The Wizard vs Fighter balance arguement has been going on for awhile. It does not bother me that casters can wield more power than fighters, especially at high levels. However there is a way to balance things without taking away the essence and tradition of the character classes.

Take a page from anime, particularly the anime series Slayers. The big dumb Fighter character had the Sword of Light, which was great against single foes. The Sorceress had a powerful spell called Dragon Slave, which was an area effect spell of massive damage. As the series progressed, there came times when the Sorceress had to cast her spell in such a way that they empowered the sword and thuis the Fighter in order to defeat opponents in combat.

It would require DMs to adjucate and allow creative spell use, but it also balances the combat field so that nobody would feel particularly left out.

I'm sure this is not a perfect answer, but it is a possible answer. What are your opinions?

Quote from: jeff37923;549463The Wizard vs Fighter balance arguement has been going on for awhile. It does not bother me that casters can wield more power than fighters, especially at high levels. However there is a way to balance things without taking away the essence and tradition of the character classes.

Take a page from anime, particularly the anime series Slayers. The big dumb Fighter character had the Sword of Light, which was great against single foes. The Sorceress had a powerful spell called Dragon Slave, which was an area effect spell of massive damage. As the series progressed, there came times when the Sorceress had to cast her spell in such a way that they empowered the sword and thuis the Fighter in order to defeat opponents in combat.

It would require DMs to adjucate and allow creative spell use, but it also balances the combat field so that nobody would feel particularly left out.

I'm sure this is not a perfect answer, but it is a possible answer. What are your opinions?

Slayers is a great example of why that isn't a really workable fix. Gourry spent most of a season lamenting the fact that he was basically useless when the DM took his Sword of Light away. And he wasn't really able to contribute until the DM took pity on him and gave it back. Even when he had it, Gourry was basically a cohort - a guy who existed more for comic relief and as a long-run love interest for the main character than someone who actually advanced the plot himself.

Interestingly: Slayers also shows how to make a "melee" character who doesn't feel like a vestigial appendage to an artifact sword: Zelgadis and Filia. Zelgadis is basically a 3e-style melee cleric. He is damn near invulnerable, has a bunch of useful magic (including banishment and healing), and in combat sometimes he can accomplish things by stabbing them with a sword. Filia is only a member of the team at infrequent intervals, but "transforms into a fucking dragon" seems to keep her melee shtick useful when things get out of hand. The reality is that sometimes the enemy is a sea monster or other kaiju, and it's just not really practical to expect your character to accomplish much with a sword (or in Filia's case, a mace). And when that inevitably happens, a character needs something worthwhile that they can do that isn't stabbing things with a sword.

-Frank

Quote from: jeff37923;549463What are your opinions?

That this wasn't an issue when taking damage caused a spellcaster to lose the spell she was casting.

Trying to protect the players of magic-users from failure created this problem.

Removing checks and balances from a system is generally not a good idea. "Options, not restrictions" created the wizard problem.

That said, I have only ever encountered this issue on the Internet, and its most serious manifestations tend to happen to people who are horrible jerks. Maybe it's just karma.

In real life, it not uncommon for players to play 1E-3E Wizards very ineffectively.

ADD: Often the "internet people" that proclaim "Wizards rule supreme" are unable to make a workable spell selection in 5mins, whine for rest after they blew their nicest spells and generally work bad under pressure and changing external variables.

The 3E Fighter past level 12 is a bit on the more boring and weaker side, I admit that. But not in a way that we had problems playing till level 23. It is no tlike the game imploded or something. OTOH a 1e 12th level fighter is a force of nature that easily eats wizards for breakfast. He outdungeoneers them all.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;549466That this wasn't an issue when taking damage caused a spellcaster to lose the spell she was casting.

Trying to protect the players of magic-users from failure created this problem.

/thread

Quote from: Settembrini;549471In real life, it not uncommon for players to play 1E-3E Wizards very ineffectively.

Agreed, and guilty as charged.

I was once handed a character sheet for a 12th-level Mage (AD&D 2e). Thinking I'd be fucking invulnerable... I got myself killed at the first combat, by failing to make efficient use of the veritable arsenal of spells and magic items at my disposal.

