Elevating the Mundane

[Segev]

I'm sure this isn't anything new as an idea, but it's still sometihng that bears thought. It's never "fun" to be told your favorite class is being nerfed; this is why, despite acknowledging that spellcasters are significantly more powerful than non-, few people really celebrate ideas for trimming back their power.

So, then, perhaps the solution is to take PF's approach even farther and find ways to boost the non-casting classes up!

But how?

There are two factors, I think, at work in making casters as powerful as they are:

Spells are a flexible and generally numerous resource, with far greater variety of what's available both to any one character and as general choices to build characters. Compared to the next-most-numerous things, feats and class features.
"It's magic" justifies far more unusual, elaborate, and diverse effects for spells than are considered "allowable" for feats.

These two combine such that one envisions a wizard, druid, sorcerer, or cleric casting a spell and getting just about any effect imaginable and it's "believable." But feats - and skills, and other non-magic class features - typically have to be "something normal people could do, if taken to extraordinary levels."

Feats are, once chosen, fixed and always on. This means that we typically expect them to be weaker than spells because spells can "wear off" or even be expended. Blasting does more damage (frequently) than melee because it's a more limited resource (in theory). Spells that grant bonuses to AC, to hit, damage, and skills often scale better with level or offer significant "magical" bonuses over what a mundane feat or class feature might grant because they're magic...and perhaps with the flimsy justifications that they can be dispelled and they cost spell slots and can wear off.

Feats, being always on, obviously can't be as good! There's no way to get the spells on all the time, after all!

Except nobody gets as many feats as even the Duskblade gets spells. Well, except the PF fighter, who gets a feat every level, just like the Duskblade.

Yet, spells are still better than feats in almost every way.


I have a few more detailed ideas on how this might be addressed on a fundamental level (including something I think is really neat for skills, though it would take a TON of creative work to catch it up to the versatility of spells), but I'm running out of time before I need to run off for the morning.

Two ideas to share quickly, though: what if feats followed the same design philosophy as spells, and generally scaled the way spells do? Divine Favor grants +1/3 levels; what if Weapon Focus did something similar? What if you didn't need Greater weapon Focus and Greater Weapon Specialization; the feats just scaled?

The other thought, and this one is more an experiment to explore how much it would help:

Imagine if a variant class called "Magic Fighter" used the Fighter chassis, but had the ability to choose any spell of a level no higher than a wizard of equal level could learn in place of the fighter bonus feats. They can cast those spells "at will." (More detailed alterations might allow them to choose any spells that could be cast on themselves, and give them 24 hour durations like Warlock invocations.) This one's a starting point thought-experiment; would having magic like this make the fighter start to catch up? What else might still be needed? (This is, again, not detailed; some obvious broken things will crop up, like "cure light wounds at will at level 1." But would it help ASIDE from the obvious broken things?)

[Komatik]

It exists, and it's called the Tome of Battle. It doesn't lend itself to one-shotting things with absurd damage as readily as normal melee does, but in return you can do many things like area control, debuffs and the like, you can do decent damage, and even get rudimentary action economy tricks and defenses against unusual/magical attacks. All as standard or lesser actions, so you can actually move while doing all the fun stuff. Oh, and the power level goes up to about 5th-6th level spells.

It is, hands down, the best place to start. It takes what makes casting fun, retools it so it suits melee better, and makes melee actually fun to play.

Also:


Imagine if a variant class called "Magic Fighter" used the Fighter chassis, but had the ability to choose any spell of a level no higher than a wizard of equal level could learn in place of the fighter bonus feats. They can cast those spells "at will."

Hello, Polymorph. Goodbye, campaign. Hello, Summon Monster / Nature's Ally. Goodbye, campaign.

[Segev]

Yes, ToB tried something like this, but it focused still exclusively on combat. Part of what makes casters so versatile is that they have things not really "intended" for combat at all, but which either let them utterly bypass things that mundanes are stuck dealing with (and, if combatants, may not HAVE means to deal with), or which have sideways combat uses that make ToB stuff look positively mundane.

And yes, the obvious "broken spells" on the "magic fighter" would break the game as much or more as they do on casters. But you're almost completely missing the point by focusing on them.

Does this step towards elevating the mundane? Is it simply that spells are that powerful, or is it that spells come in such variety?

Anyway, think on it a little less flippantly, please, and examine what one would have to "borrow" from magic to elevate mundanes to "Tier 1."

[Psyren]

Yet, spells are still better than feats in almost every way.


Spells are limited, provoke, can be detected, dispelled, negated, countered and otherwise rendered impractical for a given situation. If none of those disadvantages ever come into play, then of course casters will run roughshod over a campaign.

Having said that:



Two ideas to share quickly, though: what if feats followed the same design philosophy as spells, and generally scaled the way spells do? Divine Favor grants +1/3 levels; what if Weapon Focus did something similar? What if you didn't need Greater weapon Focus and Greater Weapon Specialization; the feats just scaled?

I have no problem with automatically scaling feats. This is a good way to help buff mundanes in a high-power campaign.



Imagine if a variant class called "Magic Fighter" used the Fighter chassis, but had the ability to choose any spell of a level no higher than a wizard of equal level could learn in place of the fighter bonus feats. They can cast those spells "at will."

People who choose fighter do so to avoid dealing with magic and spells. Those who want those things have options like Magus, Duskblade, Psywar etc. This suggestion is a solution in search of a problem.

[XenoGeno]

I've always felt that WBL should be determined by class, similar to the way starting wealth is determined by class.It would have to be a tiny bit mathy to deal with multiclassing and prestige classes, but I don't think it would necessarily be that hard. Give every class and prestige class a "wealth category" and then create a table that has ECLs on the Y-axis, and wealth categories on the X-axis. Find the listed amount for each wealth category you have, and multiply those numbers by the amount of levels you have in the respective classes, and add together for your WBL. Does that make sense? For example, a 10th level character is supposed to have 49,000 gp worth of items according to the DMG. In this system, a fighter 5/wizard 5 would look at the table, see that he gets 7,350 for each level he has in a "wealth category 1" class (in this case, fighter), and 2,450 for each level he has in a "wealth category 4" class (in this case, wizard), and adds it together for 49,000. A fighter 10 would have 73,500, and a wizard 10 would have 24,500. I'd also give more spells genuine material costs (that can't be gained from a spell component pouch) and increase the costs of material components for spells that already have them, the amount based off of how powerful the spell is. Contingency, for instance, would probably have an absurd cost, 10,000 gp or something along those lines, to prevent it being used over and over to the point of abuse.

It would also probably be fairly easy to justify, fluff-wise; I'd argue that THE classic archetype of a wizard is the hermit living by his lonesome, all his time and money put into his spells and experiments, and I imagine most clerics would donate their earnings to their respective churches, while druids would just not give that much of a damn about material goods. The iconic warriors, similarly, tend to have magical artifacts to aid them in battle; Heracles' Nemean cloak, Perseus' using Hermes' sandals, Achilles' armor forged by Hephaestus, Arthur and Excalibur. Obviously, they all had other things going for them as well, but I think the point stands.

For the record, I have never actually tried this myself, and I'm sure the specific numbers would need A LOT of fiddling with. But I think there's a good chance that going this route could be successful at balancing the classes, while keeping things so that the classes all still feel distinct from each other.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Psyren
People who choose fighter do so to avoid dealing with magic and spells.

Such a broad-brush claim can hardly be imagined to address the reasons and interests of every single person who ever played a fighter.

[Psyren]

Such a broad-brush claim can hardly be imagined to address the reasons and interests of every single person who ever played a fighter.

To assume otherwise is illogical. If you wanted to use magic, why would you pick a class that can't?

[Palanan]

Why assume magic is the only axis involved? People make decisions for reasons which have nothing to do with game mechanics, and you can't possibly claim to know the interests and rationales of every one of the millions of people who have ever played a fighter.

If you want to decry that as illogical, fine. Humans are known for that.

