Quote from: Panzerkraken;568653I'll make that claim.  My claim is that a 10th level fighter with a +2 Strength +3 Composite longbow and +2 arrows, without any bow feats or specs (meaning 2nd or 3rd edition, yes) would probably smoke an equivalently statted 10th level wizard in a normal combat environment (meaning that there's more going on than just a duel between the two).  And god only help the poor wizard if the Fighter gets in close to him.

Quote from: MGuy;568660Well firstly while you probably want to exclude 3rd edition from your claim that a fighter stands on even ground with a wizard in a normal combat situation because a straight fighter can't handle higher level encounters in his CR racket in high level play without perhaps being optimized to do so (I say perhaps because if we're talking Core Fighter he's completely screwed) while a wizard operates fine at all CRs. The fact that you bash charOp when the Fighter in 3rd demonstrably needs Optimization just to survive immediately puts your entire post under suspicion.  So you may be able to make the claim for 2nd though there've been some arguments against that by people who know 2nd better than I (or at all) that even in 2nd it may not be true.

Quote from: CRKrueger;568702Thunderdome!
:popcorn:

Quote from: jeff37923;568737Put up or shut up.

Kaelik was all talk and no action, which left Spike and the rest of us very disappointed, don't be like Kaelik. Will you be the one to redeem the Denners?

Quote from: MGuy;568749I don't like Kaelik and I'm not going to "redeem" anyone. I need to know what the ground rules are before I can participate in anything though.If this is another one of those "Your wizard spawns next to the fighter with no equipment, running buffs, final destination" encounters people have cooked up on here then I'm going to opt out.

Quote from: Panzerkraken;568763Ground rules then, itemized:

Stats are 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8 place to suit.

Hit points to be rolled by the adjudicator or someone who can show a verified source (I don't play PbP games, so idk what a verifiable source is, but there's some around.)

Everything comes only from the 3.5 PHB and DMG with all errata at the point of last printing.  All class and feats as presented in the book, no house rules or common adjustments.

Single class characters only.  You = Wizard, Me = Fighter

Level is 10.  Experience is 45,001.  

Player wealth from the DMG for starting characters at the given level.  That means 49,000gp

You receive the baseline spells in your book from the wizard class as well as the automatic 2 spells that you have access to at the point when you level up, per level.  If you want more, you can buy them with starting gold.  Per the DMG it costs 20g x Spell Level x Caster level (pg 198 and 107 of the DMG).  It's fair to assume you can find someone of the absolute minimum caster level for a given spell.

I have to buy anything that I want to have, obviously, with the same starting money.  Included in my equipment will be a +2 Composite +3 Strength Longbow and +2 arrows.  Archery will NOT be the defined focus of my character's feats.

The builds and magic item purchases are reviewed for being 'playable' by the adjudicator.   Playable means that it's not a one shot pony.  The character could reasonably be said to be an adventurer, and their selection of feats and skills represents someone who would actually be a functioning member of a party.

If you have any additions?

Quote from: MGuy;568918I have a major hate on for rolling HP but I'll let that one slide because I only care about it enough to make the gripe.

Everything else except the no "one shot pony" thing is clear cut for me. I'm a wizard. I can prepare for one encounter or a dozen in a given day and can take steps (especially if I'm a solo adventurer) to make sure I have about as many encounters as I want in a given day. You have to give me conditions for which I'm going to be doing battle. Do I know I'm fighting today? Do I plan on having multiple fights or am I going to skate by fights? Also how many win conditions are there? Do I HAVE to kill the fighter in question or do I have options to end the fight on other terms? IE: Fighter can no longer effectively fight me, becomes my slave, is put out of commission long enough for me to get on with my day, and any assortment of other not particularly lethal fight ending conditions.

Quote from: Panzerkraken;568923Rolling for HP is one of the basic concepts of the game, per the PHB.  For a fighter, the potential access to higher hp is one of their class advantages, and a limiter for Wizards, so it's part of the overall setup.  That's not a snipe, just a clarification.

To me, the question of spell selection seems like one for the adjudicator, but to reasonable defeat sounds fine to me.  There's no reason to limit a wizard to pure damage output.  

However, in the context of the setup, I think we could say it's at an early point in a day during a battle where we are both clearly defined as being on opposing sides, but where the major units of the combat aren't directly involved.  Think Samurai from opposing factions encountering each other.  

Neither of us knows that we're going to be specifically fighting the other, it's not a scheduled duel (even though we are doing just that...) and so equipment and spell selection should reflect that (i.e. I won't blow the whole wad on an amulet of spell resistance 19 to give myself ~45% resistance to your spells)  

In spell selection terms, it would depend on the base concept that you're working with, even for something like this there has to be some kind of character concept other than 'You're a wizard, Harry' to guide the selection.  But even in the scope of a battle it would be kind of silly of a wizard to be rolling with Domination in all his slots using various Metamagic feats. (obtuse example)

Also, who's gonna call this thing?  Can we get a David Bowie walk in scene?

