A (perhaps) new view of power levels...

[Ailowynn]

During my last gaming session, a player pointed this out to me, and I wanted to put it out there...see what everyone else out there thinks.

Anyway, the conversation left me with a new view on the power level of classes--particularly spell casters vs. martial classes: perhaps spell casters should be overpowered, and perhaps martial characters should be less powerful. Why? Well, because magic is supernatural. It is the power to bend the laws of physics to your every whim; a rare gift that only a gifted few can hope to wield. But--and we see this throughout fantasy literature, whether it be Gandalf, Sauron, Eragon, Harry Potter, Kvothe, or any number of others--those who wield magic wield power. They become godlike. They can do anything, and crush the petty rabble of warriors at a whim. Muggles are seen as fools, Gandalf as all-powerful, and dragon riders have the powers of gods.

So why would one play a fighter? Because: who is greater, the cheat who wins or the honest player who loses on his own terms? Sure, you could play a character that can take the shortcut to get out of it...or you could play the character who stands on his own two feet, fights the same enemies, and manages the same victories. For those who have read the Inheritance Cycle: you could be Eragon...or Roran.

So, basically, as long as one knows that martial classes are worse, then I am entirely okay with someone playing martial classes; and I would be okay playing one as well. It's an honest challenge, and that aspect of it makes it appealing. Sure, you could play and über optimized wizard and win the game. Even though it's physically impossible to win the game. Or you could fight foes on your own two feet.

Don't get me wrong, I wish that martial classes got the attention they deserve. But I no longer feel the need to find a fix, as long as the players realize what they're getting into.

I dunno. I might not have done a great job explaining that. But honestly...just a shift in perspective can change a lot. I basically realized that going Tier 1 is like using cheat codes: you win, but it's not as fun.

Anywhos...what do you think, playgrounders? What is your perspective on the differences between the wizard and the fighter?

[Greenish]

But--and we see this throughout fantasy literature, whether it be Gandalf, Sauron, Eragon, Harry Potter, Kvothe, or any number of others--those who wield magic wield power. They become godlike. They can do anything, and crush the petty rabble of warriors at a whim.Petty rabble like Conan, Fafhrd, or the Gray Mouser?

[Juntao112]

I find it interesting that in modern D&D, it takes about the same amount of effort to be Eragon or Roran. None of this chosen by the dragons or destiny nonsense, if you murder enough people, you gain power.

[ArcturusV]

I think the logic gets used as a cop out a bit too much.

I mean fantasy "Fighters" in fiction get to do all sorts of superhuman stuff. But somehow in DnD it got slanted so they have to be "Realistic", more or less. And this idea was used to cap their power off.

But magic? Well crap, Magic is Magic, it can do ANYTHING! So magic classes should have unlimited power.

... but I don't think that's really a correct view point, or the only logical viewpoint, or even the best viewpoint. Magic is magic... but that doesn't mean it can do everything necessarily, or should.

I think the thing that really kind of sets it apart though could be easily fixed in DnD and that's Action Economy to magic. Action Economy as we know, is pretty king. It's why druids rock out at level 1, they basically get a free status effect/attack through their animal companions. It's why Celerity is an I Win button, as is Time Stop. Why Haste and Slow are powerful. We're familiar with the concept.

Now... what if Magic wasn't that simple? What if, rewriting the laws of the natural world, channeling power from other planes, and molding reality into your image actually took more time and effort than swinging a sword or firing a crossbow?

So cut out the Timehack powers. Every Swift/Free Action spell gets cut down to a Full Round Action. Every Standard Action spell becomes a 2 round casting time action. Every Full Round/1 Round Action turns into a 5 minute casting time action. Every 10 minute + spell turns into a 12 hour casting.

I mean... you wouldn't have to rewrite EVERYTHING, it's a simple note. Wizards could still be powerful. You're banning very few spells, things like Haste, Celerity, Time Stop, etc. They'd still be very high impact characters. But suddenly they're not just shutting down encounters on round one. They'd have to think strategically.

I mean still, magic can do "Anything". Fighters aren't changed. But the dynamic would be very different.

[SowZ]

Here is the way I look at it. The tenth level spellcaster should be capable of amazing feats. But the tenth level warrior? He has TRULY excelled. He is Beowulf. He is Hector of Troy. The 10th level spellcaster is above average for spellcasters, but the 10th level warrior is the best of the best among warriors.

You could design Fighter and Wizard as somewhat balanced, (magic will always win in flexibility,) and fluff the mid level Wizard as a good Wizard, (maybe top ten percent of Wizards,) and the mid-level Fighter as exceptional, (top one percent of fighters.) In this way, you retain the whole, "Magic is more powerful fluff wise than martial," but retain game balance among players.

[TheIronGolem]

You're basically providing two different-but-related justifications for caster supremacy, both of which have come up before and neither of which I find compelling.

The first justification is versimilitude. Essentially, caster supremacy is justified because the universe's laws of physics are malleable enough to allow things like Fireballs and whatnot. They have to be, or we don't have magic, and we want magic to be a thing. But if we permit ourselves that indulgence for the sake of having wizards and clerics, there's no reason we can't do the same for other types of characters. We can say that the laws of physics allow for a "normal" swordsman to cut through a fully-grown tree with a single stroke of a blade, that an angry barbarian can punch an iron door off of its hinges, or that a wily rogue can literally hide in plain sight, all because they're Just That Good at whatever it is that they do. This doesn't mean they all have magic powers like the casters, it just means that the same "this is how reality works here" handwave that justifies magic also justifies these "mundane" abilities. Verisimilitude is important, but we can maintain it without relegating martials to second-class status.