:smallamused:

[Psyren]

If you want to decry that as illogical, fine. Humans are known for that.

:smallamused:

You're right that logic doesn't tell us what is impossible, but it does tell us what is unlikely. For instance, it is unlikely that someone rolling a fighter wanted to use magic spells, or would be enamored of an ACF/archetype that would let him do so.

[Segev]

Okay. Clearly, my stopgap example didn't work, as people are focusing on the wrong aspects of it. My goal is not, in fact, to suggest "give spells to fighters."

I'm trying to examine what spells do that makes the full caster so much more powerful than the non-caster.

I have a rough idea, but I'm looking at whether the ability to pick more of them or to swap them out is THE major element, or if just what they DO is enough. The example with the "magic fighter" is not meant to examine whether it fixes any problems. It's meant to find what aspects of spells would need to transfer to fighters to make them elevate in tier.

[dspeyer]

The tricky thing is to keep it making in-universe sense. I made a previous attempt at this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=236233).

[ryu]

Spells have several major advantages over not spells all of which are extremely powerful and create something more than the sum of any one nice part.

1: Raw ungodly power. Countless spells exist that simply do things you'd likely balk at a mundane character being able to do without magic. This doesn't start at high levels necessarily either.

2: Strategic versatility. There are well over a thousand spells in individual class lists and often you either just automatically know your list to use as you can cast them or have the ability to learn as many of the good ones as you damn-well please.

3: Tactical versatility. What you think I need just the right spell for every situation? Nope! I have spells in almost any slot that single-handedly allow more options than the mundanes can ever imagine having.

4: Daily experimentation. That spell wasn't a winner? Oh whatever I'll just prepare something different next time and be glad that thing was cheap to get.

5: Falsely limited resources. What I only get so many spells in a day and so much xp and gold to craft stuff with? Why bother with the limits when you put in like a hundred or so at least methods of breaking those rules with a sickening crack many of which do that USED AS INTENDED?

6: False counters. What entire piles of ways to counter magic users? There are easily accessible counters to all proposed counters. Also nearly all counters pretty much read enemy spellcaster did it anyway.

7: Very real counters. As we've shown most counters come from spellcasters. How do not spellcasters counter counters though? By spending money the spellcaster doesn't have to to get the same result and in the process falling behind in wealth. This dynamic is no win for mundanes.

8: Class obviation. When you have a class feature that reads fighter who doesn't demand a share of treasure, can be of almost any species at any time, and acquiesces to all items you buy and tell him to wear or use why do you even need a fighter at all?

9: All of the information. Mundanes can't predict the future. Spellcasters can and with frighteningly high accuracy. I don't have to explain what that does for people who thrive on planning do I?

10: Action economy what action economy? You won initiative? NO! I go first! You get next turn? Sure after I stop time and take a few turns one after the other one of which will render your turn useless. This is also gentle compared to what I could be doing. After all I'm letting you live to have a turn even if it is useless.

That list is a brief summary of what magic is in dnd. In the right hands it can take all factors of luck or resistance out of the game and render all not magic irrelevant by the sheer power of what it is. In order to make mundane power equal to magic power you need to give it ALL of that and probably a few things I missed or forgot about.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I'm trying to examine what spells do that makes the full caster so much more powerful than the non-caster.
There are three main things, I think:

Firstly, while individual spells are well-defined, and-- for the most part-- not that versatile, spellcasters get a lot of spells. A sorcerer knows 45 spells. That's 45 different things he can do, in or out of combat. No mundane class gets anywhere near that many options.
Secondly, many individual spells are just way better than anything mundane people get. Save or die/save or lose spells let you completely eliminate an opponent as a standard action. Single spells are just better than entire skills-- think of fly verses Climb and Jump. And that's not even starting with flat-out broken things like polymorph.
Third, spells have way more scope then anything mundane people get. A factotum's Cunning Surge is a great ability, but in terms of affecting the world, it doesn't hold a candle to teleport. Or fabricate. Or...


I once took a stab at making a "mundane" character who could hit all those points-- the Legend (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=276481). I think it stacks up pretty well-- especially if you take out the anti-abuse caviats in the abilities-- but it's... well, it's about as ridiculous as you'd expect. I handed out 20 at-will abilities over the course of the class, with stuff like jumping miles at a stretch, becoming a walking lie detector, single-handedly performing massive engineering projects, and stuff like that.

[Segev]

Thanks for the analyses; they jive largely with my own thoughts, and give a couple extra perspectives on things.

I think the biggest hurdle is the "spells can do things you'd balk at non-magic doing, even at low levels" issue. We need to get over the idea that it has to be "magic" to be super-human and awesome.

This is the one that needs to be overcome to start adapting feats into something that are far greater than they are now.

Why feats? Well, we have three major things characters can use to pick and customize their power: feats, skills, and spells. (Honestly, Maneuvers and Powers and Invocations and Vestiges are all similar things, falling mostly under the category of "spells" because they're magic. But we want to provide options that don't require you to be "magical" to do them.)

So my two foci right now are on Feats - trying to come up with ways to use scaling-with-level and an embrace of the idea that they can be truly extraordinary to build characters who can be "quadratic" even without being "magic" - and what I'm tentatively calling Skill Masteries.

Skill Masteries are an actual add-on to the system; I lack a good way to make them "cost" something so we can pretend that they're not just an expansion of every PC's power.

Skill Masteries are, like spells, feats, and maneuvers, well-defined capabilities that a character can pick up. I'm still working on specific ideas; the main "mechanic" is that a Mastery has a certain rating, and can have prerequisite masteries. A character may have a number of Masteries for a given skill such that the sum of their ratings does not exceed their ranks in that skill.

So if they have Bluff at 8 ranks, they could have a Bluff Mastery that has a rating of 2, one with a rating of 3, and 3 with ratings of 1. Or they could have two with ratings of 4. Or any such combination.

I'm not sure, at this time, how or if characters can swap out Masteries. If not, they can pick them up at any time (maybe with a gp cost for "training") they have enough ranks to add a Mastery of the appropriate Rating. If so, it needs to take some time to do, but I am unsure if it should take less than a day, a day, or longer.

Masteries are intended to be in the same vein as Skill Tricks, but far more useful. Most Skill Tricks are held back by a fear that they'll be overpowered. The goal here is to embrace them being powerful and useful. They're meant to be something skill-based PCs can hold up as their own. Maybe some classes can gain class abilities to give them bonus rating allowance with certain skills. In any event, high-skill classes will have access to more, naturally, just by virtue of having more skills at higher ranks.

I'll try to have a few ideas for sample Masteries (no promise on balance; this is still brainstorming stage) in my next post.

[NichG]

Take the focus away from making a better combatant, for one. We need to look towards versatility, and we need to look for new kinds of 'powers' that aren't well-represented in the huge array of things spells can do.

So I can't really help you with the Fighter or the Rogue or whatever, but I can posit a couple fully mundane classes that can accomplish things that would be difficult for a wizard to just wave his hands and do. The tool for this job is abstraction.

Idea #1: The Iconoclast

Consider a class that can, as a class feature, change the culture of towns, cities, and countries. At low levels perhaps this is restricted to spreading a name around, introducing a new fashion, etc (as a class ability, mind you: just wave your character sheet and its done). At high levels he can convince the people that the king is actually a monster in disguise - the people as a whole, not just individuals.

This kind of broad action is difficult for magic users as they currently are - they have incredibly powerful tools to do this to individuals, but they have to execute their plans one Dominate Person at a time, figure out the lynchpins, etc. Bards can fascinate crowds, but they have to actively hold the effect. This mundane class can skip over all of those minutia and do it as an offscreen action that takes 2d4 hours.

It would make sense to put other mechanic hooks into what exactly these changes mean - maximum discounted prices, difficulty of just seizing the throne, etc - but thats the work that needs to get done.