Instead of forcing the fighter to rely on the wizard, we should make fighters really good at fighting and shit.

I actually rather like the inversion of typical d20 fare that is Star Wars Saga; Force-users (Wizards) start out powerful, but by later levels, everyone pulls out a weapon. Unlike the typical Linear Fighter/Quadratic Wizard, Saga's "wizard" is front-loaded, but becomes less impressive as the characters level (due to increasing Defenses).

It makes more sense to me why common folk would be amazed/frightened of Wizards, but Kingdoms are ruled by Warriors.

Quote from: B.T.;549485Instead of forcing the fighter to rely on the wizard, we should make fighters really good at fighting and shit.

The fighter should be really good at fighting and shit AND it should rely on the wizard. And the wizard the fighter. Etc.

D&D is a team game. It's not Diablo.

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;549490The fighter should be really good at fighting and shit AND it should rely on the wizard. And the wizard the fighter. Etc.

D&D is a team game. It's not Diablo.

More of this.
I honestly made my wizard more of what he was in the first place, more of an exploratory jack of all trades with some combat spells.  Also with more buffing spells and less pure offensive spells.  But with low HP and all, I tried to create that synergy that both need each other, as well as the other classes.

The other issue that I notice is that the folks who complain the most about casters dominating everything seem the most prone to play in the "15 minute adventuring day" style.

Instead of managing their resources to get through a session, casters use all their spells in the first 1 or 2 encounters and then force everyone to stop and rest until they replenish.

It's a lot easier for spell casters to dominate the game when they don't have to manage their spell use effectively.

I never understood why people played the in the "15 minute day" style. It doesn't sound like much fun.

(My first post here. Hi)

Welcome aboard, Dimitrios!

Quote from: Black Vulmea;549466That this wasn't an issue when taking damage caused a spellcaster to lose the spell she was casting.

Trying to protect the players of magic-users from failure created this problem.

Quote from: Settembrini;549471In real life, it not uncommon for players to play 1E-3E Wizards very ineffectively.

ADD: Often the "internet people" that proclaim "Wizards rule supreme" are unable to make a workable spell selection in 5mins, whine for rest after they blew their nicest spells and generally work bad under pressure and changing external variables.

I've seen plenty of examples of both of these in game.

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;549490The fighter should be really good at fighting and shit AND it should rely on the wizard. And the wizard the fighter. Etc.

D&D is a team game. It's not Diablo.

This, definitely. The idea that D&D is a team game most times seems to get lost in the shuffle.

Quote from: Dimitrios;549496I never understood why people played the in the "15 minute day" style. It doesn't sound like much fun.

(My first post here. Hi)

Pagecount. The answer is as simple and materialistic as pagecount. During the rise of 3e, the "Adventure Path" arose to great popularity with it. Both the WotC AP and even more so the Dungeon/Paizo APs had to provide enough XP from fighting monsters to get you to level 20 in 12 modules flat. That lead to an increasing number of super high CR encounters. Often, single monsters. That lead to all kinds of things:

- single monsters AC could get so high, the non char-opped player characters (even fighters) could not even hit the damn thing.
- you HAD to rest after such a fight, because you knew the next one would be just as super-deadly
- the whole save-and-die hate comes from there. Imagine being a GM. You had to fuill AT LEAST one whole month of gaming with FOUR encounters. Each of which hellishly involved in preparation. Hours of tactics, forum reading and rules checkups. 'cause of course, these four super-monsters would have 17 actions and 489 spell like abilities as well as 234 magic items. Which they MIGHT use. Then a player "just" throws a finger of death at it, monster rolls a "1", fight over after 30 seconds = one quarter of the module over in 30 seconds = the whole planned evening, assuming weekly play.
- From the players side, you can imagine they suffered badly from save-and-die, 'cause the DCs of the super-monsters spell-llikes would be super high. You would never make a non-"good" save.
- etc. etc.

So there it is: pagecount. Oh yes and the willingness of authors and public to actually keep playing that way unquestioningly...

Quote from: Dimitrios;549496(My first post here. Hi)

Welcome to the RPG Site, Dimitrios.