybe that's a D&D-equivalent special ops member, or marine, or a well-scarred hireling or henchperson.

The thick end of that power curve, where most of humanity lies, is right there at the bottom, with nearly everyone being a Level 1 Commoner. 

Which means a skill bonus maximum of about +5, if they're highly specialized and not interested in a diversity of skills (which would be a little silly for an NPC, but whatever). They can accomplish DC 15 things on a Take 10, which means, as a baseline, that they're capable of doing some basic tasks, and can even have a chance to do some pretty cool things once in a while. 

So if a first level PC fighter has a skill bonus of +9 (skill ranks + ability score modifiers + a possible feat), they're already _very impressive_ at what they do. They can accomplish DC 19 things on a Take 10, and in a level or two, DC 20 things. 

Most NPC sailors would be Commoner 1 sailors with a Profession (Sailor) bonus of maybe +2. They'd have other skills to round out their point total (such as Perception, or maybe Diplomacy, or anything). If the NPC were especially invested in being a sailor (like, they wanted to be captain, or at least first mate), they might dump all their points into it and be +5, best sailor on the ship. A PC fighter who got a +2 bonus in Profession (Sailor), even just from a Wisdom bonus rolling untrained, would be as competent a sailor as most other crew members, and so could reasonably be a Pirate Captain. If they wanted to also be the best sailor on board (certainly not required for a dude in charge), they would want to bump it up to +5 or so. 

I don't know where they would find Full Plate Armor and Exotic Weapons that were rust-proof and buoyant on the high seas, though, so I'm not sure why any character who wanted to spend their life there would be a Fighter. Better as a Ranger (Hook's croc as an animal companion!), or a Barbarian (drunken rage!) or a Rogue (skullduggery!), or even a Swashbuckler (aha!), Marshal (a great leader!), Scout (for darting about the ship), Hexblade (a cursed pirate!), or Warblade (a daring fighter!). But that's really a quibble. Anyone can be a Pirate Captain in D&D without too much effort. The bar for entry is really low. It is set for Commoners.  

That remains true with most other things you can imagine. Even the strongest and wisest kings in the world, who have scored constant victories over the enemy in armed conflict, are probably only 3rd level Aristocrats. A first level Paladin can rival their Diplomacy. Not that a PC is likely to pick up Skill Focus (diplomacy), but y'never know. "Blackbeard" might be modeled as an Aristocrat 1/Warrior 2. That's enough to "fight like a demon" in comparison to a Commoner 1 (which is what most sailors are). 

The rub is that Fighters and Paladins and Rangers and Rogues and all those other PC-classed characters are rare. They're rare because those classes represent _fantasy heroes_ (and villains and rivals and other Narratively Significant People) and not normal folk.

Of course, even a 20th level Marshal/Dread Pirate has problems, given that while he is likely the person with the highest Profession(Sailor) rank in the world, he could still roll a 1 on his check, while his friend the Wizard can just _Control Weather_ for the storm to stop instead of needing to roll a skill check to get past it.

I'd like the best sailor in the world to be able to bypass a storm as easily as that, honestly, but D&D's divide between Spellscaster and Warrior stops me short, since it says "No, only Wizards get to automagically make stuff happen, your best bet, if you want to be a great pirate king, is to be friends with a wizard who can help you do things like sail."


----------



## NoWayJose

pemerton said:


> I tend to feel that when I can't easily make a noble wizard or a pirate PC, the game is starting to fail as a game of generic fantasy adventuring. These aren't really _alternatives_ to being an adventurer. They're certainly not in the same boat as basket-weaving.
> 
> The cause of this particular issue seems fairly easy to diagnose, however - the 3E skill rules, both the cross-class rules and the skill point rules. I gather that Pathfinder tackles both of these, and it seems to me for a very obvious reason.
> 
> A further complication is that 3E doesn't provide any obvious mechanical route, in its encounter design guidelines, XP rules etc for making some of these skill-oriented issues a core part of the game.



I have never played a D&D game in my life in which 1st level PCs were pirates (or basket weavers or any other professional) and were required to mechanically and optimally simulate an average week or month in the life of that career as part of the adventure.

I must also assume that 99% of 4E campaigns have never begun with 1st level pirate PCs required to accurately simulate an average week or month in the life of that career as part of the adventure.

I assume all this because a 1st level 3E or 4E D&D adventure module is almost inevitably about dungeon crawls. This is a sad fact that I am resigned to. Therefore, I don't understand the fixation on becoming the optimized fighter pirate at 1st level. I have no expectations of D&D to do model this, because adventures never or rarely bring this into play. (and if they do, there's some ad hoc mini-rules for it).

In 3E and 4E, PCs ARE primarily adventurers and professional backgrounds tend to be just back-story. That's just how the mechanics work (compared to something like Call of Cthulu where the chosen profession strongly influences your stats).


----------



## NoWayJose

pemerton said:


> I tend to feel that when I can't easily make a noble wizard or a pirate PC, the game is starting to fail as a game of generic fantasy adventuring.



I'm still perplexed by this. Some people are faulting 3E for not giving fighters the skill points they need to be as good a pirate as the player _imagines_ the PC _should_ be.

I have a parallel problem. I fault 4E for not giving wizards the powers they need to be as versatile a spellcaster as I _imagine_ the PC _should_ be.

Whether or not it's true that fighters can be optimal pirate PCs is an *unintentional* side-effect or artifact of 3E mechanics, and (as I've argued above) is largely irrelevant to most D&D adventures.

Conversely, the 4E wizard rebalanced to be nothing more than a push-and-pull combat controller is an *intentional* product of the 4E paradigm, and the consequences are far more extensive.

In context of the OP, I give 3E points for at least *trying* to emulate wizards and warriors in fantasy literature, and I give 4E zero points (or negative points) for allowing the metagame to overwhelmingly dictate what wizards can do _despite_ the fantasy literature.

IMO, the sweet spot for addressing the wizard vs warrior balance (in terms of balancing metagame requirements vs fantasy literature possibilities) lies within the void between 3E and 4E, for neither 3E nor 4E gets it completely right.


----------



## Nemesis Destiny

NoWayJose said:


> I have a parallel problem. I fault 4E for not giving wizards the powers they need to be as versatile a spellcaster as I _imagine_ the PC _should_ be.
> 
> Whether or not it's true that fighters can be optimal pirate PCs is an *unintentional* side-effect or artifact of 3E mechanics, and (as I've argued above) is largely irrelevant to most D&D adventures.
> 
> Conversely, the 4E wizard rebalanced to be nothing more than a push-and-pull combat controller is an *intentional* product of the 4E paradigm, and the consequences are far more extensive.
> 
> In context of the OP, I give 3E points for at least *trying* to emulate wizards and warriors in fantasy literature, and I give 4E zero points (or negative points) for allowing the metagame to overwhelmingly dictate what wizards can do _despite_ the fantasy literature.



This is what one of the other posters in this thread was talking about when they said others were making this into an Edition War. It seems to be the pro-3.x crowd dragging 4e into this, not the people discussing the 3e fighter. Most of the commentary levelled at the 3.x fighter is just trying to point out why they think the class is inadequate, not that "4e does it better and you should all switch."

That seems to be the giant chip on the shoulder of some folks here though.

Granted, about 40 pages ago, a pro-4e stance like this was taken, but that was 40 pages ago, no longer relevant to the discussion at hand.

Most of the current discussion has centred completely around what other 3.x options make better fighters than fighters, or what "needs" to be done to improve them to a basic level of competence. So why bring 4e into it now?

Other than to slam an edition you don't like, that is. Or to start an Edition War.


----------



## NoWayJose

Nemesis Destiny said:


> Most of the current discussion has centred completely around what other 3.x options make better fighters than fighters, or what "needs" to be done to improve them to a basic level of competence. So why bring 4e into it now?



Basically, to put things into perspective.

Accusing the fighter of basic incompetence (a premise which many people here disagree with, BTW) might seem reasonable until contrasted with a more relevant and prevalent factor. I believe the obsession over piracy is nitpicking and, as they say, mental masturbation, relatively speaking to the average D&D campaign and to the larger question of the OP.

Furthermore, my post was completely on-topic to the OP (and thus this entire thread) and I am permitted to change the subject to something I feel is more relevant. I believe it should be obvious to you that not everyone is somehow ethically obligated to remain fixated on the exact discussion at hand until given permission otherwise.



> Other than to slam an edition you don't like, that is. Or to start an Edition War.



Well, I think your interpretation is rather unfair, to be honest.

If I wanted to start an edition war, why did I specificaly state that "neither 3E nor 4E gets it completely right" -- and why did you exclude it from the quote in your post?


----------



## Raven Crowking

Kamikaze Midget said:


> The town generation rules help give you a baseline: 99% of the world is a Commoner 1. A Commoner 1 represents a "normal person." A Warrior 1 represents a "trained combatant" (probably the equivalent of militia members). Aristocrats, Experts, and Adepts are trained specialists in more esoteric things, but they're normal people with some specialized training, too.




You know, I would truly like to accept that as a "normal man" standard, except, under that paradigm, the average person lacks the skills to actually do their job.  Especially as the game evolved, and the "Wahoo!" element got out of control.

Also, I think that 3e started the problem of "The guards in the town scale based on the level of the PCs; here's some guidelines" that, for my tastes, 4e is mired in.  This also makes it difficult to accept the 3e DMG demographics as being accurate.

If the world scales in the way the 3e DMG suggests, then Pawsplay's Blackbeard suddenly becomes a great pirate captain.  He is clearly well above the average man bar.  But that bar seems to shift, doesn't it, so that suddenly we hear that Blackbeard is simply not good enough to hold his own.

The 3e demographics are not compatable with the 3e "This is what you are expected to encounter at your level".  Something has to give.  That's what comes of saying, "This is an average guy", then not assuming that this average remains viable throughout game play.


RC


----------



## Nemesis Destiny

NoWayJose said:


> Basically, to put things into perspective.
> 
> Accusing the fighter of basic incompetence (a premise which many people here disagree with completely, so you shouldn't state that as a fact)



*I* didn't state it as fact. I repeated what *others* were arguing, WITHOUT stating which "side" I come out on. Don't put words in my mouth.

EDIT: I just noticed your edit. Thank you for not putting words in my mouth.



> might seem reasonable until contrasted with a more relevant and prevalent flaw. I believe the obsession over piracy is nitpicking and, as they say, mental masturbation, relatively speaking to the larger question of the OP.



I agree that the pirate captain subtopic is needlessly arcane and nitpicky. This all smacks of schoolyard my-dad-can-beat-up-your-dad aurochs dung.

I fail to see how your beef with 4e wizards is a "more prevalent" flaw.



> Furthermore, my post was completely on-topic and I am permitted to change the subject to something I feel is more relevant. I believe it should be obvious to you that not everyone is somehow ethically obligated to remain fixated on the topic at hand until given permission otherwise.



 I never said you weren't allowed to change the subject, or implied that anyone's permission is required. This thread has done it countless times. If you feel that slamming the 4e treatment of the wizard class is "more relevant" then that's your perogative. But it smacks of the same kind of edition warring that the pro-3.x crowd is accusing the fighter-bashers of.



> Well, I think your interpretation is rather unfair, to be honest.
> 
> If I wanted to start an edition war, why did I specificaly state that "neither 3E nor 4E gets it completely right" -- and why did you remove it from the quote in your post?



Feel free to think it unfair all you like. I'm not telling you what to think.

I removed the latter part of your post from my quote because it wasn't relevant to my point, and seemed like a disingenuous afterthought attempt to make it seem like you weren't "picking on" an edition. That was my interpretation anyway. If that wasn't your intent, I guess I misread you.

Though I do disagree with your analysis of 4e wizards, I have no intention of debating it because it really comes down to playstyle preferences and individual interpretation of what makes a given archetype most resemble its literary equivalent.


----------



## Neonchameleon

NoWayJose said:


> I'm still perplexed by this. Some people are faulting 3E for not giving fighters the skill points they need to be as good a pirate as the player _imagines_ the PC _should_ be.
> 
> I have a parallel problem. I fault 4E for not giving wizards the powers they need to be as versatile a spellcaster as I _imagine_ the PC _should_ be.




Hah! 

But mine related to 4e spellcasting is slightly different.  I consider the "Can do everything in 6 seconds" wizard largely a creation of D&D.  And not something the wizard needs.  I also am fully behind making magic expensive - it's a far better fit IME for most protagonist-casters.  But there is one huge place where WoTC dropped the ball with casters.  Not the combat mechanics (which I think are fine) but there should be _at least_ five times more rituals than there are.  Gandalf didn't just blast people with fire.  He wielded Glamdring.  Or used his lore.  Magic is in most fiction I know powerful but hard and expensive.  Not quick, easy, and takes six seconds.  Rituals really fit the bill here in a way neither 3.X or 4e mages do.


----------



## NoWayJose

Nemesis Destiny said:


> I removed the latter part of your post from my quote because it wasn't relevant to my point, and seemed like a disingenuous afterthought attempt to make it seem like you weren't "picking on" an edition. That was my interpretation anyway. If that wasn't your intent, I guess I misread you.



Yes, I feel you misread me.



> Though I do disagree with your analysis of 4e wizards, I have no intention of debating it because it really comes down to playstyle preferences and individual interpretation of what makes a given archetype most resemble its literary equivalent.



That's OK. Firstly, I try to be careful to write in a subjective sense as to not to upset people who fret about edition wars. Secondly, I have no intention of debating your intention to debate the 4e wizard, I only debated your intentions to debate my intention to change the subject of the topic at hand.


----------



## Raven Crowking

I think that the whole issue is sort of a "pushme-pullyou", where there isn't any real answer.

Can you do X in game Y?  Yes.  Does game Y do X in as satisfying a way as game Z?  For some people yes, for others no, and for some Z is the clear winner.

Once the dust has settled, once it is established that, *yes*, you can do X in game Y, even if you prefer the way you do X in game Z, then all that is left is preference.  And, where preference is concerned, you should play the way you like.  Y, Z, or ABC. 

Life is too short for anything else.


RC


----------



## Nemesis Destiny

NoWayJose said:


> Yes, I feel you misread me.



I apologise then.



> That's OK. Firstly, I try to be careful to write in a subjective sense as to not to upset people who fret about edition wars. Secondly, I have no intention of debating your intention to debate the 4e wizard, I only debated your intentions to debate my intention to change the subject of the topic at hand.



I don't "fret" about edition wars. I _tire_ of them. So many otherwise decent threads have been reduced to slag by them. It ruins discussions, and it actually damages the game as a whole, by dividing the community. Hence my sig image.

For what it's worth though, I agree with this:







Neonchameleon said:


> I consider  the "Can do everything in 6 seconds" wizard largely a creation of  D&D.  And not something the wizard needs.  I also am fully behind  making magic expensive - it's a far better fit IME for most  protagonist-casters.  But there is one huge place where WoTC dropped the  ball with casters.  Not the combat mechanics (which I think are fine)  but there should be _at least_ five times more rituals than there  are.  Gandalf didn't just blast people with fire.  He wielded Glamdring.   Or used his lore.  Magic is in most fiction I know powerful but hard  and expensive.  Not quick, easy, and takes six seconds.  Rituals really  fit the bill here in a way neither 3.X or 4e mages do.




I will point out that this was not a problem in 1e and 2e. For all the things that 3e improved upon, its treatment of spellcasting was _not_ one of them. There are still things I like about 3.x, just as there are things I like about earlier editions, but I think this is a legitimate concern, for me at least, and a lot of others, if not everyone.

But like I've said before, play what you like. Who cares what someone else says. "Are You Having Fun?" it the only question you need to answer. I think that a lot of edition wars spring from a well-intentioned basic desire to make sure everyone else is having the same kind of fun you are, but it's foolish to try to make everyone have the same kind of fun.


----------



## NoWayJose

Nemesis Destiny said:


> I don't "fret" about edition wars. I _tire_ of them. So many otherwise decent threads have been reduced to slag by them. It ruins discussions, and it actually damages the game as a whole, by dividing the community. Hence my sig image.



I was just poking fun. Did you see the Edit comment of that post  ? Sorry, I didn't realize I was pushing a button there.



Nemesis Destiny said:


> I think that a lot of edition wars spring from a well-intentioned basic desire to make sure everyone else is having the same kind of fun you are, but it's foolish to try to make everyone have the same kind of fun.






Raven Crowking said:


> I think that the whole issue is sort of a "pushme-pullyou", where there isn't any real answer.
> 
> Can you do X in game Y? Yes. Does game Y do X in as satisfying a way as game Z? For some people yes, for others no, and for some Z is the clear winner.



I won't speak for anyone else, but for myself, when X people are arguing for A, and Y people are arguing for B, I tend to idealize option C.

(Although sometimes I spend too much time arguing against A and/or B in order to set myself up for justifying C).

Option C is sometimes hinted at on forums, but rarely comes together for whatever reason.

Eventually, some form of Option C becomes official, and it's called a new published edition. Then it begins all over again.


----------



## NoWayJose

Neonchameleon said:


> Hah!
> 
> But mine related to 4e spellcasting is slightly different. I consider the "Can do everything in 6 seconds" wizard largely a creation of D&D. And not something the wizard needs. I also am fully behind making magic expensive - it's a far better fit IME for most protagonist-casters. But there is one huge place where WoTC dropped the ball with casters. Not the combat mechanics (which I think are fine) but there should be _at least_ five times more rituals than there are. Gandalf didn't just blast people with fire. He wielded Glamdring. Or used his lore. Magic is in most fiction I know powerful but hard and expensive. Not quick, easy, and takes six seconds. Rituals really fit the bill here in a way neither 3.X or 4e mages do.



Just musing here on this "Option C". What if the delineation between rituals and wizard powers was more blurry? What if anyone could theoretically do ritual magic, but wizards were much faster and better at it?

To put it in simplistic terms, everyone can get some 'magic points' towards casting magic, but wizards just get a lot more 'magic points'.

So you think of every class as a 'fighter' in terms of being capable in combat. A true fighter focuses exclusively on melee/ranged combat. A rogue is a 'fighter' who learns sneaky attacks. A cleric is a 'fighter' with divine focus. Like Gandalf with a sword, wizards are 'fighters' with an aptitude for magic and/or arcane learning background.

(For campaigns that aren't combat-oriented, you could swap some combat expertise with more scholarly or professional skills, to emulate a pirate captain or bookish mage).

Now you take all these different 'fighters', and you layer an optional magic/ritual system on top of that. A true fighter could know a minor combat spell, without having to multi-class. A thief could use a spell scroll. A wizard with arcane knowledge knows lots of better spells, boosted with implements, wands, etc.

I don't know how that would work out mechanically, but I think it's a more natural fit to the traditional fantasy literature.

I'm not sure if it makes any sense to anyone, if it's too vague. I'm just imagining gelling together magic and rituals to create a magic system that anyone potentially has access to, so it doesn't feel unfair that only wizards can do it, but it's much more versatile (as a nod to 3E) and wizards don't feel completely incompetent without it (as a nod to 4E).


----------



## Raven Crowking

Fifth Element said:
			
		

> So "if you don't like it you're doing it wrong" is out?




If you don't like basketball because you keep missing the basket, you're doing it wrong.  You can either try to do it right, or you can try to do something else.

If you don't like basketball because you don't like shooting at the basket, you should just try to do something else.

I.e., if Game X and Y both do Z, but do it in different ways, if you can't do Z in Game X, you are doing it wrong.  OTOH, if you just like the way Y does Z better, play Game Y.

(Thus, in the context of this last bit, "I cannot stat Blackbeard as a 3e fighter" = Doing it wrong.  "I am not satisfied with how Blackbeard appears statted out as a 3e fighter" = preference.  In the first case, if you otherwise enjoy 3e, you might want to practice at statting out creatures more.  In either case, changing the game or seeking a new game is preferable to -- and IMHO saner than -- playing a game you don't enjoy.)

I hope that was clear.

.
.
.
.
.
Oh, and thanks for the XP!  


RC


----------



## pawsplay

Neonchameleon said:


> I've demonstrated the skills. Our Barbarian does better.




At what, exactly? His Intimidate likely isn't as good (since he probably won't take Skill Focus) and his other skills are only slightly better, and against largely static DCs. I just don't seit.



> Edit: Looking at the D20 Modern SRD, 2d6 is the damage done by a Colt Python, a Glock 20, or a .45.  I'd expect age of sail guns to be somewhat less effective.  But thanks




The lower effectiveness of black powder is somewhat compensated for by the larger mass of musket balls and their tendency to deform in the wound. It could go either way, depending on the weapon.



> He might be what you think a fighter _ought_ to be. But the 3.X design of the fighter screwed up badly and left a lot of ground for the barbarian to take over. Like any sort of burly generalist warrior with a range of skills.




But not feats.



> To me tough guy who scares the crud out of people and fights like a demon in 3.X says Barbarian. Fighters either need highly complex tricks, weapon mastery, heavy armour, or ice water in their veins and an absurd amount of stamina to justify not being barbarians.




Blackbeard is kind of the mack daddy of ice water in the veins. He certainly didn't have lots of opportunities to unleash any sort of "rage," since his blockades were usually successful, his boarding actions were usually successful, and his Intimidate checks were usually successful. I really do not see Barbarian there.



> Where a few = 8 - or twice as long as most fights.




Bosh. One glitterdust and the Barbarian loses every advantage they might have had. (This is not an invitation to question how often glitterdust occurs; consider it a stand-in for any other situation that slows down progress toward the beating down).



> Further than _what?_ Pirates didn't normally use shields. Or did you mean the 2 points of AC lost to raging?




They could use bucklers, but yeah, in any case, they are probably both fighting two-handed and the Barbarian has a -2. That's a pretty low AC place to live.



> Which is largely irrelevant - I have no penalties in ranged combat either compared to you so I don't use rage until melee. If we use a shoot-then-melee strategy, the barbarian shoots while not raging and then draws his cutlass and rages. While not raging the barbarian matches the fighter BAB for BAB and feat for feat. Making the difference between them 10hp, DR1, and improved uncanny dodge. Oh, and fast movement. The Barbarian wins (although not by much, granted - but it's a strict win because if you took away those things it would be a perfect mirror-match).




Feat for feat? Does that mean the Barbarian has Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot? If so, doesn't that make him a "worse" Barbarian?



> Once more you are wrong. The Barbarian has the same weapon proficiencies you do, the same ranged feats you do, and is better at taking fire - he has more hit points and a point of DR. In short at range the Barbarian modelled on your fighter is strictly better than your fighter. He is exactly equal to the fighter at dishing out damage with guns and has both more hp and DR (and exactly the same AC unless you want to put your fighter into heavy armour?).




Does he take ranged combat feats?



> Giving up the five feats I listed, the _only_ time your fighter does anything better than my barbarian with the same stats is if the barbarian is for some reason not raging. Which either means a lot of fights in the day (something pirates seldom had) or a fight that's gone on for eight rounds _after_ the barbarian started raging.




Or wanting to use a skill other than Balance or Intimidate, or obstacles that slow movement and provide cover, etc.



> It's not that the fighters don't suck at some things. It's that as this demonstrates, the barbarian is better than the fighter _at being a fighter_.




That's absurd. Over on the old CharOp board, it was demonstrated time and again that the fighter was usually more effective. The barbarian's advantage is principally that he is a hybrid skill-monkey.


----------



## Fifth Element

Raven Crowking said:


> If you don't like basketball because you keep missing the basket, you're doing it wrong.  You can either try to do it right, or you can try to do something else.



Or, you can change "it" to suit your preferences, depending on what you're talking about.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

Fifth Element said:


> Or, you can change "it" to suit your preferences, depending on what you're talking about.



Did you just suggest making basketball more videogamey?


----------



## Fifth Element

Jeff Wilder said:


> Did you just suggest making basketball more videogamey?



What do you mean by videogamey?


----------



## Raven Crowking

Fifth Element said:


> Or, you can change "it" to suit your preferences, depending on what you're talking about.




Right.  If you can't figure out how it works, but other people can, you are doing it wrong.  If you can figure out how it works, but you just don't like it, you just don't like it.

If you don't like it, and you have a choice, do something else that you do like.

What "IT" is has nothing to do with the general principle!



Jeff Wilder said:


> Did you just suggest making basketball more videogamey?






Fifth Element said:


> What do you mean by videogamey?




Obviously, in this context, videogamey means like a football simulation.

Geez......!


----------



## Fifth Element

Raven Crowking said:


> What "IT" is has nothing to do with the general principle!



Of course it does. Different things have different degrees of malleability in their rules, for instance. People don't "house rule" basketball, as a general rule, when they play it. On the other hand, good luck finding two groups who play D&D using the exact same set of rules and expectations.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Fifth Element said:


> Of course it does. Different things have different degrees of malleability in their rules, for instance. People don't "house rule" basketball, as a general rule, when they play it. On the other hand, good luck finding two groups who play D&D using the exact same set of rules and expectations.




So, if you can't figure out how to make D&D work (any edition), and other people can, you're not doing it wrong?!?!?  

"I'm trying to paint a tree, but I just can't get it to come out the way everyone else in the class does.  Well, instead of trying to better my painting, I'm just going to assume that I'm doing it right, and that something or someone else must be to blame for my failure."

(Shrug.)

Picasso wasn't "wrong" to paint the way he did, because he was getting the results he was after.  Had he been attempting photorealism, and his procedure produced the same results, it would be the wrong procedure.

I really can't see where this is surprising, contentious, or hard to understand.  Perhaps if you carefully explained your objection I might be able to?

EDIT:  If it helps, think of it this way.  You can make Skill Challenges work to achieve effect X; I cannot.  Am I doing it right or am I doing it wrong?  


RC


----------



## NoWayJose

NoWayJose said:


> Just musing here on this "Option C". What if the delineation between rituals and wizard powers was more blurry? What if anyone could theoretically do ritual magic, but wizards were much faster and better at it?
> 
> To put it in simplistic terms, everyone can get some 'magic points' towards casting magic, but wizards just get a lot more 'magic points'.
> 
> So you think of every class as a 'fighter' in terms of being capable in combat. A true fighter focuses exclusively on melee/ranged combat. A rogue is a 'fighter' who learns sneaky attacks. A cleric is a 'fighter' with divine focus. Like Gandalf with a sword, wizards are 'fighters' with an aptitude for magic and/or arcane learning background.
> 
> (For campaigns that aren't combat-oriented, you could swap some combat expertise with more scholarly or professional skills, to emulate a pirate captain or bookish mage).
> 
> Now you take all these different 'fighters', and you layer an optional magic/ritual system on top of that. A true fighter could know a minor combat spell, without having to multi-class. A thief could use a spell scroll. A wizard with arcane knowledge knows lots of better spells, boosted with implements, wands, etc.
> 
> I don't know how that would work out mechanically, but I think it's a more natural fit to the traditional fantasy literature.
> 
> I'm not sure if it makes any sense to anyone, if it's too vague. I'm just imagining gelling together magic and rituals to create a magic system that anyone potentially has access to, so it doesn't feel unfair that only wizards can do it, but it's much more versatile (as a nod to 3E) and wizards don't feel completely incompetent without it (as a nod to 4E).



(deafening silence) OK, then can someone please tell me what's wrong or problematic with this rough concept?


*Choose a profession/background/theme*

A. 'Hero', default theme, you get standard starting hp/healing surges/proficiencies, allows for 'normal' combat difficuly at low levels

Fighter Hero: In your youth, you were trained in standard melee skills
Natural Hero: You had an idyllic ordinary youth, and when thrust into your first adventure, you quickly pick up on the necessary combat skills through luck or destiny

B. for advanced players and less combat-oriented campaigns only, more starting skills, less hp/surges, higher combat difficulty at low levels

Pirate: Know sailng, rope use, map reading, etc.
Scholar: Knowledge skills, reading and writing, parchment and ink for starting equipment, etc.
etc.


*Choose a class and rac*e

(the usual, except includes proficiencies in various forms of magic)


*Gaining a level*

(the usual, except option to discover or learn magic powers., ie minor combat charms, divine prayers, wizard scrolls, etc. as per racial- or class- magical proficiencies)


----------



## Fifth Element

Raven Crowking said:


> I really can't see where this is surprising, contentious, or hard to understand.  Perhaps if you carefully explained your objection I might be able to?



My objection is to someone posting "3E doesn't work for me because of _this_, and therefore to play 3E I would change it to _that _way" and getting the response "You only have that problem because you're not playing 3E right" and "If your DM was any good you wouldn't have that problem."

Which did, in fact, happen earlier in this thread.


----------



## GSHamster

I think a lot of these issues would go away if some of the "leader of men" kit was moved into the next version of the fighter.

Not general Diplomacy, but specifically leadership. I'm not sure how much that would step on the toes of the warlord, but it would give fighters a little more purpose than they have now.

It would also make it more natural to stat up generals or sergeants or other military ranks as fighters, which makes a lot of sense to me.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Fifth Element said:


> My objection is to someone posting "3E doesn't work for me because of _this_, and therefore to play 3E I would change it to _that _way" and getting the response "You only have that problem because you're not playing 3E right" and "If your DM was any good you wouldn't have that problem."
> 
> Which did, in fact, happen earlier in this thread.




But, _*part of*_ that is true as a point of fact.  

IF you wanted to play 3e in a certain way, THEN you wouldn't experience those problems.  BUT, since the IF is invalid, so is the concluding THEN.  BECAUSE you don't want to play D&D "this way", you continue to experience the problem.  You do  not want to play D&D "this way", presumably, because you would then experience another (and, IMHO, more serious) problem:  Playing a game that you are not enjoying, or are enjoying less than a game tailored better to your needs.

Luckily for you, there are several versions of "D&D", one of which might just be right for you!

The objection I would have is to the statement, "If your DM was any good you wouldn't have that problem."  If one said, instead, "If your DM was a good match for the ruleset, you wouldn't have that problem" my objection would vanish.  This is because the second statement is qualified as "good" within a particularly narrow subset of all "goodness".

And, of course, in this case "wrong" would simply be "In a manner that doesn't cater to the strengths of the ruleset or shore up its weaknesses".  You could also define it as "In a manner that exacerbates problems with the ruleset" or "In a manner that produces an inferior, or unfun, result."

As an easy example of this principle in action, I had until recently a very negative view of skill challenges.  My viewpoint was wrong -- I was looking at skill challenges in a manner that exacerbated problems with them and produced an inferior, unfun, result.  But that is not the only possible viewpoint, and I accept that, when another viewpoint produces a superior result to my own, my viewpoint must be wrong.

(I don't think that the official materials I've read incorporate, or point to, anything other than that wrong viewpoint, but I may be wrong in that as well.)

Even after I adopted a better viewpoint of skill challenges, I still think that, for me, the tradeoff in using skill challenges outweighs the benefits of the mechanics.  

What does that tell me?  Along with many other indicators, it tells me that I am wrong for 4e, and that 4e is wrong for me.  If I am wise, it also tells me that I might one day become aware of an even more superior viewpoint, wherein the benefits 4e offers do outweigh the costs.  I may well prove to be *wrong* that 4e is wrong for me!

And there's nothing wrong with that.  Our viewpoints should evolve as our experiences do.....lest we stagnate.

IMHO.  YMMV.


RC


----------



## Jeff Wilder

Fifth Element said:


> My objection is to someone posting "3E doesn't work for me because of _this_, and therefore to play 3E I would change it to _that _way" and getting the response "You only have that problem because you're not playing 3E right" and "If your DM was any good you wouldn't have that problem."
> 
> Which did, in fact, happen earlier in this thread.



It's happening right now in this thread, because it's true.

It's true in basketball if, when you dribble, you use your face, too.  (Which is, AFAIK, not disallowed by the rules.)

If you play a game in a way that is unintended, and you get unsatisfactory results, it's pretty ridiculous to assume the problem is the game.  If you _know_ (or suspect) that you're playing it in an unintended way -- such as if many, many people play the game and just plain don't have the problem you have, for example -- and still assume the problem is the game, your issue goes beyond "pretty ridiculous."


----------



## Neonchameleon

pawsplay said:


> At what, exactly? His Intimidate likely isn't as good (since he probably won't take Skill Focus)




He has Skill Focus because that is apparently what you think Blackbeard wants.  It's not what I'd have picked.  But the Level 9 Barbarian has five fewer feats than the fighter.  I have named those feats.  Blackbeard the Barbarian has _every other feat you gave Blackbeard the Fighter_.  So yes, he has skill focus (Intimidate).



> and his other skills are only slightly better,




But they are all either equal or better.  It's a slight edge, but it's an edge.