Idea #2: The Mastermind

This one comes from my own campaigns. This is a PrC whose class features are a number of uses per game of 'retroactive planning'. Basically they can spend a use to have anticipated some need and have prepared for it in advance (limited to actions that would not require opposed checks). This is mundane in the sense that the person is just that clever. Schroedinger's Wizard without the Wizard, basically. Though that does bring up the point that this combos disgustingly with prepared casters.

Idea #3: The Macgyver

This is mundane only in the sense of not involving magic. Again this uses the idea that magic users generally have power only 'where they are', and its harder for them to extend their power to things they don't personally intervene in (or at least, it takes a lot of screen time). The Macgyver can build 'things that do things' with whatever is at hand, but the tricky thing about this class is that what they build can be copied by other mundanes who are shown how.

A wizard can ruin the iron and salt economy singlehandedly, but this guy can introduce mass production to the world.

[b]Idea #4: The Watcher

This guy has networks of spies everywhere. The main class feature he'd get is the ability to execute certain actions in multiplicity through his network. For example, when someone would normally Gather Information in a single city, he can Gather Information across a continent using the same mechanics. He'll have a hard time beating focused divinations, but he does better than the casters when there's only a vague idea of what to look for (e.g. a red-headed woman with a birthmark and a magic sword).

At higher levels, he could have class abilities that let him basically automatically resolve situations below a certain CR in remote locations, though I'm a bit hazy on how to balance this against the fact that low CR things probably won't be worth much to deal with.

All of these work better in a non-dungeoncrawly campaign though, where 'altering the world' is the substance of the adventures, not the window-dressing. None of these classes will do better than a Wizard or even a Fighter at combat, but thats kind of a limitation of combat already being very heavily covered by the rules - there's not much design space to squeeze something new in.

[Frozen_Feet]

*points to Feat Synergy in signature*

As far as feats go, you might want to take a look at what I've done to the core ones. Point first, they scale when combined with other feats. Point second, they allow for things besides combat that you yearned for, such as diplomatic abilities, enhanced movement, changing the landscape, healing and cheating death.

[ryu]

I'm just gonna start right now and say that if you're going to make skills more powerful as a whole with the only major costs being limited skill points and gold to train you'd best buff the amount of skill points mundanes get straight up. Like more than magic users tend to get with naturally good int or class points. You should also make that based on base ranks in the skill and not count any buffs, items, or similar things. If you want this to boost mundane to magic tier it's going to have to be far easier for mundanes to get a lot more of the bonus than non mundanes. If you don't the spell slingers can just ape the bonuses themselves for cheaper versions of what they already do. Considering what they already do is largely tied up in an free daily resources if they haven't broken the rules that's a statement I don't make lightly.

[Segev]

Definitely based on ranks, not on "bonus." Mostly would help rogue-likes.

[PlusSixPelican]

I'm offering a different perspective. I'm not going to defend or lament tiers, propose any system patches, or decry unfairness. Instead, let's take a look at what the mundanes aren't doing, rather than declaring them innocent snowflakes in all this.

---

Mundanes: Int is not a dump stat. In the game, and out of it. That's...the BIG thing. It makes your character smarter, which should matter to you maybe?

If you're a smart fighter (like well, Roy Greenhilt), and take the same amount of time in building as a caster (where we toil over spell selection, you toil over feat trees, and skills even more, that's where all that Int comes in), and think about using what you have to get what you want, a good degree of that gap closes. Acrobatics, Knowledges, and hell, pick up some Spellcraft; you can disrupt enemy casting with a readied action and a throwing knife or a crossbow bolt if you know it's coming.

You could take some Leadership, nab some cohorts. Oh, you didn't want to learn more rules or do any more book-keeping than it takes to play a mundane? Maybe there's reasons you're doing worse then.

This. This is what's up. It's not that magic is inherently superior (it has it's moments, certainly), but it's the comparative lack of effort the mundanes (not all of 'em, just the ones who complain about casters) put in is the problem here. Sure, you might have less easy options (ie, spells) in a moment, but if all you've got is the body and physical prowess of an Olympic athlete, a few tools, and maybe a cape, who are you? BATMAN. That's right, Batman. Batman doesn't have spells or powers, but Batman wins with preparation.This includes understanding the likelihood of various scenarios and being always prepared for the likelier incidents, and then being able to improvise when caught unawares. Invest in Intimidate? You can cause people to stock up on trouser pudding with a skill check.

Maybe a straight sword and board fighter isn't that awesome by itself? There's even mundane weapons (a repeating crossbow) that render that tactic, most generously, as situational. If you're a situational character, expect a lot of situations you can't do much in.

However, a nimble, strong warrior with a deep knowledge base, a nice sword (rather than dumping half your budget into it), some throwing knives or a crossbow (and some investment in knowing how to employ those equally well), a few hidden surprises, and all those big fat hit dice? Being played by someone who knows the ins and outs of not only themselves, but of their enemies? That's an intellectual warrior right there.

---

To explain this mechanically; instead of going all Strength, Con and dumping the others, you want a whole different outlook.

Like the Wizard, go high-Int. This is your brain, without it, your muscles are meaningless. Your powerful mind is more dangerous than any spell, and you can learn tricks for getting past petty acts of sorcery (hint, a readied action and an arrow to the nose).

Next, Dexterity. You need that for ranged combat and reflex saves, and bows are your friend. Your BFF even. Silent, swift, packing the force of every muscle you have onto a needle's edge, and saving you the trouble of having to stroll up for a stabbing? Why thank you, spring-loaded death engine. If the fight gets to close, just punch them in the face. You've got fists, don't you? There's no shortage of ways for a Fighter to well, fight at close.

Other stats don't matter as much, but shouldn't be utterly dumped.

---

If you're unwilling to think as much as the caster is, maybe their spells aren't the problem. If you're unwilling to prepare for a variety of situations, you don't feel useless, you ARE useless. The brain is the most powerful muscle in your body, mundanes. If you're not using it, no wonder there's disparity.

[TuggyNE]

Mundanes: Int is not a dump stat. In the game, and out of it. That's...the BIG thing. It makes your character smarter, which should matter to you maybe?

Roleplaying-wise, quite possibly. Mechanically, not in the current system.


If you're a smart fighter (like well, Roy Greenhilt), and take the same amount of time in building as a caster (where we toil over spell selection, you toil over feat trees, and skills even more, that's where all that Int comes in), and think about using what you have to get what you want, a good degree of that gap closes. Acrobatics, Knowledges, and hell, pick up some Spellcraft; you can disrupt enemy casting with a readied action and a throwing knife or a crossbow bolt if you know it's coming.

Cross-class skills means this isn't going to be all that awesome. Also, readied actions, unless you have Manyshot, make your damage per round sink catastrophically past around level 11 at the latest.

What's more, Knowledge skills without anything specific to do with them means you're just playing catch-up to the Wizard, who not only has those skills in class, but has a direct mechanical advantage from Int, and doesn't need other stats much. A Fighter without Str/Dex, though, is useless.


You could take some Leadership, nab some cohorts. Oh, you didn't want to learn more rules or do any more book-keeping than it takes to play a mundane? Maybe there's reasons you're doing worse then.

Leadership is brokenly good, yes; it's not something mundanes have the slightest advantage in, and it's not something that really boosts their strengths all that much more than any other character.


This. This is what's up. It's not that magic is inherently superior (it has it's moments, certainly), but it's the comparative lack of effort the mundanes (not all of 'em, just the ones who complain about casters) put in is the problem here. Sure, you might have less easy options (ie, spells) in a moment, but if all you've got is the body and physical prowess of an Olympic athlete, a few tools, and maybe a cape, who are you? BATMAN. That's right, Batman. Batman doesn't have spells or powers, but Batman wins with preparation.This includes understanding the likelihood of various scenarios and being always prepared for the likelier incidents, and then being able to improvise when caught unawares. Invest in Intimidate? You can cause people to stock up on trouser pudding with a skill check.

Intimidate builds are known, and quite effective under certain circumstances; unfortunately, that's one trick, that can be negated by immunity to fear.