The second justification is the "challenge" aspect, which is extremely brittle. The purpose of a character class is to support a particular conceptual archetype, and it's silly to assume that a desire to play a particular concept carries with it the desire for any particular level of challenge. In other words, "I want to play a warrior" does not imply "I want to play in Hard Mode" (nor does "I want to play a wizard" imply "I want to play in Easy Mode"). How difficult a player wants their gameplay experience to be is completely independent of what their character concept is, and welding these things together is unfair. Furthermore, there are other ways to provide an extra challenge to a player who seeks one. They can opt to play a lower-level character than the rest of the party. They can elect to take less treasure or gear. They can deliberately make a "bad" build, make purposely-bad tactical choices in combat, and so on. And they can do these things regardless of what class they're playing, so using martial classes as "challenge mode" is redundant at best.

[Gotterdammerung]

Magic is balanced by hubris. A humble mage is a rare but extremely powerful thing. The more common proud "unbeatable" mage has a glaring vulnerability... his alleged invulnerability. A simple npc class "aristocrat" can defeat these all powerful casters simply because of their arrogance.

As the saying goes, "Pride cometh before a fall." This saying holds true regardless of whether or not you can make the sun set in the north and rise in the south.

[Waker]

There are many points that I could make about this post, but I'll reiterate a complaint that I made in another thread. In no setting of fiction that I have seen or read, do magical characters even approach the kind of power that a T1 can wield in D&D. You mention Gandalf, what magic did he actually cast? He never used anything beyond light, speak with animals and a few other little things. Sauron got taken out by a member of that petty rabble of warriors and then spent several millennia pulling himself back together. And I imagine that the like is true of most other mages.
In D&D, a mage can do just about everything short of dictating the story to the DM. They make quick jaunts to other planes of existence, transform into anything that isn't a deific being, clone armies of themselves, create whole worlds, forge items that would make the dwarves of Norse myth sob with envy, overthrow nations...and that was just the spell list I had prepared today. Tomorrow I was thinking I'd...

[Xefas]

Its certainly not a new view. Aside from being the kind of thing that has been hashed and rehashed for decades, I'll just point to AD&D (the earliest D&D I've played).

Spellcasters were explicitly meant to be more powerful than non-casters. The book pretty much just told you that.

But they paid for it. A Wizard leveled up slower, requiring more experience points than, say, a Fighter or a Rogue, to increase in level. Their spells were all generally quite slow to cast, and exceptionally easy to disrupt. Learning new spells was difficult, and you weren't guaranteed to be able to cherry pick absolutely every silver bullet for every situation you wanted. They were really and truly vulnerable for their early levels, and that only alleviated a little bit as they gained in level.

But, you could tear reality apart. You worked and suffered and risked for the power to make man and god tremble at your ire.

After 3rd edition, magic became, essentially, a gun. Point, click, reload. It's easier to use than swinging a sword, in most cases.

[TuggyNE]

So why would one play a fighter? Because: who is greater, the cheat who wins or the honest player who loses on his own terms? Sure, you could play a character that can take the shortcut to get out of it...or you could play the character who stands on his own two feet, fights the same enemies, and manages the same victories

A fighter who says that to a wizard who's spent dozens of years perfecting magic and honing their mind will be laughed at, if the mage is in a good mood, and perhaps hit with a lightning bolt or dominate person, if not. Magic may be more powerful, but (fluff-wise) it's certainly harder to learn (and mechanics-wise, is just about the same). So who's taking the shortcut? Arguably not the guy who studied for decades.


So, basically, as long as one knows that martial classes are worse, then I am entirely okay with someone playing martial classes; and I would be okay playing one as well. It's an honest challenge, and that aspect of it makes it appealing. Sure, you could play and über optimized wizard and win the game. Even though it's physically impossible to win the game. Or you could fight foes on your own two feet.

Don't get me wrong, I wish that martial classes got the attention they deserve. But I no longer feel the need to find a fix, as long as the players realize what they're getting into.

I dunno. I might not have done a great job explaining that. But honestly...just a shift in perspective can change a lot. I basically realized that going Tier 1 is like using cheat codes: you win, but it's not as fun.

As has already been mentioned, there are quite a few people who would like to play a fighter-ish character that have no intention of going Nintendo Hard; similarly, there are quite a few people that want to play casters who aren't in it for the "cheat codes". Balance should exist to give them the option to do that.

In other words, fluff and crunch are currently disconnected in a nasty way, so that options that should be equal, and seem as though they are, definitely are not. Even if you're aware that all is not as it seems, that doesn't really fix the problem that still exists, just lets you patch it for some cases.

And when you come right down to it, a problem that needs to be fixed by each person or group before they can play right is a problem that needs to be fixed.

[Gwendol]

Petty rabble like Conan, Fafhrd, or the Gray Mouser?

Gimli, Theoden, Hector, Akilles, Hercules, Bilbo?

[Yora]

What do they do that a 6th level D&D character can't do?

[Gnorman]

"Realism" has been the albatross around the fighter's neck for a long time, and I think it's a weight that the game would be much better off without. The sooner we can admit to ourselves that it's okay for a fighter to perform heroics on a supernatural scale, the sooner we can be comfortable with giving him Nice Things. As it is, the "mundane hero" archetype's capabilities have a soft cap in the level 6 - 10 range.

I don't think that you should excuse the imbalance between the fighter and the wizard as the fantasy equivalent of assuming the risk. I also don't think that you should approach it by making magic drastically more difficult, costly, or burdensome, so I disagree strenuously with Arcturus' proposed spell time increases. Magic as a system is generally okay (with some definite exceptions) - we have a few primary spellcasters that exist within the Tier 3-4 range, so it's not an issue of casters being inherently better than non-casters per se. It's when you have the huge spread of available spells that you have the real problems. Getting rid of prepared casters is the first step.