> and against largely static DCs. I just don't seit.




You don't see that when person A has a list of things and person B has _precisely that list_ plus a few more, person B is strictly better.



> The lower effectiveness of black powder is somewhat compensated for by the larger mass of musket balls and their tendency to deform in the wound. It could go either way, depending on the weapon.




It could indeed go either way.



> But not feats.




Indeed.  Such a pity you had to give 60% of them up for your version of Blackbeard.  Feats make specialisation.



> Blackbeard is kind of the mack daddy of ice water in the veins. He certainly didn't have lots of opportunities to unleash any sort of "rage," since his blockades were usually successful, his boarding actions were usually successful, and his Intimidate checks were usually successful. I really do not see Barbarian there.




You're saying he didn't fight.  So how do you know how he fought?  And that's not ice water in the veins.  That's just watching with popcorn.  Ice water is required to keep your head when everything is going wrong.



> Bosh. One glitterdust and the Barbarian loses every advantage they might have had.




One glitterdust and the allies had better win the fight.  Both fighter and barbarian are out for the duration of almost all fights.



> They could use bucklers, but yeah, in any case, they are probably both fighting two-handed and the Barbarian has a -2. That's a pretty low AC place to live.




In which case hit points and killing people fast are going to matter more than AC.  The barbarian wins at both.



> Feat for feat? Does that mean the Barbarian has Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot? If so, doesn't that make him a "worse" Barbarian?




Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Skill Focus (Intimidate).  I'm matching your Blackbeard here and having a bit to spare.



> Does he take ranged combat feats?




Yours did so mine did.



> Or wanting to use a skill other than Balance or Intimidate,




Or climb or jump or swim or listen or...



> or obstacles that slow movement and provide cover, etc.




Who said you couldn't use obstacles?  Absolutely nothing in the rules.  You've obviously never seen someone go white with rage.



> That's absurd. Over on the old CharOp board, it was demonstrated time and again that the fighter was usually more effective.




The fighter is more effective at the narrowly defined skill of fighting.  He is good at using weapons.  He is, as I said, the highly dedicated specialist who eats with his sword, sleeps with his sword, and does everything else with it too.  Or his spiked chain.



> The barbarian's advantage is principally that he is a hybrid skill-monkey.




And that is needed for almost all the roles you think the fighter should cover.  When you spent three feats on skills it should have been a big clue that you wanted a hybrid skill monkey rather than a straight fighter.  You are quite literally giving up 60% of your fighter class features (i.e. three out of five feats*) in an attempt to make him a hybrid skill monkey so he can be Blackbeard.  This should tell you that going for the hybrid skill monkey class would be the better play.  Which is why my Blackbeard can be better than yours at just about everything - melee, ranged combat, skills, hit points.  And I'm not even trying.  You're using the wrong class.

* Skill Focus (Intimidate) is specialising rather than shoring up weaknesses so it doesn't count as being given up.


----------



## I'm A Banana

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> You know, I would truly like to accept that as a "normal man" standard, except, under that paradigm, the average person lacks the skills to actually do their job. Especially as the game evolved, and the "Wahoo!" element got out of control.




How do you figure? The DC's for basic things presented in the PHB didn't magically shoot up later in 3e's life. Climbing a rough wall or earning a wage as a sailor are still the same DC as they were on Day 1. 



> Also, I think that 3e started the problem of "The guards in the town scale based on the level of the PCs; here's some guidelines" that, for my tastes, 4e is mired in. This also makes it difficult to accept the 3e DMG demographics as being accurate.




That problem was introduced in 4e, as far as I can tell. 3e gives you some pretty explicit demographic instructions, a very clear baseline, an obvious role for a "normal person" in the world. 4e has this whole "everything is party appropriate always!" balance concept. 



> If the world scales in the way the 3e DMG suggests, then Pawsplay's Blackbeard suddenly becomes a great pirate captain. He is clearly well above the average man bar. But that bar seems to shift, doesn't it, so that suddenly we hear that Blackbeard is simply not good enough to hold his own.




Does it? I think he's a pretty great pirate captain. I think any creature that has made it to 9th level in 3e would be a pretty great _anything_, simply because such characters are already rare in the extreme. 

Being a "great pirate captain" (the fantasy hero archetype) is relative to what a "normal pirate captain" looks like, and a "normal pirate captain" in 3e is pretty explicitly a 3rd level NPC classed sailor of some fashion, so that any player who cares to be can be a "great pirate captain" without fitting one particular class or ability score spread.



> The 3e demographics are not compatable with the 3e "This is what you are expected to encounter at your level". Something has to give. That's what comes of saying, "This is an average guy", then not assuming that this average remains viable throughout game play.




Well, they are, in that you aren't expected to encounter normal pirate captains (except at low level). You're expected to encounter Krakens and Sea Monsters and Water Elementals and demons and undead and various other monsters.

You can also encounter other NPC pirate captains -- the basic demographics imply that they could certainly exist. Just that they are very rare. A 20th level pirate captain is one of only a handful of 20th level characters in the world. As you get lower levels, you get slightly more NPC pirate captains for you to encounter. By the time you're 20th level, though, you're not just killing Blackbeard, you're battling a mythical Pirate King, the greatest Pirate that has ever lived, perhaps a Githyanki Astral Pirate, or a half-fiend captain aboard a skiff that sails the River Styx and waylays Balors to demand tribute. Unique -- and very powerful -- individuals. 

The default assumptions seem to be, "If you want to fight pirates, they're good low-level enemies, and if you want to be a good pirate, you can do this without a lot of effort, and if you want to make a piratical theme for your entire campaign, you're going to need to fight awesome, epic, supernatural, wahoo, gonzo-style pirates when you gain that level of power, too, because some dude on a boat with his cannons isn't going to be able to hurt your epic level badass, since you are beyond the impossible when you reach that level."

3e doesn't serve the purposes of battling Blackbeard for 20 levels all that well (E6 does this in spades, though!). It gives you a clear baseline for "normal folks," and then rockets you past that baseline from the very moment you roll 4d6-and-drop for ability scores, since 3e is concerned with heroic fantasy, which means your protagonist is better than a militia member.


----------



## Votan

Raven Crowking said:


> "Relative to a normal person" is, I agree, an issue.  The lack of a clear "normal man" standard in 3e makes it difficult to determine exactly how many ranks are normal, are better than average, are good, represent a field expert, and exceed a field expert.
> 
> One should not have to be hyper-competent to be competent.
> 
> (My system allows you to choose where you advance your skills, your saves, and weapon skills -- effectively controlling your BAB.  It works in part because of a clear "normal man" standard.)
> 
> 
> RC




Yeah, normal is odd in a CR scaling game.  One of the interesting things about early D&D was how 3rd level characters could run into a 10 HD vampire on the first level of the dungeon or how an 8th level mage could find herself battling kobolds.  This type of power mismatch is less common in 3E and 4E (although it can be done: the Alexandrian web page has a nice discussion of alternate ways to balance 3E than a series of level appropriate encounters).   

The RC system sounds like one of the logical evolutions of the more free form 3E system.  Is it still in beta?


----------



## pawsplay

Neonchameleon said:


> He has Skill Focus because that is apparently what you think Blackbeard wants.  It's not what I'd have picked.  But the Level 9 Barbarian has five fewer feats than the fighter.  I have named those feats.  Blackbeard the Barbarian has _every other feat you gave Blackbeard the Fighter_.  So yes, he has skill focus (Intimidate).




So basically, you have a guy who trades +1 to hit and some extra hit points, for -2 AC and the inability to use most skills. Unless the combat runs long, in which case you also lose the hit points and fall behind in to-hit and damage, plus a further penalty for fatigue. Your Blackbeard sucks. Further, as you have re-iterated several times, I didn't even bother to diversity with combat feats, but instead chose to shore up some skill bonuses because I preferred to do so for conceptual reasons. Your Blackbeard can't even beat my Blackbeard, who is not even built competitively against yours. 

Unless you choose to actually replace several of Blackbeard's feats with greatsword-centric choices, your Barbarian is generally inferior, and if you choose to do so, you give ground in either ranged combat or skills. And it is because Barbarian is not the best choice for a well-rounded pirate. Even with 3e's serious issues with skills distribution for Fighters. Blackbeard only cares about maxing out one skill: Intimidate. The only other skills he really cares about are Profession (Sailor) and Survival, and only up to the point of being able to beat DCs of 10-15, plus a few ranks here and there to outshine the rubes and to be trained. 

If skills were really where it's at, his first level should definitely be Rogue. That would definitely help Fighter Blackbeard more than Barbarian Blackbeard, but I still choose not to do it, because the loss in skills is trivial. I'd rather spend a couple of feats shoring up low skill ratings than give up full BAB or having to base my combat effectiveness around rage. 

Now, if we want to compare greatsword-wielding Power Attackers, the Barbarian becomes competitive, but that is entirely another issue.

Blackbeard = Fighter. And no, I did not claim he never fought at all, just that he wasn't in the habit of throwing himself bloodily into melees with little regard for his own safety.


----------



## pemerton

Raven Crowking said:


> You know, I would truly like to accept that as a "normal man" standard, except, under that paradigm, the average person lacks the skills to actually do their job.  Especially as the game evolved, and the "Wahoo!" element got out of control.
> 
> Also, I think that 3e started the problem of "The guards in the town scale based on the level of the PCs; here's some guidelines" that, for my tastes, 4e is mired in.  This also makes it difficult to accept the 3e DMG demographics as being accurate.
> 
> If the world scales in the way the 3e DMG suggests, then Pawsplay's Blackbeard suddenly becomes a great pirate captain.  He is clearly well above the average man bar.  But that bar seems to shift, doesn't it, so that suddenly we hear that Blackbeard is simply not good enough to hold his own.
> 
> The 3e demographics are not compatable with the 3e "This is what you are expected to encounter at your level".  Something has to give.  That's what comes of saying, "This is an average guy", then not assuming that this average remains viable throughout game play.



This is exactly the sort of thing I had in mind when I said that 3E, in its encounter-building guidelines, suffers from a failure of integration between the combat and non-combat/skill-based components.



Raven Crowking said:


> My system allows you to choose where you advance your skills, your saves, and weapon skills -- effectively controlling your BAB.



In this respect, then, your system resembles Rolemaster or HERO. Which, as I noted in my earlier post upthread, don't suffer from the same problem as 3E in their relationship between combat and non-combat. (Which is not to say that they're perfect. At least in my experience, this sort of system tends to put a lot of pressure on the GM when it comes to challenge/encounter design, because the variation in skill bonuses/attack bonuses/etc across the party can be very varied.)


----------



## pawsplay

pemerton said:


> This is exactly the sort of thing I had in mind when I said that 3E, in its encounter-building guidelines, suffers from a failure of integration between the combat and non-combat/skill-based components.
> 
> In this respect, then, your system resembles Rolemaster or HERO. Which, as I noted in my earlier post upthread, don't suffer from the same problem as 3E in their relationship between combat and non-combat. (Which is not to say that they're perfect. At least in my experience, this sort of system tends to put a lot of pressure on the GM when it comes to challenge/encounter design, because the variation in skill bonuses/attack bonuses/etc across the party can be very varied.)




BESM d20 and SAS d20 are examples of other d20 games that skillify combat abilities.


----------



## pemerton

NoWayJose said:


> I'm still perplexed by this. Some people are faulting 3E for not giving fighters the skill points they need to be as good a pirate as the player _imagines_ the PC _should_ be.
> 
> I have a parallel problem. I fault 4E for not giving wizards the powers they need to be as versatile a spellcaster as I _imagine_ the PC _should_ be.
> 
> Whether or not it's true that fighters can be optimal pirate PCs is an *unintentional* side-effect or artifact of 3E mechanics, and (as I've argued above) is largely irrelevant to most D&D adventures.
> 
> Conversely, the 4E wizard rebalanced to be nothing more than a push-and-pull combat controller is an *intentional* product of the 4E paradigm, and the consequences are far more extensive.



Well, in my view the changes to the 4e wizard (which are, as you say, intentional) are part of an attempt - successful or not, desirable or not - to achieve mechanical balance in respect of one part of the character build and action resolution mechanics. It's an integral part of the game.

On the other hand, the inability of a 3E fighter to be built to fill the same variety of roles that an AD&D fighter could fill seems to be an unintended (perhaps noticed but disregarded) consequence of the 3E skill rules. Which the latest iteration of 3E, namely Pathfinder, has (as far as I understand it) corrected. Rather than an integral part of the game, the current flagbearers for 3E themselves seem to have regarded it as a mistake - an unintended consequence of the skill rules - which they have since rectified. Whereas, if you formed the view that the design of 4e wizards was a mistake, then you'd probably have no reason even to consider playing 4e.

So I don't see the two cases as symmetrical. To dislike 4e wizards is to dislike 4e per se. To dislike 3E fighter skill options is to call for just the sorts of reforms that Paizo seem to have implemented.


----------



## pemerton

Jeff Wilder said:


> If you play a game in a way that is unintended, and you get unsatisfactory results, it's pretty ridiculous to assume the problem is the game.



The point is - in what way is playing 3E as a teleport/ropetrick/find-the-path/contact-other-plane/knock-on-scrolls/etc game playing as not intended?

If it was intended for the wizard to use these various options, why were they included?

One suggested answer to that question that I recall seeing on this thread is that the wizard has knock for when there is no rogue in the party - but this then gives rise to a different question, namely, why is it always the wizard who steps into the empty role?


----------



## Neonchameleon

pawsplay said:


> So basically, you have a guy who trades +1 to hit and some extra hit points, for -2 AC




Where some extra hit points = 28 - or more than a third of your 81.  My guy is tougher.  And has DR.  And Uncanny dodge.



> and the inability to use most skills.




And let's have a look at the restriction raging imposes, shall we?

While raging, a barbarian cannot use any Charisma-, Dexterity-, or Intelligence-based skills (except for Balance, Escape Artist, Intimidate, and Ride)​The skills you have for your Blackbeard are:
Skils: Appraise +2, Balance +3, Climb +4, Diplomacy +4, Intimidate +16,  Knowledge (Geography) +2, Listen +3, Profession (Sailor) +5, Sense  Motive +3, Spot +3, Survival +4, Swim +4

Off the top of my head the only three skills you can't use from that list while raging are Appraise +2, Diplomacy +4, and Knowledge (geography) +2

"Inability to use most skills."  Right.  Appraising, combat diplomacy (as opposed to combat intimidate), and knowledge (geography).  Some restriction given you are fighting for your life.



> Further, as you have re-iterated several times, I didn't even bother to diversity with combat feats, but instead chose to shore up some skill bonuses because I preferred to do so for conceptual reasons.




And I didn't take good feats.  I took feats to match your conceptual build.  You don't have any advantage here.



> Your Blackbeard can't even beat my Blackbeard, who is not even built competitively against yours.




My Blackbeard is built as a knock-off of yours.  Same concept - just better implemented.

Toughness?  Mine can almost take those 120hp damage - and has DR.  Yours isn't close.  Skills?  Mine beats yours.  Ranged combat?  Mine beats yours.  Melee?  Apparently you think 33% of your hit points are worth 2 points of AC.  Right.  And an edge case iof combat more than eight rounds after the melee starts is worth a lot.



> Unless you choose to actually replace several of Blackbeard's feats with greatsword-centric choices, your Barbarian is generally inferior,




At what?  He's better with skills.  He's better with ranged combat.  He's better in melee combat that doesn't go beyond 8 rounds.  And he's a _lot_ tougher.  



> Blackbeard = Fighter. And no, I did not claim he never fought at all, just that he wasn't in the habit of throwing himself bloodily into melees with little regard for his own safety.




And barbarians don't have to be.  They can wait until the critical moment then hit as hard and brutally as possible to turn the tide.

Anyway, this serves no further purpose.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Votan said:


> Yeah, normal is odd in a CR scaling game.




Yeah. 

I agree that KM is correct about what the core books say, but in actual play and in actual product?  Well, IME and IMHO, the ramifications of the 3e CR system lead directly into what we see in 4e.



> The RC system sounds like one of the logical evolutions of the more free form 3E system.  Is it still in beta?




I am working on the finalized pdf!


RC


----------



## pawsplay

Neonchameleon said:


> Where some extra hit points = 28 - or more than a third of your 81.  My guy is tougher.  And has DR.  And Uncanny dodge.




Those are definitely nice things. Barbarians do have their advantages.



> And let's have a look at the restriction raging imposes, shall we?
> 
> Off the top of my head the only three skills you can't use from that list while raging are Appraise +2, Diplomacy +4, and Knowledge (geography) +2
> 
> "Inability to use most skills."  Right.  Appraising, combat diplomacy (as opposed to combat intimidate), and knowledge (geography).  Some restriction given you are fighting for your life.




You ommitted uses of untrained skills. Your Blackbeard has to stop raging simply to attempt a Bluff, to Search for something, to tie a rope around himself, or to attempt any Knowledge check whatsoever.



> Toughness?  Mine can almost take those 120hp damage - and has DR.  Yours isn't close.  Skills?  Mine beats yours.  Ranged combat?  Mine beats yours.  Melee?  Apparently you think 33% of your hit points are worth 2 points of AC.  Right.




It probably is. If my opponent needs a 17 or higher to hit me, it's literally true, without taking into account all the reasons you wouldn't want to be hit at all.



> And an edge case iof combat more than eight rounds after the melee starts is worth a lot.




Pfft. Edge case? I've seen a barbarian's rage expire many times. And in fact, in my 1st to 20th level game, the only full BAB character who ever died was a Barbarian. 



> At what?  He's better with skills.  He's better with ranged combat.  He's better in melee combat that doesn't go beyond 8 rounds.  And he's a _lot_ tougher.




He's not tougher at all if the melee combat runs more than 8 rounds. He's only marginally better in melee for those 8 rounds, and if he wants to do something other than attack during those 8 rounds, may find his choices limited. I don't see how's better at ranged combat, unless "the same to-hit, with a lower AC and inconsequentially higher hit points which will not be all that high when a ranged combat WILL run eight rounds or longer in most cases," is better. 



> And barbarians don't have to be.  They can wait until the critical moment then hit as hard and brutally as possible to turn the tide.




And hopefully their opponents will adopt exactly the same tactics, despite not being barbarians, and not use defensive tactics, withdraw, or focus on ranged attacks. 



> Anyway, this serves no further purpose.




It does to me. Obviously, it isn't serving much of a purpose to you since each level of argument is explosing more weaknesses in your argument. 

Your Barbarian is a slightly better shock trooper, but as a generalist, well, Fighter, he just doesn't stack up, and he won't. The only things really in his favor are a few skill points, DR, and Survival as a class skill. Rage is over-rated; this is not hard to conceive, and in actual play, is very easy to discern.

Because of the peculiarities of the skill system, your Barbarian does slightly better at certain skill checks, but being amazing at those skill checks is not Blackbeard's archtype, nor is your barbarian more competent at those skills to a great degree anyway. Implicitly, you seem to believe Barbarians are simply better at fighting; I am not sure why you believe that to be the case. Rage offers substantial bonuses, but it is a specialized and limited approach to combat.


----------



## pawsplay

Raven Crowking said:


> Yeah.
> 
> I agree that KM is correct about what the core books say, but in actual play and in actual product?  Well, IME and IMHO, the ramifications of the 3e CR system lead directly into what we see in 4e.




I went "old school" with regard to CR. I definitely used LESS really weak opponents later in the game, but I maintained a mix of CRs for the sake of verisimilitude. Where 4e implemented minions, I simply used monsters as written that were outgunned.


----------



## LostSoul

Raven Crowking said:


> I am working on the finalized pdf!




Congrats, by the way.  It's a lot harder to finalize your game than I had realized!

If there's ever some kind of game day in Toronto, I'd love to play.


----------



## Votan

pawsplay said:


> Because of the peculiarities of the skill system, your Barbarian does slightly better at certain skill checks, but being amazing at those skill checks is not Blackbeard's archtype, nor is your barbarian more competent at those skills to a great degree anyway. Implicitly, you seem to believe Barbarians are simply better at fighting; I am not sure why you believe that to be the case. Rage offers substantial bonuses, but it is a specialized and limited approach to combat.




I admit that I prefer to think of what I am sure that the 3.5E fighter does well: Achilles.  A classic, by the book, fighter.  His protection can be modeled in a number of ways but I remember one book that made it plate mail (that he was actually strong enough to wear).  Add in feats like combat expertise and he'd be a really, really tough foe.  No difficult profession or social skills beyond that of a normal Greek citizen.  Just ice cold blood, high AC and incredible fighting skills.  

Blackbeard feels harder to model with the 3.5E fighter, and part of it depends on what material is available as well.  With the Able Learner feat (he is human and fighters clearly do not lack feats) the cross class skills matter less; so it really is tough.  But a single level of rogue or ranger can do amazing things to the build (and favored enemy:human or favored enviroment: High Seas would be flavorful options, depending on the ruleset).  

But I find King Arthur to be a better example of a tough case (unless you make him a Paladin with a low wisdom score so he can't cast spells, which is my preferred interpretation).


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Or use the spell-less paladin variant.

Of course, if you look at _Deities & Demigods_ from 1Ed, he was a Paladin- and dual classed into other stuff, as I recall.


----------



## I'm A Banana

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> I agree that KM is correct about what the core books say, but in actual play and in actual product? Well, IME and IMHO, the ramifications of the 3e CR system lead directly into what we see in 4e.




I dunno. It seems more like early 4e's baby-with-the-bathwater approach to trying to save the DM time in this case to me. The idea is that a "normal person" doesn't provide any challenge for a "heroic" PC, so they don't need stats, they don't need rules, and they can exist as pure story entities, and providing anything more than story for them is the worst kind of raw fanwank that produces nothing of use for actual play, but plenty of message board narm moments from the obsessive simulationists out there. 

I think this approach neglects the fact that part and parcel of the fun of gaining levels and increasing in power is that you can compare what you're capable of at low levels and high levels, and you can compare what you're capable of to what people who aren't heroes are capable of. That change in feel over time, the fact that what was once dangerous is now a cakewalk, the fact that no mere town guard could kill that goblin king -- that's an important sensation for the power fantasy of RPG game play. Your characters don't exist in a vacuum, and they *can't*, if their deeds are to have any meaning beyond the gameplay of rolling dice and doing math. Otherwise it feels empty and vapid in the extreme. 

FWIW, 4e has softened in many respects (there's no first level gods, and town guards peter out at about 10th level), but they still really do struggle with the implications of this design choice, such as in their inability to do epic level as anything other than "more of the same, now with bigger numbers!"

I'm not sure it's a CR-system-style problem (that's just a way of ranking enemies -- XP totals did the same thing) as much as it is a problem with tearing the sim out of D&D by its roots in an effort to save DMs pointless work, and finding a problem where there was supposed to be a solution.


----------



## pawsplay

Raven Crowking said:


> I am working on the finalized pdf!
> 
> RC




Hah-tcha!


----------



## pawsplay

Votan said:


> Blackbeard feels harder to model with the 3.5E fighter, and part of it depends on what material is available as well.  With the Able Learner feat (he is human and fighters clearly do not lack feats) the cross class skills matter less; so it really is tough.  But a single level of rogue or ranger can do amazing things to the build (and favored enemy:human or favored enviroment: High Seas would be flavorful options, depending on the ruleset).




Hard to do, yeah, kinda. But I choose to complain about the skill system in this case, which is easily remedied, rather than insisting he belongs to some other archetype. Since he does, you know, steal stuff, I might accept a level of Rogue, but only under duress; he doesn't really do any of the things people normally use Rogue for, apart from having lots of skill points. Hence I prefer to just burn a couple of feats. Ranger... that's so meta. He's not a Ranger. Favored Enemy (humans) is sort of cute, but Track is not.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

pemerton said:


> The point is - in what way is playing 3E as a teleport/ropetrick/find-the-path/contact-other-plane/knock-on-scrolls/etc game playing as not intended?



In what way is playing basketball by dribbling with your face playing as not intended?

Cast your mind out on the cushiony soles of some Nikes* and imagine actually playing basketball by dribbling with your face?  Are you there?

(You are?  Seriously?  Damn ... )

Okay, in your imagination, is there any hint at all, as you face-dribble, that you're not playing as intended?

What is it that gives it away?

(* Nikes were hip and cool when I played basketball in high school and college.  It's probably some other brand now.  Don't let my fashion-ossification interfere.)

Look, _knock_ alone cannot possibly "break" the wizard.  Nor can _scry_ or _teleport_ or _glitterdust_ or any number of -- yes, I can admit it, and have done so explicitly and implicity (by moving to PFRPG) -- problematic spells.  Seriously, if your GM can't handle, say, the use of _glitterdust_ once a combat, your GM _sucks_.

To break the wizard you have to have:

(a) A player willing to scour the game for many or all of the "best" spells.
(b) A player willing to use many of those spells with abusive frequency and in abusive combination.
(c) Other players willing to allow the douchebag player to deliberately ruin their fun.
(d) A GM willing to allow the douchebag player to deliberately ruin the game.

We have _never_, in 11 years of playing 3E, had a group that combined (a) through (d).  I'm pretty sure we've never had more than two of those factors in combination.

People that experience this problem have all four factors in combination.

_That's not a problem with the system._  That is a problem with douchebag players and/or a milquetoast GM.  It's really that simple.


----------



## TwoSix

Jeff Wilder said:


> In what way is playing basketball by dribbling with your face playing as not intended?
> 
> Cast your mind out on the cushiony soles of some Nikes* and imagine actually playing basketball by dribbling with your face?  Are you there?
> 
> (You are?  Seriously?  Damn ... )
> 
> Okay, in your imagination, is there any hint at all, as you face-dribble, that you're not playing as intended?
> 
> What is it that gives it away?




The broken nose, probably.  

To extend the metaphor, I see 3e sort of like normal basketball, except that that 2' out from the 3-point line, there's a 20-point line.  But most people keep on playing with Dwight Howard and Pau Gasol, not realizing that a Ray Allen type shooting guard is all you need to win the game.  

Or to keep with the fantasy literature theme, 3e is like Quidditch.  Sure, there are Chasers and Beaters and Keepers, but their only role is to keep busy and have fun until the Seeker wins the game, barring extremely contrived scenarios like Bulgaria-Ireland in the Quidditch World Cup.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

TwoSix said:


> To extend the metaphor, I see 3e sort of like normal basketball, except that that 2' out from the 3-point line, there's a 20-point line.  But most people keep on playing with Dwight Howard and Pau Gasol, not realizing that a Ray Allen type shooting guard is all you need to win the game.



Cool.

Hey, just out of curiosity, how exactly _does_ one "win" at D&D?

See, I was talking about _playing the game_ as intended, and then all of the sudden you're talking about _winning_ the game.  And, well, that seems to be a common factor in the "teh wizzard is b0rken" crowd.  And, well, I don't think it's a coincidence.


----------



## MrMyth

Jeff Wilder said:


> Cool.
> 
> Hey, just out of curiosity, how exactly _does_ one "win" at D&D?
> 
> See, I was talking about _playing the game_ as intended, and then all of the sudden you're talking about _winning_ the game. And, well, that seems to be a common factor in the "teh wizzard is b0rken" crowd. And, well, I don't think it's a coincidence.




Oh, come on now. _You _pushed heavily forward with the basketball metaphor, basketball being a competition that involves trying to win the game. And when he gives in and tries to respond via that metaphor, you use that as an excuse to cast his argument about trying to "win" D&D?

Seriously, poor form, man, poor form. 

It has come up many times in this thread, but no matter how many times you put the idea forward, that doesn't make it true - it is entirely possible to run into these issues of some characters being more capable than others _without _that being the result of some players being out to 'win' the game or being inherently power-gamers or whatever other form of play you think is the 'wrong' way to play D&D.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

MrMyth said:


> Oh, come on now. _You _pushed heavily forward with the basketball metaphor, basketball being a competition that involves trying to win the game. And when he gives in and tries to respond via that metaphor, you use that as an excuse to cast his argument about trying to "win" D&D?



That's exactly the point.  Within the bounds of the "basketball as game" analogy, there was no mention of _winning_ the game.  The entire analogy was on _playing_ the game.

At which point he brought up _winning_ the game.  Are you saying that his analogy was no longer to D&D somehow?



> It has come up many times in this thread, but no matter how many times you put the idea forward, that doesn't make it true



No, me putting something forward doesn't make it true.  I _observe_ truisms, I don't create them.



> it is entirely possible to run into these issues of some characters being more capable than others _without _that being the result of some players being out to 'win' the game or being inherently power-gamers or whatever other form of play you think is the 'wrong' way to play D&D.



Sure.  Once.  Anybody can be a douchebag accidentally, and (as far as I'm concerned) everyboody gets at least one pass.  But to continue to play in the way that turns out to be no fun, at some point it stops being accidental and starts being deliberate (or, at the most charitable, willfully ignorant).

Are you saying that the complainers in this thread are complaining based on _one instance_ of accidental douchebaggery?  Maybe so (anything's possible), but if so, they've got a whole other set of problems.


----------



## TwoSix

Jeff Wilder said:


> Cool.
> 
> Hey, just out of curiosity, how exactly _does_ one "win" at D&D?




Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women?

As to the rest, I think we hashed that over last week re: the desire to challenge oneself and the system while playing.  So I'm not going to re-hash, especially since I don't have a prescription for it.

Meanwhile, everyone keep doing pick-and-rolls and dunking.  It IS fun, after all.  Doesn't make me stop wondering why they keep painting the 20-point line on the court.  Is ignoring the line adding to your game, or is it just too much work to move to another court that doesn't have one?


----------



## Jeff Wilder

TwoSix said:


> Meanwhile, everyone keep doing pick-and-rolls and dunking.  It IS fun, after all.  Doesn't make me stop wondering why they keep painting the 20-point line on the court.  Is ignoring the line adding to your game, or is it just too much work to move to another court that doesn't have one?



I'm pretty sure the line is painted in ink that is only visible to Bill Laimbeer-ish players, so we don't even _see_ it.  (So why would we give up a perfectly nice court?)


Jeff

P.S.  "Jesus goes for the lay-up ... oh, he's fouled _hard_ by Laimb -- oh, my God, Bill Laimbeer has just been turned into a pillar of salt!"


----------



## MrMyth

Jeff Wilder said:


> That's exactly the point. Within the bounds of the "basketball as game" analogy, there was no mention of _winning_ the game. The entire analogy was on _playing_ the game.




Except that, in Basketball, playing the game is pretty thoroughly tied to the competitive element, as it is not in D&D. He wasn't bringing in winning because of its relevance to D&D, but because of its relevance to _basketball_. 



Jeff Wilder said:


> Sure. Once. Anybody can be a douchebag accidentally, and (as far as I'm concerned) everybody gets at least one pass. But to continue to play in the way that turns out to be no fun, at some point it stops being accidental and starts being deliberate (or, at the most charitable, willfully ignorant).
> 
> Are you saying that the complainers in this thread are complaining based on _one instance_ of accidental douchebaggery? Maybe so (anything's possible), but if so, they've got a whole other set of problems.




Well, I've certainly seen single instances ruin an entire session or one-shot. But the point is two-fold: for one thing, what happens when you keep running into different spells that cause problems in different ways? The same sort of disruption can keep cropping up, even without setting out to do so. 

But, secondly... you run into a lose-lose situation. 

Either you play the wizard with the full capability you want it to have, and that the game gives you - at which point you sideline other party members and are, apparently, a 'douchebag'.

Or you avoid any and all useful utility spells or over-effective combat spells, at which point your own enjoyment is severely hindered - since playing the game the way "it is supposed to be played" apparently involves knowing which spells are balanced and which ones are not, and throwing out everything that doesn't play well with others. Which, honestly, should be the job of the designers, not the players.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

MrMyth said:


> But, secondly... you run into a lose-lose situation.



Well, no ... maybe _you_ do.  Many, many, _many_ of us do not.

For some reason, you feel that of three alternatives -- (a) stop playing the way you play, (b) find a game that suits you better, or (c) force the rest of us to accept (or just acknowledge some need for) a change _we don't need_ -- you guys go for (c).

Again, this isn't a coincidence.


----------



## TwoSix

Jeff Wilder said:


> I'm pretty sure the line is painted in ink that is only visible to Bill Laimbeer-ish players, so we don't even _see_ it.  (So why would we give up a perfectly nice court?)
> 
> 
> Jeff
> 
> P.S.  "Jesus goes for the lay-up ... oh, he's fouled _hard_ by Laimb -- oh, my God, Bill Laimbeer has just been turned into a pillar of salt!"