There are no mechanics for preparing gadgets ahead of time like NichG's Mastermind idea, and buying gadgets costs WBL… WBL that is Batman's superpower, which mundanes in D&D have no special advantage in. In fact, given the amount of investment into "things to avoid being shut down" required for a non-caster, they are almost certainly lower on WBL than casters are.


However, a nimble, strong warrior with a deep knowledge base, a nice sword (rather than dumping half your budget into it), some throwing knives or a crossbow (and some investment in knowing how to employ those equally well), a few hidden surprises, and all those big fat hit dice? Being played by someone who knows the ins and outs of not only themselves, but of their enemies? That's an intellectual warrior right there.

OK, what's your damage output look like when using a crossbow? 3d10+3d6+9 at level 12, say? Now compare that to HP of monsters at that level. Yeah, 36 damage per round, average, looks pretty anemic if you might get jumped by a pair of colossal animated objects at 512 HP between them — as a bog-standard encounter, 4 times a day. And what vulnerabilities are you going to employ against them, precisely? A dispel magic to wipe out their animations once you figure out their source? Oh wait, you're not a caster, guess you'll have to burn a min-CL scroll or three trying to get rid of them. Hope you make all your cross-class UMD checks!

Or take a pair of clay golems, 90 HP each. Surely those are simple enough? Not so fast, DR 10/adamantine and bludgeoning means your crossbow is doing an average of a little over 12 per round: 7 rounds to get rid of one of them is a long time. (But hey, if everyone pitches in, you can cut them both down in just four rounds! Pity they're blasting you full force until then, of course.)


Next, Dexterity. You need that for ranged combat and reflex saves, and bows are your friend. Your BFF even. Silent, swift, packing the force of every muscle you have onto a needle's edge, and saving you the trouble of having to stroll up for a stabbing?

Composite bows cannot, in general, have their Str ratings changed after crafting. Other bows can't use Str bonuses at all.


If you're unwilling to think as much as the caster is, maybe their spells aren't the problem. If you're unwilling to prepare for a variety of situations, you don't feel useless, you ARE useless. The brain is the most powerful muscle in your body, mundanes. If you're not using it, no wonder there's disparity.

All the planning in the world is useless if you don't have effective ways to execute those plans. That's the position the Fighters are in. It's not the position casters are in; they have mechanical expressions of their plans and don't have to rely on cajoling the DM to let something work, overspending WBL, or hitting things for dozens of rounds before they drop and hoping you don't fall over first.

[Frozen_Feet]

This. This is what's up. It's not that magic is inherently superior...

Actually, it is. Due to a pervasive error in human intuition, roleplaying games in general and D&D in particular is highly contaminated by the idea of "magic must defeat magic". Magical effects are allowed to effect the natural world, but not vice versa. One of the most egregious examples of this is the Shadow, (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/shadow.htm) a CR 3 creature. It has incorporeality, meaning...



... It is immune to all nonmagical attack forms...

... yeah. Give Fighter all miracles of modern science, and he still can't win. Even a nuclear explosion won't deter this thing.

If you want to bring mundanes up, this asymmetry must be broken. Either mundanes must become able to affect magical entitities, or mundanes must become similarly immune to magical effects.

[Black Jester]

The problem with elevating mundane characters is that the players have a clear and accessible framework of references they can all mundane activities and achievements compare to, and if the in-game events utterly overshadows this framework of references, the game will become silly and a lot less relatable as it does not make any sense any more within the expected outcomes. If you enjoy a silly game, that's perfectly fine, but suspension of disbelief only goes so far before it changes from something you just do to requiring some conscious effort which can even be a chore.


Therefore I think that if you want to create some form of balance between mundane and supernatural characters, elevating the mundanes can only bring you so far, and can only be one part of the issue. It makes much more sense and is much more effective to Nerf the Spellcasters (or spells) instead. There is no such thing as verisimilitude for supernatural powers. By their very concept, these capabilities are outside of our normal framework of references. Which means, you can do whatever you want with them and it will never become intrinsically inconsistent (as long as the concept is consistent with itself).

So, the problem is not that mundane characters are too weak; the problem is that spellcasters are too strong.

[Komatik]

Mundanes, with a few exceptions, are too weak though. They just can't handle opponents of appropriaten CR.

[NichG]

Mundanes, with a few exceptions, are too weak though. They just can't handle opponents of appropriaten CR.

Actually I don't really agree with this. With moderate levels of optimization, any class in D&D can easily handle most by-the-Monster Manual CR-appropriate encounters (e.g. not counter-optimized). The game is skewed to favor the players (and it has to be, because otherwise adventuring careers would last an average of 4 fights). Even things that are hard for their CR (like the Shadow) can be solved by someone who knows that they need to make special preparations. A shadow is CR 3 - even a party of four Lv3 Commoners could afford a few oils of magic weapon for this eventuality.

The problem is that different classes can handle things a different number of CR ticks above CR-appropriate, and that the DM will generally want to adjust things so the players aren't bored in fights. If your fighter can handle CR+1 and the wizard can handle CR+14, then on average the fighter will be fighting something 6 ticks above his range and the wizard 6 ticks below.

[PlusSixPelican]

Mundanes, with a few exceptions, are too weak though. They just can't handle opponents of appropriaten CR.

*appropriate.

At the lower levels, a mundane has a much higher chance of survival, so this isn't a hard and fast rule. Your weapon works all day, spell slots are very, very scarce early on. Plus, at that level, self-defense is very, very skewed in the favor of a mundane (or a Cleric; no, not druids, they can't wear metal). Full BAB is very, very potent early on.


Actually, it is. Due to a pervasive error in human intuition, roleplaying games in general and D&D in particular is highly contaminated by the idea of "magic must defeat magic". Magical effects are allowed to effect the natural world, but not vice versa. One of the most egregious examples of this is the Shadow, (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/shadow.htm) a CR 3 creature. It has incorporeality, meaning...


... It is immune to all nonmagical attack forms...

This brings up my point about preparation.

Did you forget to prepare with some oils of magic weapon? That stuff will make it so you can punch ghosts right on their arrogant, gossamer countenances.

A party at that level can splurge on a group-owned +1 weapon, which handily bludgeons/skewers/stabs up incorporeals, was that considered? A bit of team-minded spending goes a long way.

Maybe you brought your own ghost with you for punching other ghosts? Like being able to cut like, after all.

Success isn't guaranteed, but you don't want to be spoon-fed, do you?

---

Nerfing casters isn't going to magically elevate you. Cutting someone else's legs off doesn't make you taller. All that'll do is make it less fun to play with magic, and force your playstyle on others.

Frontloading mundanes with more free power is just going to perpetuate the not thinking problem.

Half the fun is coming up with a non-linear solution to a problem. Magic gives you more options (eventually), but you still need to know how to solve a problem or all the power in the world won't do anything for you, arcane, martial, divine, or otherwise.

---

Preparing during creation for likely scenarios isn't just for those nerds over there pouring over a spellbook. If you have a glaring shortcoming that's likely to come up (say, an inability to handle something that is incorporeal), you allot some resources towards patching the hole.

Thinking inside the box of "how can I sword this problem until it goes away" isn't going to get you that far; martial prowess without any thought to strategy isn't a key to the kingdom.

---

And while YES, there is a gap in capability at times, that doesn't mean throw up your hands. Playing a mundane is an extra challenge, rise to it.

[Segev]

Except...Magic Oils still require...magic. Which means the fighter-type is still dependent on mages.

[Grod_The_Giant]

"You can make up for a mechanically poor class by playing cleverly" is not an excuse for the class being mechanically poor to begin with. You can make a well-played fighter catch up to a poorly-played wizard, but if you have someone playing a wizard with the same kind of skill, the fighter gets left in the dust doubly hard.