[Hyde]

I recently had a player want to take a break from being a caster. He'd always played casters, and wanted to live the simple life- He ended up rolling a character I wouldn't exactly call "simple" (@ level 6- Magus 2, Rogue 2, Ranger 2-PF) it's definitely not the toolboxes he's been playing, or even as complex as what ToB brings to the table.
In making a fighter as powerful as a wizard, the fighter would need to become as complex, as a wizard's power comes from being able to brute force most every problem and Batman everything else with any number of spells.

This question of complexity, and by extension balance, got me thinking about other games, roleplaying and otherwise, that attempt to have balanced characters.

Single-Player Games- There is no notion of balance, you are inherently god at what you do, be it Halo, or Gears of War, or XCOM or Warhammer 40k: Space Marine or... "Generic Space Marine Shooter 7". But seriously, in a single-player experience, you rock, universally, or can be made to rock with some effort.

Multiplayer games that attempt balance, type A: These are your World of Warcrafts- Putting aside their balance rotation- (buff the least played class to incentivize the subscription base to put in more hours and pay more money) World of Warcraft attempts balance through attrition- in PvE, this means that the DPS's outgoing numbers are very similar, with some exceptions, and Tanks will mitigate a certain amount of the boss's numbers- whether it's actual mitigation, self healing, or just being easier to heal, and healers will put out the same numbers, whether spread over many targets or more focused healing. In PvP, this might mean some classes put out more hurty-numbers, but other classes can either erase those numbers at a similar pace or just have enough numbers already that their smaller numbers are enough to make up the difference- the factor really becomes who has spent the most time giving blizzard money to make their numbers bigger.

I feel that this is the more the kind of game that a lot of people want DnD to be- it doesn't matter what you decide to play, you should be just as effective as everyone else, or more accurately- you should be just as effective regardless of what role you decide to fill. Despite ragging on WoW, I can't really call this mentality wrong- it's completely valid to want everything equal.

Multiplayer games that attempt balance, type B- Rotational Balance, and to a lesser extent, learning curve balance. This is your Pokemon, and really your League of Legends. Paper beats rock, rock beats scissors, scissors beats paper. In pokemon, the most synergistic team has an Achilles' heel, and you win by hoping no one plays the team that rocks yours (double battles make this possible, otherwise your answer is five FEARS and a Fighting Type). League of Legends makes this a little more intricate- Assassins typically beat mages, mages beat tanks, tanks beat assassins, and Hard CC beats everything. Then there are difficulty levels to the champions, which is best rated as their potential- difficult champions are more powerful than easy champions (Vayne beats Ashe) but they typically have either weird mechanics or tricky timing that require more skill to actually get that powerful- if you don't play a champion around your skill level, you're very likely to get hosed.

I feel this might be what DnD might've been attempting, but without a clear counter to wizards (I think rogue types were supposed to be) it never really happened.

Multiplayer games that don't really care about balance- Super Smash Brothers. A lot of fighting games (though less so in recent years).

Really, Our problem right now can be summed up like this- The debate about who would win between Superman and Batman has long raged, everyone knows the consensus of "Superman, or Batman with preparation (hint: he is always prepared) What we've in DnD is Superman vs Batman, and Batman has a Spell that makes him also Superman on top of everything else.

[Yora]

4th Edition tried it, and at least succeeded in that goal from what I heard.
5th Edition seems to go in a similar direction.

[Gnorman]

Really, Our problem right now can be summed up like this- The debate about who would win between Superman and Batman has long raged, everyone knows the consensus of "Superman, or Batman with preparation (hint: he is always prepared) What we've in DnD is Superman vs Batman, and Batman has a Spell that makes him also Superman on top of everything else.

It's not even Batman vs. Superman. Fighters aren't allowed to be Superman. It's Batman vs. like, Booster Gold.

This is the plight of the fighter (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFXn3oF2aQI) (No, it's not Angel Summoner & BMX Bandit. The link, that is).

[Wings of Peace]

Something that is supernatural being superior to something which is mundane seems like an idea that stems from real world culture more than actual practicality. Something that is supernatural is simply something that doesn't operate according to the natural laws of the universe as we understand them.

It's really cool to wield supernatural forces when they're belching fire and conjuring dragons with nothing but interpretive dance and creative vocabulary but what if they didn't do that? What if we replaced mysterious gestures with wrist slitting and the fire plus dragons with something like salting a pre-cooked potato.

My point is that the supernatural isn't innately better until it's defined as such and since we're the ones who create the game system we're the one's who decide whether or not magic is innately superior to everything else.

Following a separate line of thought, I would argue that within third edition almost every character eventually becomes supernatural. Even without optimization a strong power attack blow can deal more physical harm than the strongest real world parallel could muster and that is only one example.

[GreenSerpent]

I personally liked what they did in 2nd ed in order to try and cap the usage of the more powerful spells - Haste aged you by a year for example. Wish and Miracle by 5 because you were channelling SO MUCH power that it burnt out your body.

I've been puzzling myself over a mitigation system for 3.5 where casting higher level spells requires you to take Ability Burn damage (cannot be healed by magical healing, only by natural healing). Tricky, but it'd be rather effective - if the Wizard casts Wish then he might very well be a cripple for a week-ish.

[Wings of Peace]

I personally liked what they did in 2nd ed in order to try and cap the usage of the more powerful spells - Haste aged you by a year for example. Wish and Miracle by 5 because you were channelling SO MUCH power that it burnt out your body.