Bill Laimbeer?  Dude, how old ARE you?   

I guess that's the difference.  That line is neon-green for me every time I make a wizard's spellbook, or have to pick my cleric's spells for the day.  I can resist the urge, sure.  But it's doubly hard because I know I can trivialize the encounter, and that most of the other players won't even notice. ("Wow, the warmage did like 12d6+12 damage!")


----------



## Stormonu

MrMyth said:


> Or you avoid any and all useful utility spells or over-effective combat spells, at which point your own enjoyment is severely hindered - since playing the game the way "it is supposed to be played" apparently involves knowing which spells are balanced and which ones are not, and throwing out everything that doesn't play well with others. Which, honestly, should be the job of the designers, not the players.




No, the players have as much, if not more resposibility than the designers.  Why are we relying on the designers to make rules against face-dribbling when players should have perfect sense not to do so themselves?

Back on the knock example; this isn't only the tool of the wizard.  The rogue can pick the lock, the fighter can bash the door in.  The problem comes in the fact it takes the fighter or the rogue a minute or two to do so.  The wizard does it in a matter of seconds, and without a check of some sort.  Supposably, this was balanced by the fact the wizard would only be doing this maybe once an adventure, whereas the fighter or rogue could employ their door-opening skill at any time.   

Somewhere along the way though, people started arguing the wizard was broken because he could things like this any and every time it came up, often forgetting that D&D isn't played as one encounter per day and the wizard whose blown his all his spell allotment on these kind of things is going to get eaten by the grue on the other side of the door.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

TwoSix said:


> Bill Laimbeer?  Dude, how old ARE you?



I deserved that.  I really did.  (Old enough to root against Bill Laimbeer.)

And, BTW, I really do understand.  As an anal-retentive, very mildly OCD guy, I have real -- as far as I'm concerned -- issues with the utter stupidity -- as far as I'm concerned -- of 4E's diagonal movement, for instance.  I spent a lot of time here, and elsewhere, trying to get people to see how very, very _wrong_ it is, and when they'd shrug (or worse, talk about how great it was in its simplicity), I'd grit my teeth and try again, because surely if _I_ have a problem with it, it's a real problem with the system.

But eventually I figured out two things: (1) Maybe it's not a problem with the system; maybe it's a problem with me, (2) Even if it _is_ a problem with the system, I just plain don't have to play that system.  And if I don't have to play that system, not only do I no longer have the "problem," but I no longer "need" to evangelize about the "problem."

Well, except for now.  (Excuse me while I make a call to my sponsor.)

BTW, if "the other players don't notice," assuming this includes the GM, then why resist the urge?  If everybody's having fun, what exactly is the problem?


----------



## TwoSix

Jeff Wilder said:


> Well, no ... maybe _you_ do.  Many, many, _many_ of us do not.
> 
> For some reason, you feel that of three alternatives -- (a) stop playing the way you play, (b) find a game that suits you better, or (c) force the rest of us to accept (or just acknowledge some need for) a change _we don't need_ -- you guys go for (c).
> 
> Again, this isn't a coincidence.




Already did b), it's called 4e.  Or alternatively, a heavily houseruled 3.5.  (Getting rid of all the Tier 1 and Tier 2 classes, as a start.)  

Also not trying to force you to change.  If you're happy, that's fantastic.  I just want to understand why the archetype of the do-everything spellcaster is necessary _for you_ to enjoy a fantasy game.  Would a D&D 3e where the wizard spell list is replaced with the bard spell list dilute your enjoyment?  If so, why?


----------



## Neonchameleon

Jeff Wilder said:


> Cool.
> 
> Hey, just out of curiosity, how exactly _does_ one "win" at D&D?




In character?  Complete the quests, make a shedload of money, rescue the princess (or prince), and/or save the world without either themselves or their allies dying.  Out of character is a different matter and the answer is everyone having fun.



> See, I was talking about _playing the game_ as intended, and then all of the sudden you're talking about _winning_ the game. And, well, that seems to be a common factor in the "teh wizzard is b0rken" crowd. And, well, I don't think it's a coincidence.




And this is where you have been completely missing my points to you throughout the thread.  *I believe I am playing the game as intended if and only if my character is playing to win.**

And the wizard is the biggest problem here because the wizard chooses his/her spells and gets to research them _in character_.  Which mean that with the exceptions of their basic stats, _wizards get to optimise themselves._  And almost invariably have a high Int to work out what the right optimisation choices are.

* And the whole history of D&D that differentiates it from other tabletop RPGs involves playing to win, a transposed wargame, and tournament play.  But that's a side issue.


----------



## Nemesis Destiny

Stormonu said:


> No, the players have as much, if not more resposibility than the designers.  Why are we relying on the designers to make rules against face-dribbling when players should have perfect sense not to do so themselves?



This is where your example becomes really obviously counter-intuitive. Face dribbling is *obviously* harmful to the player and, not advantageous in any way to the team.

Playing a spellcaster like, as some like to say, a _douche_, is *not* harmful to the player, and is, in fact, quite advantageous to the team, or at least their goals in-game, if not their fun as players.

Which spells cause this is not always obvious, certainly not as obvious as face-dribbling.

Why _shouldn't_ it be a design issue? Why put something there if using it makes you a douchey player or a failure of a DM? If you want to houserule all over the place, fine, but why is someone getting paid to design stuff that's overpowered and broken (read: abusable)? I know a lot of that stuff is legacy, back from the days when spellcasters had actual balance baked right in.



> Somewhere along the way though, people started arguing the wizard was broken because he could things like this any and every time it came up, often forgetting that D&D isn't played as one encounter per day and the wizard whose blown his all his spell allotment on these kind of things is going to get eaten by the grue on the other side of the door.



That wasn't the issue. Spellcasters in games where this was problematic didn't waste precious spell slots on this stuff. They used wands and scrolls - cheap and plentiful, no slots required.

This thread has already discussed why allowing such things in the first place is a bad idea, and I agree fully. However, all that potential is in the game to be used, and many, many, _many_ groups use it. Quite a few games are _all in_, and there is nothing in any of the books to suggest that isn't the way the game was meant to be played. After all, why would a game company write books and then tell you not to use them? That makes no marketing sense.

So you're left to figure it out on your own. Fair enough, I guess. Having a good DM and a social contract not to play like a douche doesn't mean that there isn't a problem with the system, it means that you've found the problem and actively avoid it. It's still a solution, and if it works for you, a good one, but that doesn't change the nature of what it is.

Don't get me wrong; I'm all about the social contract and not being an asshat at the game table. Not everyone is, and sometimes it can't be helped, as I've argued before. Insisting that the problem is _entirely_ with the players is dodging the issue.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

TwoSix said:


> Already did b), it's called 4e.  Or alternatively, a heavily houseruled 3.5.  (Getting rid of all the Tier 1 and Tier 2 classes, as a start.)



See, I don't even know what classes are "Tier 1 and Tier 2," although I suppose at this point I can guess at a few pretty accurately.



> Also not trying to force you to change.



Well, no, you're not.  I'm not even sure you have a lot invested in making me "acknowledge the problem."  But a lot of folks sure seem to.



> I just want to understand why the archetype of the do-everything spellcaster is necessary _for you_ to enjoy a fantasy game.



It's not.

You seem to have conflated, "I enjoy the way it is, and don't see a reason to change" with "This is the way it has to be for me to enjoy it."  Hopefully, being a reasonable guy, you can acknowledge how different those things are.

That said, I really do enjoy the idea of spellcasters with world-shaking supernatural power that simply cannot be matched by normal men (including by their warrior peers).

And as long as the game is played cooperatively, and all players get a chance for their characters to have the spotlight, I simply don't have the need for perfect "balance" between characters.  Balance is vitally important between PCs and monsters or in PvP environments or in games run by computers; it can be much less strict in a game played cooperatively by reasonable people with a decent GM.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

Neonchameleon said:


> And this is where you have been completely missing my points to you throughout the thread.  *I believe I am playing the game as intended if and only if my character is playing to win.**



Oh, I'm not missing your point.  I'm ignoring you, because I have no doubt that you, as you describe your desired and preferred play-style, have the problems you describe.

So you can rest easier.


----------



## TwoSix

Jeff Wilder said:


> I deserved that.  I really did.  (Old enough to root against Bill Laimbeer.)




Well, I do know who Bill Laimbeer, so I'm not texting this during recess either. 



Jeff Wilder said:


> But eventually I figured out two things: (1) Maybe it's not a problem with the system; maybe it's a problem with me, (2) Even if it _is_ a problem with the system, I just plain don't have to play that system.  And if I don't have to play that system, not only do I no longer have the "problem," but I no longer "need" to evangelize about the "problem."




Having a problem with the system isn't a binary proposition, though.  For example, I don't play Vampire because I have no interest in role-playing a Vampire.  That's obviously not a problem with the system.  

Maybe there's a group of Vampires in the game, though, that are a lot stronger, objectively, than all the other groups.  Like Superman to Aquaman levels of difference in capability.  Perhaps this is due to a design decision that made them stronger, even though the game's fluff says that this group of Vampires isn't very strong.  I would view that as a big problem with the system, because design _intent_ doesn't match the design _result_.

But, maybe this Vampire game says explicitly that this group of Vampires is supposed to be stronger.  Maybe they have other rules or narrative situations that give other Vampires a chance to shine(sparkle?).  That's not a problem with the system, then.  Maybe they don't have rules to control this powerful group, but still have stated their expectation upfront.  I feel better about the game because intent matches results.

Now that's for a game I don't like.  For a game I do like (say, D&D), I'll argue about whether intent matches results (which I don't think it does for 3e), and I'll argue about whether I believe the intent was a correct decision to make (some assumptions of 3e I disagree with, like spotlight balance and low-level suck/high-level rule is OK).  

And I keep arguing because we're all a part of a community, and I want to make my voice heard just like everyone else.  I don't need anyone to change, but I want as many pro-balance voices expressing themselves as possible.





Jeff Wilder said:


> BTW, if "the other players don't notice," assuming this includes the GM, then why resist the urge?  If everybody's having fun, what exactly is the problem?




"Good enough" != "good".  That's why people started houseruling in the first place.  Hell, if wargames had been "good enough", would RPGs even have started?


----------



## Neonchameleon

Nemesis Destiny said:


> This is where your example becomes really obviously counter-intuitive. Face dribbling is *obviously* harmful to the player and, not advantageous in any way to the team.
> 
> Playing a spellcaster like, as some like to say, a _douche_, is *not* harmful to the player, and is, in fact, quite advantageous to the team, or at least their goals in-game, if not their fun as players.




And this absolutely nails it.  If my character is the best team player he can be then I am going to get called a douche for playing a team player.  If I am deliberately holding back my character and making weak choices to allow others to have fun then my character is either an idiot or the sort of douche who enjoys seeing his so called friends suffer and die. 

When the system forces you to chose between play many consider douch-y and playing a character who is an idiot who needlessly risks the lives of his so-called friends and allies, then it is the system design that is at fault.



> Why _shouldn't_ it be a design issue? Why put something there if using it makes you a douchey player or a failure of a DM?




Not only put it there _but encourage its use_ and never warn you about it.  That is the truly damning part of the equation.



> If you want to houserule all over the place, fine,




No.  Not fine.  If you need to houserule for this it is because someone ed up.



> That wasn't the issue. Spellcasters in games where this was problematic didn't waste precious spell slots on this stuff. They used wands and scrolls - cheap and plentiful, no slots required.




Absolutely!  And in order to prevent this you need to allow PCs not much more down time than in the average episode of _24_.  Creating a wand of a first level spell takes _1 day_.  So does a scroll.  You can't allow PCs a lazy month at all.



> This thread has already discussed why allowing such things in the first place is a bad idea, and I agree fully. However, all that potential is in the game to be used, and many, many, _many_ groups use it.




The potential is not only in the game.  It is hard coded into the PHB that all wizards get Scribe Scroll.  _All_ wizards are crafters.



> Quite a few games are _all in_, and there is nothing in any of the books to suggest that isn't the way the game was meant to be played.




And bits in a number of the books to suggest it should.  IIRC the quote that springs to mind is that "If it's in D&D it has a place in Eberron."



> So you're left to figure it out on your own. Fair enough, I guess. Having a good DM and a social contract not to play like a douche doesn't mean that there isn't a problem with the system, it means that you've found the problem and actively avoid it. It's still a solution, and if it works for you, a good one, but that doesn't change the nature of what it is.




It not only does that.  It highlights that the system is ed up.  I can add a drop-in player I've never met to a level 8 4e game without trouble and with limited making sure we are on the same page; the social contract basically boils down to "Don't be a jerk".  In 3e, because there's a hideous imbalance, what's considered douchy varies from group to group.  Some embrace the high magic.  Some ban items.  Some tinker with spells.  What counts as being a jerk varies grop to group.  This just demonstrates the system problem.  Not that a good group of players can't get round it.  But the problem is baked in to the system.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Jeff Wilder said:


> Oh, I'm not missing your point. I'm ignoring you, because I have no doubt that you, as you describe your desired and preferred play-style, have the problems you describe.
> 
> So you can rest easier.




In which case do you mind if I ask what your characters are trying to do?  If not to survive and get whatever their goals are then why do they bother doing anything except sitting at the pub and having a beer with each other?


----------



## TwoSix

Jeff Wilder said:


> See, I don't even know what classes are "Tier 1 and Tier 2," although I suppose at this point I can guess at a few pretty accurately.




Well, I can't link it because of work firewalls, but this is what Tier 1 and Tier 2 involve.  (and I'm not going to get into defense/arguments of the tiers, been there, done that).

Tier 1: Capable of doing absolutely everything, often better than classes that specialize in that thing. Often capable of solving encounters with a single mechanical ability and little thought from the player. Has world changing powers at high levels. These guys, if played well, can break a campaign and can be very hard to challenge without extreme DM fiat, especially if Tier 3s and below are in the party.

Examples: Wizard, Cleric, Druid, Archivist, Artificer, Erudite

Tier 2: Has as much raw power as the Tier 1 classes, but can't pull off nearly as many tricks, and while the class itself is capable of anything, no one build can actually do nearly as much as the Tier 1 classes. Still potencially campaign smashers by using the right abilities, but at the same time are more predictable and can't always have the right tool for the job. If the Tier 1 classes are countries with 10,000 nuclear weapons in their arsenal, these guys are countries with 10 nukes. Still dangerous and world shattering, but not in quite so many ways.  Note that the Tier 2 classes are often less flexible than Tier 3 classes... it's just that their incredible potential power overwhelms their lack in flexibility.

Examples: Sorcerer, Favored Soul, Psion, Binder (with access to online vestiges)



Jeff Wilder said:


> You seem to have conflated, "I enjoy the way it is, and don't see a reason to change" with "This is the way it has to be for me to enjoy it."  Hopefully, being a reasonable guy, you can acknowledge how different those things are.




Absolutely.  Hopefully, you can see where I am in the middle ground of "I like parts of this, and if it just had some more of _this_, it would be awesome!"



Jeff Wilder said:


> That said, I really do enjoy the idea of spellcasters with world-shaking supernatural power that simply cannot be matched by normal men (including by their warrior peers).




Fair enough.  Fortunately for both of us, you have core 3e and I have houseruled 3e and 4e.



Jeff Wilder said:


> And as long as the game is played cooperatively, and all players get a chance for their characters to have the spotlight, I simply don't have the need for perfect "balance" between characters.  Balance is vitally important between PCs and monsters or in PvP environments or in games run by computers; it can be much less strict in a game played cooperatively by reasonable people with a decent GM.




Also fair enough.  Lots of games get along just fine with spotlight balance.  Not my cup of tea, personally, and I'm glad 4e moved towards a more rigorous approach.  Again, IMO, YMMV, etc, etc.


----------



## NoWayJose

TwoSix said:


> Maybe there's a group of Vampires in the game, though, that are a lot stronger than all the other groups. Perhaps this is due to a design decision that made them stronger, even though the game's fluff says that this group of Vampires isn't very strong. I would view that as a big problem with the system, because design _intent_ doesn't match the design _result_.
> 
> But, maybe this Vampire game says explicitly that this group of Vampires is supposed to be stronger. Maybe they have other rules or narrative situations that give other Vampires a chance to shine(sparkle?). That's not a problem with the system, then. Maybe they don't have rules to control this powerful group, but still have stated their expectation upfront. I feel better about the game because intent matches results.
> 
> Now that's for a game I don't like.



"Stronger" is subjective. If one vampire is physically stronger, but the other vampire is mentally stronger, then there's a potential for balance. So not a great example. People sometimes nitpick over such analogies, like the pirate captain, you can get painted into a corner.



> I don't need anyone to change, but I want as many pro-balance voices expressing themselves as possible.



I don't need anyone to change, but I want as many anti-pro-balance voices expressing themselves as possible.


----------



## TwoSix

NoWayJose said:


> "Stronger" is subjective. If one vampire is physically stronger, but the other vampire is mentally stronger, then there's a potential for balance. So not a great example. People sometimes nitpick over such analogies, like the pirate captain, you can get painted into a corner.




Well, my example was of objective imbalance, like Mages in Ars Magica. 



NoWayJose said:


> I don't need anyone to change, but I want as many anti-pro-balance voices expressing themselves as possible.




Wouldn't that just be anti-balance?  Or you could call yourselves "pro-spotlight" or "pro-archetype" or something.  Politically, it's never good to brand your something as "anti-something".


----------



## Crazy Jerome

Stormonu said:


> No, the players have as much, if not more resposibility than the designers. Why are we relying on the designers to make rules against face-dribbling when players should have perfect sense not to do so themselves?
> 
> Back on the knock example; this isn't only the tool of the wizard. The rogue can pick the lock, the fighter can bash the door in. The problem comes in the fact it takes the fighter or the rogue a minute or two to do so. The wizard does it in a matter of seconds, and without a check of some sort. Supposably, this was balanced by the fact the wizard would only be doing this maybe once an adventure, whereas the fighter or rogue could employ their door-opening skill at any time.
> 
> Somewhere along the way though, people started arguing the wizard was broken because he could things like this any and every time it came up, often forgetting that D&D isn't played as one encounter per day and the wizard whose blown his all his spell allotment on these kind of things is going to get eaten by the grue on the other side of the door.




This is where I say that your statements, and Jeff Wilder's about it only being a problem if the wizard player is a douche, or the GM incompetent, or such, are too absolute.

It is true that at given levels (the infamous sweet spot), what you say is more or less true.  The exact sweet spot moves a bit from table to table (which ought to tell us something in itself).  

I'm not an incompetent DM on this issue.  I may not be Thor's gift to DMing, but let us just stipulate that I'm not incompetent.  Resource consumption?  I had them doing 6-8 encounters per day, and not usually easy ones, either--in a campaign that made it somewhat difficult, compared to RAW, to stockpile scrolls, wands, etc. 

I haven't had a douche player at my table for at least a decade.  Quite the opposite, in fact, as the players are bending over backwards to make it work (whatever it is.)  We had a wizard *start* to dominate a campaign around 7th level, and it got steadily and noticeably worse as the campaign went on--right up to 15th level where it fell apart due to sheer frustration.  Notably, we did not have a cleric nor a druid in that campaign.

There are two objections to the kind of "jumping through hoops" that gets required to keep this from becoming a problem, once you get outside the sweet spot, though:

1. This is work that the DM is spending on managing the potential wizard or other caster domination that is not being spent on something more productive.

2. There is a peculiar knife edge that the wizard (or cleric or druid) player has to walk, especially if the DM is putting in that work.  It is *not* simply take imperfect spells or make imperfect selections during a fight.  Rather, it is make a snap judgment on each encounter to see if the DM is pushing the casters or not.  If the DM is pushing, then unleash the big guns--otherwise the party is so hosed.  If the DM is not pushing, hold back to keep from overshadowing the other characters.  

And note that as a group, we don't even mind having an occasional cake walk encounter or one where the party has to flee, perhaps leaving a dead comrade behind.  

This is not about dribbling with your face in basketball.  This is your local basketball league makes you text message during key moments in the game.  Sure you can deal with that complicaton same as all the other people.  It's fair.  It's a team effort.  But excuse some of us for thinking perhaps this should not be a central requirement in the spirit of basketball.


----------



## NoWayJose

TwoSix said:


> Wouldn't that just be anti-balance? Or you could call yourselves "pro-spotlight" or "pro-archetype" or something. Politically, it's never good to brand your something as "anti-something".



I can play some semantics here. Technically, I'm OK with balance, just not neccesarily the way it's implemented. So "anti-balance" doesn't sound right. "Pro-balance", rightly or wrongly, implies to me that one is happy with balance the way it is implemented (ie., in 4e). Therefore, I thought "anti-pro-balance" might be the best label. I am "pro-archetype" but it's not that simple. "Pro-spotlight" implies that the spotlight is always fixed on one point or person, but I'm OK for the spotlight(s) changing around.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

TwoSix said:


> Hopefully, you can see where I am in the middle ground of "I like parts of this, and if it just had some more of _this_, it would be awesome!"



I can, and if this had been the prevalent tone of the criticism here, I would never have even gotten involved in the thread.



> Fair enough.  Fortunately for both of us, you have core 3e and I have houseruled 3e and 4e.



Actually, I have Pathfinder.  (I've never claimed 3E was _perfect_, right?)



> Also fair enough.  Lots of games get along just fine with spotlight balance.  Not my cup of tea, personally, and I'm glad 4e moved towards a more rigorous approach.  Again, IMO, YMMV, etc, etc.



It does, but -- really -- that's okay.

I can also understand your desire to evangelize for "pro-balance," BTW, from personal experience.  Even ongoing personal experience.  But -- and I don't want it to come off smarmy -- I honestly stopped worrying about affirmatively or negatively evangelizing once I realized that I have plenty of friends and acquaintances -- new and old -- that are clamoring to play Pathfinder and Mutants & Masterminds*.  It's selfish, I suppose, but I just don't care anymore what game _anybody_ chooses to play.

(* And dude, if you think 3E has hidden balance issues that can cripple the game, M&M would make your head explode.  And yet I love it.)


----------



## MrMyth

Jeff Wilder said:


> Well, no ... maybe _you_ do. Many, many, _many_ of us do not.
> 
> For some reason, you feel that of three alternatives -- (a) stop playing the way you play, (b) find a game that suits you better, or (c) force the rest of us to accept (or just acknowledge some need for) a change _we don't need_ -- you guys go for (c).




Sure, it isn't a universal experience. But many players clearly do find this to be a potential issue with a game they otherwise enjoy. Here's the thing - I'm not saying that (c) is that you need to accept my problem with the game. I'm saying that (c) is that I would prefer to see the game change to a version that I consider an improvement. 

It is perfectly fine for you to disagree with that, and prefer a different version. But what you instead seem to be saying is that my prefered style of play is wrong, or that it only becomes a problem because the people who enjoy that style of play are douchebags. Which, the potential offense of such a view _aside_, I don't find especially conductive to reasonable conversation. 



Jeff Wilder said:


> Again, this isn't a coincidence.




Seriously, what do you mean by this? Do you really _genuinely _feel that the only people who have voiced this complaint are a certain subset of players who embrace powergaming, or play only to 'win'? 

Or, if you are implying something else, what is it?



Stormonu said:


> No, the players have as much, if not more resposibility than the designers. Why are we relying on the designers to make rules against face-dribbling when players should have perfect sense not to do so themselves?




Because, again, it isn't always _obvious _what options are unbalanced (or, at least, _potentially _unbalanced). It isn't always clear what spells will enhance the game experience (by helping the entire party accomplish their goals, or by revealing interesting things about the game) vs which ones will trivialize the other PC's efforts, or bypass the entertainment of intrigue/investigative scenarios with a single spell. 

I mean, I honestly will admit I know next to nothing about face-dribbling. I have no idea how often such a thing occurs to players or would be considered a viable tactic in a game. 

But the choices we are discussing are presented in the core rules, by the designers, as completely valid choices. 

And some players prefer that, because they are ok with that style or play or have found ways around it. That's the tricky question here - is there a way to mitigate the potential frustrations they cause for some players without removing their capabilities entirely? 

Either way, though, I still don't buy that the burden should be on the players. They should be able to trust in the quality of the rules, that what they are playing with will lead to a good experience when handled as presented. Now, that isn't an absolutely guarantee, of course, and every group will have its own dynamics and elements... but this clearly isn't an isolated case, or one that can be casually solved by common-sense alone. 



Stormonu said:


> Back on the knock example; this isn't only the tool of the wizard. The rogue can pick the lock, the fighter can bash the door in. The problem comes in the fact it takes the fighter or the rogue a minute or two to do so. The wizard does it in a matter of seconds, and without a check of some sort. Supposably, this was balanced by the fact the wizard would only be doing this maybe once an adventure, whereas the fighter or rogue could employ their door-opening skill at any time.
> 
> Somewhere along the way though, people started arguing the wizard was broken because he could things like this any and every time it came up, often forgetting that D&D isn't played as one encounter per day and the wizard whose blown his all his spell allotment on these kind of things is going to get eaten by the grue on the other side of the door.




Which is why other elements come into play - the ability to easily have a scroll for every occasion. 

Or, honestly, the fact that even without one, the Wizard starts to have a good number of spells by higher levels. Even if he spends half his spells on solving various obstacles that the rest of the party would have liked to interact with, he still can then potentially solve the combats on the other end of the door with one or two carefully chosen spells as well. 

Again, this isn't a universal scenario, and there are ways to mitigate it by bother players and DMs. I still feel, for me, that I would like this sort of thing addressed in the rules and mechanics themselves.


----------



## TwoSix

NoWayJose said:


> I can play some semantics here. Technically, I'm OK with balance, just not neccesarily the way it's implemented. So "anti-balance" doesn't sound right. "Pro-balance", rightly or wrongly, implies to me that one is happy with balance the way it is implemented (ie., in 4e). Therefore, I thought "anti-pro-balance" might be the best label. I am "pro-archetype" but it's not that simple. "Pro-spotlight" implies that the spotlight is always fixed on one point or person, but I'm OK for the spotlight(s) changing around.




Fair enough.  I'm "pro-team balance", whereas each player can make contributions of rough equivalence in each phase of the game.  I wouldn't think of "pro-spotlight" as "pro-static spotlight", because nobody rationally favors that.  "Pro-spotlight" is "the game is balanced enough if everyone makes a contribution during the session."


----------



## Jeff Wilder

MrMyth said:


> But what you instead seem to be saying is that my prefered style of play is wrong, or that it only becomes a problem because the people who enjoy that style of play are douchebags.



No, what I am saying is very, very, very simple:

If it hurts when you do X, _stop doing X_.  Or choose a system in which it _doesn't_ hurt when you do X.

Instead, you choose to keep doing X, and to continue to whine about it.  It's just ... ridiculous.  There's not another word for it.



> I don't find especially conductive to reasonable conversation.



The possibility for reasonable conversation -- with some of you -- went out the door when you began insisting that the system cater to you, rather than recognizing that (a) a lot of people _like_ the way the system is, and (b) there are other systems for you to choose.



> Do you really _genuinely _feel that the only people who have voiced this complaint are a certain subset of players who embrace powergaming, or play only to 'win'?



No, although there are certainly one or two of those in this thread.  But I _do_ genuinely feel that some form of player douchebaggery and GM permissiveness is at the heart of these complaints.  That doesn't make _you_ the douchebag or the milquetoast.  You could -- and I'm being sincere -- be a victim of the douchebag-milquetoast combo.  (Why am I craving s'mores all the sudden?)



> I mean, I honestly will admit I know next to nothing about face-dribbling. I have no idea how often such a thing occurs to players or would be considered a viable tactic in a game.



It probably happens sometimes in that D&D with Porn Stars game.


----------



## Votan

pawsplay said:


> Hard to do, yeah, kinda. But I choose to complain about the skill system in this case, which is easily remedied, rather than insisting he belongs to some other archetype. Since he does, you know, steal stuff, I might accept a level of Rogue, but only under duress; he doesn't really do any of the things people normally use Rogue for, apart from having lots of skill points. Hence I prefer to just burn a couple of feats. Ranger... that's so meta. He's not a Ranger. Favored Enemy (humans) is sort of cute, but Track is not.




Okay, I grant you track does seem out of place.  

I agree that the 3E skill system really did scream for tweaking.  It was a pretty large advance at the time but, like many novel things, there were implications that needed to be worked out.


----------



## NoWayJose

*Confessions of an anti-pro-balance person*

A competitive boardgame like Axis and Allies should have a fair and even playing field (I'm sure there's many game theories out there about why people feel they should win or lose based purely on skill and/or luck).

However, in a cooperative rpg like D&D, I don't fret so much about fairness.

Life isn't fair, and so maybe life in an RPG doesn't need to be 100% fair either, in terms of simulating in-game fiction. Like any good sci-fi/fantasy movie, the feeling of versimilitude and immersion can generate a wonderfully satisfying impression that gently washes over other meta-issues.

In story-telling, you can have some exciting dramatic moments when a character who is weak or underutilized in certain circumstances finds his niche and proudly makes a name for himself.

My parents told me: don't compare yourself to other people (OK, it's not that simple, but over-comparing can be erroneous and unhealthy, creates unhappiness, and is generally a self-destructive habit). Perhaps people who are really, really, really obsessed over game balance just might be a bit too concerned about comparing their characters to others. It only needs to be as competitive as much as you can make it out to be.

Mechanically, I like balanced systems, because I don't like the conflict of interest of having to decide between an optimal mechanical build vs a preferred fictional build. It also depends how obvious is the balance discrepancy. I think it's possible to obsess a bit too much over a +1 or -1 here or there, since having lots of fun in-game can often override those small probabilities.

I don't agree with the 4E paradigm that it's the most fun if everyone feels equally useful all the time. Part of fun in life is the waiting and hoping. Looking forward to that restaurant meal, hoping that lottery ticket will win, hoping the next punch will land a KO, etc. If everyone gets exactly what they think they want all the time, well, there's a word for that: spoiled.

Secondly, for everyone to be equally useful all the time, it splits the spotlight. Now instead of one bright spotlight that shifts around, you have multiple weak spotlights. The ebb and flow of dramatic moments is now more like a ripple, instead of a wave. Waves are generally more fun and dramatic and combat-realistic for me than ripples.

All that said, I would still be OK with balance depending on the implementation and measurement.

At one extreme, you can have a world class chef and a champion UFC fighter and call them balanced because they are elite in their respective categories, but if the game takes place primarily in the octagon, then it's not really all that balanced.

At the other extreme, you can have a green-painted UFC fighter and a blue-painted UFC fighter and call them balanced, but this is an undesired implementation if you don't want to play a UFC fighter with different coats of paint.

At one extreme, you can have pure free market capitalism with a wide gap between the haves and have-nots.

At the other extreme, you can have the Communist People's Department of Equal Opportunity Happiness and no TV and no western food and everyone being equal and the same. 

For myself, in my humble subjective opinion, I personally believe that 4E addressed the balance issue by making moving everyone close together so that it's easier to compare and measure for balance, and that's not an implementation I can agree with in its current form and extent.

I would like to see one set of rules for mundane combat, and another layer of rules for magic, and allow them to be different, allow all that colour and variety and contrast to yield something wonderful.


----------



## MrMyth

Jeff Wilder said:


> No, what I am saying is very, very, very simple:
> 
> If it hurts when you do X, _stop doing X_. Or choose a system in which it _doesn't_ hurt when you do X.
> 
> Instead, you choose to keep doing X, and to continue to whine about it. It's just ... ridiculous. There's not another word for it.




Well, I'd think that "Trying to find ways to mitigate frustrating elements of a game I otherwise like" wouldn't fall under the tab of 'ridiculous', but it seems there is little I can say to convince you otherwise. 



Jeff Wilder said:


> The possibility for reasonable conversation -- with some of you -- went out the door when you began insisting that the system cater to you, rather than recognizing that (a) a lot of people _like_ the way the system is, and (b) there are other systems for you to choose.




For the first point, has anyone truly insisted that there aren't any folks who do like the system as it is? 

For the second... no system is perfect. This is one area where people find a failing in the system. Why is the only response you find acceptable for them to pack their bags up and leave, rather than try to find a way to address what they perceive as a problem in a game they otherwise enjoy?

They aren't the ones insisting the game only should be for them - _you are_. 



Jeff Wilder said:


> No, although there are certainly one or two of those in this thread. But I _do_ genuinely feel that some form of player douchebaggery and GM permissiveness is at the heart of these complaints. That doesn't make _you_ the douchebag or the milquetoast. You could -- and I'm being sincere -- be a victim of the douchebag-milquetoast combo. (Why am I craving s'mores all the sudden?)