(At least, once you get past the rocket-tag of the first few levels)

[Fax Celestis]

Relevant personal fix here: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=99519

Related threads:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=221904
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=218734
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=218702
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=208035
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=187391
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=181532
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=172606
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=165691
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=162194
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=120658


Short explanation: martial classes (eg: barbarian, fighter) get 6 prowess per level, combat support classes and halfcasters (eg: rogue, monk, paladin) get 4 prowess per level, and casters (eg: wizard, cleric) get 2 prowess per level. Maximum prowess that can be invested in an investing feat is your BAB +3, and BAB*6 for a style feat.

[PlusSixPelican]

Except...Magic Oils still require...magic. Which means the fighter-type is still dependent on mages.

You're also dependent on mages for magic armor...or does that not count?

[ryu]

It actually does. Mages are the only ones doing anything important in dnd. Even ''competent'' mundanes are making use of items handcrafted by mages as a large and assumed part of their effectiveness.

[Psyren]

Note that in Pathfinder, mundanes are not dependent on mages for magic weapons or magic armor. No need to attend Hogwarts for your correspondent's degree to be able to fight a Shadow.

Now, does that mean Shadows have an appropriate CR? I'd say they definitely don't. But if you bump them up to a more appropriate level it's possible to deal with them.

[Segev]

Yeah, that is one thing I really like in PF. (Not the only thing; it has a lot to like. But one thing.) Crafting magic items (and the feats needed to do so) doesn't require spellcasting capability at all. It does require Spellcraft, but as a skill, that's technically available to everybody.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Note that in Pathfinder, mundanes are not dependent on mages for magic weapons or magic armor. No need to attend Hogwarts for your correspondent's degree to be able to fight a Shadow.

Now, does that mean Shadows have an appropriate CR? I'd say they definitely don't. But if you bump them up to a more appropriate level it's possible to deal with them.
Still, the fact that you need magic items to compete at middle-to-high levels is a mark against mundane-magic parity, whether or not you need caster levels. A mystic artificer may not technically be a spellcaster, but it's definitely not a mundane archetype.

[Segev]

Well, making it a "mundane" archetype could be a part of the solution. Not the whole solution; we need more mythic-level "non-magic," or at least more broadly-available "supernatural" power that is just a "natural" outgrowth of becoming higher-level.

[TheIronGolem]

It actually does. Mages are the only ones doing anything important in dnd. Even ''competent'' mundanes are making use of items handcrafted by mages as a large and assumed part of their effectiveness.

Indeed, it means that you soon reach a point where martials are merely a delivery platform for more magic from the casters. This is especially evident when "hey, you've got Use Magic Device, use it!" is put forth as a solution.


Playing a mundane is an extra challenge, rise to it.

There's no reason why it needs to be. "I want to play a martial character" does not mean "I want to play on Hard Mode" (nor the reverse for casters and "easy mode"). Character concept and challenge level do not need to be mechanically linked. They are independent desires.

As an aside, I think that Step Zero in solving the problem is taking the word "mundane" out behind the shed for the Old Yeller treatment. No heroic-fantasy character, magic no no magic, should be regarded as "mundane". Sure, intellectually we know it just means "not magic" in the context of gaming, but I think it tends to encourage us to think of the master swordsman as being just some idiot with a sharp stick instead of the awesome action hero he ought to be, and this colors our thinking even as we struggle with the issue. Look at the kinds of things a high-level Warblade or Swordsage can do; those guys may not be magic*, but they sure as hell aren't "mundane".

*Yeah, yeah, Desert Wind. Shaddup.

[Segev]

*Yeah, yeah, Desert Wind. Shaddup.

Don't forget Shadow Hand!

--ow! Ow! Okay! I'll shut up! Stop hitting me!

[JanusJones]

Read Tome of War. (http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=48453) Read ALL of Frank and K's work. They did it, and did it well.

Their Fighter, Barbarian, Monk, and Samurai are perfect, and playable 1-20 as is (and FUN, too - and VERSATILE ... and all that other stuff your favorite fantasy archetypes SHOULD be!).

Their best idea were combat feats that SCALE WITH BAB. Such a simple fix, but it gets to the root of the problem: d20 is built as though a +1 to hit per level is a really, REALLY big deal which you should have to miss out on all sorts of goodies to get ahold of.

[JusticeZero]

The power users have the technology and the fighters don't. You see a wizard, I see Batman or Tony Stark. You see a fighter, I see.. well, a fighter. A trained athlete who can use gadgets that the gadget guys make for him, technological devices like a sword +2 or a potion of Bull Strength. You see Elminster, I see Bill Gates. Technology isn't as easily transfered in a magic based system.

[Psyren]

Still, the fact that you need magic items to compete at middle-to-high levels is a mark against mundane-magic parity, whether or not you need caster levels. A mystic artificer may not technically be a spellcaster, but it's definitely not a mundane archetype.

Isn't it? However mundane a D&D character is, they still don't live in a mundane world. If a "weave" of magic exists all around them, why would it be strange that a master craftsman could (consciously or unconsciously) infuse it into his work just by making it well enough?

The point I think is to keep things believable - and while a non-magic character being able to make wands and scrolls wouldn't be believable, being able to make a flaming sword or armor that shields someone from ghosts would be.

[tzar1990]

Isn't it? However mundane a D&D character is, they still don't live in a mundane world. If a "weave" of magic exists all around them, why would it be strange that a master craftsman could (consciously or unconsciously) infuse it into his work just by making it well enough?


Yeah, this is one problem with having "mundane" classes - magic isn't something weird and alien, it's part of the way the world works - saying "Class X is limited by physics, and can't do anything impossible" is nonsense - if magic can do it, it is possible! Magic is nothing more than understanding and manipulating the way the world works - and while fighter's may not do so in flashy obvious ways, they must be able to do interact with it, in the same way they must be able to interact with gravity!

[Black Jester]

As an aside, I think that Step Zero in solving the problem is taking the word "mundane" out behind the shed for the Old Yeller treatment. No heroic-fantasy character, magic no no magic, should be regarded as "mundane".

In the houserules we use, the official difference is between Heroes and Spellcasters (even though there are a few Hero characters who have limited spellcasting abilities). The implicit association that spellcasters are less heroic is intentional (and well deserved).


Read Tome of War. (http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=48453) Read ALL of Frank and K's work. They did it, and did it well.


While obviously well intended and being the result of much thinking and work, I find the Tome of War mostly silly. It underlines pretty well what I meant with you can only elevate the mundanes so far before suspension of disbelief becomes a chore. The problem is not that Heroic characters are too weak, the problems are that spellcasters are too strong. Sure, you can slightly adjust the power of pretty much any Heroic character without much issue, but that will not be enough to close the gap. If you want to have an at least mostly balanced game (and more than 'mostly balanced' is probably unachievable anyway), you need to nerf the casters, and you need to nerf them hard.

[Segev]

My first glace at the "Races of War" fighter and barbarian in the links in that thread doesn't give me an impression of "silly." Can you elaborate as to why you feel it is?

I am a fan of Exalted and of anime and of comic book-inspired cartoons (though I don't read comic books very much, directly). I've seen D&D 3e described as "medieval fantasy super-heroes," and I think it actually quite fair. Modern "super heroes" are our version of the last century or so's Tall Tales and of earlier eras' myths and legends. It's not new, though it has its own flavor.

Could you, Black Jester, or anybody who agrees with him, explain what elevating the "mundane" to "super-heroic" levels in the genres of D&D does to strain credulity and suspension of disbelief?

Nerfing spellcasters may be necessary, but should not be the focus of any "fix," in my opinion. It not only will be met with irritation, at best, but is honestly a lot of unrewarding work. So what is it about the alternative, which I suspect more creative types will have more fun doing and find ultimately more rewarding, is so "silly?"

I'm asking for specifics, or at least examples. Demonstrate the immersion-breaking "silliness," please.

[Psyren]

Some thoughts on Races of War.