I've been puzzling myself over a mitigation system for 3.5 where casting higher level spells requires you to take Ability Burn damage (cannot be healed by magical healing, only by natural healing). Tricky, but it'd be rather effective - if the Wizard casts Wish then he might very well be a cripple for a week-ish.

It'd have to be some new type of stat damage. Ability burn can't be healed but arguably could still be mitigated.

[TuggyNE]

It's really cool to wield supernatural forces when they're belching fire and conjuring dragons with nothing but interpretive dance and creative vocabulary but what if they didn't do that? What if we replaced mysterious gestures with wrist slitting and the fire plus dragons with something like salting a pre-cooked potato.

That reminds me, oddly, of a poster who claimed that magic was a thing in real life, but that one of the reasons you don't hear about it much is because of how inefficient it is: supposedly, conjuring a half-decent meal costs like $50-$100 of materials and a couple hours of rituals or whatever, to say nothing of the time required to learn it all in the first place.

Of course, that low a power level would be a hard sell for those who like fireball-blasting wizards.

[Wings of Peace]

That reminds me, oddly, of a poster who claimed that magic was a thing in real life, but that one of the reasons you don't hear about it much is because of how inefficient it is: supposedly, conjuring a half-decent meal costs like $50-$100 of materials and a couple hours of rituals or whatever, to say nothing of the time required to learn it all in the first place.

Of course, that low a power level would be a hard sell for those who like fireball-blasting wizards.

I really wish I could have seen that. Do you remember roughly what the thread was called?

[Amphetryon]

Magic-wielders in fiction quite often serve a different function than they do in an RPG: That of "plot device." For example, Gandalf is called away for large swathes of the adventures of Frodo, Samwise, et al, only to return when the plot progressed to a point where his particular abilities were necessary to allow the quest to continue.

By contrast, RPGs like D&D function under the general assumption that all the members of the party will be there every session. Therein lies the rub; it's okay when the magic-wielder always has the solution if a)he's not always there and b) his solutions aren't always vital to the party's continued survival. In far too many D&D games, the power discrepancy that's acceptable under the conditions of fiction becomes a burden on all party members as they find themselves continually relying on one party member to have all the answers.

[mattie_p]

I really wish I could have seen that. Do you remember roughly what the thread was called?

No, but I found it anyway. Here's the link. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=264069)

[TuggyNE]

I really wish I could have seen that. Do you remember roughly what the thread was called?

I don't. I'm not even sure what it was about; all I remember is that it was about something else before it got derailed (probably something vaguely relating to D&D magic and create food and water in particular), that about a page was spent on disbelief, and that it was somewhat under a year ago. I'm not even quite sure which poster it was… :smallsigh:

Edit: mattie_p is the most best.

[Bakkan]

In the thread Why Balance? on the front page right now, Gnaeus is making a similar argument (and I'm in agreement with him and you).

[Hyde]

I like the idea of the wizard as an enabler- He casts the AMZ so your party can walk safely through the area of just all of the wraiths, he uses see invisibility to point out where the invisible bridge hangs. He makes it so that the unstabbable can be stabbed.

Sadly, he can do these things and then erase them from all memory.

I'd ask what would happen if you limited the wizard to a single school of magic, instead of all but one or two, but conjuration is conjuration.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

What we've in DnD is Superman vs Batman, and Batman has a Spell that makes him also Superman on top of everything else.
What we've in DnD is Superman (caster) vs Batman (fighter), and Superman actually using his abilities fully;

a) Using his boundless endurance and no need to sleep to train for all those hours Batman needs to sleep per day.
b) Using his superspeed to train at a 10.000 to 1 time rate, making a single night into one subjective decade of training, catching up to Batman in 4 nights, surpassing him in a week.
c) Using his supersenses to scan everything within a couple dozen miles every few seconds, ensuring nobody (Batman included) could hide from him or sneak up to him and to see any and all ambushes before they appear.
d) Using his mastery of Kryptonian technology, make and use gadgets in combat. I.e. go to every fight with a solar suit after having used an antiradiation gel or pill (kryptonite? What kryptonite?), using a stealth generator, carrying a superadvanced EMP device to disable Luthor's suits and so on and so forth.
e) Fight tactically. Once he detects a Batman or Luthor equivalent enemy from a few dozen miles away (before they detect him) he flies above them beyond detection range and throws a 5-ton iron sphere at them at 1/4 the speed of light. Why engage in plain old fistcuffs when objects thrown with his strength can hit with the force of tactical nukes?
f) Be proactive. Hitting the bad guys before they hit him makes sure the bad guys won't be prepared against him or have a decent plan. How do you prepare against someone that can see you and nuke you from orbit as a standard action anyway?
g) Stop being naive and start being effective. Letting Luthor and Joker go to prison for the night so they can escape in the morning? Seriously? Just vanish them silently in the night. The police won't think to look for their bodies on Saturn.




Yeah, that's how the wizard rolls in DnD;
Theoretically, he can run out of power if he doesn't get enough sunlight rest but that never happens because he can find a place with sunlight to rest as well as travel to it with his powers as a standard action.
Theoretically, he can be surprised and exposed to kryptonite grappled/antimagicked but that never happens because he sees the danger before it comes with his supersenses divinations and uses appropriate countermeasures.
Theoretically, his powers can't be used for everything but in reality he can always adapt to a situation because he spends a decade preparing for each day via superspeed his private time-altered demiplane.

[Komatik]

Forced balance does make magic feel toothless - it damn well IS magic, after all. But it's worth noting that in all the big great stories, magic is a mere shadow of what it is in D&D - the ultimate cosmic power you get as a full spellcaster in this game is downright absurd to degrees pretty much unheard of in typical fiction unless we're talking about gods. And even then it's probably more powerful.