Well, several folks have worked to show the various and sundry ways that these sorts of issues have arisen without anyone being a jerk or a failure on the part of a DM, and you seem disinclined to accept those situations and instead consider them douchebags or failures. So... clearly nothing else I say is going to change your view. 

I'll continue to maintain that it isn't cool to dismiss other's complaints in such a fashion, and blame anyone who doesn't play the way you do for either doing it wrong or having a personal failing such as the ones you have described. But I'll also bow out of the conversation for now, and leave it at that.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Jeff Wilder said:


> The possibility for reasonable conversation -- with some of you -- went out the door when you began insisting that the system cater to you, rather than recognizing that (a) a lot of people _like_ the way the system is, and (b) there are other systems for you to choose.




I have asked you above what your characters think they are doing if they aren't trying to win.  Because the easiest way to fail to win is not stay alive.  How do you roleplay someone who isn't really trying to stay alive without giving them a death wish?  That is a genuine question.



> No, although there are certainly one or two of those in this thread.  But I _do_ genuinely feel that some form of player douchebaggery and GM permissiveness is at the heart of these complaints.




To me it's cruddy system design.  When I paid for the system I didn't intend to pay for one which I then needed to houserule in order to DM.  When I DM I like to run a nice relaxed game allowing the PCs to do what they want - and me to easily keep the tension and the fear factor high.  And in a well designed system I can do this.



> That doesn't make _you_ the douchebag or the milquetoast.  You could -- and I'm being sincere -- be a victim of the douchebag-milquetoast combo.  (Why am I craving s'mores all the sudden?)




You call me and a lot of my friends douchebags once more simply because we like to actually roleplay and to play mages as the system encourages and I'm going to start hitting the report button.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

MrMyth said:


> Well, I'd think that "Trying to find ways to mitigate frustrating elements of a game I otherwise like" wouldn't fall under the tab of 'ridiculous', but it seems there is little I can say to convince you otherwise.



"Frustrrating elements."  Right.



> For the first point, has anyone truly insisted that there are folks who do like the system as it is?



 ... What?



> This is one area where people find a failing in the system. Why is the only response you find acceptable for them to pack their bags up and leave, rather than try to find a way to address what they perceive as a problem in a game they otherwise enjoy?



Because the "problem" they perceive is at the very core of, for example, what makes 3E different from 4E.  For many of us, the vast disparity in the world-shaking capability of a mid- or high-level wizard and his fighter peer is a _feature_ -- a _major_ feature -- of 3E.

It's not just an "element," frustrating for you or otherwise.  It's a core part of the system.

For us, "balance" means, "Hey, is everybody having fun playing?  Hey, Bob, playing Toric the Fighter, are you having a good time?  Yeah?  Ganflagration the Wizard?  Sue, you having fun?  Cool."  For you, "balance" seems to mean (and I'm not trying to put words in your mouth; the truth is, I really don't understand the sort of balance y'all seem to want), "Toric the Fighter and Ganflagration the Wizard can have the same effect on every fight," or "Toric and Ganflagration could each win five times if they fought each other 10 times," or ... well, whatever.



> They aren't the ones insisting the game only should be for them - _you are_.



The game exists.  They are insisting that the existing game be changed for their benefit, to the detriment of those who enjoy the game as it already exists.

Sorry, but you're insisting that because you can't figure out how to stop dribbling with your face, dribbling needs to be removed from the game.  I'm saying, "You'll probably enjoy the game more if you stop slamming the ball with your face ... or you might enjoy playing some HORSE," at which point you respond, "You're kicking me off the court!"

Wah.


----------



## Nemesis Destiny

Jeff Wilder said:


> The game exists.  They are insisting that the existing game be changed for their benefit, to the detriment of those who enjoy the game as it already exists.



I don't see anyone _insisting _anything of the sort. I see people pointing out flaws, perceived or not, but I don't see anyone saying, "the system MUST be changed."

I do see a lot of complaints about why people don't like that system, and proposing solutions, everything from Houseruling (as many do, and, in fact as every DM does when they make a ruling on RAW vs RAI, which as you point out, a competent DM must do), adopting Pathfinder's "fixes" (as you apparently have), or switching systems (as many of these posters have).

Having changed systems and found something they like better does not mean that they can no longer point out things about one they used to play, and maybe say, "this is one of the reasons I switched." Maybe you don't want to hear it, but it doesn't mean you get carte blanche to call them douchebags and failures.



> Sorry, but you're insisting that because you can't figure out how to stop dribbling with your face, dribbling needs to be removed from the game.  I'm saying, "You'll probably enjoy the game more if you stop slamming the ball with your face ... or you might enjoy playing some HORSE," at which point you respond, "You're kicking me off the court!"
> 
> Wah.



This is precisely the kind of arrogant, condescending comment I'm talking about.

You're assuming way too much about the points of view of the other posters, and you're being unnecessarily rude about it.

Nobody is dribbling with their faces. To continue this ridiculously inaccurate analogy, it's more like there is a lot of "I don't like basketball, and here is why, and I prefer solution X, because..."

All I hear from you is that "if you're having these problems, you're either stupid, incompetent, or a douche." Real classy.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

Nemesis Destiny said:


> Nobody is dribbling with their faces. To continue this ridiculously inaccurate analogy, it's more like there is a lot of "I don't like basketball, and here is why, and I prefer solution X, because..."



"I don't like basketball, because the goal is too high for some people to dunk at 10 feet.  I'd prefer to set the goal at 16 feet, because then everybody is equally able to dunk."

Gotcha.

The game you want isn't "basketball."



> All I hear from you is that "if you're having these problems, you're either stupid, incompetent, or a douche." Real classy.



I'm sorry that's all you're hearing, because it's not what I've said.  Just because I know _someone_ in the crowded elevator farted, and say so, that doesn't mean I'm singling you out, Cartman.


----------



## Nemesis Destiny

Jeff Wilder said:


> "I don't like basketball, because the goal is too high for some people to dunk at 10 feet.  I'd prefer to set the goal at 16 feet, because then everybody is equally able to dunk."
> 
> Gotcha.



Actually, no you don't "get me" - you have twisted what I've said so far around, it can see itself from  behind. This basketball analogy is so far beyond pointless and  inaccurate that it isn't even funny.



> The game you want isn't "basketball."



Actually, *I* haven't said what I want. Let's make this a little less personal, shall we?



> I'm sorry that's all you're hearing, because it's not what I've said.  Just because I know _someone_ in the crowded elevator farted, and say so, that doesn't mean I'm singling you out, Cartman.



No, that really is what you've been saying. Multiple times. "If you have problem 'x' it is because of douchey players, incompetent DMing, or 'you can't figure it out,'" i.e. stupidity.

Again, there is the snide implication that if some people don't like things the way YOU think they should be done, there is something inherently wrong with THEM.

Please tell me where someone has said that the system MUST be changed. Without resorting to ridiculous basketball analogies. Please also show me where they also said, more to the point, that YOU must change with it, or adopt those changes.

The system did change, in a sense, but nobody said that it MUST. Pathfinder (I almost typed '_Patch_finder' haha) and 4e are just two of countless examples, but nobody said that it MUST happen or that everyone MUST start using them.

We get that you like the way things work in 3.x. That's fine, there are lots of things to like about it. More importantly, if/since that works for you and your group, great. Doesn't work for everyone, and not necessarily because They're Doing It Wrong.

Seriously though, do you need to come in here and call people names because they have legitimate criticisms about something?


----------



## Crazy Jerome

All analogies break down at some point.  The basketball analogy breaks down particular fast, because it isn't very well chosen.  Thus the perception of animosity.


----------



## Jeff Wilder

Nemesis Destiny said:


> Again, there is the snide implication that if some people don't like things the way YOU think they should be done, there is something inherently wrong with THEM.



For Christ's sake could you _possibly_ whine more?!  (Yes, go ahead and hit the "Report" button; it simply has to be asked.)

My "snide implication" is actually "if people don't like the results they're getting from doing X, it's reasonable for them to _not do X_."  That is what I have said and am saying.  And it _is_ reasonable, and apparently that _is_ too much to ask from some people.


----------



## Nemesis Destiny

Jeff Wilder said:


> For Christ's sake could you _possibly_ whine more?!  (Yes, go ahead and hit the "Report" button; it simply has to be asked.)



"I'm sorry if that's what you're hearing, but there's no whining here."

Oh, and consider it done.


----------



## NoWayJose

Jeff Wilder said:


> My "snide implication" is actually "if people don't like the results they're getting from doing X, it's reasonable for them to _not do X_." That is what I have said and am saying. And it _is_ reasonable, and apparently that _is_ too much to ask from some people.



With all due respect, it seems that Jeff wants the acknowledgement that he has the right to say "if you don't like this game, you don't have to play it" and Nemesis et. al. wants the acknowledgement that they have the right to say "we don't like this game because of x and y". Assumptions about being whiny, snide, etc. may or may not supported by any real evidence and seem to be mostly assumption IMHO.

OK, so now that's all sorted out, with everyone apologizing and hugging, can we finally get back to the important topic... which is *MY* posts?

I'm kidding, I'm kidding, my Enworld level is now "Minor Trickster", I'm just roleplaying...


----------



## Rel

Do not respond further to Jeff Wilder.  He won't be responding back.


----------



## TwoSix

NoWayJose said:


> OK, so now that's all sorted out, with everyone apologizing and hugging, can we finally get back to the important topic... which is *MY* posts?
> 
> I'm kidding, I'm kidding, my Enworld level is now "Minor Trickster", I'm just roleplaying...




Well, I did think your last post was very nice, actually.  I don't feel the same way you feel about a lot of the issues, but it was expressed very nicely.


----------



## NoWayJose

TwoSix said:


> Well, I did think your last post was very nice, actually. I don't feel the same way you feel about a lot of the issues, but it was expressed very nicely.



Thanks! Just... too bad about that other bit, huh? Bit of a party killer


----------



## Nemesis Destiny

TwoSix said:


> Well, I did think your last post was very nice, actually.  I don't feel the same way you feel about a lot of the issues, but it was expressed very nicely.



Yeah, I agree with this assessment. That post was pretty nice; it expressed your opinion and your point of view well, and did so without being harsh or "douchey" at all (can we still use that word in the context of this thread?).

Like TwoSix, I don't agree on a lot of your points, but they were well articulated (though I don't really get the UFC references, as I haven't watched it since it was in the single digits and low double digits).

But I understand where you're coming from. I spent a lot of time playing D&D where the paradigm you describe was the default, and I enjoyed it, for the most part, immensely. I like gonzo magic as much as the next guy, and I don't think that there is really a lack of it in 4e, it just takes a different form (rituals). It's not a solution that everyone will be happy with, and I can respect that PoV, but I like it, and so does my group, so that's good enough for me. 

I would still probably play any other edition, or PF, or E6, or other games with similar balance. I would probably even DM them. Even 3e, despite what I said in another thread about that. I just wouldn't go past level 12.


----------



## TwoSix

NoWayJose said:


> Thanks! Just... too bad about that other bit, huh? Bit of a party killer




Yea, it might be the straw that breaks the back of this 7 week old, 1450 post thread.  Glad to have played my part in it!  

Oh, and as N_D said, I don't hate 3e either.  Heck, I'm in a game now because that's what my group likes.  I just prefer 4e.


----------



## NoWayJose

> Like TwoSix, I don't agree on a lot of your points, but they were well articulated (though I don't really get the UFC references, as I haven't watched it since it was in the single digits and low double digits).



The UFC fighter was simply a reference to a highly combat-oriented class and the chef was a reference to the 3e "kitchen sink" make any type of PC you want whether it's optimized for battle or not.



> I would still probably play any other edition, or PF, or E6, or other games with similar balance. I would probably even DM them. Even 3e, despite what I said in another thread about that. I just wouldn't go past level 12.



I'm with you on that. I played high-level 3e once, and I found it interesting but too rules-complex for me at that level.


----------



## Patryn of Elvenshae

Can we actually drop "douche" and all related terms?


----------



## Plane Sailing

This thread is getting very close to the point of being closed because it is causing more problems than fun. Please be careful, people.

Thanks


----------



## Nemesis Destiny

NoWayJose said:


> The UFC fighter was simply a reference to a highly combat-oriented class and the chef was a reference to the 3e "kitchen sink" make any type of PC you want whether it's optimized for battle or not.



Ah, I understand. Thanks for clearing that up. I miss a lot of pop culture references because I don't watch TV (at all - literally), so things that "everyone" gets simply go sailing straight over my head.

(I don't feel left out.)



> I'm with you on that. I played high-level 3e once, and I found it interesting but too rules-complex for me at that level.



As DM, I found it just took way too much time to plan, and the story started to suffer for it. I haven't played "high level" since, even under 4th, so I don't know if it's "fixed" that issue or not.

I suspect that it has - to a point - but I'm not going to find out unless I have a story that needs telling in that context. When I ran that high level game, I was itching to try it. Had been ever since they took the level charts to 20th in 2e (or was it first in UA?). Not all it's cracked up to be, IMHO. I have a whole new appreciation for 'Heroic' -type adventures now. I understand why 1e levels went to 12. I get the point of E6. The grass isn't always greener, or so experience has taught me.


----------



## Herremann the Wise

Plane Sailing said:


> This thread is getting very close to the point of being closed because it is causing more problems than fun. Please be careful, people.
> 
> Thanks



+1 and which is a shame. I have followed this thread and have occasionally posted to it and have found that it (occasionally) drives at the heart of what makes certain versions of the games we love tick (or not tick and that can be just as interesting). It has also taken quite a few tangents some very very interesting (others perhaps less so).

And so...

Can we collectively make sure that this thread is _not _closed but slowly and eventually fades (to be more than likely necromancied a couple of times in the near and distant future). And thus a plea also to the moderators for them to encourage it's continued existence rather than its closing.  

Just saying. 

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise


----------



## Hussar

/me delurks for a moment

What the wise man said.    Keep it clean folks and if you find yourselves getting heated up, step away from the keyboard.  It does wonders.


----------



## pemerton

Stormonu said:


> No, the players have as much, if not more resposibility than the designers.





Nemesis Destiny said:


> Why _shouldn't_ it be a design issue? Why put something there if using it makes you a douchey player or a failure of a DM? If you want to houserule all over the place, fine, but why is someone getting paid to design stuff that's overpowered and broken (read: abusable)? I know a lot of that stuff is legacy, back from the days when spellcasters had actual balance baked right in.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> all that potential is in the game to be used, and many, many, _many_ groups use it.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Don't get me wrong; I'm all about the social contract and not being an asshat at the game table. Not everyone is, and sometimes it can't be helped, as I've argued before. Insisting that the problem is _entirely_ with the players is dodging the issue.





MrMyth said:


> it isn't always _obvious _what options are unbalanced (or, at least, _potentially _unbalanced). It isn't always clear what spells will enhance the game experience (by helping the entire party accomplish their goals, or by revealing interesting things about the game) vs which ones will trivialize the other PC's efforts, or bypass the entertainment of intrigue/investigative scenarios with a single spell.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> But the choices we are discussing are presented in the core rules, by the designers, as completely valid choices.



On this point I tend to agree with MrMyth and Nemesis Destiny.

Part of the issue is the way the the D&D rules are presented. Because it is the gateway game, the rulebooks tend to have very little "meta"/"toolkit" discussions - quite unlike Rolemaster rules, for example, which are notorious for being presented as a tookit for building a game, rather than as a game.

If the D&D rulebooks said "OK, if you want to play a game in which high level non-spontaneous spell casters dominate, then put spells XYZ on the spell list; otherwise, keep them off" it might be a different kettle of fish. But the rulebooks are written as if there is nothing problematic about playing (for example) a cleric who uses Holy Word at the first opportunity. Whereas in fact there might be (as the anecdote upthread illustrated).



Neonchameleon said:


> If I am deliberately holding back my character and making weak choices to allow others to have fun then my character is either an idiot or the sort of douche who enjoys seeing his so called friends suffer and die.



I don't agree with this. I think the idea is not that you would deliberately play your character weakly, but that at the metagame level the player and GM would "edit" the PCs spell list/spell selection, and then at the ingame level the PC would do the best with that edited suite of abilities.

(Ingame, you could rationalise it however you like - "the wizard library was shut the day I went there to learn Knock", "the stars aren't properly aligned for me to memorise Passwall today", etc etc. Or maybe these spells don't exist in the gameworld at all.)



Crazy Jerome said:


> It is true that at given levels (the infamous sweet spot), what you say is more or less true.  The exact sweet spot moves a bit from table to table (which ought to tell us something in itself).
> 
> <snip>
> 
> There are two objections to the kind of "jumping through hoops" that gets required to keep this from becoming a problem, once you get outside the sweet spot, though:
> 
> 1. This is work that the DM is spending on managing the potential wizard or other caster domination that is not being spent on something more productive.
> 
> 2. There is a peculiar knife edge that the wizard (or cleric or druid) player has to walk, especially if the DM is putting in that work.  It is *not* simply take imperfect spells or make imperfect selections during a fight.  Rather, it is make a snap judgment on each encounter to see if the DM is pushing the casters or not.  If the DM is pushing, then unleash the big guns--otherwise the party is so hosed.  If the DM is not pushing, hold back to keep from overshadowing the other characters.



I think this is a good post, and a reason _why_ the toning down of the non-spontaneous casters probably has to happen at the metagame level, and not as an element of actual play.



NoWayJose said:


> I played high-level 3e once, and I found it interesting but too rules-complex for me at that level.



I find this interesting, because the issue of wizard dominance tends only to arise in higher level play. So this _may_ explain why you haven't had the experience.

It also links back to the question of players vs designers. My view is that 3E is the first time high level spells saw any serious playtime over a wide number of groups. They were introduced into earlier editions, and AD&D, (i) to fill gaps that existed in the theoretical framework of PC-buidling, and (ii) to be abilities for high-level spell-using NPCs (especially evil wizards, liches and high priests). In practice, they weren't used by players for their PCs.

3E copied most of them over holus bolus, removed the AD&D-era constraints on their use (which in my view were in any event not quite as strong as some on this thread have suggested), and it was then that people discovered that in fact, in many cases, they're broken. Look at how every major revision to 3E (Pathfinder, Arcana Unearthed/Evolved, etc) has handled them. Always by powering down.



MrMyth said:


> I'd think that "Trying to find ways to mitigate frustrating elements of a game I otherwise like" wouldn't fall under the tab of 'ridiculous'



I don't have any particular interest in playing 3E, either as player or GM. But 3E is not the only game with the problem - Rolemaster has it also, for example, and that's a game that I _am_ interested in. So for me, discussing the issue and possible solutions isn't merely idle speculation. It has relevance for how I idle away my hours by RPGing!


----------



## pemerton

*Mearls' view, worldshaking magic and "spotlighting"*

In one of his Legends & Lore columns, Mearls explained the wizard vs warrior issue as one of easy (warrior) vs hard (wizard) mode for playing the game - which makes sense to me in light of the game's wargame roots, and also has some resonance with how I played the game when I first started playing back in the mid-80s.

These days, however (and according to Mearls), in the era of character building and attachment, by players, to those characters doing the schticks that they have been buit to do, different considerations are pertinent.

This thread has suggested some further considerations, though, which may complicate Mearls' analysis somewhat.

First, Mearls analysis is primarily from the point of view of the player's engagement with the PC as a game element. But the notion expressed by many on this thread - that they like the "truthfulness to fantasy fiction" of worldshaking magic in their wizards - suggests that PC-as-game-element is not the only thing in play. There is also the player's experience of the fiction.

My (tentative) hypothesis is that the D&D rules, which were originally conceived of and implemented in more of a "game-element" way, gave rise to aesthetic preferences about exploration which reflected the play produced by use of those game elements (including the power of wizards), but which now exist among some members of the RPGing community independently of their origins. That is, there is now a distinctive aesthetic preference, detached from its reflection of the early AD&D play that Mearls describes, for a fantasy game that delivers the "worldshaking magic" experience, but that also involves somewhat mundane warriors.

Second, but related, it seems that at least some fantasy RPGers reconcile that aesthetic preference with the shift in gameplay to focus on each PC as a distinct and important character in the fiction (rather than primarily a mere game element) by focusing on "spotlight balance" rather than the balance of comparatively equal mechanical capacity to contribute to resolution of typical ingame situations.

I'm personally not the biggest fan of spotlight balance - as others have also pointed out on this thread, it can rather easily turn into "a job for Aquaman" or "fighter-as-bodyguard/sidekick".

Still, from the point of view of Mearls' professed goal of discussing the evolution of the game, I think his failure to consider these additional factors perhaps paints an incomplete picture - because a complete picture has to explain how the early AD&D game tropes have survived, and indeed remain highly valued by many players, well past the approach to play in which they have their origins (at least according to Mearls).


----------



## NoWayJose

> I find this interesting, because the issue of wizard dominance tends only to arise in higher level play. So this _may_ explain why you haven't had the experience.



I'm not sure... That was a 20th level adventure, and yes, I abused the hell out of shape change, etc. (not because I wanted to "win" or cheat, but because it was fun to be an uber-mage). Everyone else still had fun and felt they made their own significant contribution.

If we had continued an entire 20th+ level campaign, then maybe the players would have begun to gripe about the unfairness of wizard dominance, but I don't know, because it wasn't a warrior-wizard imbalance that stopped our game, it was the rules complexity and long, long sessions.

So if people are complaining about 3E wizard dominance at 20th level, well, I think that's a valid complaint IMO but, whether others agree or not (much like the pirate captain), I don't know how important that is considered that 20th level play is/was occuring in a small minority of campaigns. Plus, other bottlenecks like rules complexity at 20th level might be the real bottleneck for enjoyment.

If, however, one perceives wizard dominance at 10th or whater level, then that's a different story, although I don't find it fun to debate at exactly which level the wizard dominance starts to become a problem for some people.


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## NoWayJose

pemerton said:


> So for me, discussing the issue and possible solutions isn't merely idle speculation. It has relevance for how I idle away my hours by RPGing!



Well, I have a possible idea for a solution to the various issues that have been raised. Of course, people don't seem to agree with me, but it won't stop me from trying!

I would suggest (again!) that magic be different than mundane feats. Not necessarily better, not dominating, just feels different and (literally) magical. ie., you have one rules paradigm for melee/ranged combat, and another rules paradigm for magical effects. This means that there are things you can do mundanely that cannot be duplicated by magic, and there are things you can do magically or supernaturally that cannot be duplicated in the mundane world.

This doesn't mean that playing a pure fighter is boring. There are many interesting combat maneuvers and combat stances (a concept from Jester's D&D Jazz) and other tactical advantages. A fighter should always feel useful and significant. At the end of the day, a sword thrust into the belly is always going to the most reliable way to kill someone.

It would, however, probably mean that 4E fighters lose any wushu-style feel... at least at low levels. At high levels, a warrior might do mundane but extraordinary feats, but it wouldn't be magical. It would be impossibly improbable, like always splitting an arrow with a second arrow shot.

Conversely, magic would truly feel unique, a power source from another world, which is what it's supposed to be according to literature and archetypes. This contrast to the mundane would allow players of wizards to feel "special" without necessariy being dominant. This does NOT mean casting magic missile every round like it was a mundane crossbow. It means casting a magic missile that swerves left and right and up and down as it bears down on the enemy like a heat-seeking missile, an effect that's not merely improbable but mundanely impossible. It also means having access to versatile utility spells and rituals without necessarily tons of gold as a meta-balance mechanism.

It would also mean that wizards don't get access to magic all the time, because nothing feels truly magical or dramatic when it's continously watered down for the sake of balance. That means that wizards probably should be semi-capable fighters, like Gandalf, during any 'magical downtime'.

If you want to have a bit of both, then you play a class that combines magic and mundane, like a shadow thief or divine paladin or rune-warrior concept.

For me, it also requires sometimes coloring outside the 4E lines. Magic needs to spill outside the box to reach its full creative potential. If you create a new plant-and-vegetable mage, you don't have to create a Fruit-to-Veggie teleport power ("if you hold a fruit in one square, you may teleport to any vegetable within 6 squares"), simply because 'teleport' is one of 12 pre-programmed allowable actions. I would imagine what a plant-and-vegetable mage could do, and then create new rules for it if necessary, and if it's truly unbalancing or truly incompatible with the current ruleset, I think it's better to completely ditch the concept, instead of catering to public health demand and producing a sub-par plant-and-vegetable mage.

I suppose that, if mundane and magical rulesets are not directly comparable, the pro-balance side will have fits trying to mathematically measure for balance issues, and the only way to balance is through old-fashioned playtesting. I just don't have much sympathy for the approach of making everyone "the same" so that you feel more certain about measuring for balance.

Finally, as pemerton kinda touched upon, it would be nice to have a tweaking mechanism for how the magic ruleset layer meets the core mundane ruleset. This would allow for a gritty low-magic campaign or a high-magic superhero/wushu campaign.

All of this, of course, is entirely theoretical. I have no idea how it would play out in practice, or if other game systems take this approach.


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## Crazy Jerome

NoWayJose said:


> So if people are complaining about 3E wizard dominance at 20th level, well, I think that's a valid complaint IMO but, whether others agree or not (much like the pirate captain), I don't know how important that is considered that 20th level play is/was occuring in a small minority of campaigns. Plus, other bottlenecks like rules complexity at 20th level might be the real bottleneck for enjoyment.
> 
> If, however, one perceives wizard dominance at 10th or whater level, then that's a different story, although I don't find it fun to debate at exactly which level the wizard dominance starts to become a problem for some people.




Well, it is not as if the wizard (or cleric or druid) dominance exists in a vacuum.  The rules complexity and other factors can certainly factor into who and when it bothers.  

Looking back on it, I think the problem for our group was that it was a gradually worsening problem.  If it had been more sudden, we would have been more aware of it at the time, and either fixed it (metagame) or simply stopped.  For us, the wizard dominance started around 7th, but it wasn't a huge problem until sometime around 11th or 12th.  Also, it is rather a challenge for the DM and players to manage this.  Challenges can be fun.  This one was for awhile.  But as it gradually became more of a challenge, it began to dominate the focus of play, to the exclusion of other things.

Finally, we don't usually have these kind of issues with our games, because we will quite happily switch campaigns or systems.  But we ran into the circumstance where the players had voted to experience higher level play--explicity.  So I felt obligated to keep trying in the face of the disintegrating play experience.  And I suppose one could say that having muddled through as we did, we are better positioned to try again, but we look at it, and it simply isn't worth it.  Even before the launch of 4E, we had already decided that any future higher level play would either be D&D RC or Fantasy Hero.


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## Crazy Jerome

pemerton said:


> First, Mearls analysis is primarily from the point of view of the player's engagement with the PC as a game element. But the notion expressed by many on this thread - that they like the "truthfulness to fantasy fiction" of worldshaking magic in their wizards - suggests that PC-as-game-element is not the only thing in play. There is also the player's experience of the fiction.
> 
> My (tentative) hypothesis is that the D&D rules, which were originally conceived of and implemented in more of a "game-element" way, gave rise to aesthetic preferences about exploration which reflected the play produced by use of those game elements (including the power of wizards), but which now exist among some members of the RPGing community independently of their origins. That is, there is now a distinctive aesthetic preference, detached from its reflection of the early AD&D play that Mearls describes, for a fantasy game that delivers the "worldshaking magic" experience, but that also involves somewhat mundane warriors.




This preference has always been there.  It is why some people think of Gandalf as being more impressive in the old, "deliver magical oompah" than he actually is.   It is why Feists' Pug has been described as, "what readers wanted Gandalf to be."  

When given a choice in the matter by the system (e.g. Fantasy Hero, GURPS, etc.) our group has naturally gravitated towards getting the "worldshaking magic experience" through the party as a whole--plot device, shared equipment, ritual, whatever.  This is one of the reasons that 4E is a more natural fit for us.  We are rather neutral on the "mundane warriors" part, on average, though our preference move around freely from campaign to campaign on that.  All other being equal, we want the option to have mundane warriors right alongside not so mundane warriors.  And then we still want the worldshaking magic not tied to a particular character.

Thus for you analysis, you have to separate those who simply want worldshaking magic, versus those who specifically want it embedded in specific character abilities.  The second is far more design constricting than the first, but also likely to be more firmly held when held at all.


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## Crazy Jerome

NoWayJose said:


> All of this, of course, is entirely theoretical. I have no idea how it would play out in practice, or if other game systems take this approach.




Arcana Unearthed/Evolved took some steps towards that idea.  I think it is generally acknowledged that the "metamagic" replacements and change to the casting system, done in part to compensate, created a very interesting and fun system, but did not manage to achieve the goal of reining in the scope of the casters.

One of the big steps that AU/AE took was to change a lot of the utility magic to be bonuses to skills, instead of replacements for them.  Its version of "knock" doesn't open a lock.  It makes it easier for someone with lockpikcing ot open a lock.  This can allow a caster to open a simple lock (which is fine), but the tougher locks (at a given power level) are outside the scope.  The really tough locks will require a dedicated lock picker *and* the caster, which is not a bad effect either.

In general, I think that approach is how most utility magic should work in D&D.  If it is a mundane effect, the magic can make you better at it, but can't entirely replicate it.  These effects should always be castable on others.  If it is something that the world dictates is outside mundane ability, then it should be doable by magic, and this may or may not be castable on others.  In such a system, "make whole" lets someone repair far faster than normal, but someone, not necessarily the caster, must provide the mundane repair skill.


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## NoWayJose

Crazy Jerome said:


> One of the big steps that AU/AE took was to change a lot of the utility magic to be bonuses to skills, instead of replacements for them. Its version of "knock" doesn't open a lock. It makes it easier for someone with lockpikcing ot open a lock. This can allow a caster to open a simple lock (which is fine), but the tougher locks (at a given power level) are outside the scope. The really tough locks will require a dedicated lock picker *and* the caster, which is not a bad effect either.



That wouldn't be in line with my personal subjective vision at all. Magic causes things to happen in spite of reality. A door opens because of magic, despite the fact that it was locked.

Do I insist that a wizard could theoretically learn to wave a hand and open a door? Based on movies and novels, probably yes. Do I insist a wizard be able to wave a hand and open a locked door? No, not necessarily. Perhaps a moderate sorcerer uses telekenesis to open an unlocked door (altering reality a little bit), and a great sorcerer just magically opens anything (altering reality a lot).

For myself, magic that literally states "+1 to lockpicking" (if I understood you correctly) feels more gamey than fictionally magical. If that makes any sense?

Edit: I want to clarify that I don't have a problem with a spell that boosts strength, for example. You have a skinny guy and suddenly he's stronger, maybe his arms and biceps bulge, maybe not.. either way, that's cool. It's magical enough too, you cannot duplicate instant +1 Strength without magic. It's just the +1 to lockpicking idea. It's not cinematic. What did the magic do exactly? Did it half-shatter the lock? Did it speed up his fingers and not the rest of his body? Did it slow time so that the thief appears to quickly the pick the lock? Why does the spell effect (lock shatter, nimble fingers, super speed or slow time) only working for lock picking? How does that make any fictional sense? Why not pour more skill points into lock picking and let the wizard do something more magical or different?

2nd Edit: How about a wizard spell that grants temporary knowledge of a particular skill. Like the Matrix... Do you know how to fly a helicopter?  [pause] I do now. Now THAT's magic.


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## billd91

pemerton said:


> Second, but related, it seems that at least some fantasy RPGers reconcile that aesthetic preference with the shift in gameplay to focus on each PC as a distinct and important character in the fiction (rather than primarily a mere game element) by focusing on "spotlight balance" rather than the balance of comparatively equal mechanical capacity to contribute to resolution of typical ingame situations.
> 
> I'm personally not the biggest fan of spotlight balance - as others have also pointed out on this thread, it can rather easily turn into "a job for Aquaman" or "fighter-as-bodyguard/sidekick".




From my point of view, the *only* really important balance element a game cannot do without is spotlight balance (or at least spotlight opportunity - the player should have the option to decline the spotlight as desired). Why? Because that's the only form of balance that really treats a diverse group of players fairly.

If all of the balance is managed at the mechanical level, there's no control for player ability or personality. The better or more dynamic player will achieve substantially more than other players who aren't as good at holding their own in similar ways. The game becomes a star vehicle for them and not an ensemble driven story. But as a DM, I can work toward balancing opportunities so that *all* my players get their chances to shine, be the center of attention, and be cheered on by their peers. And RPGs have been great for that because I can emphasize that they're cooperative within the party, not competitive.

