Using WBL revision as a fix for weak or strong classes?

[willpell]

I like the Fighter class a fair bit myself, and I'm curious as to what it would take to make it functional past the early levels (not quite as broken as wizards and clerics, but maybe tier 3 or so), without adding the level of system complexity involved in something like Tome of Battle. Part of the nice thing about playing a fighter is not having to spend all your time figuring out what your spells do; it'd be nice to keep that ease of play while gaining a slightly better ability to do what a fighter is supposed to do, while making him less than completely useless at higher levels (he shouldn't be able to do every dumb thing he can imagine, flying and turning people to stone and such aren't really fighter "bits", but some stunts should be possible to pull off).

I've often considered changing WBL to function as a counteragent to the tier system, and/or abstracting certain boring resource management issues like material components and survival gear. Picture this and tell me what you think: the Wizard is theoretically the most powerful character in the game, but he loses out on about half his WBL because he has to pay for spell components, upgrade the wards on his spellbook and sanctum lest they be stolen or destroyed, feed his familiar expensive magical goodies, etc. Meanwhile the fighter gets significantly increased WBL, and has high enough ranks in skills like Survival that he can be just assumed to have all the gear he needs to survive, while the Wizard needs either magic or civilization to keep his butt from freezing off while he starves.

And the Aristocrat becomes a playable class, on the basis of having FAR more than his WBL and being able to literally hire people to do things that the Wizard does with magic or the Rogue by bamboozling them. I feel like getting rid of flat WBL might be the key to completely fixing the balance of the entire game.

[INoKnowNames]

my only question is this. other than the will of the dungeon master, what stops a wizard from just killing everyone with money and taking it for himself?

the fighter has several problems, mainly that he can't contribute beyond fighting, and that others are better than fighting than him. Without actual clads features to remedy this, he'd still sub average.

Do fighters even have survival as a skill? Why wouldn't the Wizard, who actually uses Int, be able to get more ranks in it? Don't most good items require Use Magic Device anway? He'd just be a mini Wizard anyway...

The problem is the lack of features. Give a fortune to a rat and he's still a rich rat.

[sonofzeal]

This can help, certainly. Sufficient gold can definitely bring a T4/T5 class up to T3. It won't help break into T2 territory though, for the most part.

[2xMachina]

WBL helps partially (unless you make a UMD fighter... which in that case, basically a Wizard running off WBL rather than spell slots)

Fighter still lacks the skill points and class skills to do stuff other than fighting. (Unless you get some +10 magic item of skill)

And even in fighting, it can only target AC, dealing HP damage. It can't target Ref/Will/Fort, or do Stat damage or negative lvls. Neither can it deal area damage. Also, it can only choose between the 3 physical damage, and not use the elemental ones. Ability to give status effects are also much more limited and only with feat investment (and usually not fighter bonus feats)

[nedz]

This can help, certainly. Sufficient gold can definitely bring a T4/T5 class up to T3. It won't help break into T2 territory though, for the most part.

Well, with enough money - you can hire yourself a Wizard.:smallbiggrin:

[willpell]

Fighter still lacks the skill points and class skills to do stuff other than fighting. (Unless you get some +10 magic item of skill)

You say that as if D&D was, on any regular basis, about anything other than fighting. And the number of creatures that can and should be killed with plain old HP damage is not small. Sure, if you're going to hop into a portal to Hell and start killing demons, you probably are going to need lots of things that a fighter doesn't have. But if you're just killing armies of goblins and rampaging dire bears and so forth, things like ability damage are just going to be a nuisance.

[pffh]

What stops the classes with a higher WBL from funding the more powerful classes with a portion of their wealth?

[willpell]

What stops the classes with a higher WBL from funding the more powerful classes with a portion of their wealth?

Their desire to not be utterly marginalized? The aristocrat can choose to buy magic wands for the wizard and magic armor for the fighter, just as the cleric can choose to heal those characters. In either case, she can also choose not to. And if the fighter and the wizard start treating her like a cash machine or a medical droid, they are likely to find that person has arranged to be elsewhere at a critical moment so that they may suffer a painful and humiliating lesson, or else simply thrown them to the wolves and gone looking for more gracious companions.

[INoKnowNames]

I still don't see how, other than Dm intervention, the Upper Tier Characters are really all that hurt by this. Really, this just seems like a very good justification for Wizards to hunt Fighters for their Fighter Hoards rather than Dragons for their Dragon Hoards.

The biggest issue with this is this: Whether or not they are given less of it freely or not, the Wizard still gets some wealth, and is capable of going out from there, doing Wizard stuff, and be set for life. They can gain back any wealth they wouldn't normally be allowed or that is added to other classes through all sorts of stuff, since they can kinda control reality.

The Fighter, on the other hand, doesn't even have basic skills to make that wealth any more special in his hands than in the Wizard's hands. Just like his bonus feats only let him do one or more additional tricks, which would be useful if they weren't capable of being done by most other classes in the game. Having more Wealth and Bonus Feats doesn't really do all that much, since even with less of it other classes are still capable of competing with the fighter at pretty much anything it can do, while still having abilities of their own.

Not that giving the fighter increased money wouldn't be a buff to it. I'm just saying the problem is about the base being, not the additions added to it. At the very least that being being compared to gods...

[rmg22893]

More magic items is not a fix for tier 5 classes in a world where Disjunction exists.

[Quellian-dyrae]

I think it can work, but it needs to be divorced from the in-game wealth system. WBL has to be a purely metagame stat (with new fluff to support it being entirely class and level based), and in-game mundane wealth changed essentially to flavor.

Once you do that, they can hit whatever tier you want just depending on how much wealth you give, how easily they can swap it around, and how much freedom they have to use the custom item guidelines.

[APersonAmI]

Yeah: This might work with something similar to the Complete Gear rules, where magic items are something you can only make for yourself and yourself alone, the resources for which is available to you based on your level.