Quote from: MGuy;568974Cool, cool, and cool. I will claim now to be a conjurer then because I like summoning stuff. For the benefit of the battle I won't bring preconjured stuff to the table (though I would regularly for the purposes of a big fight I happen to be on because conjuring shit early saves me spells during the day).

Quote from: Opaopajr;569095Shouldn't Wish/Limited Wish be banned from this? Not all that up to date on 3e, so I don't know if a 10th lvl MU would have it yet, but you'd think this'd be an issue. Oh, what am I saying! There's probably swords out there with wish charges, too. Carry on!

Quote from: deadDMwalking;569107Limited wish is a 7th level spell, so Wizards don't get access until 13th level, though they could probably afford a scroll of it.  That said, it's main effect is to duplicate any other wizard spell of 6th level or lower (or non-wizard spell of 5th level or lower), so it's usually worthwhile just to have the spell you actually want.  

Quote from: MGuy;569154More accurately its just not worth using in a random one off battle against a creature that is about as dangerous to a wizard as a particularly dedicated golem.

Quote from: Panzerkraken;569202

Quote from: omegonthesane;569200The requirement is that you have access to the spell. If you can cast Limited Wish and use it to cast the spell... you have access to the spell. I could understand making it harder to craft with Limited Wish than crafting with the actual spell, to make up for the increased versatility, but I cannot see where you get the idea that it should be outright forbidden.

For the purposes of this?  For the same reason as I haven't spent 10000gp on a battalion of archers.  It breaks the scenario.

QuoteAnd this is why WBL was a noble experiment - having a common reference point for what the stats assume you have at each level, rather than relying on an unguided DM's whim to decide "how easy they are to come by".

I really only consider it useful at all when you're talking about an a) inexperienced DM who needs that sort of guideline  or b) making a character at a level higher than 1 where the DM can't be present to hold the player's hand through the whole thing.  I guess if you need that sort of thing, you do, but there's no reason to imply that the WBL process is inherently superior to a competent DM making decisions about his game and its power level.

QuoteYour lack of 3.5 knowledge is showing - as I said before, the +1 arrows do nothing if you already have a +1 bow, the enhancement bonuses specifically do not stack. So, a +1 composite longbow "only" costs 2400 GP, which at 5th level is reasonably likely if you have access to WBL.

Honestly, I've played every edition of D&D since 1e, and I never noticed that difference from 2e to 3e before.  And everyone I've ever played with has played it the same way; that the enhancement bonus on bows was just to hit and on arrows was just to damage.  Bully for you on picking up that glaring oversight on their part.  I'll make sure to let everyone that plays with me in the future know that it doesn't run like that in my games, in case they're someone who came into it late like you.

QuoteHowever it's telling that you think "half your disposable income on this one thing" isn't breaking the bank for a fighter's secondary weapon.

And what SHOULD I be spending it on?  Stocks?  Rental properties in Greyhawk?  It's wealth, not starting cash.  A fighter's wealth depends on his livelihood, which depends on his weapons.  So yeah, I like to splurge a bit on them.  Call me crazy.

In my games, even if I'm busy and can't guide someone through what equipment they start with, I insist that if they have a wealth level they're only allowed to start off with the starting cash for a character, everything else has to be spent on 'stuff'.  They're adventurers, not investment bankers.  

I'm sure that some random exploit of a purchase would have been a much more economical and power capable, but like we discussed in the earlier parts of the challenge, it's designed around making two characters who are adventurer quality, not some set of white-box stats.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;569269*Edit*  As an aside, I'm disappointed that once again this whole "fighter vs mage" thing has gone to just about 3e only.  When you only talk about 3e, you've fallen into their trap and validated their preconceived notion that the only edition prior to 4e is 3e.  So what's going to happen is these guys will once again start with the whole "Prior to 4e, the magic user was way more powerful than any fighter, we have this whole thread to prove it!" because they managed to only talk about 3e.

Quote from: Panzerkraken;569287Actually, I only choose 3.5 for our engagement because that's what I have the resources here for.  Well.. I have Hackmaster 5 as well, but that just seemed a little obtuse...  I would've been just as happy with 1e or 2e for the example.

Speaking of which, we still need a ref.  Noone wants to sit in for it?

Quote from: MGuy;569302How is it a trap when I specifically said he shouldn't use 3E as a bouncing board for the idea that fighters can keep up with wizards at higher level?

Anyways, I haven't even made the character yet. When and where am I suppose to put his stat block up at? All the notes I have so far is that he's going to be a conjurer, that apparently this is happening on a battlefield of some sort where after the fight my wizard has plans to do other things, and for some reason has it out for this particular fighter.

Quote from: jeff37923;569303I offer my services.

Quote from: Panzerkraken;569310I'd be willing to accept you if MGuy is.



My thought on it was that for review, so that we're not revealing things to each other, we'd send the character sheet to the Ref for review, and he can post them for public display once he's decided if they're acceptable or not.

Like I mentioned above, mine is done already (he's only a Fighter, after all).

Quote from: MGuy;569595If jeff is it I'll accept. I'll have it done sometime today (Thursday) after I get done running around.