Maybe I've come to this stand in part because I did a lot of Superhero gaming in my salad days. And there are ways to run games in which a supergroup has Thor and Hawkeye together and each has something to do.


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## TwoSix

NoWayJose said:


> That wouldn't be in line with my personal subjective vision at all. Magic causes things to happen in spite of reality. A door opens because of magic, despite the fact that it was locked.
> 
> Do I insist that a wizard could theoretically learn to wave a hand and open a door? Based on movies and novels, probably yes. Do I insist a wizard be able to wave a hand and open a locked door? No, not necessarily. Perhaps a moderate sorcerer uses telekenesis to open an unlocked door (altering reality a little bit), and a great sorcerer just magically opens anything (altering reality a lot).




See, that's interesting.  To my mind, a D&D mage shouldn't bother with locks.  If he needs to open a lock, he uses a fire ray on the doorknob.  

I guess never liked the archetypal image that pre-4e mages presented.  Wimpy guys who can do weird stuff a few times a day, like knock or locate object, but can occasionally fly like Superman.

I prefer mages more of the Harry Dresden archetype.  Combat magic is blasts and shields, telekinetic force and fire.  If I had to put what I want a D&D mage to be in pre-4e terms, it would be access to evocation, abjurations, and maybe some conjurations.  Other effects would take longer, or require crafting items.  

I feel D&D magic is better overall if specific schticks are separated into different classes, rather than grouped under one wizard class umbrella.  That's why I'm a fan of classes like the beguiler, dread necromancer, and warmage.  They feel to me what magic should be about.  You have an area of expertise, and a ton of versatility within that field.  But you can't be good at everything.


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## NoWayJose

TwoSix said:


> See, that's interesting. To my mind, a D&D mage shouldn't bother with locks. If he needs to open a lock, he uses a fire ray on the doorknob.



That's totally fine too. The rules have to allow for it though (do locks have hit points and can fire damage destroy it?)



> I guess never liked the archetypal image that pre-4e mages presented. Wimpy guys who can do weird stuff a few times a day, like knock or locate object, but can occasionally fly like Superman.



These 'weird stuff' draws upon common book and movies scenes, etc. where a magic guy waves his hand and the door opens. (Anyway, pre-4E had many evokers, etc. too)



> I prefer mages more of the Harry Dresden archetype. Combat magic is blasts and shields, telekinetic force and fire.



I agree. I'd just like to see a universe or ruleset that allows for both paradigms. For example, I believe there are utility spells in the Dresden universe as well.


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## Crazy Jerome

NoWayJose said:


> For myself, magic that literally states "+1 to lockpicking" (if I understood you correctly) feels more gamey than fictionally magical. If that makes any sense?




What if it is +5 or +10 to the skill?  Just because it is limited to buffing existing skill, it does not imply that the buff is minor.  It is pretty magical that, say, a wizard can turn a person with a bit of Dexterity but no training, into the equivalent lockpicker as a 5th or 6th level rogue.  

In the particular context of d20, remember the problem this is trying to solve:  You want casters to be magical at all levels, but you don't want them so overpowering at higher levels.  At low levels, limits on spell casting per day still matter a lot.  So in practice, a one-time +10 to skill is not stealing from the rogue's spotlight.  If anything, it lets the rogue get through a really tough lock with the help of the wizard.  However, if the rogue is missing, the wizard can get through a lock.  OTOH, by the time you hit higher levels, the dedicated rogue's skill has dwarved even a +10.  The magic is still a great boost, and it still lets the untrained recipicient get through a simple lock, but it doesn't scale.

Note that you are free to explain the magic any way you want with such a system. If you want to say that the +10 to skill mechanical effect is really lowering the lock's DC by 10 (by changing its shape or whatever), then you can write the spell that way.

And scaling really is the overall issue here.  You could solve the specific "knock" problem by saying, for example, that there are multiple versions of the "knock" spell, and more complicated locks require more power to get through magically.  The "boost mundane skill magically" design idea is simply a more comprehensive means to that end.


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## NoWayJose

Crazy Jerome said:


> What if it is +5 or +10 to the skill? Just because it is limited to buffing existing skill, it does not imply that the buff is minor. It is pretty magical that, say, a wizard can turn a person with a bit of Dexterity but no training, into the equivalent lockpicker as a 5th or 6th level rogue.



+5 or +10 doesn't matter to me in that context (did you catch my edit?)

It's not the power of the thing. I never cared about wizards dominating. It's about the magic of the thing.

I can't imagine a wizard with access to so much potential would choose such an obscure geeky narrow-minded spell like that.

If scaling and balance is such an issue that there is no other way to duplicate a knock spell, then I wouldn't include it all. +x to lockpicking is so fictionally the opposite of magical to me, I feel it ruins immersion and it's not worth it.

Instead, just blast the lock with fire like TwoSix suggested. If that doesn't work, then the lock is probably half-ruined and the thief can't pick it anymore. So then the fighter moves in and smashes the lock. If he can take down a 30' tall golem, he can smash a fire-slagged lock too.


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## TwoSix

NoWayJose said:


> I agree. I'd just like to see a universe or ruleset that allows for both paradigms. For example, I believe there are utility spells in the Dresden universe as well.




I'd like to see D&D set up with some base guidelines (sort of a SRD minus races, classes, and spells).  Then the rest of the game can present D&D with everything that makes the world _D&D_, not trying to present some sort of toolkit level of races and classes.  

In my mind, D&D magic (as opposed to D&D modeling specific literary sources) should be able to do these kind of effects:

Blasting (elemental, and raw force)  [fireball]
Conjuration of effects (elemental, force)  [wall of force]
Summoning and Binding extraplanar forces  [planar binding]
Shapeshifting and Identity changing  [disguise self, wild shape(limited)]
Control over the dead  [animate dead]
Environmental control  [shape stone]
Mind control  [geas, charm person]
Extradimensional access [magnificent mansion]
Healing of physical trauma [cure X wounds, neutralize poison]
Control of existing magic [break enchantment, dispel magic]

My personal feeling is that each of these groupings is enough to support a class built around it.


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## Nemesis Destiny

I don't know how much this will contribute to the current discussion, but the mention of Arcana Unearthed / Arcana Evolved reminded me.

It's funny, I remember reading AU/AE and the revisions it made to all the utility and buffing spells, and thinking, "wow, that's quite a nerf!" I felt like (at first) I wouldn't want to play with those changes, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that those changes were _necessary_. At least, necessary toward what the designer was trying to achieve (which, ultimately I agree with).

Since I play and DM in equal measure (more or less), that's always been an internal struggle for me; my player side wants gonzo-powerful spells and items, and yet my DM side likes to keep things under control and in balance. When things get toned down, my initial reaction is (or was, until I began to realize the true nature of the issue) always to complain or disregard the nerfs. It took a while for me to come around, but I'd usually realize why they happened, and why they were a good idea. That realization comes much more quickly now, and the knee-jerk backlash to nerfing is much more subdued. Though, I still veto some nerfs when their clear intent is to un-break some theorycraft CharOp nightmare with respect to organized play scenarios. In home games this stuff matters a lot less. That said, I still have to be conscious of it, because I have a player in the group who really likes to optimize and find broken combos (though he is quite an excellent roleplayer, too).


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## pemerton

billd91 said:


> From my point of view, the *only* really important balance element a game cannot do without is spotlight balance
> 
> <snp>
> 
> as a DM, I can work toward balancing opportunities so that *all* my players get their chances to shine, be the center of attention, and be cheered on by their peers.



I guess it depends on what is meant by "spotlight balance". The notion I had in mind, introduced upthread, is that the warrior is balanced against the wizard because, after the wizard has fireballed the heck out of the trolls or mummies, the fighter still has to go in and mop up. To me, this verges on fighter-as-sidekick.

I don't object to "spotlight balance" at the level of story/scenario, in the sense that from time to time one or other PC will be at the centre of the story (although I do my best to have my scenarios engage multiple PCs at one time). Of course, this is also affected by wizard vs warrior issues - for example, a wizard PC with narrative-controlling spells has a great capacity to _make_ the scenario be about him/her.


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## I'm A Banana

I like a high-level spellcaster with world-shaking powers.

I *also* like a high level warrior with world-shaking powers. 

You can have both, or you can have neither, but picking one or the other leads the un-picked archetype a clear second banana at best (with an Ars Magica scenario, for instance). 



			
				TwoSix said:
			
		

> See, that's interesting. To my mind, a D&D mage shouldn't bother with locks. If he needs to open a lock, he uses a fire ray on the doorknob.




If I zoom out from that a little, to look at the idea of a "fire ray" as a game mechanic, this is what I see: you want a spell to be a tool, not an effect. This is something that 4e abandoned (attacks damage creatures and doors are not creatures!), but something every other edition has had. 3e said "Your fire deals X damage against a target. Shoot it at a wall, it deals X damage to the wall." 

I'd actually agree that tools are more fun than effects in a tabletop RPG. Tools, by their nature, are useful for more than one thing. They encourage creativity. If my ability is "I shoot fire rays," then I will use that ability to overcome whatever problem my party faces, from the charging ogre to the locked door to detecting the sneaking assassin to winning over the noble who controls the roads in town. 

The thing is, this can create an imbalance. If a wizard can both kill an ogre and open the trapped door, what does the thief do? If the wizard can also detect an assassin, what's the fighter do? If the wizard can also win over the noble, what's the cleric do? 

This is part of why 4e describes effects. "Your ray of fire can kill an ogre, but it can't do anything else unless the DM makes a special exception, since the DM knows best!" It lets DMs do things like say "No, you can't light the forest on fire with your fire ray," rather than having to deal with the consequences of a player that gets _too creative_. It also MAKES a DM do this, which is something that cramps my personal style. I really want my players to be able to be powerful enough to make plots happen. Makes DMing much easier. 

I'm not personally a fan of the "balance by strict definition" approach, but it does balance things, by rigidly defining what they're capable of. Your ray of fire can't melt that lock. You'll need someone with Thievery (or a high Dex anyway) to do it.


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## rkwoodard

*anti-pro balance*

This thread, and the recently closed Video-gamey thread have been very enlighting for myself.

I realize that I want one of the older systems.  I have bought up a bunch of basic modules and will soon start DMing a play by post Savage Coast/Isle of Dread campaign.  If I can get my old friends on board.


But,  one thing I have figured out about myself.  I don't care about strict balance, what I care about is having all players have a vested interest in most encounters.  IE having interesting things to do.

Our groups longest campaign was V&V.  We played by the book, stat yourself, roll 1d6+2 for powers.   We were not balanced....at all.  I was on the mid-to-low power end, but I had high dex and darkness control.  I got to do a ton of really cool stuff.  I got beat up....a lot.

I think a lot of modern games try so hard to have interesting stuff to do, that it makes it way too easy for a smart/lucky/or dedicated player to end up with stuff that makes it less interesting for the other players.

So, I will go back to my B/X and rely on more player skill than character mechanics.

Regards,


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## NoWayJose

Kamikaze Midget said:


> If I zoom out from that a little, to look at the idea of a "fire ray" as a game mechanic, this is what I see: you want a spell to be a tool, not an effect. This is something that 4e abandoned (attacks damage creatures and doors are not creatures!), but something every other edition has had. 3e said "Your fire deals X damage against a target. Shoot it at a wall, it deals X damage to the wall."
> 
> I'd actually agree that tools are more fun than effects in a tabletop RPG. Tools, by their nature, are useful for more than one thing. They encourage creativity. If my ability is "I shoot fire rays," then I will use that ability to overcome whatever problem my party faces, from the charging ogre to the locked door to detecting the sneaking assassin to winning over the noble who controls the roads in town.



That's a good way of articulating it. For both versimilitude and creativity, I do like spells as a tool. To extend this a little further, I'd like to see D&D, for example:
a) define the effects of cold magic, for example, so you know that cold does x damage and numbs (=slow) living creatures, or if applied directly to the ground, causes slippery terrain, etc.
b) keeps cold effects more or less consistent, so that any cold spell shares the same traits (as applicable). You've defined that family of magic and how it interacts with the world, and the various cold-spells are variations of shape, power, etc.



> The thing is, this can create an imbalance.



In all fairness, did D&D ever really truly tried, and I mean honestly tried, to implement a balancing mechanism that does not take away the fun and flexibility of the spell-as-a-tool approach? Or did 4E swing sharply towards the spell-as-an-effect and other 4E paradigms because it was easier, convenient, etc.? I'm just asking, if anyone actually tried? People often accuse WoTC of not making the best adventure modules, but that doesn't mean that amazing adventures haven't and can't be developed. So just because D&D went with the 4E approach, it doesn't mean that the alternatives cannot exist. Maybe it doesn't, maybe it's impossible to have fun magic and no balance, but I'm not sure I want to rely on WoTC to give me a final answer. Maybe a 5E or another system will come around that proves it wrong.



> If a wizard can both kill an ogre and open the trapped door, what does the thief do? If the wizard can also detect an assassin, what's the fighter do? If the wizard can also win over the noble, what's the cleric do?



I could argue that if a fighter can slaughter his enemies and smash locks, then what does the thief do? If a charismatic rogue can sweet-talk the noble, what's the cleric to do? But somehow that's not a problem.

Since all this is theoretical, at least on my end, I don't have any hard answers, and it would take an essay to cover every possible corner case, so I won't even try.

I do think it's a sacred cow that somebody decided in 1e/2e that fireball, for example, should do massive amounts of damage. What if magical fire is more like a flamethrower. If you're roleplaying a modern rpg, nobody claims that the guy with the flamethrower is hogging the spotlight with his worldshaking weapon. Ya, the flamethrower is unique and intimidating, but you can sneak from behind and knife him, or shoot him from a farther distance, or rush at him while he's firing up his flamethrower.

I'm not invalidating anyone's concerns about balance. I'm just wondering if people are too quick and hasty to give up on cool spells and sacrifice that potential fun because they never really thought it through.


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## I'm A Banana

NoWayJose said:
			
		

> In all fairness, did D&D ever really truly tried, and I mean honestly tried, to implement a balancing mechanism that does not take away the fun and flexibility of the spell-as-a-tool approach? Or did 4E swing sharply towards the spell-as-an-effect and other 4E paradigms because it was easier, convenient, etc.? I'm just asking, if anyone actually tried?




Kinda. "Balance" is a difficult thing to pin down, even for 4e, which is the most fetishistic about it. Pre-3e's balance was "Wizards are rockstars at high levels, Fighters get to wail at early levels, XP's are different so fighters get more levels." That didn't quite work. 3e's balance was "Everyone can help kick a given monster's butt," but that didn't quite work. 4e's balance is "Every Role X class has ability Y in combat," and that has its own problems. 

4e's move was a reaction against some abuses in 3e that arose from taking some "tool" and using it to hugely outsized effect. Pun Pun was a creation like this. Take the (repitilian) keyword (a rule designed to have the effect of giving Rangers more things to apply their bonuses against) and a particular ability (a rule designed to give a villainous enemy some lackeys), and change up how they are used (it's a PC!), and you have abuse. Open-ended effects like Polymorph and Wish and other tools without well-defined limits (or intentionally lacking them) gave a lot of effects that were unintended and unbalancing. 

I personally think that there's a sweet spot between "Polymorph can turn you into anything from the MM" and "you can't fire ray a door because it's not a creature" that both ideas miss by a pretty wide margin. 



> I could argue that if a fighter can slaughter his enemies and smash locks, then what does the thief do? If a charismatic rogue can sweet-talk the noble, what's the cleric to do? But somehow that's not a problem.




You're hitting one of the _narrative_ problems of the "all-powerful spellcaster" on the head.

The thing is, adventuring parties in D&D generally face four broad types of challenges:


 Combat (vs. monsters)
 Exploration (vs. an environment)
 Interaction (vs. an NPC)
 Knowledge (vs. a hidden element)

A 3e spellcaster can do all of these better than a nonspellcaster. Save-or-die (and healing) wins combats. Flight and teleport win Exploration. Charm and Dominate win Interaction. Scry and Truesight win Knowledge.

I think that every player should be able to contribute to any party in these four ways in a unique and class-specific way, personally. I like wizards who can burn things, teleport, charm, and scry, so for me, the best solution is to make these things roughly equal to what a rogue can do (sneak attack, speedy movement, sliver tongue, and perception abilities) or what a fighter can do (hit it with a sword, climb up that cliff in fullplate, impress the locals with reputation, and always be prepared for an ambush!). 

That means, I think, giving them all tools that can be compared to each other, and balanced against each other, so that no one tool is "the best" at doing any one thing. 

4e really only concerns itself with the first element there. That's where the "powers as effects" idea comes from, and the "roles" system comes from, and where "fighters have daily powers!" comes from, too. The other three elements are mostly demoted to "everyone is equal and DM fiat rules how hard these things are." I'm not a fan of that latter solution, and there's problems with the former, too, for those who don't like the way the tools are presented.


----------



## NoWayJose

Kamikaze Midget said:


> "Balance" is a difficult thing to pin down, even for 4e, which is the most fetishistic about it.
> <snip>



I agree with everything you wrote, about the contrast between 3e vs 4e, and a theoretical sweet spot inbetween, and that 4E is somewhat fetishistic about balance, which is a really good way of articulating it for me, because if someone has a "fetish", it's very difficult to sway them (although one could argue that I have a "fetish" towards versimilitude, immersion, fiction-first, etc. which is possible, except that I didn't successfully force my fetish on anyone, I just stopped playing). Maybe that's not WoTC's onus if players themselves analyze and report every imbalance, but maybe the players wouldn't analyze every imbalance if 4E wasn't so naked in its balancing mechanism. A chicken and the egg thing.



> A 3e spellcaster can do all of these better than a nonspellcaster. Save-or-die (and healing) wins combats. Flight and teleport win Exploration. Charm and Dominate win Interaction. Scry and Truesight win Knowledge.



A 3E spellcaster could theoretically do all of these better with magic, but practically, a) needs access to the applicable spells, b) has to prepare for those spells in advance, c) requires spells components, d) and risks spell-casting being interrupted.

If I'm strong, I can open a jar with pure strength. If I'm weak, I can still open the jar with a towel, a sink, and hot water, in the right place and time. In modern life, those 2 approaches are net-balanced.

I see a wizard as a "cheater" of nature, using magic to open that jar, but needs to prep for it in advance and doesn't always succeed. Whereas a thief is naturally and immediately and consistently able to be sneaky, pick locks, etc. Theoretically, I see that as balanced, and it's just a question of tweaking the dial, rather than removing the entire kitchen.

Personally, subjectively, IMO, I won't play 4E if it acts like a communist teacher who perceives unfairness in the playground and reacts by taking away all the toys, (then charging 10,000 gp for one use of a toy).


----------



## Votan

rkwoodard said:


> This thread, and the recently closed Video-gamey thread have been very enlighting for myself.
> 
> I realize that I want one of the older systems.  I have bought up a bunch of basic modules and will soon start DMing a play by post Savage Coast/Isle of Dread campaign.  If I can get my old friends on board.
> 
> 
> But,  one thing I have figured out about myself.  I don't care about strict balance, what I care about is having all players have a vested interest in most encounters.  IE having interesting things to do.
> 
> Our groups longest campaign was V&V.  We played by the book, stat yourself, roll 1d6+2 for powers.   We were not balanced....at all.  I was on the mid-to-low power end, but I had high dex and darkness control.  I got to do a ton of really cool stuff.  I got beat up....a lot.
> 
> I think a lot of modern games try so hard to have interesting stuff to do, that it makes it way too easy for a smart/lucky/or dedicated player to end up with stuff that makes it less interesting for the other players.
> 
> So, I will go back to my B/X and rely on more player skill than character mechanics.
> 
> Regards,




I think that one trick that B/X does have is to make the range of power between characters (at least at low to middle levels) is relatively insensitive to design decisions and very sensitive to player cunning.  That means that the concerns are different and these questions did not seem to come up very often.


----------



## LostSoul

Kamikaze Midget said:


> "you can't fire ray a door because it's not a creature"




I don't think that's the rule in 4E.  

A couple of years ago I was running a game.  Goblins were shooting at the PCs from a rickety wooden balcony.  One PC used a fire burst power - I forget what it's called, it's the 3rd level wizard burst one - and specified that he wanted to burn that balcony.  At first I wasn't sure if he could do it, but he was the rules guy and so, blammo!  Balcony fell, goblins massacred.


----------



## I'm A Banana

NoWayJose said:
			
		

> I agree with everything you wrote, about the contrast between 3e vs 4e, and a theoretical sweet spot inbetween, and that 4E is somewhat fetishistic about balance, which is a really good way of articulating it for me, because if someone has a "fetish", it's very difficult to sway them (although one could argue that I have a "fetish" towards versimilitude, immersion, fiction-first, etc. which is possible, except that I didn't successfully force my fetish on anyone, I just stopped playing). Maybe that's not WoTC's onus if players themselves analyze and report every imbalance, but maybe the players wouldn't analyze every imbalance if 4E wasn't so naked in its balancing mechanism. A chicken and the egg thing.




We've all got our kinks.  One of Mearls's big themes in his Legends & Lore column is that there's a lot of types of people who play D&D, who are looking for different (and often incompatible) things from it. 

I think it's important to pay attention to balance, but I also think balance is bound to be subjective to a huge extent, so you can't proof your rules against imbalance without dictating how people are to play the game. Which goes against what D&D is about, to a large extent (that is, playing the game how YOU want to play it). 



> I see a wizard as a "cheater" of nature, using magic to open that jar, but needs to prep for it in advance and doesn't always succeed. Whereas a thief is naturally and immediately and consistently able to be sneaky, pick locks, etc. Theoretically, I see that as balanced, and it's just a question of tweaking the dial, rather than removing the entire kitchen.




I agree with "tweaking the dial" rather than "removing the kitchen." But this ties into what I said about subjectivity in balance. In a heavily player-driven game, that wizard might functionally, in play, be able to always prep and always roll until they succeed, making the thief feel really boned. In another game, that might not happen, so everyone's happy. It might be balanced in theory, and in practice in some games, but without telling people that they HAVE to play in a way that challenges the wizard, you're going to see a possible abuse at some point. 

Which is why, for me, codifying each of the four main challenges for a heroic adventuring party is one step toward the solution. If all of them have a consistent way of being addressed, it's easy for a DM to judge the power of the tools used to solve them. 



			
				LostSoul said:
			
		

> I don't think that's the rule in 4E.




It was mentioned by one of the designers themselves in a play session. It was also used rather consistently by my DM when I was playing a pryomancer to avoid me pulling stunts like "setting this forest on fire." Which was probably a smart use of it. 

That might not be how many people mostly actually play, especially under adroit DMs, but it's part of the thought process behind 4e's power design: to narrowly define a specific, limited implementation. Which, IMO, isn't nearly as fun as an open-ended toolbox.


----------



## NoWayJose

Kamikaze Midget said:


> I agree with "tweaking the dial" rather than "removing the kitchen." But this ties into what I said about subjectivity in balance. In a heavily player-driven game, that wizard might functionally, in play, be able to always prep and always roll until they succeed, making the thief feel really boned. In another game, that might not happen, so everyone's happy. It might be balanced in theory, and in practice in some games, but without telling people that they HAVE to play in a way that challenges the wizard, you're going to see a possible abuse at some point.



Some brainstorming ideas:

1) if a party doesn't include a thief, having a utility wizard would actually be net-beneficial to the party

2) if the party has or later gets a rogue, the rules for the wizard might allow and even encourage changing his spells (ie., not a 3e sorcerer) so that they're not redundant with the thief. Why waste a slot on a knock spell when there's a thief around?

3) consider common-sense rules that discourage wizards from using magic when there's a mundane approach, ie., if a wizard tries to slag a lock with fire, it may or may not succeed, but if it doesn't, it ruins/melts the lock such that it cannot be picked. Then the thief can't pick the lock. Therefore, the wizard will always want to wait for the thief to go first. If a wizard tries a Jedi mind trick on an NPC and it doesn't succeed, perhaps a side-effect/backlash turns the NPC more hostile, thus it's always wiser to allow another party member to try conventional persuasion first.

4) reconsider sacred cows of magic. There's no reason why a fire ray needs to be so hot and sustained that it can melt locks, in fact, that amount of intense radiation sounds like a much higher level damage output. Assume that low-level spells evoke a brief half-second instance of magical fire, enough to flash-burn living tissue, but not enough to set fire to hardened wood.

5) consider novel approaches to resource-management of magic, like mana points, longer casting times, deducting a healing surge and/or hit points if a wizard exceeds a standard mental strain of casting spells too frequently or 'too hot', etc.

6) tweak rules such that wizards are quite vulnerable when casting magic in melee and rely on companions to tactically protect them during casting. A wizard without such strategic shielding can instead use magic wands for firepower, which are safer to use but wouldn't be overpowering vs a mundane weapon.

Where there's a will, there's a way. In 4E, if there wasn't so much negativity about un-balance, perhaps there could be a will and a way. If after real effort, it turns out that negativity is completely justified in hindsite, then I'll accept a metaphorical lashing. Until then...


----------



## LostSoul

Kamikaze Midget said:


> That might not be how many people mostly actually play, especially under adroit DMs, but it's part of the thought process behind 4e's power design: to narrowly define a specific, limited implementation. Which, IMO, isn't nearly as fun as an open-ended toolbox.




I have no idea if it's part of the thought process behind power design.  It doesn't really matter, though; it's not a part of the game.  Maybe they intended powers to have specific, limited implementations, but they forgot to put that in the rules.


----------



## I'm A Banana

LostSoul said:
			
		

> I have no idea if it's part of the thought process behind power design. It doesn't really matter, though; it's not a part of the game. Maybe they intended powers to have specific, limited implementations, but they forgot to put that in the rules.




By a strict interpretation, it is in the rules.

The target line of every power is something like "*Target*: One creature."

Unless that target line says you can target something else, you can only affect a creature with that power.

A few powers (like Force Orb, forex) do specify that you can affect objects, but most of 'em don't.

Again, a lot of DMs are much more flexible than this strict reading would indicate. And the game is hardly monolithic about it. 

But, really, the point is that, in order to achieve balance, 4e prefers to define specific effects rather than general tools. This is part of how things like refluffing powers work: The _effect_ is important, and how you describe that doesn't matter one bit.


----------



## LostSoul

Page 107 of the Rules Compendium deals with targeting objects:

At the DM's discretion, a power that targets one of more creatures can target one or more objects, as long as the number of targets does not exceed the number specified by the power.​


Kamikaze Midget said:


> This is part of how things like refluffing powers work: The _effect_ is important, and how you describe that doesn't matter one bit.




I'm with you there.  That's one of my "pet topics".


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> At the DM's discretion




Those are the key words, and they're out of the Rules Compendium, not the PHB.

IOW, the targeting limitation IS part of the rules.  It's just that _later_ rules have given DMs "permission" to alter this.

Ha ha- I know, most DMs you or I or others might know aren't afraid to HR things like this anyway, so they don't need permission.  That language is there for those who otherwise wouldn't.


----------



## Nemesis Destiny

Dannyalcatraz said:


> That language is there for those who otherwise wouldn't.



This is so key to the DM experience... I've known too many DMs who took the "ain't on the page, ain't on the stage" approach. In organized play and tourneys and such - fine. In your home game though? _Come on_.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

I've been playing 34 years and in a variety of systems- I don't have a problem with GMs who want to run things RAW.  It isn't how _I_ do things, bit I don't find it making a serious dent in my fun.


----------



## Celtavian

TwoSix said:


> See, that's interesting.  To my mind, a D&D mage shouldn't bother with locks.  If he needs to open a lock, he uses a fire ray on the doorknob.
> 
> I guess never liked the archetypal image that pre-4e mages presented.  Wimpy guys who can do weird stuff a few times a day, like knock or locate object, but can occasionally fly like Superman.
> 
> I prefer mages more of the Harry Dresden archetype.  Combat magic is blasts and shields, telekinetic force and fire.  If I had to put what I want a D&D mage to be in pre-4e terms, it would be access to evocation, abjurations, and maybe some conjurations.  Other effects would take longer, or require crafting items.
> 
> I feel D&D magic is better overall if specific schticks are separated into different classes, rather than grouped under one wizard class umbrella.  That's why I'm a fan of classes like the beguiler, dread necromancer, and warmage.  They feel to me what magic should be about.  You have an area of expertise, and a ton of versatility within that field.  But you can't be good at everything.




I like this idea as well. I wouldn't at all mind seeing this in future D&D design.

I also think the sorcerer class can accomplish this same type of limitation. Sorcerers are very limited in the type of spells they can acquire, which limits their versatility and ability to do all things. Yet at the same time well-designed sorcerers can be potent whether a standard blaster or something stranger like a shapechanger focused on melee.

If they did away with the generic wizard and focused more on specialized casters, I think it would make world building and magic more interesting. Imagine if teleport wasn't at every wizard's beck and call. Or wish. Or enervation. Or hold monster.

If you wanted to do certain things, you would have to pick a certain magical discipline with far more limiations than specialization. While at the same time not limiting magic in the fashion that 4E did. I think this would be an excellent option from both game design and revenue generation. There would need to be an entire book dedicated to magic very, very early to supply options for casting.

I can't stand the inherent limitations of 4E magic. I still want to see the variety in magic of previous editions. But limiting areas of magic to certain classes wouldn't bother me at all. Why should a necromancer be able to teleport? Why should a conjurer be able to control minds? Why should a wizard focusing all his time on transmuting materials be able to manipulate the dead?

The _Pathfinder_ wizard specialties was a step in the right direction. But I'd like to see them take it even farther if whenever they decide to do somethng different down the line and make specialization much more limited.


----------



## LostSoul

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Those are the key words, and they're out of the Rules Compendium, not the PHB.
> 
> IOW, the targeting limitation IS part of the rules.  It's just that _later_ rules have given DMs "permission" to alter this.
> 
> Ha ha- I know, most DMs you or I or others might know aren't afraid to HR things like this anyway, so they don't need permission.  That language is there for those who otherwise wouldn't.




Re: The DM's discretion.  Those are the key words!  They make the game an RPG, they make the imagined content matter.  (That is my "pet topic.")

Earlier rules were not definitive on the subject (see "Bursts" in the PHB, "Object Properties" in the DMG, and "Vehicles" in the AV).  They cleared that up.  Well, that's my reading.  The in-play example I posted earlier was based on content from the PHB - it happened before Essentials was released.  (I probably wrote it up in one of my game threads.)

Since we're talking about the thought process behind 4e's power design, I think that they wouldn't have clarified things to work against their own desires.  Maybe that wasn't the original intent; I have no idea.  It doesn't really matter, since powers can be used as "tools" and not simply defined effects.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> Re: The DM's discretion. Those are the key words! They make the game an RPG, they make the imagined content matter. (That is my "pet topic.")




To me, it is the players' role play that is more crucial to making a game an RPG than the DM's discretion.



> Earlier rules were not definitive on the subject




I disagree...but were I ever to run 4Ed (don't hold your breath), I'd probably allow certain powers to target objects on a case by case basis.


----------



## LostSoul

Dannyalcatraz said:


> To me, it is the players' role play that is more crucial to making a game an RPG than the DM's discretion.




If the RP doesn't feed back into the economy of the game, I would not call it an RPG (the old "You can RP in Monopoly" argument).  I am not sure there's a way to do that without having "DM" discretion.



Dannyalcatraz said:


> I disagree...but were I ever to run 4Ed (don't hold your breath), I'd probably allow certain powers to target objects on a case by case basis.




Yeah, I'm not sure I totally agree either!  It seemed pretty clear back in '09 when that "burn down the balcony" moment happened, but looking at it now it seems a little weak.  It brings up some confusing issues.  A melee basic attack targets "One creature"; does that mean you can't swing your sword or fist at an object?


----------



## I'm A Banana

> It brings up some confusing issues. A melee basic attack targets "One creature"; does that mean you can't swing your sword or fist at an object?




It means you have to ask your DM pretty please with sugar and cherries on top can I maybe use my waraxe to cut firewood, please, o great and powerful Master of All Dungeons and Controller of Reality.

All right, that's blatant hyperbole, but "Mother May I" gameplay gets under my skin.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Because "System may I|?" is soooo much better.


----------



## Hussar

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Those are the key words, and they're out of the Rules Compendium, not the PHB.
> 
> IOW, the targeting limitation IS part of the rules.  It's just that _later_ rules have given DMs "permission" to alter this.
> 
> Ha ha- I know, most DMs you or I or others might know aren't afraid to HR things like this anyway, so they don't need permission.  That language is there for those who otherwise wouldn't.