In contrast, the HP mechanic and scaling makes playing a dude who hits things way less scary. You can just jump down sheer castle walls and it's an actual idea you entertain. That threat? Well, are you an ubercharger? No? Then pssht, not like damage kills things.

The thematic sorcerers and ToB do a lot of work in this area - rein in some of the more ludicrous excesses of magic (occasionally perhaps a bit too much so), while ToB makes melee dudes scary mofos who move around, trip that, oh, you had the temerity to hit me? Sorry, I may not be a Wizard like that dude over there, but that **** just doesn't fly. Here, have some sharp steel in the gut.

[Flickerdart]

The difference isn't just in power, but also versatility. Mages don't just do anything better, they do everything better. Melee is limited to 3.5's absolutely lousy skill system (where they don't get enough skill points, nor the right stats, to be really effective even if the skill system actually let you do cool stuff) for everything that isn't fighting. 90% of the game just doesn't exist for melee characters. That's not a cheat code, that's putting the game disk in the DVD drive.

[Malachei]

Psychology. The answer to balance is rooted in psychology.


So, you're a wizard. Or rather, you're a geek, pretending to be a wizard, while the guy to your right pretends to be charismatic and good with people plus a master at assassinating people, the guy to your left pretends to be a slutty lesbian elf princess, and the guy across the table and behind the screen is indulging his power fantasies and would probably be getting off on it if not for his erectile difficulties--but hey, it's not like he's ever touched a girl, so the only person he's disappointing is himself.
Anyway--you're a wizard. What does this mean?

I think the above quote nicely illustrates why wizards have to be ("bwahaahaaaa") more powerful. They also offer a bigger projection screen for the player. :smallbiggrin:

[SowZ]

What do they do that a 6th level D&D character can't do?

Hercules has got to have a 30+ Strength Score and Achilles is literally invulnerable.

[Zaq]

Players are, I find, too smart to fall for just being told "well, you may not have actually done much to beat the dragon, but you're still way more superspecialawesome than any other Fighter on this continent. Really. Honest." I understand that this is an overgeneralization of what you're saying, but when you get to the point where the GM has to throw in challenges that threaten the casters (and thus leave the sword-dudes in the dust), it can sure as hell FEEL that way if you happen to be that sword-dude.

At the end of the day, we're all friends spending our increasingly limited free time playing a game together, and if those of us who chose to play casters are ruining it for those of us who chose to play sword-dudes (either intentionally, because the casters are insensitive, or unintentionally, because the power differential is just so great that nothing the GM can use that will be appropriate for one group will be appropriate for the other group), then we have a problem, and it'll take more than lip service about how your character really is awesome (despite all evidence during the actual game) for most people in the sword-dude group to end up having fun.

Mileage will vary with any particular group, of course, but among the folks I've played with, I think it's fair to apply what I've said here as a trend.

[Tvtyrant]

A series that is close to D&D caster powers is Wheel of Time. Teleportation, invisibility, world altering powers, complete irrelevance of none magical characters. Of the two main characters who don't have normal magic, one is immune to it and the other can still teleport/fight wars in magical dream land.

They have a battle where roughly 12 casters kill over 100,000 enemies in a few minutes, and none of the casters die. One disguised caster was a bigger threat than 100,000 large sized wolf men.

[mattie_p]

A series that is close to D&D caster powers is Wheel of Time. Teleportation, invisibility, world altering powers, complete irrelevance of none magical characters. Of the two main characters who don't have normal magic, one is immune to it and the other can still teleport/fight wars in magical dream land.

One is immune to it... due to a magical item that can apparently only be created by a caster, the other has apparently developed into a swordsage with no limit to the number of shadow jaunt-like maneuvers readied per battle.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Anywhos...what do you think, playgrounders? What is your perspective on the differences between the wizard and the fighter?
As long as the group is OK with it, impressively powerful casters are OK. The wizard can be the party's big gun. The problem comes in when other players are rendered obsolete. If it's "protect the wizard so he can nuke everyone," that's OK. That gives the fighter something to do. But when the wizard is harder to hurt than the fighter and still nuking everyone...


So cut out the Timehack powers. Every Swift/Free Action spell gets cut down to a Full Round Action. Every Standard Action spell becomes a 2 round casting time action. Every Full Round/1 Round Action turns into a 5 minute casting time action. Every 10 minute + spell turns into a 12 hour casting.
Oh, no. No, no, no. BAAAAD idea. Casting in Exalted works kind of like this-- you have to spend one or more turns channeling before your spell goes off-- and it stinks. I played a sorcerer, and let me tell you-- combat is already the slowest part of a game. There's already enough downtime while everyone else is acting. But if you're only taking one action to the party's two? Downright intolerable.

[Tvtyrant]

One is immune to it... due to a magical item that can apparently only be created by a caster, the other has apparently developed into a swordsage with no limit to the number of shadow jaunt-like maneuvers readied per battle.

Yup. Wheel of Time might as well be named "Mundanes. What are they good for?"

I particularly loved that they spent the whole series building up to the use of artillery (including skipping straight through bombards to effective cannons) and then it basically has no effect on the final battle.

The caster class that best balances out with the lower tiers IMO is the Shadowcaster, followed by the Bard. Shadowcaster needed to be gestalted with Warlock so that it didn't run out of things to do, but it lacked the game changers of other casters while still having relevance.