Fighter
- Forge Lore is similar to the Pathfinder item creation fix, but it doesn't go far enough since you still need the other prerequisites besides caster level (such as spells.)
- Foil Action is a little insane. Succeed on a touch attack and you can disrupt anything, including supernatural abilities and even attempts to move away, with no concentration check, save etc. allowed - that's worse than 2e. Even if it uses your immediate that's going to be a pain for DMs to deal with - you can spam it on the BBEG and essentially prevent them from doing anything while still getting your full attack each round.
- Array of Stunts/Intense Focus aren't bad by themselves, but combined with Foil Action they end up making an untenable ability even worse.

The rest I don't actually have a problem with. Lunging Attacks and Active Assault are fitting and flavorful, as is Combat Focus. Improved Delay is nice too, though I would make it higher level (maybe 12 instead of 7.)

Barbarian
- Rage Dice are a bit insane, basically giving them sneak attack for free with no positioning/tactical requirements. They have a real chance at one-shotting every encounter they face at every level.
- Rage lasts a bit too long, heck you could bind an incorporeal cohort of some kind and have it poke the Barbarian every once in a while to let him rage 24/7. There's also really nothing he can't do while raging that he couldn't do anyway.
- Consolidating all their saves to Fort, coupled with the save boost while raging and the reroll from Watched By Totems, makes me wonder why they even have to roll saving throws at all.
- Primal Assault and Savagery are both a bit too magical to be believable. And again, there is simply no chance to resist, letting them effortlessly shut down a BBEG and pummel it with no real counter.

Beyond that there are things I like here - I like the high DR while raging, I like the fast healing (though it's a bit too high and should also be while raging rather than passive), and I like Great Life. Making rage more limited (uses/day or rounds/day as normal) would make these buffs much easier for the DM to handle.

[Equilibria]

Could you, Black Jester, or anybody who agrees with him, explain what elevating the "mundane" to "super-heroic" levels in the genres of D&D does to strain credulity and suspension of disbelief?


I think what we have here is a simple difference in preference.

It is exactly the super hero feel that makes it silly. In my opinion D&D should not be about super powers, but more along the line of the underdog prevailing in the face of unspeakable horror and unimagineable hardship.

But the current level of power for the magic wielders makes it impossible for the mundanes to do this, as the mage just waves his hands about going "I cast the appropriate spell and voilá, we win".

That´s why nerfing the magic users is the only viable option for me.

But if you Segev likes the other form of gaming, more power to you. Its just not for everyone that´s all.

[Segev]

Fair enough. I like my medieval fantasy in the high-power/magic range, definitely. "Uinimaginable underdog" reads to rhyme with "unfun slog," to me, but yes, to each their own. Good to know where people come from, though!

[JusticeZero]

It underlines pretty well what I meant with you can only elevate the mundanes so far before suspension of disbelief becomes a chore.
Well, you really only need to stay within the realm of the believable for the first few levels, and that's pretty much fine. By level 10, you're snacking through demigods and action movie superheroes like they were candy anyways.

[Psyren]

Well, you really only need to stay within the realm of the believable for the first few levels, and that's pretty much fine. By level 10, you're snacking through demigods and action movie superheroes like they were candy anyways.

There's still a boundary there. No matter how high level a Barbarian or Rogue get, picturing them being able to heal the injuries/afflictions of others for instance, or raise the dead, strains disbelief. You could give it a bit of absurdist fluff like the rogue "stealing time so that the target's natural healing is accelerated" or something, but ultimately such attempts just end up changing the genre of fiction for the entire game.

[Yora]

I'm one of the people who believe that the issue is not with the classes but with how GMs run the game. If spellcasters are allowed to use all their best spells in the first two encounters and then rest before there is another fight, then these spellcasters will always be better than anyone else, regardless of how you limit their number of spells per day or the number of spells their know, or even tweak the ecact effects of the spells.

The original logic by which the traditional archetypes were created, was that warriors do most of the work and deal out most of the damage. And in a few crucial moments, the spellcasters throw in one big bang to hit the enemy where it really counts.
And all the later editions that used the same character archetypes, were still build on that assumption. Even though players, and probably quite a number of designers, forgott that fact or never learned it in the first place. And unsuprisingly, that leads to people using the same basic system in a completely different way and wondering why it doesn't work.

To solve the problem and make the archetyps of warriors and spellcasters work, you either have to come up with a completely different basic system of how combat and magic works, or you have to return to the old underlying assumptions that on a long day of work, the spellcasters have a few moments to shine and don't cast big spells every round.
Related link (http://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/misc/wandering-monster.html)

[Psyren]

One problem with casters is that DMs don't track their ammunition properly. Thus the inherent benefit of mundane abilities (martial prowess, skill use) becomes severely undervalued. Some of the best campaigns I've been in have had the DM pick up everyone's sheet at the end of each session so he knows where they are at in terms of remaining spells. The DMG has suggestions for encounters per day, but when the DM doesn't follow these and casters are allowed to rest up after every fight, they feel like they can nova easily and not conserve their power in case it is needed. They don't need to pick up reserve or crafting feats, they don't need to agonize over how many slots of spell X to prepare etc. And this is a problem in many systems with magic, not just D&D.

[Segev]

There's still a boundary there. No matter how high level a Barbarian or Rogue get, picturing them being able to heal the injuries/afflictions of others for instance, or raise the dead, strains disbelief. You could give it a bit of absurdist fluff like the rogue "stealing time so that the target's natural healing is accelerated" or something, but ultimately such attempts just end up changing the genre of fiction for the entire game.

But are those things expressly necessary for the Barbarian or Rogue to be versatile and powerful enough to play on the same level as the cleric and wizard? I mean, the Wizard can only bring back the dead through a Wish, generally speaking.

I could see a powerful Barbarian healing another by giving him some of his blood in a blood-brothers sort of ritual - it transfers hp directly or it empowers the target with the barbarian's own supernal healing prowess. I could see even a sort of Raise Dead like effect at levels 17-20 through a "Dragonheart" sort of process. Might take the barbarian a while to heal his heart back up before he can do it again, though. May also, instead of costing the target a level, replace the target's highest level with one of Barbarian, due to the vibrant and overwhelming blood now pumping through his veins.

Mythic feel and perhaps supernatural (though arguable for (Ex) in the same way that a Beholder's flight is (Ex)), but not straining disbelief for me for a sufficiently high-level character.

A wizard, likewise, doesn't generally heal. (And if he's using Wish for that, so be it.)

For a high enough level rogue, I could see some self-healing in the form of "revealing" that a certain amount of damage - even enough to kill him - was an act on his part. He'd actually avoided far more of it than he was pretending. How much would be a function of level or other mechanical factors.

But healing is just one aspect of the broad prowess of the caster. If casters are to be nerfed in any way, it would be to protect the niches of non-casters, not to overall reduce their capacity. And if so, then the goal should not be to expand non-casters into doing whatever is left to casters to do.

This is a little circular. Or rather, it's iterative, until the balance is found.

[Yora]

On the paizo forum people are constantly moaning that rogues are terribly weak. And rogues are better in PF than in 3.5e, while fighters barely got a bump and had to make some sacrifices in other places.

[Segev]

The point on casters nova-ing because they can rest between fights is a good one. In games I typically play, combat encounters are rarely at the 4/day mark. We're more likely to see 1/day or fewer, in part because we don't do typical dungeon slogs and our gaming groups get bored with combat when it happens too frequently. There's just so much travel between them, and we wouldn't WANT to play them out more frequently.


Finding a way to make casters have to shepherd their resources even so would be useful; the difficulty is in preventing this from making casters unable to do anything useful at all due to it taking TOO long to refresh in odd circumstances.

A simple (but hard to justify in a verisimilitude sense) nerf would be simply to declare a hard number of encounters before casters can refresh.

[Yora]

Now this is something interesting I've just found by accident.

Basically it says: Current published adventures are simply too hard. (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/2747/roleplaying-games/random-gm-tip-how-to-use-published-3rd-edition-modules)

But now you say "but we've always been breezing through them, they are in fact too easy". And that may be true. The encounters aren't actually that hard, because it is entirely expected by everyone involved that the spellcasters will go full nova and burn all their powder on every enemy they find. To surivive the encounters, spellcasters have to spam spells to hell and back, and accordingly the groups get forced to cut their adventure day down to 15 minutes. Which in turn, can only lead to mundanes being useless.
Interesting.