Popping back in for a sec.    Can't resist.  And, taking a bit of time off seems to have been a good idea.

I think that the issue here is with RPGA play.  I've long contended that 4e is the RPGA edition where the mechanics are built around the idea that you have only a very flimsy social contract at the table (how much social contract do you have with someone you met ten minutes ago, will play with for the next four hours and likely never see again?) and that tables and groups will change very regularly.

So, we make the baseline very restrictive because in RPGA play, that's pretty necessessary.  Then we add in bits for the home player where the rules can be relaxed and responsibilities for the game dumped back into the DM's lap, where it mostly belongs in a long term group.

Note, also, some powers do specifically target objects, so, it's not all that out of line to insist on the divide here.  

Although, to be honest, I think this was simply an oversight on the original writers part.  Meh.


----------



## billd91

Kamikaze Midget said:


> It means you have to ask your DM pretty please with sugar and cherries on top can I maybe use my waraxe to cut firewood, please, o great and powerful Master of All Dungeons and Controller of Reality.
> 
> All right, that's blatant hyperbole, but "Mother May I" gameplay gets under my skin.




*ALL* refereed games are ultimately "Mother, May I?" no matter how much the rules define. That's just a question of relatively insignificant detail. There isn't a single RPG with a game master setting up the campaign settings, playing NPCs, and adjudicating rules that doesn't ultimately come down to the same hyperbolic point.
If you don't trust your GM's judgment, you don't trust your GM's judgment.


----------



## Hussar

Raven Crowking said:


> Because "System may I|?" is soooo much better.




I know you meant this as a joke RC, but, honestly, many times, yes, System May I is better.  At the very least, it's impartial and, even if it might be stupid, it's equally stupid to everyone.

Mother May I runs into that human barrier and I've seen way too many games go pear shaped (including more than my share of ones I've been running) because the DM thinks he knows better.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:


> I know you meant this as a joke RC, but, honestly, many times, yes, System May I is better.  At the very least, it's impartial and, even if it might be stupid, it's equally stupid to everyone.
> 
> Mother May I runs into that human barrier and I've seen way too many games go pear shaped (including more than my share of ones I've been running) because the DM thinks he knows better.




I guess that assessment depends upon your experience.

The reason a human GM is better than a computer, IMHO and IME, is that the human GM can make judgment calls....and is therefore not 100% reliant upon the system.

If a game is worth playing, IMHO and IME, "Mother May I" is indescribably superior to "System May I".  A person who disallows a sensible action because the system disallows it -- or a system that disallows sensible actions in the name of balance ("Sorry, you only get three jump cards per session; you can't leap over that garden hose") -- makes the game not worth playing.

Indeed, the whole concept of "System May I" assumes that the system takes precedence over the players; whereas "Mother May I" assumes that the Game Master is a jerk who is participating not to supply reasonably judgments and a fun game for all concerned, but rather to feed his own ego.  It also edges into that "Say Yes" meme, where the GM who says "No" is a bad "Mother May I" GM.

Needless to say, I think that is poppycock.  Human adjudication in a role-playing game is always, IMHO and IME, superior to system adjudication.  This is true even of the worst GMs I've ever encountered.  I mean here GMs who have run games that I have walked out on because they were insufferable pricks who wanted to control how the adventure "flowed" and what PCs could do in enormously heavy-handed ways.  I mean, literally, "You want to just leave the ruins?  Well, you start aging one year per minute until you change your mind!" is better than System May I.

YMMV, obviously, and from many conversations it seems to me that you have had some....unusually bad, let us say.....experiences that make you distrust even typical GMs.  


RC


----------



## I'm A Banana

RavenCrowking said:
			
		

> Because "System may I|?" is soooo much better.




That's a false dichotomy, mang.

I think "You can only hit creatures unless the DM gives you _special privileges_" is really dumb, because I think its fun when rules elements are like tools, with many possible uses. If I have an axe, I shouldn't need to ask permission to chop down a door, or use it to gather firewood, or hack my way through underbrush. These are all very predictable uses of an axe. As a DM, I shouldn't have to stop and give permission all the time, either. I should have players confident enough and imaginative enough to say, "This is what I do," and I can say, "Okay, here's what happens."

You don't need much of a "system" to tell you that you can use an axe to chop things other than enemies. You actually just need the "system" to get the heck out of the way of your imagination and not tell you to ask the DM's permission before you go and do something as _insane and possibly unbalancing_ as using an axe to gather firewood. 

Again, it's a balance thing. If my axe can clear underbrush, I guess it can chop away this underbrush that is ranked as difficult terrain in this combat, thus making it easier for me to move and possibly giving me a supreme edge in a combat. If my fire ray can light things on fire, I guess it can light that underbrush on fire, clearing it and killing anything inside of it, making the combat super easy. 



			
				billd91 said:
			
		

> There isn't a single RPG with a game master setting up the campaign settings, playing NPCs, and adjudicating rules that doesn't ultimately come down to the same hyperbolic point.
> If you don't trust your GM's judgment, you don't trust your GM's judgment.




In this case, it's not a problem of trust, it's a problem of degree. I shouldn't need permission to do something that is clearly within the realm of my character's abilities.

It's like asking my DM for permission for my character to breathe, or digest his lunch, or swallow that sip of ale. It's micro-managing on a pretty absurd level.

It exists for a fairly valid balance reason, but I'm of the opinion that fun trumps balance. If my astounding ability to cut things with an axe ruins the DM's plan for an epic battle on a rope bridge, perhaps the DM needs to develop some basic on-the-fly skills (with the help of the system) instead of denying me the ability to hit anything aside from a designated target. I'm used to that in a computer game, but D&D is better than that in part because you can do anything you imagine.

I'm not asking to get rid of the DM. I'm just disputing the benefits gained from this micro-management.


----------



## GSHamster

Kamikaze Midget said:


> Again, it's a balance thing. If my axe can clear underbrush, I guess it can chop away this underbrush that is ranked as difficult terrain in this combat, thus making it easier for me to move and possibly giving me a supreme edge in a combat. If my fire ray can light things on fire, I guess it can light that underbrush on fire, clearing it and killing anything inside of it, making the combat super easy.




To offer a different perspective, you're applying a scientific mindset to a magical problem.

Why does the fire spell only work on creatures? Because it's magic. Maybe it's not "real" fire, but magical force that simulates the effects of fire when it comes into contact with flesh. Maybe the fire summoned from the elemental plane "thinks" in some fashion and chooses not to burn non-living material. Maybe the fire requires the "spark of animation" in order to combust.

To me it seems a little disingenuous to say that you can break some of the physical rules with magic, but then other rules (specifically that fire always behaves like fire) _must_ apply.  If magic can break the rules, then magic can break any rule, especially the Principle of Repeatability.


----------



## I'm A Banana

GSHamster said:
			
		

> Why does the fire spell only work on creatures? Because it's magic.




Personally, to me, this first seems like a weak, passive, condescending, cop-out hand-wave ass-pull, and second like like no fun, even if it wasn't. Part of D&D's appeal is the capacity to have my imagination dictate the game. If what I can affect only comes from a specific list of pre-approved DM targets, that's a problem for me, since it kicks the reason I like D&D in the face. I want to be creative with my abilities, and I want my players to be creative with theirs. Until recently, D&D was a good way to do that. 

It also doesn't address the "I can't chop shrubs with an axe" problem, unless you decide that axes in this alternate universe suddenly only work based on life-force or something.


----------



## GSHamster

Kamikaze Midget said:


> It also doesn't address the "I can't chop shrubs with an axe" problem, unless you decide that axes in this alternate universe suddenly only work based on life-force or something.




Axes aren't magical. The normal physical laws apply to them.

I'm just pointing out a valid (in my view, at least) counter-argument. Magic is magic. It does not obey the physical laws of the universe. Therefore, it is reasonable to treat it differently than an axe.

Heh, it might even be a balancing point for magic vs mundane. Magic can be very powerful, but must be very precise, and can't be "adapted" to different situations the way non-magical elements can be. Of course this might be less fun for the magic users, so it's probably not the best of ideas for a game.


----------



## pawsplay

Hussar said:


> I know you meant this as a joke RC, but, honestly, many times, yes, System May I is better.  At the very least, it's impartial and, even if it might be stupid, it's equally stupid to everyone.




The problem is that the game is at least as futile as Mother May I.


----------



## NoWayJose

GSHamster said:


> Why does the fire spell only work on creatures? Because it's magic. Maybe it's not "real" fire, but magical force that simulates the effects of fire when it comes into contact with flesh. Maybe the fire summoned from the elemental plane "thinks" in some fashion and chooses not to burn non-living material. Maybe the fire requires the "spark of animation" in order to combust.



I agree that this feels like a cop-out, at least for people like me... which is the probably the target audience that one needs to convince. Because the people that are OK with spell-as-a-specific-effect don't prioritize the versimilitude of fiction-first and don't feel the need to fully justify the mechanics in the first place.

Going back to the OP, which is how warrior and wizards are handled in literature, I would venture to say that something like sentient magical fire that purposefully decides not to burn non-living matter is simply non-existent. Same goes for fantasy movies. That kind of spell would be completely uncinematic.



> To me it seems a little disingenuous to say that you can break some of the physical rules with magic, but then other rules (specifically that fire always behaves like fire) _must_ apply. If magic can break the rules, then magic can break any rule, especially the Principle of Repeatability.



For the sake of consistency and consensus, if magic creates "fire", then one by default one assumes it behaves like fire. If magic creates Zeenox Energy, then it can be whatever the game defines that to be.

I agree there are some odd cases, like why in 3E are there no rules for lightning bolt being conducted by water, which is why (on the previous page) I suggested that D&D defines what is magical cold (and fire and electricity), how does it mechanically interacts in the game world, including how is it different (if any) from natural cold, fire, electricity. This is not a solution for 4E, which really doesn't care about that kind of thing as Kamikaze so eloquently articulated on previous pages, but would be great to have for a 5E.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Kamikaze Midget said:


> That's a false dichotomy, mang.




I don't think so.

You rely on the rules, or you rely on a human agency to interpret the rules.

I prefer to rely on a human agency.

YMMV.


RC


----------



## Nemesis Destiny

NoWayJose said:


> For the sake of consistency and consensus, if magic creates "fire", then one by default one assumes it behaves like fire. If magic creates Zeenox Energy, then it can be whatever the game defines that to be.



This very situation is why you need to rely on a (hopefully) reasonable DM to interpret things, to parse the game's syntax and make it work in a believable way.

It makes sense that magical fire can burn through a door, or magical force can smash it down, but what about when you hit the door with a necrotic effect? Or cold?

There are answers, if the DM wants to get creative (necrotic might rot the wood, cold might make it brittle enough to grant a bonus to smash it, etc), but if they don't, it's pretty easy, and not terribly illogical to just say, "sorry, your necrotic doombolt does nothing to the door."

I think having that flexibility is a strength in _any_ system.



> I agree there are some odd cases, like why in 3E are there no rules for lightning bolt being conducted by water, which is why (on the previous page) I suggested that D&D defines what is magical cold (and fire and electricity), how does it mechanically interacts in the game world, including how is it different (if any) from natural cold, fire, electricity. This is not a solution for 4E, which really doesn't care about that kind of thing as Kamikaze so eloquently articulated on previous pages, but would be great to have for a 5E.



I'm pretty sure 3.x did define the effect of a lightning effect when it hit water. IIRC, when a lightning bolt hit water, it created a "fireball" sized spread within the liquid medium, rather than continuing through it.

4e doesn't bother defining this sort of thing, but having experience with earlier editions, if it ever came up, I would make a ruling on how it worked. This is the upside of "mother may I" I suppose. Others may not agree, but they don't have to play in my game, either


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## NoWayJose

Raven Crowking said:


> You rely on the rules, or you rely on a human agency to interpret the rules.



This Mother May I vs System May I is an interesting side-trek, but I worried it will explode into another pirate captain fiasco.

Why do people sometimes like to quibble about certain angles, and solution-driven progressive approaches yield barely a peep?


----------



## I'm A Banana

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> You rely on the rules, or you rely on a human agency to interpret the rules.




You don't need human agency or rules to tell you that an axe can chop. You just need to kind of know what an axe is. 

The game and the DM, I feel, are both safe in assuming that you know what an axe is (or can find out). 

4e's default position is "It's entirely up to the DM!", which seems pointless to me. If my character's axe can't chop, it's not doing a very good job of _being an imaginary axe_. I assume the primary goal of D&D is to play a game of imagination, and if the DM suddenly rules that axes can't chop wood, that makes the game pretty clearly fail its primary goal. It's pointless micromanagement. 



			
				GSHamster said:
			
		

> Axes aren't magical. The normal physical laws apply to them.




Now we're turning a little closer back to Spellcaster/Warrior balance: according to 4e's rules, the way to balance the two is to make axes and magic behave the exact same way.

I can't burn down that tree with fireball (unless I have special DM permission).

I also can't cut down that tree with my axe (unless I have special DM permission). 

This balances the two, really well. 

But it fails to provide a satisfying play experience, by failing to give a player reasonable agency over their own abilities, by failing to live up to the standards required of my willing suspension of disbelief (e.g.: that axes and fire in the game work something kind of resembling how axes and fire work in reality), and by failing to let me be creative with my character's abilities.

So I don't think it's a great way to solve the Spellcaster/Warrior balance issue, despite its remarkable ability to strictly balance their capabilities.


----------



## LostSoul

KM, I don't understand where you're coming from.  A bunch of questions:

How do you define balance?

Assume you're writing your own game:

How would you write the rules that tell you how actions are resolved?

How should the game resolve an action's impact on mechanical features (HP, etc.)?

How should the game resolve an action's impact on the fiction?

What do you think the DM's responsibilities should be?

What criteria does the DM use to make decisions?


----------



## NoWayJose

LostSoul said:


> KM, I don't understand where you're coming from. A bunch of questions:
> 
> How do you define balance?
> 
> Assume you're writing your own game:
> 
> How would you write the rules that tell you how actions are resolved?
> 
> How should the game resolve an action's impact on mechanical features (HP, etc.)?
> 
> How should the game resolve an action's impact on the fiction?
> 
> What do you think the DM's responsibilities should be?
> 
> What criteria does the DM use to make decisions?



I know this was addressed to KM, but please see last several pages, it must touch upon at least some of those questions.


----------



## LostSoul

I'm sure the answers are there, but I am having trouble seeing them.  I'm asking those questions because I really don't understand where he's coming from and, instead of arguing different points he's making, it's probably best to go back to the basics and start from there.


----------



## NoWayJose

LostSoul said:


> I'm sure the answers are there, but I am having trouble seeing them. I'm asking those questions because I really don't understand where he's coming from and, instead of arguing different points he's making, it's probably best to go back to the basics and start from there.



Speaking only for myself, as I can't speak for KM, I believe I have touched upon some of those questions in the last x pages, and I believe that KM was on the same wavelength (more or less, correct me if I'm wrong). I sympathize that you're having trouble seeing them (myself, I didn't read pages 2 to 80, I think), but I find it too discouraging and unmotivating to package a nice summary for anyone's convenience (no offense, intended).


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> I can't burn down that tree with fireball (unless I have special DM permission).
> 
> I also can't cut down that tree with my axe (unless I have special DM permission).
> 
> This balances the two, really well.
> 
> But it fails to provide a satisfying play experience, by failing to give a player reasonable agency over their own abilities, by failing to live up to the standards required of my willing suspension of disbelief (e.g.: that axes and fire in the game work something kind of resembling how axes and fire work in reality), and by failing to let me be creative with my character's abilities.



An axe has a RW identity independent of the game, so what it can or cannot do is part & parcel of what an "axe" is capable of doing in the game.  You can cut down a tree with an axe in the RW, therefore it can do so in game.

A fireball spell has no existence independent of the game in which it exists, therefore, it's capabilities are ENTIRELY defined by the game.

"What about RW fire?" you may ask.  Well, fire burns at different temperatures depending on it's fuel sources.  That's why a crematory fire can reduce a human body to ashes and the one used in a sideshow can be held in the palm of your hand.  What temp DOES a fireball burn at?

As for it's targeting and the response "it's magic"- that's not a cop-out of imagination.  Magic may break the rules of physics, but it has rules of it's own.  Remember all the discussions about whether Magic Missile could target illusions?  If a spell can't target objects, there may be a perfectly reasonable reason why...to a magical theorist in the game world.  It may not be spelled out to the gamer, but then again, who wants to read a treatise on the underpinning rules of game magic that most gamers would never need to play the game?


----------



## I'm A Banana

LostSoul said:
			
		

> How do you define balance?




By and large, I don't. It's an ever-shifting target. It depends on what you're talking about. 

I think my ideal "balance" between characters for a PnPRPG would be that each player's character could contribute to overcoming the conflicts of the game in a unique mechanical and narrative way.



> How would you write the rules that tell you how actions are resolved?




Rule 1 is that anything that's not a conflict happens through descriptive narrative. A player can make their character do anything they can imagine their character doing. A DM must determine the result of the action, forbid impossible actions, and judge when there's a conflict that might need mechanics to resolve.

The rest of the rules are basically those conflict resolution mechanics. 



> How should the game resolve an action's impact on mechanical features (HP, etc.)?




Well, if it was my game, I'm pretty firmly a fan of a cinematic, narrative style, so I would say the resolution should vary based on the intended dramatic tension of the conflict. If there's no conflict, there's no tension, and so the action either happens (if it could logically happen), or it doesn't. If there's a very minor conflict, a single die roll might dictate the resolution. If it's a big, dramatic conflict, something more detailed (like a combat system), with building tension and a big, final resolution. 

If someone were going for a more simulation style, I'd imagine they'd have a single resolution system perhaps more based in how "easy" it is. An easy task requires only a simple resolution, but a hard task requires a more detailed resolution. Easy and hard can be determined by level, training, class, etc.



> How should the game resolve an action's impact on the fiction?




For me, the ideal way is the same way actions resolve in reality: cause -> effect. This provides a thrill of discovery when the effect happens, keeps the time flowing in one direction, and helps ground players in their characters by making them decide an action based on current abilities, not expected results.  It's easier to improvise, easier to narrate, and more fun to play through.



> What do you think the DM's responsibilities should be?




They control the game, though not the characters. They determine if an event is possible, if it is a conflict, what kind of conflict it is, what the effects of the resolution of the conflict can be, etc. They facilitate the game by either constructing a narrative (in my preferred cinematic style) or by constructing a world (in a more sandbox style), and keep the game flowing by controlling pacing (including level pacing). 



> What criteria does the DM use to make decisions?



When deciding about their world or story, they make decisions according to their own desires, taking into account the desires of the rest of the group.

When adjudicating an action, they make decisions based on a quick cycle:
Is it possible? If no, then no, it can't happen. 
If yes, then is it a conflict? If no, then it happens.
If yes, then which resolution mechanics will you use?
After you have a resolution, what happens?
Then, what does the character do in response?
Is it possible? ....etc....



> KM, I don't understand where you're coming from.




Hope that helps!


----------



## NoWayJose

Dannyalcatraz said:


> As for it's targeting and the response "it's magic"- that's not a cop-out of imagination.



I disagree 90% but instead of derailing this thread with arguments about what is intuitively obvious to me (and already debated ad nauseum in many other threads), I will instead ask (even beg) you to just trust me that I feel it's a cop-out.

The people who don't have a problem with 4E magic as is, are not the people who worry about wizard vs warrior balance, because it's already balanced. So you're good to go!

It's only the rest of us deniers that have to find another way to address balance issues with magic as we imagine it narratively and cinematically.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

NoWayJose said:


> I disagree 90% but instead of derailing this thread with arguments about what is intuitively obvious to me (and already debated ad nauseum in many other threads), I will instead ask (even beg) you to just trust me that I feel it's a cop-out.




Oh, I'm not claiming your POV is invalid, just that I don't agree with it at all.



> The people who don't have a problem with 4E magic as is, are not the people who worry about wizard vs warrior balance, because it's already balanced. So you're good to go!




Personally, not a big fan of 4Ed magic.  Too watered down, too shackled by balance.  But I can live with it.



> It's only the rest of us deniers that have to find another way to address balance issues with magic as we imagine it narratively and cinematically.




Targeting issues aren't new to 4Ed.  The MM vs illusions debate goes back across the editions.  Nor are the ancillary effects of magical fire and other energy/element effects.  (Remember, I'm the one who closed out the thread on whether 3.X energy damage Enchantments triggered on touch attacks, in the context of the flaming whip.)

Saying a spell can't target an object is not inherently anti-narrativeist.  Perhaps some spells can only target the living.  Perhaps it's fire (if it IS a fire spell) is not hot enough or long lasting enough to damage most non-living targets.

Just because we don't know the "Why" of spell targeting restrictions doesnt mean the reasons are inherently or automatically gamist.

If it helps, think of the underlying rules of magic as being something the designers of 4Ed left for you to color in.


----------



## TheUltramark

someday, would someone explain this "balance' that everyone keeps screaming about.


----------



## Eric Tolle

I think it might be helpful to go back and consider a couple of fantasy sources in this debate over balance:

Let's go back to the source for D&D magic: Spells from Jack Vance's "Dying Earth. This spells are powerful, no doubt, and they don't really follow any rhyme or reason. But they have the following characteristics in the stories I read:

1: Magic is an Ultimate. that is, magic overcomes whatever mundane obstacle is set before the mage- thge only thing that can MAYBE stop magic is magic. If the spell is a teleport spell, it teleports the mage to wherever he wants to go, whether on the Earth, or to a far star., An attack spell invariably kills the opponent unless another spell neutralizes it (I might allow a PC to survive, unconscious and critically wounded with the expenditure of something like a Fate or Hero point).

2. Magic is a limited tactical or strategic resource: That is, a really top of the line mage may be able to forceably impress on his mind up to six spells at a time; an average mage could do four, and a talented apprentice, two. "Memorizing" spells takes quite some time, at least half an hour per spell, and it appears that a mage must be well rested and calm. I may not limit it to 2-6 spells per day, but a mage right out of combat couldn't memorize spells.

3. Spells are rare. No mage alive can actually make a new spell- they are all relics from a golden age. There are at most a couple of hundred spells existing today, and no mage knows all of them. Getting taught a new spell would be the object of a major quest; finding a new spell would be an epic quest. And honestly, a good chunk of the spells should be interesting, but useless for an adventurer's purpose.

4. Spells are of dramatic utility. Funny how after pondering over their spellbooks, mages seem to only memorize spells that are exactly right for the situation. In game terms, I wouldn't even require players to say what spells their characters have memorized. They simply say which of their known spells they are casting, and it is assumed that they figured out what spell they would need.

5. Spells are flashy, loud, baroque and all in all very unsubtle. There's no simply "read minds" spell: if anything, it would involve a silver decanter with random thoughts spoken by a golem floating within, or something. Imagine the weirdness quotient of D&D spells pumped up to 11., 

The end result is one where mages have to hoard their use of spells, and use them at only the most crucial moments. Naturally there's a large need for mundane skills and accomplished wizards may also be accomplished politickers, swordsmen, or otherwise resourceful.

The thing is, I can't really think of how this might be applies to D&D directly- it sounds more like something I could apply to a different system.


Other literature/systems:

Avatar the Last Airbender: Magic is control of elemental forces, and casters can do highly impressive things in a limited area, from area effect fire or water blwsts, to flying. On the other hand, highly talented mundane warriors can regularly kick the asses of our magic users, to the point where they'd rather run than fight.

The Dresden Files: sniper rifle wins.

Witch World (Andre Norton): Magic can do some damn impressive things, ranging from mind control to rousing ancient gods. However, it takes intense eyes-closed-going-on-a-mental-journey levels of concentration and extended rituals to do anything at a distance. In combat, you're better off relying on swords, dart guns and lightning whips.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Again, magic is an ultimate, capable of rearranging the entire world. However spells are difficult to cast, have unforseen costs, and unless you've turned into a Big Bad for the season, take a long time to cast. In combat, better rely on your stabby friends and your running ability.

The Taltos series: magic has a lot of utility and combat value; teleporting to known locations is common. However there's a lot of counters to magic, and one of the biggest is that a lot of people know magic. Also, "No matter how subtle a wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style." And it's funny how many of the major magicians prefer to carry swords for combat.

The Laundry series (Charles Stross): magic is a highly useful branch of advanced mathematics, which seems to require the use of a variety of foci. While there is some improvisational element to it, advanced effects seem to require rituals...and then there's the whole sanity issue. It also seems that people with automatic weapons can easily take out a mage- at no time does our protagonist seem bulletproof. Bureaucracy and library research may be more important skills than magic.

Time Powers: you don't use magic; magic uses YOU.

The  Steerswoman Series (Rot 13) Zntvp vf n fpvrapr. Yvgrenyyl whfg fpvrapr ybbxrq ng guebhtu n aba-fpvragvsvp jbeyqivrj.


Conclusions: the interesting thing is that nearly all of these literary systems have parallels in rpgs, though not necessarily D&D. So I think that looked at in terms of balance, it's not that difficult to imagine tweeking things so that magic may be powerful but more of a strategic/dramatic resource, while conventional skills and weapons may be more useful in the short term. Of course in that case, one of the important things to do would be to give mages something to do besides cast spells. I think that one of the classic limitations of D&D is that mages are so limited toward casting spells, with possibly a few knowledges tacked on. D&D mages are basically defined by the spells they know, while other mages in literature are defined by other traits. You really don't define Harry Dresdin or John Constantine by the name tpf the spells they cast, so why can't we do this in D&D?


----------



## Mort

Eric Tolle said:


> The Dresden Files: sniper rifle wins.




I'm going to addres this because I can't help myself, but I'll do it in spoilers:



Spoiler



1) If the event in question had happened at almost any earlier point in the book it would not have worked because of magic protection. Harry was wearing his duster early on - which provides protection. He was wearing impenetrable magical clothing for a good portion, which also provides protection. 

2) Sure the rifle won, when it was used in the exact right place and the exact right time - at exactly when no magical protections were up (bet harry had wards at the house that could have prevented this very thing too).

So sure the rifle won, when magic was specifically taken away. Butcher takes extreme pains to catch Harry essentially with his pants down. Not that that's bad, it just is.



On a non-spoiler note, am I imagining things, or did the book get delayed 2 months?


----------



## NoWayJose

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Oh, I'm not claiming your POV is invalid, just that I don't agree with it at all.



Likewise.



> If it helps, think of the underlying rules of magic as being something the designers of 4Ed left for you to color in.



Funny, because on page 98, i wrote that, for me, magic "requires sometimes coloring outside the 4E lines"


----------



## pemerton

Kamikaze Midget said:


> You don't need much of a "system" to tell you that you can use an axe to chop things other than enemies. You actually just need the "system" to get the heck out of the way of your imagination and not tell you to ask the DM's permission before you go and do something as _insane and possibly unbalancing_ as using an axe to gather firewood.
> 
> Again, it's a balance thing. If my axe can clear underbrush, I guess it can chop away this underbrush that is ranked as difficult terrain in this combat, thus making it easier for me to move and possibly giving me a supreme edge in a combat. If my fire ray can light things on fire, I guess it can light that underbrush on fire, clearing it and killing anything inside of it, making the combat super easy.



For the record, here are the rules passages from the core 4e books on attacking objects:

PHB p 56:

A close burst power allows you to target creatures or objects​
DMG pp 65-66:

Like characters, objects have hit points and defense scores (except for Will defense; see Object Immunities and Vulnerabilities, below).

An object’s AC, Fortitude, and Reflex defense depend entirely on its size. (As you can tell from the following table, it’s pretty easy to hit an object; so easy, in fact, that many DMs just skip the attack roll unless the situation is particularly dramatic.)

 . . .

Usually, it doesn’t matter what kind of attack you make against an object: Damage is damage. . . you might rule that some kinds of damage are particularly effective against certain objects and grant the object vulnerability to that damage type. For example, a gauzy curtain or a pile of dry papers might have vulnerability 5 to fire because any spark is likely to destroy it.​
How to reconcile this with the "targets creatures" text on many powers? I agree with LostSoul - there is no doubt that an axe can be used to "attack" a tree, or Burning Hands to "attack" a book. Where the GM's discretion comes into play is in resolving the power's effect other than damage - for example, Footwork Lure may not shift a tree even on a hit, and Icy Terrain may not knock a laboratory shelf prone, even if it does destroy all the alchemical samples on it by freezing them solid.



Raven Crowking said:


> A person who disallows a sensible action because the system disallows it -- or a system that disallows sensible actions in the name of balance ("Sorry, you only get three jump cards per session; you can't leap over that garden hose") -- makes the game not worth playing.



What sort of high adventure game are you playing where leaping over the garden hose requires playing a jump card!?


----------



## Raven Crowking

Kamikaze Midget said:


> You don't need human agency or rules to tell you that an axe can chop.




Ummm.....



> You just need to kind of know what an axe is.
> 
> The game and the DM, I feel, are both safe in assuming that you know what an axe is (or can find out).




And how is that *not* relying on a human agency (in this case, my own)?

Any time you say "The game is safe in assuming that the players know or can find out X" there is a reliance on human agency to determine what X is, and what the capabilities of X are.

Contrast to a video game, where a player cannot do anything the programmer did not predesign.  Can I use the axe to chop?  Well, only if the programmer thought you should when the game was written.  System May I?

I was almost out of here when that "Mother May I" comment came up....specifically, the idea that relying on human agency is somehow a bad thing.

I disagree.  I disagree a lot.  My position is the opposite -- failure to rely on human agency is a really bad decision.  It is as bad a decision as not giving that human agency some guidance as to how to be reliable.


RC


----------



## Raven Crowking

pemerton said:


> What sort of high adventure game are you playing where leaping over the garden hose requires playing a jump card!?




I think that you fully understood what I was saying.

The game is called Hypothetical Adventures!  It specifies that you have to play a Jump Card to leap in the game, but fails to specify that the leap must be significant, etc.  That is because HA! wants to minimize human agency (GM decision making)so that it never becomes a "Mother May I" game.

Remember, if someone wants to play in a Hypothetical Adventure, just say "HA!"



RC


----------



## pemerton

On the whole GM/human agency thing, I think I'm somewhere in between KM and RC. (And I'm not sure about LostSoul.) I think that human interpretive agency is important for a RPG. At least in my game, it's not just the GM but the players as well who have an important role in this - in that they are able to propose interpretations/options, and the GM is under some sort of onus to take them seriously.

Where my greater proximity to KM comes in is that I think different systems can do a better or worse job of (i) providing players with the tools with which to frame their interpretations and options, and (ii) providing GMs with the tools to properly discharge the onus that falls on them.

It's probably fairly obvious that I think 4e does a pretty good job in relation to (i) and a very good job in relation to (ii). I think Rolemaster does at least as good a job in relation to (i), but quite a poor job in relation to (ii) - in a lot of contexts a GM has nothing to fall back on but some very generic Difficulty descriptors and a very generic Static Action table. I think Basic D&D and AD&D rely a lot more on social contract and understood table context, than on the published rulebooks, when it comes both to (i) and (ii). For example, there is really very little in either Gygax's PHB - for a player - or DMG - for a GM - that would encourage me as GM to set up a scenario like White Plume Mountain or Tomb of Horrors, nor supply me as player with the sort of framework I need for tackling it. The contrast between these classic AD&D scenarios, and scenarios like D1-3 which, while written for AD&D could be ported with conception mostly preserved into a wide range of other fantasy systems, is to me pretty stark. (Ghost Tower of Inverness is probably midway between S1&2 and D1-3 in the extent to which the published rules/guidelines for encounter/scenario design and action resolution bear significantly on the way the module is actually built and meant to be played.)


----------



## Hussar

Raven Crowking said:


> I think that you fully understood what I was saying.
> 
> The game is called Hypothetical Adventures!  It specifies that you have to play a Jump Card to leap in the game, but fails to specify that the leap must be significant, etc.  That is because HA! wants to minimize human agency (GM decision making)so that it never becomes a "Mother May I" game.
> 
> Remember, if someone wants to play in a Hypothetical Adventure, just say "HA!"
> 
> 
> 
> RC




And, to be fair, any game that stated what you just said and left it at that would be a bad game.  However, that's a pretty extreme position really.  Most games would have, somewhere in the rules, the idea that A. Mechanics only kick in when there is some sort of conflict (see the size/space rules in 3e D&D for a good example of this - your size (medium=5 foot cube) only applies during combat) and B. General mechanics for dealing with stuff that doesn't really need the flashy stuff to resolve (such as Take 10 for example).