[Hyde]

What we've in DnD is Superman (caster) vs Batman (fighter), and Superman actually using his abilities fully;

a) Using his boundless endurance and no need to sleep to train for all those hours Batman needs to sleep per day.
b) Using his superspeed to train at a 10.000 to 1 time rate, making a single night into one subjective decade of training, catching up to Batman in 4 nights, surpassing him in a week.
c) Using his supersenses to scan everything within a couple dozen miles every few seconds, ensuring nobody (Batman included) could hide from him or sneak up to him and to see any and all ambushes before they appear.
d) Using his mastery of Kryptonian technology, make and use gadgets in combat. I.e. go to every fight with a solar suit after having used an antiradiation gel or pill (kryptonite? What kryptonite?), using a stealth generator, carrying a superadvanced EMP device to disable Luthor's suits and so on and so forth.
e) Fight tactically. Once he detects a Batman or Luthor equivalent enemy from a few dozen miles away (before they detect him) he flies above them beyond detection range and throws a 5-ton iron sphere at them at 1/4 the speed of light. Why engage in plain old fistcuffs when objects thrown with his strength can hit with the force of tactical nukes?
f) Be proactive. Hitting the bad guys before they hit him makes sure the bad guys won't be prepared against him or have a decent plan. How do you prepare against someone that can see you and nuke you from orbit as a standard action anyway?
g) Stop being naive and start being effective. Letting Luthor and Joker go to prison for the night so they can escape in the morning? Seriously? Just vanish them silently in the night. The police won't think to look for their bodies on Saturn.




Yeah, that's how the wizard rolls in DnD;
Theoretically, he can run out of power if he doesn't get enough sunlight rest but that never happens because he can find a place with sunlight to rest as well as travel to it with his powers as a standard action.
Theoretically, he can be surprised and exposed to kryptonite grappled/antimagicked but that never happens because he sees the danger before it comes with his supersenses divinations and uses appropriate countermeasures.
Theoretically, his powers can't be used for everything but in reality he can always adapt to a situation because he spends a decade preparing for each day via superspeed his private time-altered demiplane. My only problem with calling the wizard Superman is that Batman is the toolbox character- Despite Supes' powers, his is the fighter answer of "throw it into the sun". And Fighter "powers" are always on, while Wizards... sort of have to cast the spells. At least once.

[Flickerdart]

The caster class that best balances out with the lower tiers IMO is the Shadowcaster, followed by the Bard. Shadowcaster needed to be gestalted with Warlock so that it didn't run out of things to do, but it lacked the game changers of other casters while still having relevance.
You don't even need Warlock if Shadowcaster had the chassis to work its sharply limited mysteries per day better. In that case, you get a guy who can mix it up with mundane combat half-decently, but pull out a flashy trick every time his own mettle isn't cutting it.

[maysarahs]

Sure, you could play a character that can take the shortcut to get out of it...or you could play the character who stands on his own two feet, fights the same enemies, and manages the same victories.

This might have been touched upon by earlier posters, but I feel the need to reiterate and condense: I think that your argument falls short around here, because it still assumes the amount/quality of success is constant whether or not you play across power levels, just that the effort required is different.

Martial classes can't succeed in all cases, whereas, casters (barring targeted intentional failing via DM) can.

I'm sure people can come up with supporting evidence for this in droves, (a fighter can do nothing against an allip no matter his level, unless he remembered his ghost touch weapons) but martial classes simply can't succeed sometimes.

[Darius Kane]

I skimmed the OP, but from what I gather the only answer is:
http://derpicdn.net/media/W1siZiIsIjIwMTIvMDgvMjEvMDRfMjJfMjNfOF83OTAzNl9fVU 5PUFRfX3NhZmVfcmFpbmJvd19kYXNoX2FuaW1hdGVkX3RoZV9s YXN0X3JvdW5kdXBfbm8iXV0/79036__safe_rainbow-dash_animated_image-macro_reaction-image_laughing_the-last-roundup_no.gif

But a bit more seriously - what is proposed here would be still possible in a balanced D&D game. Casters could still be overpowered - simply make them higher level. That's it. Done. There's really no need to make casters stronger than mundanes of equal level. You just have to redefine what those levels mean. For example a 10th level fighter is already a legendary swordsman. A 10th level Wizard is still a student. They're the same level and are roughly the same power, but in fluff the caster is more powerful (student of magic is equal to master of sword). Simple as that.

[Story]

My only problem with calling the wizard Superman is that Batman is the toolbox character- Despite Supes' powers, his is the fighter answer of "throw it into the sun". And Fighter "powers" are always on, while Wizards... sort of have to cast the spells. At least once.

But Superman also gets new powers as the plot demands. Even stupid stuff like the infamous Super Mathematics.

[mattie_p]

If you've ever played a console/computer RPG, you might remember that almost all of the successful ones starred gish type characters. Think dragon quest/dragon warrior - descendent of the angelic/draconic races, can cast spells while having lots of ability to hit. Final fantasy - most have powers in addition to being able to strike. I encourage my players to multiclass and gish it up.

[Hyde]

But Superman also gets new powers as the plot demands. Even stupid stuff like the infamous Super Mathematics. That's really less true of Superman post- anything published as long as I've lived.

[Gnaeus]

Personally, I prefer the metaphor of Iron Man vs. Luke Cage. Luke Cage is really strong (high bab) and almost invulnerable (high HP). He has passable but not good skills and a high intimidate. He is a fighter.

Iron Man has a dozen suits of armor with interchangeable parts. If there is a power he needs that he doesn't have, he goes home and buys or researches it. On any given day, he probably has superhuman senses, flight, superhuman durability and strength, a couple of energy attacks, and maybe some other weapons like missiles. But give him an hour and his spell book (lab) and that could all change. Also, his divination powers typically include remote access to a butler or computer that can give him any information he needs almost instantly. Also, as a brilliant inventor, he is pretty likely to have relevant skills to help with many problems as well.