[Grod_The_Giant]

One problem with casters is that DMs don't track their ammunition properly. Thus the inherent benefit of mundane abilities (martial prowess, skill use) becomes severely undervalued. Some of the best campaigns I've been in have had the DM pick up everyone's sheet at the end of each session so he knows where they are at in terms of remaining spells. The DMG has suggestions for encounters per day, but when the DM doesn't follow these and casters are allowed to rest up after every fight, they feel like they can nova easily and not conserve their power in case it is needed. They don't need to pick up reserve or crafting feats, they don't need to agonize over how many slots of spell X to prepare etc. And this is a problem in many systems with magic, not just D&D.
Probably my least favorite thing about 3.5 is the "4 encounters per day" balance. In anything but a dungeon crawl-- and let's face it, the game has moved far beyond that narrow paradigm-- that's a massive hindrance to narrative. As a DM, I have to either accept that players are going nova, or contort the story to throw in extra meaningless fights.

On the subject of hording resources in general... it's a style that appeals to some players, sure. For others-- myself included-- it's irritating. We all too easily fall into the "too good to use" trap, where we don't use abilities when we don't need them, and don't use them when we do need them because we might need them even more later.

And then there's the reason that 3.5 casters have so many spells/day-- it's frustrating when you have to waste a turn plinking away with a crossbow or low-level wand. We signed up to play spellcasters, damnit-- we want to cast spells! If we ignore balance-- which always takes a second place to fun-- it's like telling a fighter that yes, full attacks are what martial types do, they're the only way you can contribute in a level-appropriate way, but you can only make one per fight.

Are casters too good as they are now? Sure. Are they still too good if you remove/fix the most abusive spells, like polymorph and celerity? Perhaps, and certainly in comparison to a RAW fighter or barbarian. Does that mean that the players of casters should get fewer chances to contribute? No.

[Segev]

Playing with the nerf idea still. We know that spellcasters are expected to go through 1/4 their spells in a given CR-appropriate encounter, on average. They're supposed to go through 4 encounters/day to make them feel this.

We cannot, however, reliably control that.

We do, however, have the theoretical "13-14 encounters per level" that is supposedly accurate based on CR-appropriateness and EXP earned per encounter.

What if spellcasters had the much more harshly limited "per level" rather than "per day" on their spell slots?

Multiply spells/day by 3.5 (14 encounters/level times 1/4 "resources" per encounter); this becomes the total number of spells they have over the course of a level.

Rules would need to be altered for item crafting (else scrolls and the like are silly things to craft), and psionics would need a huge revisiting (any PP-regenerating-method at all would be degenerate in the extreme).

But for the core casters, this would mean they have to shepherd their spells carefully; they don't get new ones before they level up. It would make the "instantaneous" spells with lasting effects far more desirable, but at the same time, keeping the generated effects "safe" would have a higher priority.

It would also mean casters who don't "go adventure" have a vastly limited reserve. Something would need to be considered for NPCs, effectively.

[Fax Celestis]

It would also mean casters who don't "go adventure" have a vastly limited reserve. Something would need to be considered for NPCs, effectively.

Why do NPCs have to use the same rules?

[Psyren]

But are those things expressly necessary for the Barbarian or Rogue to be versatile and powerful enough to play on the same level as the cleric and wizard? I mean, the Wizard can only bring back the dead through a Wish, generally speaking.

That depends on how you define "play on the same level." If by that you mean "do everything a cleric and wizard can do," then yes, they would need all kinds of abilities normally only obtainable through magic. If you simply mean "contribute to a CR-appropriate challenge" then no.

And no, healing isn't the only example nor even the most powerful. There are many other abilities like divination, planar travel, illusion/compulsion, summoning/creation, and just about everything within necromancy that are iconically magical as well.



I could see a powerful Barbarian healing another by giving him some of his blood in a blood-brothers sort of ritual - it transfers hp directly or it empowers the target with the barbarian's own supernal healing prowess. I could see even a sort of Raise Dead like effect at levels 17-20 through a "Dragonheart" sort of process.

Ugh. Aside from the sheer squick inherent in both of these. these are both way too situational and raise too many SoD questions to be general class abilities. What if you or the target don't have blood (or even a heart?) What if you have to heal someone you don't particularly like, or just don't know that well? What if you are poisoned or diseased or even cursed at the time, do they get that too? How long would such a process take, particularly the second one? What kind of vulnerabilities would the donor incur while draining his own blood or transferring his own heart? etc.

Game balance would require handwaving many of these, while simulationism/suspension of disbelief would require them mattering in some way, which in turn makes the abilities much more complex. In my opinion, it's better to just leave such things to magic.



For a high enough level rogue, I could see some self-healing in the form of "revealing" that a certain amount of damage - even enough to kill him - was an act on his part. He'd actually avoided far more of it than he was pretending. How much would be a function of level or other mechanical factors.

Self-healing I have no problem with for mundanes. Indeed, rogues faking injury or even faking death are common tropes in fiction, and Barbarians knitting gaping wounds through supreme muscular control (when they aren't ignoring such wounds entirely) is also not unheard of.



But healing is just one aspect of the broad prowess of the caster. If casters are to be nerfed in any way, it would be to protect the niches of non-casters, not to overall reduce their capacity. And if so, then the goal should not be to expand non-casters into doing whatever is left to casters to do.

This is a little circular. Or rather, it's iterative, until the balance is found.

To me, "nerfing" casters is rather simple; first, come up with those abilities that casters should be able to do well (e.g. healing, divination, calling, bfc etc.) and make it easier for them to do those things (e.g. tying their usefulness to stats that casters are interested in anyway.) Thus, successful divination requires high mental stats, which casters want anyway, credible illusions require high mental stats, which casters want anyway, binding unruly outsiders requires high mental stats, which casters want anyway, etc.

Second, come up with abilities that mundanes should be able to do well. Dealing damage with weapons, bypassing locks or traps without magic, being sneaky, withstanding afflictions. Generally, these would be tasks tied to physical attributes. Make it so that casters can do these things (so parties have a backup X when they need one) but doing so equally well or for extended periods of time requires more investment on the caster's part. This means that a caster who is working alone or in a limited group can tailor his build to fill multiple roles, but one who is working as part of a team has incentive to specialize in those areas that are useful for him to specialize in, and ignore the ones that other classes can handle. Everyone has something to do, and thus everyone wins.

Finally, the DM should be sure to exploit the weaknesses of spells. They make you light up like a christmas tree in situations that may not be a good thing; buffs can be removed and countered; spells are also limited both in duration and in daily availability. I find that most situations where casters run roughshod over a campaign is due to these weaknesses not being a factor.


Probably my least favorite thing about 3.5 is the "4 encounters per day" balance. In anything but a dungeon crawl-- and let's face it, the game has moved far beyond that narrow paradigm-- that's a massive hindrance to narrative. As a DM, I have to either accept that players are going nova, or contort the story to throw in extra meaningless fights.

You have a third option actually - curtail spells/day. This is obviously much easier with a points-based system, but can still be done with Vancian. Remember, the ammunition casters are given in the PHB is dependent on the encounters/day assumption present in the DMG. If your narrative is incapable of meeting the latter, then you are well within your rights to tweak the former knob instead. Just be sure to tell your players up front. "Hey, this is going to be a low-combat campaign, so I want to make sure casters aren't finishing each day with full slots. Therefore I've abolished bonus spells/tweaked spells per day as follows..."

[Frozen_Feet]

A mystic artificer may not technically be a spellcaster, but it's definitely not a mundane archetype.

"Mystic artificer" is a bad way of putting it. "Scientist" or "Super-soldier" would be closer.

By the rules as written, you could be Iron Man or Hulk, and you still can't scratch a shadow. Because you are not explicitly magical. That's what's stupid. The rules are built so that if you have (Ex) next to your abilities rather than (Su), you will be arbitrarily less effective and there's nothing you can do about it without learning magic powers yourself.