There is a danger in hypotheticals of getting too far away from what we should be talking about.


----------



## Raven Crowking

pemerton said:


> On the whole GM/human agency thing, I think I'm somewhere in between KM and RC. (And I'm not sure about LostSoul.) I think that human interpretive agency is important for a RPG. At least in my game, it's not just the GM but the players as well who have an important role in this - in that they are able to propose interpretations/options, and the GM is under some sort of onus to take them seriously.
> 
> Where my greater proximity to KM comes in is that I think different systems can do a better or worse job of (i) providing players with the tools with which to frame their interpretations and options, and (ii) providing GMs with the tools to properly discharge the onus that falls on them.




There's nothing in this that I disagree with at all.

I was just reading through Wik's thread on epic level D&D, and the degree to which the player-presented rules interfere with his ability to frame events.  Whose interpretation determines whether an ooze can be tripped?  The GM's or the system's or the player's?

It seems that the more a system is balanced on a knife's edge, the more the system gets to make those decisions.  "System May I say oozes cannot be tripped?"  "No, you may not, or you nerf the fighter!  What seems like a small change to you can actually tip a very fine balance."

I personally prefer systems with a broader base of support, where that level of fine balance isn't needed in order to make the game work.  I like GMs to make calls.  I like it when bad things happen unexpectedly...and the PCs win anyway!

I do not like games that seem "tactical" on the outside, but which eventually become "We stunlock the monsters" followed by a flurry of _coups de grace_, without any real chance of failure, combat after combat after combat.  Which seems to be where Wik's epic game lives these days.

I also think that a broader base of support allows for a wider variety of characters that are still "balanced" within the context of the whole system.

To answer the OP, warriors and wizards are balanced by the warrior's powers being "always on", while the wizard's powers require the correct timing, a lot of luck or forethought, and are often dangerous to the user as well as to the target.  You can model this in a broad-base support game; I have yet to see it modeled well in a knife-edge balance game.



RC


----------



## NoWayJose

pemerton said:


> I think that human interpretive agency is important for a RPG. At least in my game, it's not just the GM but the players as well who have an important role in this - in that they are able to propose interpretations/options, and the GM is under some sort of onus to take them seriously.



I have a question... you brought up the rules about targeting objects, because a few people were going back and forth as to whether a ray could target an object or not. Now 4E is almost 3 years old. I was wondering why the answer to target object issue isn't already commonly known to 4e players (assuming those involved in that debate played 4E?).

Is it possible that there are a number of 4E players/DMs who have grown so comfortable coloring inside the 4E lines, that it never occured to them to ask "Can I target that object with this ray?".

Because if the metagame combination of "System May I" and "spell-as-a-effect" is so explicit that people never think outside that box, then no wonder some people are disregarding the fantasy literature and cinematic narrative as a source of expectations of what they should be able to do in D&D.


----------



## I'm A Banana

> And how is that not relying on a human agency (in this case, my own)?




It's not relying on the DM's agency, which I suppose is the clincher. It doesn't ask for permission to do things you probably should be able to do. 




> Contrast to a video game, where a player cannot do anything the programmer did not predesign. Can I use the axe to chop? Well, only if the programmer thought you should when the game was written. System May I?




Totally agree. This is what I don't like about 4e's current assumption -- it replicates that feeling of being in a videogame, where only the designer's allowed options are the valid ones. 

Again, not that most DMs bother to play with the default 4e assumption, at least outside of a combat.



> I was almost out of here when that "Mother May I" comment came up....specifically, the idea that relying on human agency is somehow a bad thing.




What's bad is when a player has to have that agency bequeathed to them by request, when they should clearly possess it without having to ask. That's some micromanagement



> I disagree. I disagree a lot. My position is the opposite -- failure to rely on human agency is a really bad decision. It is as bad a decision as not giving that human agency some guidance as to how to be reliable.




Any extreme position is, I feel, not a great one in this case. Go just by the rules, and you have 4e's "you can't hit objects" and videogames with their "pre-approved actions only, please!" Go just with DM judgement, and you're playing Amber Diceless. 

It becomes "Mother May I" when you have to ask the DM for permission too often, when you can't give a player enough autonomy to perform their own actions most of the time. Asking the DM if my axe can chop wood falls into that camp, since it's pretty obvious that my axe should be able to chop wood, and I shouldn't have to fluff the DM's ego by requesting some special dispensation to do what should clearly be something I can do.


----------



## Nemesis Destiny

NoWayJose said:


> I have a question... you brought up the rules about targeting objects, because a few people were going back and forth as to whether a ray could target an object or not. Now 4E is almost 3 years old. I was wondering why the answer to target object issue isn't already commonly known to 4e players (assuming those involved in that debate played 4E?).
> 
> Is it possible that there are a number of 4E players/DMs who have grown so comfortable coloring inside the 4E lines, that it never occured to them to ask "Can I target that object with this ray?".
> 
> Because if the metagame combination of "System May I" and "spell-as-a-effect" is so explicit that people never think outside that box, then no wonder some people are disregarding the fantasy literature and cinematic narrative as a source of expectations of what they should be able to do in D&D.



I can't speak for everyone in every 4e-playing group out there, obviously, but this does not accurately describe my situation at all.

More likely is that attacking objects just doesn't come up that often, or that most DMs just don't need to look up specific rules on the issue - they just make a logical ruling and move on. Those rules are there for people that actually need to reference them, due to inexperience or because they don't want to think outside the box, or because some people like to know the rules inside-out-and-backwards.

What I described in my last post was pretty much the same as though I had consulted the previously quoted rules text, but here's the thing - I didn't _need_ the rules to tell me what to do. I made a judgement based on what I think is appropriate, and, what do you know... it happened to coincide with the rules.

In a lot of cases, the rules for things like this are based largely on DMing shared experience as to what works. People who have been doing it for a long time already know these things, generally, but the books cannot assume that (for reasons that this thread has made _painfully _obvious).


----------



## Abraxas

NoWayJose said:


> I have a question... you brought up the rules about targeting objects, because a few people were going back and forth as to whether a ray could target an object or not. Now 4E is almost 3 years old. I was wondering why the answer to target object issue isn't already commonly known to 4e players (assuming those involved in that debate played 4E?).
> 
> Is it possible that there are a number of 4E players/DMs who have grown so comfortable coloring inside the 4E lines, that it never occured to them to ask "Can I target that object with this ray?".
> 
> Because if the metagame combination of "System May I" and "spell-as-a-effect" is so explicit that people never think outside that box, then no wonder some people are disregarding the fantasy literature and cinematic narrative as a source of expectations of what they should be able to do in D&D.



This would describe the games I have been involved with lately - it is even something I commented on in another thread awhile ago. For some reason the group I game with has switched from trying stuff that makes sense at the time and letting the DM adjudicate to only doing what their power cards say they can do - it is quite frustrating.


----------



## Fifth Element

Raven Crowking said:


> The game is called Hypothetical Adventures!  It specifies that you have to play a Jump Card to leap in the game, but fails to specify that the leap must be significant, etc.  That is because HA! wants to minimize human agency (GM decision making)so that it never becomes a "Mother May I" game.



Sometimes, an illustration of an extreme position that no one is actually taking can contribute to the understanding of the discussion.

This is not one of those times. IMHO.


----------



## Fifth Element

Raven Crowking said:


> I do not like games that seem "tactical" on the outside, but which eventually become "We stunlock the monsters" followed by a flurry of _coups de grace_, without any real chance of failure, combat after combat after combat.



This happened in the other thread too. You can't coup de grace a stunned creature, it needs to be helpless.

Also, this is spoken like someone with little or no experience with the game. Is that not correct?


----------



## pawsplay

Fifth Element said:


> This happened in the other thread too. You can't coup de grace a stunned creature, it needs to be helpless.
> 
> Also, this is spoken like someone with little or no experience with the game. Is that not correct?




He wasn't specifying the _stun _condition of any particular edition of any particular game; he was clearly talking about stunlocking *in general *and coups de graces *in general*. Clearly, there are games where this occurs (even some games in which you cannot literally coup de grace someone, as the maneuver, who merely has the _stun _condition as defined in that game).


----------



## Fifth Element

pawsplay said:


> He wasn't specifying the _stun _condition of any particular edition of any particular game; he was clearly talking about stunlocking *in general *and coups de graces *in general*. Clearly, there are games where this occurs (even some games in which you cannot literally coup de grace someone, as the maneuver, who merely has the _stun _condition as defined in that game).



It strikes me that he is discussing a game (4E, since all examples are directly tied to it) with which he has limited experience, and using extreme examples that are discussed on the internet all the time but don't show up in most people's games.


----------



## pawsplay

Fifth Element said:


> It strikes me that he is discussing a game (4E, since all examples are directly tied to it) with which he has limited experience, and using extreme examples that are discussed on the internet all the time but don't show up in most people's games.




Considering his familiarity with a number of d20 games on which he is basing his own personal project, including D&D 3e in which you also cannot coups de grace a stunned creature, I think you are barking up the wrong tree. I think you are focusing on a specific phraseology which is not intended to mean what you are implying it does. 

Jo: Let's drive to McDonald's for dinner.
Chris: I don't want to go through the drive-thru.
Jo: That's fine by me.
Chris: But you just said driving to McDonald's. You didn't say anything about getting out of the car. I can only assume you don't realize McDonald's has dine-in seating.


----------



## NoWayJose

For what it's worth, this leads up to a summary of my subjective position over the last 10 pages:

4E Essentials: Hynotism
* The target uses a free action to make a melee basic attack against a creature of your choice
* Slide the target up to 3 squares

This is a classic case of 4E metagamey spell-as-an-effect 1 design philosophy that makes little or no narrative/fictional sense.

For those who expect that spells be designed with a fiction-first cinematic approach, Hypnotism fails spectacularly: By the letter of the rule, you can't use hypnotism to cause them to drop an item, say something, fall prone, stick their head in a bucket, etc.

Like many 4E powers, for me, the title of the spell ('Hypnotism') and the fluff ('Your piercing gaze and whispered word let you seize momentary control of your enemy's mind') hints at marvelous possibilities, but the actual mechanics are a straightjacket. Expectations raised and dashed, promises and lies, all in the same breath.

This lack of simulationism is tolerated or outright denied by people who are comfortable coloring inside the 4E lines 2, and I can't deny them their right to have that experience.

However, for me, the magic of magic (pun intended) has been smothered, thanks to 4E's fetish for balance 3, codified behavior 4, and downplay of human adjudication 5.

In the case of Hypnotism, I would scrap the spell, move it to a higher level, balance it with drawbacks, and/or (the lamest but easiest way) name it 'Power Word: Move Exactly 30 Feet or Attack Enemy' (which is super-gamey, but at least it's honest).

But that's just a single illustrative example. Overall, I would personally, subjectively, ideally and theoretically prefer:
- A return or partial return to narrative/cinematic-based resolutions 6
- A return to literature/cinema as a source of design inspiration and player expectations 7
- Magic is more subtly balanced mechnically and narratively more fun and special than in 4e 8
- Spells are designed as a tool, not as an effect 1
- Attempt to define what evocations can and can't do in-game -- for the sake of consistency and clarity 9
- Add drawbacks to magic, tweak magic resource management, and reassess sacred cows -- for the sake of balance 10
- Wizards are semi-capable fighters (like Gandalf) 11 or use low-power magic wands, etc. when spells run out -- for the sake of continual contribution
- Scholarly wizards with little melee value and more powerful magicks are optional for advanced/mature games 12
- Avoid swinging all the way back to pre-4E uber-wizard issues that some people have experienced at higher levels 13

If you disagree with any of the above, you have every right to argue otherwise. That said, if you're happy with the 3E or 4E status quo, you're already good to go!

Any helpful comments or constructive suggestions?

Edit: I don't think that page 42 of the DMG is the best answer 14

1. http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...andled-fantasy-literature-98.html#post5536926
2. Various posts pg 100-101 and other threads about metagame vs fiction-first, simulationism, verisimilitude, etc.
3. http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...andled-fantasy-literature-96.html#post5535445 and http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...andled-fantasy-literature-99.html#post5537089
4. http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...andled-fantasy-literature-91.html#post5533899
5. Various posts pg 100-102 and http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...e-has-changed-over-years-why-i-dont-like.html
6. http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...ndled-fantasy-literature-101.html#post5538972
7. http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...ndled-fantasy-literature-101.html#post5539089
8. Most of pg 98
9. http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...andled-fantasy-literature-99.html#post5537032
10. http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...andled-fantasy-literature-99.html#post5537835
11. http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...andled-fantasy-literature-92.html#post5534115
12. http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...andled-fantasy-literature-92.html#post5534264
13. Pages 97 and lower
14. http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...ndled-fantasy-literature-104.html#post5540211


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Mort said:


> So sure the rifle won, when magic was specifically taken away. Butcher takes extreme pains to catch Harry essentially with his pants down.




Not sure which story we're talking about, bit the Dresden story I'm thinking of, the magic of his duster saves him from a sniper...just.

"If Buzz had shot me six inches lower, only a single layer of leather would have been between the round and my hide.*  A few inches higher, and it would have taken me in the neck, with absolutely no protection.  And if he'd waited a quarter of a second longer, until my foot had descended to the first step leading down to my door, he would have sprayed my brains all over the siding of the boardinghouse."

This in a story in which he was already aware of danger and on guard.






* Harry is examining where a high-caliber sniper round was flattened against the inner collar of his jacket.  The sniper round passed through one layer of magic-reinforced leather, only to be stopped by a second.  As it was, it still incapacitated him to the point that the sniper was almost able to finish him off.


----------



## Mort

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Not sure which story we're talking about, bit the Dresden story I'm thinking of, the magic of his duster saves him from a sniper...just.
> 
> "If Buzz had shot me six inches lower, only a single layer of leather would have been between the round and my hide.*  A few inches higher, and it would have taken me in the neck, with absolutely no protection.  And if he'd waited a quarter of a second longer, until my foot had descended to the first step leading down to my door, he would have sprayed my brains all over the siding of the boardinghouse."
> 
> This in a story in which he was already aware of danger and on guard.i
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> * Harry is examining where a high-caliber sniper round was flattened against the inner collar of his jacket.  The sniper round passed through one layer of magic-reinforced leather, only to be stopped by a second.  As it was, it still incapacitated him to the point that the sniper was almost able to finish him off.




I'm talking about the most recent Dresden novel Changes,



Spoiler



where he unforunately does not, barely survive the bullet (details in the next book).


----------



## Beginning of the End

LostSoul said:


> Page 107 of the Rules Compendium deals with targeting objects:
> At the DM's discretion, a power that targets one of more creatures can target one or more objects, as long as the number of targets does not exceed the number specified by the power.​




This is one of the things that make the "edition wars" so fruitless/entertaining: If you bought a 4E PHB, DMG, and MM in 2008, played a dozen sessions, and decided that the game wasn't for you, it's fully possible that the stuff you didn't like is no longer part of the game. Entire core mechanics have been completely rewritten; monster design has been radically changed; and so forth.

People who are immersed in the ever evolving "current version" of 4E feel that its critics are ignorant because they're not discussing what "4E is really like"; 4E's critics feel that the fans are being disingenuous because they keep claiming things about the game which were patently not there when the critics played it.

OTOH, I think NoWayJose makes a good point when he says:



NoWayJose said:


> For what it's worth, this leads up to a summary of my subjective position over the last 10 pages:
> 
> 4E Essentials: Hynotism
> * The target uses a free action to make a melee basic attack against a creature of your choice
> * Slide the target up to 3 squares
> 
> This is a classic case of 4E metagamey spell-as-an-effect 1  design philosophy that makes little or no narrative/fictional sense.
> 
> For those who expect that spells be designed with a fiction-first  cinematic approach, Hypnotism fails spectacularly: By the letter of the  rule, you can't use hypnotism to cause them to drop an item, say  something, fall prone, stick their head in a bucket, etc.




There is a lot of general advice in the DMG which doesn't seem to have influenced the actual design of 4E in any way. This doesn't seem to have gone away.

For example, LostSoul's quote from the _Rules Compendium_ feels as if it was written in direct response to forum criticisms that sprung up around Chris Perkins' decision in a celebrity podcast session of D&D to not allow a particular power to target an object because it specifically targeted only creatures.

(I think it was Chris Perkins. If it was another WotC employee working as DM, I apologize.)

But while it narrowly addresses this particular aspect of non-flexibility in the rules, it doesn't actually alleviate the fundamental principles of design which create the problem in the first place (as the example of hypnotism demonstrates; simply changing the target doesn't fix the problem).


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> There is a lot of general advice in the DMG which doesn't seem to have influenced the actual design of 4E in any way. This doesn't seem to have gone away.
> 
> For example, LostSoul's quote from the Rules Compendium feels as if it was written in direct response to forum criticisms that sprung up around Chris Perkins' decision in a celebrity podcast session of D&D to not allow a particular power to target an object because it specifically targeted only creatures.
> 
> (I think it was Chris Perkins. If it was another WotC employee working as DM, I apologize.)
> 
> But while it narrowly addresses this particular aspect of non-flexibility in the rules, it doesn't actually alleviate the fundamental principles of design which create the problem in the first place (as the example of hypnotism demonstrates; simply changing the target doesn't fix the problem).




1) QFT.

2) I was thinking of the exact same podcast when I read that quoted revision.


----------



## NoWayJose

Beginning of the End said:


> There is a lot of general advice in the DMG which doesn't seem to have influenced the actual design of 4E in any way. This doesn't seem to have gone away.



On a vaguely related note, I just saw this article "Your Gritty Antihero and You"
Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (Your Gritty Antihero and You)

The good news: Despite the cheekiness, it's one of the most honest articles I've read on wizards.com about marrying the class rules to the roleplaying narrative.

The bad news: The author is a guest writer from outside WoTC (!!!) and, as per above, there's still a noticeable (at least for some people) disparity when you get down to certain mechanics.

If people like Jared von Hindman were part of the design team for 4.75E, we might have a beautiful lovefest between 4E mechanics and narrative!


----------



## Raven Crowking

Kamikaze Midget said:


> It's not relying on the DM's agency, which I suppose is the clincher. It doesn't ask for permission to do things you probably should be able to do.




Um.....You seem to be confusing _*who*_ decides that axes can chop with *how* that decision is made.  

Also, I specified "human agency" not "the DM's agency"........while the second is a subset of the first, the terms are not co-equal.



Fifth Element said:


> Sometimes, an illustration of an extreme position that no one is actually taking can contribute to the understanding of the discussion.
> 
> This is not one of those times. IMHO.




You are entitled to your opinions, however misguided they may be.  

Seriously, though, the extreme juxtaposition of "Mother May I" vs. "System May I" came about specifically due to an attempt to claim that relying on GM agency to make rules calls turns the game in to "Mother May I".

I take KM's post as evidence that he disagrees with that position as well (if not as much) as I do, and, therefore, I would say that there was definitely some value.

At the very least, we now have "System May I" as  a term to counter "Mother May I"........which will hopefully keep the use of both terms to a minimum, as we seek something that lies happily in the middle.



Fifth Element said:


> This happened in the other thread too. You can't coup de grace a stunned creature, it needs to be helpless.
> 
> Also, this is spoken like someone with little or no experience with the game. Is that not correct?




I have over 30 years of experience with Dungeons & Dragons.  What game are you referring to?


----------



## LostSoul

This thread moves fast.

Thanks for this, KM!  I think we're on the same page. If I'm reading you right, you don't want to _constantly_ appeal to whatever human authority makes these decisions.  The system should never result in the question "Can I chop a tree with my axe, DM?"

I think 4E has the unfortunate effect of making this a question that needs to be asked.  I personally don't think that was intended, but it doesn't matter what I think!



Beginning of the End said:


> This is one of the things that make the "edition wars" so fruitless/entertaining: If you bought a 4E PHB, DMG, and MM in 2008, played a dozen sessions, and decided that the game wasn't for you, it's fully possible that the stuff you didn't like is no longer part of the game. Entire core mechanics have been completely rewritten; monster design has been radically changed; and so forth.
> 
> People who are immersed in the ever evolving "current version" of 4E feel that its critics are ignorant because they're not discussing what "4E is really like"; 4E's critics feel that the fans are being disingenuous because they keep claiming things about the game which were patently not there when the critics played it.




Yep.  I got caught up in trying to make a point, which was a stupid thing to do.  I was pretty sure there was something in the rules that specifically dealt with targeting objects, since that question came up in a game.  After looking through the rules I didn't find anything conclusive.  The Rules Compendium did, and instead of saying, "Yeah, you're right; here's what I read back when that issue came up in my game, and why I made the decision I did," I posted that rule from the RC.


----------



## LostSoul

Nice post, NoWayJose!  I can't rep you for it at this time.



NoWayJose said:


> For those who expect that spells be designed with a fiction-first cinematic approach, Hypnotism fails spectacularly: By the letter of the rule, you can't use hypnotism to cause them to drop an item, say something, fall prone, stick their head in a bucket, etc.
> 
> Like many 4E powers, for me, the title of the spell ('Hypnotism') and the fluff ('Your piercing gaze and whispered word let you seize momentary control of your enemy's mind') hints at marvelous possibilities, but the actual mechanics are a straightjacket. Expectations raised and dashed, promises and lies, all in the same breath.




I agree with this.  As a DM in 4E I wouldn't have had a problem letting the spell result in momentary control of the target1, doing all the things you list in the first paragraph I quoted - and more!  (Post-hypnotic suggestion, for example.)

My problem: even when I'd explicitly tell players they could do these things, they never tried.  That was why I decided to write my hack.

1 I wouldn't let it work on non-sentient objects, though.


----------



## Hussar

RC said:
			
		

> To answer the OP, warriors and wizards are balanced by the warrior's powers being "always on", while the wizard's powers require the correct timing, a lot of luck or forethought, and are often dangerous to the user as well as to the target. You can model this in a broad-base support game; I have yet to see it modeled well in a knife-edge balance game.




See, this is where I disagree.  Take 3e for example.  We've already shown in this thread that a minimal expenditure (10% of character wealth) grants me one HUNDRED scrolls.  Remember, I can blow all those every level and reasonably expect to have that same amount of gold to play with next level as well.

Make a few assumptions - 15 xp awarding events (after all, why am I burning scrolls on a situation that isn't garnering me xp?) per level.  That's 7 scrolls PER EVENT, in addition to my memorized spells.

What luck do I need?  I've got so much depth to my resources, that I can very reasonably expect to have any spell I need for any situation that comes up.  I memorize combat spells exclusively, giving me more than enough depth in combat and then out of combat, either pre combat or between, blow my scrolls.

Even in earlier edition D&D, sure, you had random encounters.  But, that pre-supposes I'm adventuring only in dungeons.  Outside adventures have a much, much less punishing (although possibly more dangerous) rate of random encounters.  Now it's entirely possible that I can have one encounter per day, which means I no longer have to worry about saving spells for the next encounter.

Never mind that the only reason we have these random encounters is to spackle over the problems with the magic system in the first place.  Sure, there might be places where random encounters might go the way the DMG states, but, there are lots of other dungeons where they really shouldn't and it actually strongly breaks verisimilitude to have that many random encounters.

If you remove clerical healing from 1e, suddenly random encounters become mostly meaningless.  If you have a group of non-casters, all with rings of regeneration, then random encounters are just bonus xp.  They don't grind away any resources (other than maybe arrows I suppose).  

Instead of fixing the magic system in the first place, they just slapped on this "random encounter" stuff that grinds away spells and makes it hard to regain spent spells.  It would have made a lot more sense to fix the magic system in the first place and then make random encounters actually follow the logic of the in game reality, rather than a fixed 1 in 6, checked every ten minutes, whether that makes any sense or not.

I mean, how much more gamist can you get?  The random encounters have nothing to do with what's actually IN the adventure, and the timing is completely arbitrary based on what's going to grind away at the casters.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> I mean, how much more gamist can you get? The random encounters have nothing to do with what's actually IN the adventure, and the timing is completely arbitrary based on what's going to grind away at the casters.




Well...my only response to this is that every random encounter I've ever been a part of HAS been based on the content of the adventure and they've been as big a challenge for the non-casters as the casters themselves.

Your milage has obviously varied.


----------



## Hussar

On targetting objects - I would point out that D&D, at least WOTC D&D, has always been an evolving game.  Three years after the first major WOTC revision of D&D, we got 3.5 edition that made much of the same sort of changes that something like the Rules Compendium does.

If someone brings up a 3.0 rule and talks about 3.5, are they being fair?  

Earlier in this thread, a page or two ago, someone talked about lightning bolts making a sort of fireball effect when cast underwater.  In 3.0, this is false.  (3.5 too)  That was an AD&D ruling.  In 3.x, electricity spells do not conduct.  I can be standing in a pool of salt water, grappling while wearing a platinum bikini, cast shocking grasp on the guy holding on to me, and nothing happens to me whatsoever.

This is one of the reasons why I'm really not such a huge fan of what RC calls "human agency" determining game effects.  But, that's neither here nor there.

But, back to the point about discussing rules.  4e is a major revision of the ruleset.  It's not particularly surprising when things get forgotten and left out.  3e did it and I'm pretty sure 5e will as well.  The targetting thing is recognized as a mistake in the rules and it's been fixed.

So, why fixate ('scuse the pun) on a mistake that has been spotted and corrected and then try to claim this as a reason why 4e's system is too gamist?


----------



## Hussar

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Well...my only response to this is that every random encounter I've ever been a part of HAS been based on the content of the adventure and they've been as big a challenge for the non-casters as the casters themselves.
> 
> Your milage has obviously varied.




For one, I'm specifically speaking of the random encounter rules in the AD&D DMG.

How have they been as big of a challenge?  Other than the most obvious, we gotta kill something now way, what abilities does a fighter lose to random encounters?

Put it another way.  If the fighter was not dependent upon the cleric for healing, what does a random encounter actually do?  The only reason the fighter cares about random encounters is because it means he won't get the cleric to heal him because the cleric needs his nappy time.  If the cleric wasn't needed to heal, then the fighter wouldn't care in the slightest how many random encounters occured.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> How have they been as big of a challenge? Other than the most obvious, we gotta kill something now way, what abilities does a fighter lose to random encounters?




HP, ammo, the opportunity for natural healing, the opportunity for rest (see the fatigue rules), etc.


----------



## JamesonCourage

Fifth Element said:


> It strikes me that he is discussing a game (4E, since all examples are directly tied to it) with which he has limited experience, and using extreme examples that are discussed on the internet all the time but don't show up in most people's games.




The underlined section is how I feel about batman wizards, CoDzilla, etc. People talk about them all the time, and while they are surely out there, I do not feel they are in any way common or representative of 3.x.

Yes, 3.x has many problems, in my opinion. I'm sure 4e does, too. I'm sure my own game will, even when I'm done ironing out the wrinkles in it.

Different games have different problems of different levels to different people. In the end, play what you like


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:


> See, this is where I disagree.  Take 3e for example.




Um....Hussar.....the OP's question pertains to _*literature*_.


----------



## pemerton

NoWayJose said:


> Like many 4E powers, for me, the title of the spell ('Hypnotism') and the fluff ('Your piercing gaze and whispered word let you seize momentary control of your enemy's mind') hints at marvelous possibilities, but the actual mechanics are a straightjacket. Expectations raised and dashed, promises and lies, all in the same breath.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> the magic of magic (pun intended) has been smothered, thanks to 4E's fetish for balance 3, codified behavior 4, and downplay of human adjudication



I can't comment on Hypnotism, as I don't own the Essentials book in question, and don't have any players whose PC uses that power.

But I don't  really agree with the notion of "codified behaviour" and "downplay of human adjudication". Page 42, which in the Essentials Rules Companion and DM book is instead folded into the skill descriptions (which canvass various improvisations, with suggested difficulties), is all about human adjudication that isn't codified in advance (although some parameters, in terms of scaling DCs and damage, are suggested).

My players have had no trouble doing things like using Twist of Space (a 7th level wizard encounter power with the Teleportation keyword) to free a woman magically trapped inside a mirror, or spreading wrestling oil on the ground to increase the slide distance when using Footwork Lure (a fighter at-will with a forced movement component).

The rules text of Hypnotism that you cite shows that it is subject to two basic constraints - no action more powerful or sophisticated than a melee basic attack, and no movement further than slide 3. Keeping those constraints in mind, I don't think I'd have much trouble adjudicating other uses pursuant to page 42.



NoWayJose said:


> I have a question... you brought up the rules about targeting objects, because a few people were going back and forth as to whether a ray could target an object or not. Now 4E is almost 3 years old. I was wondering why the answer to target object issue isn't already commonly known to 4e players (assuming those involved in that debate played 4E?).



Search me. I just cited the rules from the core books, noted the tension between them, and suggested what seemed to me to be the natural solution.

But any 4e player who thinks that the game does not contemplate using fire spells to burn down libraries (as one example) must have simply missed the bit I quoted from the DMG that talks about the GM ruling that paper has vulnerable 5 fire.

Or, to come at it in a slightly different fashion - how does a 4e fireball hurt creatures? Because it bathes them in fire (hence, the fire keyword and fire damage). Can it set fire to a library? Yes, because paper bathed in fire will catch alight. What about an attack with an axe? It hurst them because it's a _weapon_ (hence, the weapon keyword). A weapon that, according to the PHB p215, has a "bladed, heavy head" that "deal vicious cuts." Is there any doubt that such a thing can also be used to damage the furniture, or a tree?

Here's some more text from p 10 of the PHB:

While exploring a dungeon or other adventure location, you might try to do any of the following actions:

* Move down a hallway, follow a passage, cross a room
* Listen by a door to determine if you hear anything on the other side
* Try a door to see if it’s locked
* Break down a locked door
* Search a room for treasure
* Pull levers, push statues or furnishings around
* Pick the lock of a treasure chest
* Jury-rig a trap

The Dungeon Master decides whether or not something you try actually works. Some actions automatically succeed (you can move around without trouble, usually), some require one or more die rolls, called checks (breaking down a locked door, for example), and some simply can’t succeed. Your character is capable of any deeds a strong, smart, agile, and well-armed human action hero can pull off. You can’t punch your way through a door of 3-inch-thick iron plate with your bare hands, for example - not unless you have powerful magic to help you out!​
Who, after reading this, really thinks that they need the GM's permission to use an axe to "attack" the furniture (as opposed to adjudicate the outcome of that attack)?



NoWayJose said:


> Is it possible that there are a number of 4E players/DMs who have grown so comfortable coloring inside the 4E lines, that it never occured to them to ask "Can I target that object with this ray?".



I have no idea, but I personally find the tone of the question a bit one-sided.

On another thread earlier this year (maybe "Why 4e is not as popular as it could be"), someone was posting that fireball in 3E noted that it set fire to flammable objects, and that the absence of such text in 4e was a radical departure. I replied that such text, while (if I recall correctly) present in AD&D, was absent in original and Basic/Expert D&D. It's also absent in Rolemaster. To the extent that 4e is different from those other RPGs, I think a big part of that is nothing more than formatting. It's not as if Expert D&D actually talked about fireball doing stuff other than killing foes (it mentions "a missile of fire that burst into a ball of fire" doing Xd6 damage "to each creature within the sphere of fire"). All 4e does is present the same information in a more formal/jargon-laden fashion, rather than in a free text description: "Area burst 3 within 20 squares", "Target: Each creature in burst", etc.

I know that some 4e players report that the game lobotomised their players, or lobotimised them as GMs. I haven't had those experiences. Despite its sparse and creature-focused text, my players in Basic/Expert, and Rolemaster,  never had trouble using fireball to start fires. And it's not been an issue in 4e either.


----------



## Hussar

Dannyalcatraz said:


> HP, ammo, the opportunity for natural healing, the opportunity for rest (see the fatigue rules), etc.




Again, let's look at this though.  I totally agree that resource management is part of dungeon crawling.  But, there's a big divide in how resources work between the casters and the non-casters.

For example, the non-casters have virtually no way of restoring any of their resources.  Ammo can be scavenged, of course, which means that they aren't going to run out so long as they can continue to scavenge, but, there is nothing the player can pro-actively do to replenish his arrows.  He has to go back to town (or where ever) and buy more.

Same with hit points.  If the group is so harried by random encounters that they cannot even rest to regain spells, how are they possibly going to rest long enough for natural healing?  It's never going to happen.  At best, you might get a few hp back, and that's about it.

IOW, if the cleric can't get his cure spells back because he keeps getting his sleep interupted, the fighter most definitely isn't going to be able to get any hp back naturally.