Luke could beat Tony in an armorless state. But he is probably going to have a hard time setting that up. Tony, on the other hand, if he realizes he needs to fight Luke, just shows with a suit to target his weaknesses, maybe something with sonic or gas attacks.

[Kyberwulf]

I think power levels don't mean a thing outside of someone's vacuum. Once you hit a campaign it all changes. One thing that so called power levels don't take into account, is how the world will respond to certain characters. If you start walking around the world, spamming certain powers, other denizens will take notice. Wither it be Spells, Skill abuses or anything of that like. Literature is rife with people being challenged or hunted down.

[SowZ]

I think power levels don't mean a thing outside of someone's vacuum. Once you hit a campaign it all changes. One thing that so called power levels don't take into account, is how the world will respond to certain characters. If you start walking around the world, spamming certain powers, other denizens will take notice. Wither it be Spells, Skill abuses or anything of that like. Literature is rife with people being challenged or hunted down.

But in the meantime, the campaign becomes all about McWizardton and now there are denizens of other planes hunting down the caster so Mr. Swordstein has to take even more of a back seat.

[Flickerdart]

I think power levels don't mean a thing outside of someone's vacuum. Once you hit a campaign it all changes. One thing that so called power levels don't take into account, is how the world will respond to certain characters. If you start walking around the world, spamming certain powers, other denizens will take notice. Wither it be Spells, Skill abuses or anything of that like. Literature is rife with people being challenged or hunted down.
If the DM has to warp the entire campaign into "bounty hunters try and kill Bob", do you really think Alice, Clark, and Dave are going to be as invested as they would have been otherwise?

[Fyermind]

I think an important consideration is that Casters were assumed to spend most of their buffs to boost their allies. They were build strong on the assumption they would be team players. Someone didn't think about the fact that they got enough abilities to obsolete the people they were supposed to be buffing.

[Eldan]

See, this is putting the wrong things together.

There is a thing called character level in game. Characters of the same level should be approximately comparable in strength.

Therefore, if one is much stronger than the other, he is a higher level.

Ergo, Gandalf is by far the highest level character of the fellowship.

This works for books and movies. It does not work for adventuring parties in a group game.

In an RPG, Gandalf should not be adventuring with Gimli and Bilbo. He should be adventuring with Gilgamesh and Anansi, for the same archetypes.

Gilmi and Bilbo should be adventuring with Rincewind.

[Darius Kane]

See, this is putting the wrong things together.

There is a thing called character level in game. Characters of the same level should be approximately comparable in strength.

Therefore, if one is much stronger than the other, he is a higher level.

Ergo, Gandalf is by far the highest level character of the fellowship.

This works for books and movies. It does not work for adventuring parties in a group game.

In an RPG, Gandalf should not be adventuring with Gimli and Bilbo. He should be adventuring with Gilgamesh and Anansi, for the same archetypes.

Gilmi and Bilbo should be adventuring with Rincewind.
Lol. My point couldn't be more clearly explained than that.

[ArcturusV]

Oh, no. No, no, no. BAAAAD idea. Casting in Exalted works kind of like this-- you have to spend one or more turns channeling before your spell goes off-- and it stinks. I played a sorcerer, and let me tell you-- combat is already the slowest part of a game. There's already enough downtime while everyone else is acting. But if you're only taking one action to the party's two? Downright intolerable.

It's not really bad. We tend to think it's bad. But that's because we're comparing it to what we have right here, right now. Where it's one swift action/standard action to rule the world.

Now there are game types were it isn't worth it, not really. Final Fantasy RPG comes to mind, as a Caster has to burn resources, MP, Charge Time on their Spells, and still effectively only do as much damage as the burly guy with the sword. On some spells they get the advantage of AoE multipliers, so they do more damage and have a greater effect. But during the Heroes on Singular Boss fight you can feel lack luster.

Which I'm not really saying it needs to be curtailed in power like that. I mean if you still have a "Save and Suck or Fail and Lose" spell against a single target. But it takes you 2 rounds to cast it? I mean Con checks are ridiculously easy to pass for mages anyway. So it's not like you're going to lose a spell. You would have to think tactically and pick high priority targets rather than using a Time Hack Power and going "Ennie, minnie miney... oh, just everything!"

So suddenly the dynamic changes. If you wanted to be the Buffer and pump up your party pre fight? Still can. Nothing's changed. If you want to solo an encounter with a single action? That's changed, and if you tried the enemy would get a free shot at you. Which makes a certain amount of sense. So you go from a guy who can clear out rank and file types with some delay, "Hold off that horde and I'll get 'em!" or someone who can take out a priority target, "Umm... don't die and I'll cripple that dragon!" Rather than necessarily getting All of the Above.

Which instantly starts suggesting a level of balance which doesn't exist yet.

Fyermind:

That and I think they overestimated things. The way the books were written, it seems more presumed that rather than buffing allies necessarily, they expected wizard to primarily be chucking Fireballs and Lightning Bolts. They very heavily overvalued Evocation spells, particularly Evocation AoE spells, as they seemed to think that would be to Go To schtick for wizards.

[Eldan]

Combat in D&D is already pretty damn boring. You sit there, bored, while the rest of hte party spends ten minutes dragging themselves through your turns. It's stil, tolerable.

Now think if it was like this.

Caster: Yay! My turn! I cast spell X!
Five to ten minutes pass.
Caster: I continue casting!
Five to ten minutes pass.
Caster: I continue casting!
Fifteen minutes pass.
Caster: I continue casting!
Another three minutes pass, the combat is now over.
Caster: *zzz... zzz...zzz* Oh? What? Yeah, I continue casting!