OTOH, the casters regain almost all of their resources through their own actions.  If they can rest, they can get their resources back.

So, bring this back to the dungeon.  The party enters the dungeon, clears a few encounters (however many) and then decides to rest.  Why?

Because the cleric is out of healing spells most likely.  Otherwise, you continue to push on until the cleric is out of healing spells.  If you remove the dependence on the cleric for hit points, the non-casters have zero reason to ever rest.  They don't gain anything by resting.

But, if we let the party rest whenever they want to, then the casters get too powerful.  So, we have random encounters to force the party to choose to rest or continue with dwindling resources.  

IOW, random encounters occur because of the casters.  If you had a group of non-casters with rings of regeneration, they'd never rest.  They would never need to, other than spending a few minutes here or there to top up their hp.  Random encounters serve no purpose in this scenario as far as resource management goes.  It's just xp delivery.

If you get away from D&D with it's Vancian casting, other games almost never have (yes, I'm sure there are some that do, but most don't) random encounters.  Why not?  If random encounters were a verisimilitude thing, then shouldn't nearly all games have rules for random encounters?

In my mind, it's pretty clear.  Random encounters are a method for limiting caster resources.  Remove Vancian casting and you remove most of the reason for random encounters in the first place.


----------



## Hussar

Y'know Pemerton, I've been rereading my B/X books lately and it stuns me how unbelievably sparse those books really are.  There's virtually no details.  You want limited casters - wizards get a grand total of 72 spells to choose from TOTAL and clerics get even less.  

I mean, in 3.5 edition, just the PHB, wizards have more than 70 spells in the first TWO LEVELS (89 spells to be exact, not counting 0 level spells).

How's that for a massive boost in power?


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> Again, let's look at this though. I totally agree that resource management is part of dungeon crawling. But, there's a big divide in how resources work between the casters and the non-casters.
> 
> For example, the non-casters have virtually no way of restoring any of their resources. Ammo can be scavenged, of course, which means that they aren't going to run out so long as they can continue to scavenge, but, there is nothing the player can pro-actively do to replenish his arrows. He has to go back to town (or where ever) and buy more.
> 
> Same with hit points. If the group is so harried by random encounters that they cannot even rest to regain spells, how are they possibly going to rest long enough for natural healing? It's never going to happen. At best, you might get a few hp back, and that's about it.
> 
> IOW, if the cleric can't get his cure spells back because he keeps getting his sleep interupted, the fighter most definitely isn't going to be able to get any hp back naturally.
> 
> OTOH, the casters regain almost all of their resources through their own actions. If they can rest, they can get their resources back.




Which all helps prove my point, Hussar, which was that random encounters were just as hard on noncasters- more of their resources are harder to replenish.  The more random encounters, the more likely the party is going to be forced to retreat.

Oh yeah- you didn't cover fatigue in your point by point.



> So, bring this back to the dungeon. The party enters the dungeon, clears a few encounters (however many) and then decides to rest. Why?
> 
> Because the cleric is out of healing spells most likely. Otherwise, you continue to push on until the cleric is out of healing spells. If you remove the dependence on the cleric for hit points, the non-casters have zero reason to ever rest. They don't gain anything by resting.




Hussar, you and I have gone round and round on this many times before: That does not describe my play experience of the last 34 years.  Rests are not dictated by when the casters are out of spells, they are gotten when they can be.  Many are the times when the party has been advancing when the wizard is using his weapons and the cleric has been moved to point.

It's a rare thing, yes- in part because our casters don't simply cast spells to solve problems, so they tend not to run out of spells- but it does happen.

If what you're saying were universally true, though, it would NEVER happen.



> IOW, random encounters occur because of the casters. If you had a group of non-casters with rings of regeneration, they'd never rest. They would never need to, other than spending a few minutes here or there to top up their hp. Random encounters serve no purpose in this scenario as far as resource management goes. It's just xp delivery.




Again, this does not match my play experience at all.  Fatigue, ammo, and other factors are as much a concern for our parties as whether the casters are still casting.

Or to put it a different way, it's not the unique caster resources that pressure our group to rest, it's all the other stuff.


----------



## NoWayJose

pemerton said:


> I can't comment on Hypnotism, as I don't own the Essentials book in question, and don't have any players whose PC uses that power.



FYI, I chose Hypnotism, partially because I would have assumed that Essentials applies the latest in lessons learned. Both Beginning of the End and Hussar have commented that 4E is an evolving game, so I looked at one example of the latest in the evolution of magic powers.



> The rules text of Hypnotism that you cite shows that it is subject to two basic constraints - no action more powerful or sophisticated than a melee basic attack, and no movement further than slide 3. Keeping those constraints in mind, I don't think I'd have much trouble adjudicating other uses pursuant to page 42.
> <snip>
> I know that some 4e players report that the game lobotomised their players, or lobotimised them as GMs. I haven't had those experiences. Despite its sparse and creature-focused text, my players in Basic/Expert, and Rolemaster, never had trouble using fireball to start fires. And it's not been an issue in 4e either.



But these questions DO seem to come up, as have been mentioned beforehand. [error: missing footnotes]

Your game clearly involves out-of-the-box thinking, which is wonderful, but is it the norm for 4E gamers?

What if many other players and DM read any power mechanics and simply assume that's all they can do with it? That's not a one-sided question -- many people, including myself, read a rule in a rulebook and assume it's the rule, period, whether we personally agree with it or not, especially (as you've pointed out) when the rule is written so succinctly. Some people are very law-abiding that way (excluding anarchists and libertarians who may view D&D rules as guidelines to be broken or bent on a whim).

So I still wonder how many players actively refer to page 42 for alternatives? And of those players that do argue that they should do more with Hypnotism and other powers, how many DMs are in the same mindspace?

My question was not so much how 4E *can* or *should* play out, but how *does* it play out in most games? It's the latter experience that informs a majority consensus, which I think is important to recognize whether one is discussing wizard spells or any other topic. So I didn't mean to ask a one-sided question.

Also, I believe that Hypnotism Essentials is an at-will attack power (someone please correct me if I'm wrong). If some DMs allow Hypnotism to be used more believably as some indicated they would [error: missing footnotes], then arguably, you have a very powerful tool that can upset all sorts of balance issues, no? Can Hypnotism be used endlessly at-will outside of combat? If yes, that can be seriously unbalancing. If not, what's the fictional justification for that? Lots of questions, leading me to believe that, for the sake of balance, the designers did not truly intend spells like Hypnotism to be used beyond 'attack or slide up to 3 squares'. If that's true, then the page 42 option may introduce its own problems and then we're back to square one 1

1. http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...ndled-fantasy-literature-103.html#post5539325


----------



## Mort

NoWayJose said:


> FYI, I chose Hypnotism, partially because I would have assumed that Essentials applies the latest in lessons learned. Both Beginning of the End and Hussar have commented that 4E is an evolving game, so I looked at one example of the latest in the evolution of magic powers.
> 
> 
> But these questions DO seem to come up, as have been mentioned beforehand. [error: missing footnotes]
> 
> Your game clearly involves out-of-the-box thinking, which is wonderful, but is it the norm for 4E gamers?




It certainly is the norm in my 4e game. And page 42 is left open on the table (or it was in early play, now I think the concepts are ingrained and the charts are on the DM screen) as a constant reminder that you are not simply a collection of the powers on your sheet!


----------



## NoWayJose

Mort said:


> It certainly is the norm in my 4e game. And page 42 is left open on the table (or it was in early play, now I think the concepts are ingrained and the charts are on the DM screen) as a constant reminder that you are not simply a collection of the powers on your sheet!



I agree that the philosophy behind page 42 is very well-intentioned: we don't need a rule for everything, too complex and not fun, so improvise a little!

However, I don't believe that page 42 is the answer to life, the universe, and everything. It wasn't designed to handle game-changers, like rules for a nuclear bomb or introducing the magical equivalent of the Internet to the world of Dark Sun.

Thus magic rears its ugly head with questions like 'what happens when lightning bolt hits water?', 'can a ray target an object?' (before the official addendum) and 'why can I only hypnotize him to do 1 of 2 things?'. Previous editions of D&D avoided or addressed these kinds of questions with various degrees of success. The philosophy of 4E is to pointedly avoid these narrative questions and offload them to the DM/player to fill in the blanks For God's sake, we don't really need reference footnotes for this one, do we?.

So what happens when designers ignore the larger implications of spells like Hypnotism? Sweep them under the rug of page 42? Well, as per above1, I think you'll end up with lots of gremlins under the rug just waiting to spring out and unbalance your warrior vs wizards.

For that reason, I can't agree with pemerton's solution of using page 42 to fix the questions that I posed. 2

1. Last paragraph of http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...ndled-fantasy-literature-104.html#post5540121
2. http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...ndled-fantasy-literature-103.html#post5539325


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## Crazy Jerome

Gee, I missed a lot over the weekend. 

On human agency for smoothing out resolution, you guys already have discussed that it is a double-edged sword, but I don't think anyone has addressed exactly just how much so. Rather than tackle it head on, let me make an unsupported assumption (too generalized for purposes of illustration). 

There are two types of DMs (and players to a lesser extent):

1. Those that already know how things work, to a certain degree, and thus fit the rules into that.

2. Those that rely on the rules to tell them how things work, and thus fit reality into that.

The example was an axe, because we assume that everyone knows how an axe works. Maybe they do, but I'm not so sure given the repeated incidents of reports of teenagers that don't know that hamburger comes from cows. I *know* some of these people have never used an axe, and if they have even seen one, it was probably in a bad horror movie (held inexpertly). We can quibble about the depths of ignorance on axes, and I doubt many interested in gaming are that dense. Still, you've got people that think a war axe looks like the illustration in a gaming book, is held like human warrior in the picture holds it, and is a great tool for cutting down a tree. It isn't, though, because the handle is too short.  (I know this because I have cut down trees with an axe, BTW.)

Thus are born the idea that katanas are inherently superior, and the oft-repeated request to chop through a 2" thick solid oak, bound door with a sword, without damaging the weapon. Most of us know there are limits to what a sword can do to a door (pretty severe ones if we are at all realistic). If we allow it, we allow it because the particular game we are running is ok with it--it's a highly magical sword, it's only mere wood, why not? Or some such.

And this is nothing compared to what magic can do. Magic that tunnels through dirt or even granite, leaving a (safe) passage? Magic that changes shape, and what powers and skills go with it?

The problem with the "tool" idea of explaining gaming, though, is that you cannot explain all possible tools in a way that will get through some of those mental blocks that think that cows and hamburger have no relation. Or you can to a certain extent, but the game can't *teach* you about reality, and how the game differs from it. At best, it can try to convey to you what the reality of the game world is, in a consistent manner, and hope that your own slant on how this differs from the reality in your head will not cause too much trouble.

That is, it is not reasonable to ask a game to tell you how weapons would really work, and then also tell you how they work in the game. Frequently, the game authors themselves don't really know, because the game is based on ... film, literature, etc. 

All our theoretical game could do on this question, if it wanted to be brutally honest, is have a several passages supporting this kind of thought: "Here are some weapons. Some of them might be useful in other ways. Depending upon how fantastical you want to make the world, some of the real limits might not even apply. We aren't going to tell you if a war axe is good for chopping down a tree, or if a magic sword can cut through a door, or if you can tie a rope to an arrow and shoot in a way that it can be climbed. That is up to you to decide. If you want to be more realistic about it, you'll need to educate yourself."

Edit: Any student of older fantasy literature can tell you that this question predates fantasy roleplaying. It is not entirely inaccurate to say that fantasy writers also divided into those same two camps: Those that studied fencing or other weapons so that their characters could act in plausible ways, and those that didn't care. There were some sharp words exchanged about it.


----------



## NoWayJose

Crazy Jerome said:


> That is, it is not reasonable to ask a game to tell you how weapons would really work, and then also tell you how they work in the game. Frequently, the game authors themselves don't really know, because the game is based on ... film, literature, etc.



We all have different tolerance limits, but most people don't let the hard truth get in the way of their entertainment. In movies, we see the action hero calmly walking away from a massive explosion behind him. In real-life, he'd be blown away by the concussion, right?

But I get your point. If D&D doesn't explicitly allow a war axe to cut wood, then either they don't want to spell out a rule for everything or they know that war axes != wood axe. On the other hand, if D&D explicitly allows a war axe to do equal damage to wood, then either they don't know anything about war axes or they know but don't care about the realism.



Crazy Jerome said:


> All our theoretical game could do on this question, if it wanted to be brutally honest, is have a several passages supporting this kind of thought: "Here are some weapons. Some of them might be useful in other ways. Depending upon how fantastical you want to make the world, some of the real limits might not even apply. We aren't going to tell you if a war axe is good for chopping down a tree, or if a magic sword can cut through a door, or if you can tie a rope to an arrow and shoot in a way that it can be climbed. That is up to you to decide. If you want to be more realistic about it, you'll need to educate yourself."



You know what would be cool? You have the core crunch rules compendium. Then you publish the Encyclopedia of D&D, which talks about all that wonderful stuff about war axes and katanas like you mentioned. An entry on the war axe outlines the real-life and possible fantasy applications. A section on lightning spells describes real-life electricity compared to what magical electricity might be like. Lots of thought and research though required. Doubt such a thing would ever get published. I'd buy it for sure though. Would be a wonderful coffee-table book, and useful for any fantasy game system.


----------



## Crazy Jerome

NoWayJose said:


> You know what would be cool? You have the core crunch rules compendium. Then you publish the Encyclopedia of D&D, which talks about all that wonderful stuff about war axes and katanas like you mentioned. An entry on the war axe outlines the real-life and possible fantasy applications. A section on lightning spells describes real-life electricity compared to what magical electricity might be like. Lots of thought and research though required. Doubt such a thing would ever get published. I'd buy it for sure though. Would be a wonderful coffee-table book, and useful for any fantasy game system.




Books, plural--though you are right, it would be wonderful.  I remember trying to use the Encyclopedia Britannica for the real-world side.  I read roughly a third of it in my teenage years.  It was useful, but oh so frustratingly limited.  Check out the mining entries, for example--long on modern information, very short on ancient or medieval mining techniques.


----------



## LostSoul

NoWayJose said:


> So what happens when designers ignore the larger implications of spells like Hypnotism? Sweep them under the rug of page 42? Well, as per above1, I think you'll end up with lots of gremlins under the rug just waiting to spring out and unbalance your warrior vs wizards.




On the "constantly updating 4E" front, there was a recent Dragon article that added the big thing I felt page 42 was missing - conditions.  

"I throw sand in his eye!  DM, what happens?"

Here's what they've come up with:

Epic Standard: Dominate, stun, or petrify 
Paragon Standard or Epic Move: Blind, daze, immobilize, restrain, or weaken 
Heroic Standard, Paragon Move, or Epic Minor: Grant combat advantage, allow a mark, or penalize a defense by up to –2 
Heroic Move, or Paragon and Epic Minor: Avoid intervening obstacles during a move; grant concealment and/or cover; knock prone; push, pull, or slide enemy up to 4 squares; deafen; or deal level-appropriate ongoing damage 
Heroic, Paragon, and Epic Minor: Add a damage type to an attack or allow a 1-square shift​
The article is here: Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (Tutorial: Terrain Powers)  It's free.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Raven Crowking said:


> Um....Hussar.....the OP's question pertains to _*literature*_.




In case this was not clear.....In literature (or, at least, the literature I am interested in emulating in my own games) magic is limited by several factors.  Rarity, difficulty of use, conditions of use, being of limited use or usable at limited times and/or places, and being dangerous to the user are high among the factors that allow authors to allow fighter-type heroes (such as Conan) to overcome sorcerers and the like.

These types of limitations are easier to model in a game using broad-based balance than they are to model in a game using knife-edge balance.  That is not to say that any game necessarily achieves this, but merely that a broad-based balance is more conducive to doing so.

There are passages of Robert E. Howard's writing that seem as though saving throws, for instance, were modelled directly on them.  Likewise, several D&D spells seem to spring directly from Howard's typewriter.


----------



## NoWayJose

LostSoul said:


> The article is here: Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (Tutorial: Terrain Powers) It's free.



Hey, that 'wrecan' guy is familiar... funny he got his own article on wizards.com. Like the "Your Gritty Antihero and You" article, this POV comes from a guest writer outside WoTC, which is a shame. And I think the article looks too long and wordy which is probably why I didn't read it before. I DO like the sample terrain powers at the bottom, some of them are quite inspiring and indicative of what 4E can do.

Anyhoo, I feel as if I've been (trying to) monopolize this thread lately, so I'll take a breather for a while (if I make my Will save). Thanks to everyone again for all the new info I've learned.


----------



## pemerton

NoWayJose said:


> The philosophy of 4E is to pointedly avoid these narrative questions and offload them to the DM/player to fill in the blanks



Much as was the case with original D&D, or B/X.



NoWayJose said:


> I don't believe that page 42 is the answer to life, the universe, and everything.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Thus magic rears its ugly head with questions like 'what happens when lightning bolt hits water?', 'can a ray target an object?' (before the official addendum) and 'why can I only hypnotize him to do 1 of 2 things?'. Previous editions of D&D avoided or addressed these kinds of questions with various degrees of success.



Basic/Expert didn't address them. It left it as an exercise for the players/GMs. Generally, B/X is lauded as a terrific, open-ended, imagination-inspiring game.

4e doesn't address them expressly, either. But it does have a bit more detail. It has the text I quoted upthread from PHB p 10 (and other similar text scattered throughout the PHB) which says that PCs can do whatever a powerful fantasy action hero can do. And it has DMG p 42, plus the two-or-so page discussion around pp 64ff of how to damage objects.

Now if someone (not necessarily you, but I've certainly seen it suggested) is trying to tell me that 4e is therefore a radical departure from B/X, and that it kills imaginative play whereas B/X fosters it, they're going to have to point to something more than the "target: creature" line in the power descriptions.



NoWayJose said:


> What if many other players and DM read any power mechanics and simply assume that's all they can do with it? That's not a one-sided question -- many people, including myself, read a rule in a rulebook and assume it's the rule, period, whether we personally agree with it or not, especially (as you've pointed out) when the rule is written so succinctly.



These would be the same people who, when playing B/X, assumed that a fireball could not do anything other than damage creatures? Were there really very many such people? (And would they continue to think this even after reading the suggesion in the DMG about paper being vulnerable to fire damage?)



NoWayJose said:


> My question was not so much how 4E *can* or *should* play out, but how *does* it play out in most games? It's the latter experience that informs a majority consensus, which I think is important to recognize whether one is discussing wizard spells or any other topic. So I didn't mean to ask a one-sided question.



Fair enough. I've got no idea what the norm is. My impression on these boards is that much of the criticism of 4e being creativity-stifling, "dissociated", etc comes from those who don't play it (LostSoul being the most obvious exception to this) but that impression could of course be biased by my own interests!



NoWayJose said:


> So what happens when designers ignore the larger implications of spells like Hypnotism? Sweep them under the rug of page 42?
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I think you'll end up with lots of gremlins under the rug just waiting to spring out and unbalance your warrior vs wizards.





NoWayJose said:


> So I still wonder how many players actively refer to page 42 for alternatives? And of those players that do argue that they should do more with Hypnotism and other powers, how many DMs are in the same mindspace?
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I believe that Hypnotism Essentials is an at-will attack power (someone please correct me if I'm wrong). If some DMs allow Hypnotism to be used more believably as some indicated they would [error: missing footnotes], then arguably, you have a very powerful tool that can upset all sorts of balance issues, no? Can Hypnotism be used endlessly at-will outside of combat? If yes, that can be seriously unbalancing. If not, what's the fictional justification for that? Lots of questions, leading me to believe that, for the sake of balance, the designers did not truly intend spells like Hypnotism to be used beyond 'attack or slide up to 3 squares'. If that's true, then the page 42 option may introduce its own problems and then we're back to square one



This issue - the benefit that spellcasters have in open-ended action resolution - came up a while ago on one of my actual play threads (I think this one).

Part of my response then was that 4e martial PCs get various metagame-style powers to compensate. Obviously the GM also has to be mindful. In the case of hypnotism, presumably it could be used to make a guard wander away from his/her post (3 square slide), to stab someone (melee basic attack), perhaps to pocket something (maybe not much more sophisticated than a melee basic attack). It couldn't be used to make someone say anything very complex (more sophisticated than a melee basic attack).

Useful? Yes. Signicantly more powerful than (for example) the Suggestion cantrip? I don't think so. Unbalanced? I'm not sure. I'd have to see it in play. But my initial intuition is No, because it is clearly not versatile or powerful enough to substitute for training in Diplomacy.


----------



## Hussar

DannyA said:
			
		

> Which all helps prove my point, Hussar, which was that random encounters were just as hard on noncasters- more of their resources are harder to replenish. The more random encounters, the more likely the party is going to be forced to retreat.
> 
> Oh yeah- you didn't cover fatigue in your point by point.




Note what you said here though - "forced to retreat".  Not rest.  Not replenish resources on their own.  Again, if you're forced to retreat, then random encounters become moot because you've left the dungeon and re-entered civilization.  The non-casters don't need to rest because resting does nothing for them.

You'll have to refresh my memory I'm afraid on the fatigue rules.  IIRC, in AD&D, it was 2 turns after any combat that you were assumed to be resting.  Beyond that, I don't recall any fatigue rules.  3e doesn't have any fatigue rules for not resting at all.  In fact, I do recall an OOTS cartoon from Dragon which specifically mentions this.

So, what fatigue rules necessitate the group to rest for 8 hours?


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## Dannyalcatraz

Hussar said:


> Note what you said here though - "forced to retreat".  Not rest.  Not replenish resources on their own.  Again, if you're forced to retreat, then random encounters become moot because you've left the dungeon and re-entered civilization.  The non-casters don't need to rest because resting does nothing for them.




Yes, "retreat," not "withdraw."  As in, we retreat to find safer spot to rest than your point of deepest penetration..._which is not necessarily out of the dungeon or wilderness._  The alternative is to rest where you are clearly NOT safe, low on HP & ammo and get killed.  In fact, full retreats to civilization are rare, and camping behind enemy lines is our norm once adventuring.



> You'll have to refresh my memory I'm afraid on the fatigue rules




1Ed DMG p69: no hard & fast rules, just guidelines (at the tail end of rules for pursuit) for the DM to use his judgement, including such penalties as slowing movement.  "Fatigue merely slows movement and reduces combat effectiveness.  Exhaustion will generally require a day of complete rest to restore the exhausted creatures."

As you might expect, 3.5Ed codified this a mite.

3.5Ed DMG p300-301 as well as PHB p308:

Fatigued: tired to the point of impairment.  A fatigued character can neither run nor charge and takes a -2 penalty to Strength and Dexterity.  Doing anything that would normally cause fatigue causes the fatigued character to become exhausted.  *After 8 hours of complete rest, fatigued characters are no longer fatigued.*

Exhausted: tired to the point of significant impairment.  An exhausted character moves at half speed and takes a -6 penalty to Strength and Dexterity.  After 1 hour of complete rest, an exhausted character becomes fatigued.  A fatigued character becomes exhausted by doing something that would normally cause fatigue."

There are several things that can cause fatigue, most famously sleeping in armor (see Endurance feat), failing a Con check on a forced march and traveling in certain terrains (like high mountain passes).


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## Hussar

DannyA said:
			
		

> Yes, "retreat," not "withdraw." As in, we retreat to find safer spot to rest than your point of deepest penetration...which is not necessarily out of the dungeon or wilderness. The alternative is to rest where you are clearly NOT safe, low on HP & ammo and get killed. In fact, full retreats to civilization are rare, and camping behind enemy lines is our norm once adventuring.




But, at that point, you are being interrupted every hour by random encounters (1 in 6, every ten minutes) so you cannot actually get any rest.  In fact, several posters in this thread have made a specific point that random encounters are a severe limiting factor to caster power.  

If we can simply fall back and rest, then random encounters don't actually play much of a role in limiting casters.

But, for the non-casters, NONE of their resources are recovered by resting.  Well, a handful of HP at best - about what you get from a single 1st level cleric spell.  No ammo is recovered.  What benefit is there to resting?



			
				DannyA said:
			
		

> Fatigued: tired to the point of impairment. A fatigued character can neither run nor charge and takes a -2 penalty to Strength and Dexterity. Doing anything that would normally cause fatigue causes the fatigued character to become exhausted. After 8 hours of complete rest, fatigued characters are no longer fatigued.




What causes fatigue?  Not resting does not actually CAUSE fatigue.  There are a number of things that might cause fatigue - forced marches, swimming, spells, and environmental effects.  But not sleeping for a day or two?  Nope.  No effect as per the rules.  

And, let's be honest here, it is completely realistic that you could go several days on less than a full 8 hours of rest per day without seriously impacting your effectiveness.

The non-casters have no real reason to rest - they regain no resources.


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## Dannyalcatraz

> But, for the non-casters, NONE of their resources are recovered by resting. Well, a handful of HP at best - about what you get from a single 1st level cleric spell. No ammo is recovered. What benefit is there to resting?




What they gain is not taking ability damage due to fatigue or passing out (see below).



> What causes fatigue? Not resting does not actually CAUSE fatigue. There are a number of things that might cause fatigue - forced marches, swimming, spells, and environmental effects. But not sleeping for a day or two? Nope. No effect as per the rules.




You're right and wrong.  Technically, the DMG does not have hard and fast rules in simply staying awake.

However, it does say that exertion beyond 8 hours of walking can lead to fatigue.  A couple of combats plus some travel?  DM's discretion.  (Ditto in other situations.)  In addition, if you look at creature types & subtypes in the MM, they tell you which ones "need sleep" and which don't (most PC races do).

And on the very page where the DMG says it has no rules for trying to stay awake, they provide a guideline in the form of describing it as an ability check:


> *3.5 DMG p 33*
> ...staying awake might be a Constitution check (DC12, +4 for every previous night without sleep), with an elf character gaining a +2 bonus on her check because an elf is only giving up 4 hours of trance instead of 8 hours of sleep.




IOW, simply going without sleep is not without consequences.  Personally, had I written that section, I would have wedded this to the fatigue rules already in place elsewairs- failing that check means you pass out (you have failed to stay awake), and that sounds a lot like being fatigued or exhausted- but they didn't.

So I wouldn't be surprised if a DM said you were fatigued if you skipped needed sleep, because it's left to DM's discretion.


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## Hussar

Sigh, let me try this again.

DannyA, what resources are non-casters regaining when they rest.  At best, they are being punished, possibly, for not resting.  But, AFAIK, they actually regain no resources for resting.

Unlike the casters, which regain resources when they rest.

Wandering monsters are not in the game to prevent non-casters from resting.  They are there to prevent casters from resting in order to limit caster power.


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## Dandu

In addition to regaining HP after resting, ability damage is also recovered.


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## Dannyalcatraz

> Sigh, let me try this again.




You can "sigh & try" all you want: I...don't...agree.

Not being fatigued IS a benefit (and to date, I haven't seen a DM who didn't use some kind of fatigue rule).  Regaining HP- even slowly- and healing ability damage is a benefit.  Hell, depending on circumstances, taking some downtime to craft an arrow or scrounge some rocks for your sling is a benefit.

IMHO, wandering monsters and other random encounters are not in the game solely for caster-screwing.  They affect all party members.


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## Hussar

Going 3.5 on this, because 1e and 2e, ability score damage is fairly rare, and AFAIK, not healable, 



			
				3.5 SRD said:
			
		

> With a full night’s rest, a character heals 1 hit per 2 character levels (minimum 1 hit per night). If he undergoes complete bed rest for 24 hours, he heals a number of hits equal to his character level. Any significant interruption during the rest period prevents the character from healing that night.




On a rest, you get less hit points than a single 1st level cleric spell, unless you do absolutely nothing for 24 hours, in which cast you get about what you get from a 1st level cleric spell.

OTOH, you do get 1 point of ability damage back per day.  Granted, the cleric is returning 2-5 points to you by 3rd level, but, hey, it all helps right?

To be honest, we almost never ran into fatigue rules, for the simple reason that groups invariably rested as soon as the cleric ran out of juice.  Doing anything else was suicidal considering how lethal 3.5 D&D combat is.

And, every group I've ever played with since AD&D days did exactly the same thing.  When the cleric ran out of cure light wounds, you stop for the night.


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## Dannyalcatraz

> To be honest, we almost never ran into fatigue rules, for the simple reason that groups invariably rested as soon as the cleric ran out of juice. Doing anything else was suicidal considering how lethal 3.5 D&D combat is.




Well, then as now, from 1Ed to 3.5Ed, clerical healing was never our "We gotta stop!" button, so clearly, our experiences varied.  And no, we didn't find this particularly "suicidal."

And as for not encountering the fatigue rules, I can only ask "Why not?"  Didn't your guys try to go through high mountain passes or any of the things that can trigger it?  Did all of your 3.5Ed PCs take Endurance so they could sleep in armor?  Or did most of the DMs simply not use the rules?


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## Fifth Element

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Not being fatigued IS a benefit (and to date, I haven't seen a DM who didn't use some kind of fatigue rule).  Regaining HP- even slowly- and healing ability damage is a benefit.



I wonder if Hussar's point is really: what benefit do the non-casters get _that the casters do not also get_?

Casters would be subject to fatigue just as the non-casters would, and ability damage, and hit point loss. So they get those benefits as well.

_Edit: With respect DMs who doesn't use fatigue:_ Hi, nice to meet you. I'm a DM who doesn't use fatigue. Too fiddly for me and my group, so we just hand-wave it.


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## Dannyalcatraz

> I wonder if Hussar's point is really: what benefit do the non-casters get that the casters do not also get?




Well, if we're talking fatigue, Str and Dex penalties are generally not going to be as big a deal for casters as it will be for non-casters.  Damage output and accuracy, ACs, Initiative rolls, Ref saves and (more important for low-level PCs) encumbrance will all be affected negatively.  Some feats may not be usable if the PCs no longer meet the ability score prereqs.


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## Triskaideka

One of the biggest problems I have with fantasy literature (and games, be they digital or P&P) is that they don't take the implications of high-fantasy settings with relatively potent and reliable magic far enough- You have these individuals, who can potentially live hundreds of years, who have vast reserves of personal knowledge, and incredible personal power in the ability to warp reality to their will, including summoning armies and divining secrets, and you mean to tell me that the fat, inbred, has-been descendants of some two-bit chump warlords are running all the kingdoms? In a high-fantasy setting practically all major nations should be either magocracies or theocracies, the power imbalance is simply too great. No other force could remain stable without massive magical reserves, and if you're paying a wizard for that you run the risk of them deciding to run the show themselves!


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## Nagol

Well, you're powerful enough to raise this thread after 2 years in the grave!

That said, Glen Cook dealt with this in a few ways in his Dread Empire series:

1) Magic waxes and wanes.  When powerful, it really is irresistable.  When its weak, all the Wizards get themselves killed or hide.

2) Magic is _hard_ and wizards have better things to do than trying to rule fractious human cultures.


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## Triskaideka

Balls of Vecna! Sorry for the unintended Raise Thread spell, misread the dates on the last post. Good points, though I'd argue that those both stray from the typical D&D high-fantasy I had in mind, though such a setting might not exist outside the medium.


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## Nagol

Those rationales do fit better with other games systems like _Chivalry and Sorcery_ and _Ars Magica_ than D&D.  In many ways, I've used the first in D&D though -- it explains the ruins of the previous age(s) that spawned all the stuff the adventurers find.

A massive civilisation rose up after finally mastering magic to have the whole thing come crashing down because of some unknown weakness in the system.  The adventuers are in the edge of the next wave of knowledge as they pick at the bones of the last.


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## TwoSix

Triskaideka said:


> Balls of Vecna!



And you thought attaching the Hand or Eye was bad.

I remember this thread, this was a fun one.


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## Nemesis Destiny

TwoSix said:


> And you thought attaching the Hand or Eye was bad.
> 
> I remember this thread, this was a fun one.




I remember it too. And, yeah it was fun, for some definitions of "fun" I guess. Just another pointless skirmish in the edition wars.


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## TwoSix

Nemesis Destiny said:


> I remember it too. And, yeah it was fun, for some definitions of "fun" I guess. Just another pointless skirmish in the edition wars.



Edition warring is pointless if it devolves into "You suck, no, YOU suck" sort of discussions.  If people present their different ways of playing and viewing the game, I don't view it as pointless.


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## Nemesis Destiny

At that point, it's no longer edition warring - it's a reasonable discussion. I recall this thread had a whole lot more of the former than the latter.


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