[Gnorman]

Combat in D&D is already pretty damn boring. You sit there, bored, while the rest of hte party spends ten minutes dragging themselves through your turns. It's stil, tolerable.

Now think if it was like this.

Caster: Yay! My turn! I cast spell X!
Five to ten minutes pass.
Caster: I continue casting!
Five to ten minutes pass.
Caster: I continue casting!
Fifteen minutes pass.
Caster: I continue casting!
Another three minutes pass, the combat is now over.
Caster: *zzz... zzz...zzz* Oh? What? Yeah, I continue casting!

Yes. This. This is exactly why longer spell times is a bad idea.

There are other ways to balance spellcasters that don't result in serious table delay, and some (spontaneous fixed-listers, I'm looking your way again) that actually help reduce it.

Option paralysis is a real thing.

[Eldan]

I don't like spontaneous casters much. They take the most interesting part out of the Vancian system. I'd rather have prepared fixed-list casters for most cases.

[Waker]

I don't like spontaneous casters much. They take the most interesting part out of the Vancian system. I'd rather have prepared fixed-list casters for most cases.

I despise the Vancian system, much bigger fan of spell points like in psionics.
In any event, while increasing casting times would help balance things a bit, it would give people far less to do in combat. I think one of my next homebrew projects will be a casting fatigue mechanic where the more high level spells you cast the more exhausted you are. Obviously it wouldn't be actually based on fatigue and exhaustion, since there are too many ways around both.

[Gnorman]

I don't like spontaneous casters much. They take the most interesting part out of the Vancian system. I'd rather have prepared fixed-list casters for most cases.

Fixed-list is the more important aspect of the two, I'll give you that.

[SillySymphonies]

"Realism" has been the albatross around the fighter's neck for a long time, and I think it's a weight that the game would be much better off without. The sooner we can admit to ourselves that it's okay for a fighter to perform heroics on a supernatural scale, the sooner we can be comfortable with giving him Nice Things. As it is, the "mundane hero" archetype's capabilities have a soft cap in the level 6 - 10 range.
It’s about time D&D’s designers explicitly recognize this.
We have Ryan S. Dancey (WotC’s Vice President at the time of 3rd edition) on record (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?310363-3-Book-D-amp-D-%283-5%29&p=6899494#post6899494) stating that “D&D 3/3.5, by design, changes roughly every 5 levels.” (Sometimes (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?206323-E6-The-Game-Inside-D-amp-D) interpreted as levels 1-5: gritty fantasy; levels 6-10: heroic fantasy; levels 11-15: wuxia; levels 16-20: superheroes.)

But somehow ‘mundanes’ still seem to be stuck at the gritty/heroic fantasy power level. While a 20th-level fighter should be able to rival the power of Hercules himself…

Ofcourse versatility>raw power, so that 20th-level ‘Hercules’ is still in somewhat of a bind when compared to a caster:

Personally, I prefer the metaphor of Iron Man vs. Luke Cage. Luke Cage is really strong (high bab) and almost invulnerable (high HP). He has passable but not good skills and a high intimidate. He is a fighter.


PS It it just me, or should the crafting of magical arms and armor be the domain of the ‘warrior’ archetype, not the wizard? I’m thinking Hephaestus or Hattori Hanzō here.
Wizards should just stick to forging magic rings and the likes already.

[hamishspence]

PS It it just me, or should the crafting of magical arms and armor be the domain of the ‘warrior’ archetype, not the wizard? I’m thinking Hephaestus or Hattori Hanzō here.

Bruenor Battlehammer in The Crystal Shard springs to mind.

[ArcturusV]

One of the reasons I actually do like the Oriental Adventures Samurai and the feat Ancestral Relic, just because it DOES let a Fighter "enchant" his own stuff. Which he should be doing. Even in DnD Fiction it tends to be "mundanes" who are making all these legendary weapons and such. It's the dwarf who fights (when he has to) like a high level fighter, rather than the elven wizard who's making the Dragon Lances, etc.

EDIT: I was thinking of that dwarf and his legendary throwing returning OMGWTF Hammer he made, but I couldn't remember his name.

[Flickerdart]

But somehow ‘mundanes’ still seem to be stuck at the gritty/heroic fantasy power level. While a 20th-level fighter should be able to rival the power of Hercules himself…

Ofcourse versatility>raw power, so that 20th-level ‘Hercules’ is still in somewhat of a bind when compared to a caster:

Hercules is not a 20th level character. Let's take a look at the stuff he actually did in his famous Labours.

1: Slew a were-lion. Possibly even were-dire-lion. While being unable to pierce DR 10/silver with his bow. A were-dire-lion is a CR4 creature when the template is applied to a human.
2: Slew a hydra. A 9-headed hydra is a CR8 creature.
3: Capturing a deer. Hercules tracked it for a year, shot it in the foot, and then threw a net at it.
4: Fought a bunch of centaurs (CR3), caught a dire boar (CR4) and shot a giant(?) eagle (CR3).
5: Rerouted two rivers in a day.
6: With the help of an item that made them panicked and poison, shot a bunch of man-eating birds (let's say CR3 like the giant eagle).
7: Wrestled a bull into submission (CR2).
8: Rounded up some horses, possibly Nightmares (CR5) who didn't even fight him.
9: Got a belt and killed some human warriors.
10: Killed a two-headed dog (possibly a Lernean Warbeast Riding Dog or Lernean Hellhound, CR4 or so) with a single hit, killed another centaur, killed a giant with poison.
11. Grappled a shapechanger and a half-giant, burst some chains, held up "the heavens".
12. Intimidated a guy with the help of a goddess, and wrestled another Lernean hellhound.

The feats of Hercules that can be quantified by the system are easily achievable by a level 6 or so character .