[Segev]

Why do NPCs have to use the same rules?

If they don't, then we need different rules for "downtime" for the PCs, too. I am, personally, extremely unfond of systems that use different rules for NPCs vs. PCs. While I like PCs being special, I don't like it when they have different rules entirely just for being PCs. Not in the least because more often than not, NPCs getting different rules translates to "you can never be as cool as the NPC."

[Segev]

To me, "nerfing" casters is rather simple; first, come up with those abilities that casters should be able to do well (e.g. healing, divination, calling, bfc etc.) and make it easier for them to do those things (e.g. tying their usefulness to stats that casters are interested in anyway.) Thus, successful divination requires high mental stats, which casters want anyway, credible illusions require high mental stats, which casters want anyway, binding unruly outsiders requires high mental stats, which casters want anyway, etc.

Second, come up with abilities that mundanes should be able to do well. Dealing damage with weapons, bypassing locks or traps without magic, being sneaky, withstanding afflictions. Generally, these would be tasks tied to physical attributes. Make it so that casters can do these things (so parties have a backup X when they need one) but doing so equally well or for extended periods of time requires more investment on the caster's part. This means that a caster who is working alone or in a limited group can tailor his build to fill multiple roles, but one who is working as part of a team has incentive to specialize in those areas that are useful for him to specialize in, and ignore the ones that other classes can handle. Everyone has something to do, and thus everyone wins.
This actually still solves no problems. Casters can do it "less per day," but still can do anything mundanes can do without magic by applying magic. They still "win."

To really make it work, you don't look at "what can a caster do? Let's make mundanes do that, too!" You instead look at, "What problems can a caster solve? Let's give mundanes tools to solve them, too!"

This is a harder problem.

It's also more satisfying once solved.

It also means looking at the strengths of non-magical solutions, and trying to exploit them a bit.

Making the omni-mundane (the way you can an omni-caster) should be feasible but hard, if making the omni-caster is possible at all.

[Fax Celestis]

If they don't, then we need different rules for "downtime" for the PCs, too. I am, personally, extremely unfond of systems that use different rules for NPCs vs. PCs. While I like PCs being special, I don't like it when they have different rules entirely just for being PCs. Not in the least because more often than not, NPCs getting different rules translates to "you can never be as cool as the NPC."

I don't agree on that. NPCs should use different rules because they are built to provide set pieces and fixtures in the plot. They don't have the same kind of character progression and arcs that the players do, nor do they have the same level of required detail on their abilities.

[Psyren]

This actually still solves no problems. Casters can do it "less per day," but still can do anything mundanes can do without magic by applying magic. They still "win."

It's not a competition, and if it is, then quite simply you're playing the wrong game and need a different system entirely.

Yes, magic is capable of more things than "not-magic." To which I say, of course it is, it's magic. The only change I would make is for it to be hard to do everything, not impossible.



To really make it work, you don't look at "what can a caster do? Let's make mundanes do that, too!" You instead look at, "What problems can a caster solve? Let's give mundanes tools to solve them, too!"

Again, there are some things I don't think mundanes should believably be able to do. Like tell the future, bind a devil to their service, or reanimate/raise the dead.

This is not a "problem" to be "solved." Not being able to do these things keeps mundane and magic distinct. Otherwise you run into the verisimilitude-destroying question of "what's so special about magic?" Which is a question you'll never hear uttered in Harry Potter, or Earthsea, or Midkemia, or Wheel of Time etc.

[Segev]

And yet, in the process of doing that, they become able to do things that PCs will never be able to do.

This is a problem that always bothers me.

If "mundanes doing the spectacular" destroys some people's suspension of disbelief, the fact that whether or not I am capable of selling my services as a spellcaster in town without having to periodically go on adventures to level up (and make sure that my spellcasting doesn't run dry before I can do so) depends on whether I am a PC or an NPC...that shatters my own suspension of disbelief.

"I'm playing Caster McBuffington, and I note that this town has a tournament going on with a few highly successful local mages selling buff spells to the contestants. If I want to get in on that action, however, I will be out of spells until I level up again, whereas the NPCs can do it again next week without having to so much as leave their towers."

The NPCs need rules that at least are adaptable to my "downtime" activities without making it optimal to try to game the system into being "in downtime" to make my character more powerful in a real sense.

Otherwise, again, you run into, "You can never be as cool as the NPCs."

[Segev]

It's not a competition, and if it is, then quite simply you're playing the wrong game and need a different system entirely.

Yes, magic is capable of more things than "not-magic." To which I say, of course it is, it's magic. The only change I would make is for it to be hard to do everything, not impossible.



Again, there are some things I don't think mundanes should believably be able to do. Like tell the future, bind a devil to their service, or reanimate/raise the dead.

This is not a "problem" to be "solved." Not being able to do these things keeps mundane and magic distinct. Otherwise you run into the verisimilitude-destroying question of "what's so special about magic?" Which is a question you'll never hear uttered in Harry Potter, or Earthsea, or Midkemia, or Wheel of Time etc.

If it's not a competition, then what is the shortcoming of the mundane?

By allowing casters to "do anything and everything" but restricting mundanes from being able to solve any problem with not-magic that a mage can solve with magic, you ensure that you will always have casters "win."


Sure, if the contest is, "who can animate the most skeletons," then no, the mundane guy probably should be out of luck. But when it comes to actually making use of the army of the undead, the mundane guy should have alternative tools that allow him to attempt to solve the same problems.

There likely should also be limits to what magic can do, or things that not-magic does better with enough effort.

One acceptable notion is that not-magic, being not magic, works where magic is "shut off," and can't be dispelled, but is quite capable of solving numerous problems. However, for this to work, dispelling and anti-magic need to be a little more common as threats.

[JusticeZero]

Spellcasters want to - wait for it - cast spells. When their round comes up, they want to cast a spell. When they are out of spells, they tend to get up from the table and go play a video game until the party rests.

How about - quick and dirty solution - you put non-consumable spells in that are basically just the reserve feats? Then you have the wizard stuffing spell slots with non-consumable spells - instead of just blowing another spell slot, they can go "Hah! I put a force needle in my 4th level slot, now I can shoot force blasts every round until I need to cast one of my bigger and better spells!" The Sorcerer can shoot lightning or whatever every round and feel like a powerful caster while at the same time thinking "I'm going to save my big spells for if Ireally need it.." while not consuming their precious feats.

[NichG]

About the genre issue, here's the thing: D&D right now is already a mix of two genres. The mundanest-mundanes are playing grim and gritty while the casters are playing high fantasy.

So its simple - you're either going to lower the casters to grim and gritty, raise the mundanes to high fantasy, or have them meet somewhere in between. If you like grim and gritty, lower the casters. If you like high fantasy, raise the mundanes.

In a broader sense, the issue we're running into with elevating the mundanes comes down to mechanical hooks. A mechanical hook is some number or mechanical 'thing' which exists in the game and is meaningful, and could be influenced by another ability or effect. For example, hitpoints are a mechanical hook. Their existence allows for effects that raise and lower them, and the consequence of unconsciousness/death makes them meaningful. Stats, movement rates, etc are all mechanical hooks, and the existence of things like status conditions both influence existing hooks and create new ones (now you can have stuff that cures status conditions, gives you immunity, whatever).

D&D's mechanical hooks are extremely combat-focused - the combat minigame is where most of the crunchy stuff comes in, and the out of combat stuff is very open to interpretation or is reduced to a single pass/fail die roll (which is very sparse as far as hooks can go). Furthermore, the system has been out long enough that basically every mechanical hook has some spell that does something to it.

The danger of this is, if you elevate mundanes without broadening the mechanical hooks surrounding the game, you risk turning them into 'just another flavor of caster but themed differently'. The things they will be able to do won't be different than the casters, they'll just use a different accounting system to determine if/how often they can do it.

So I'd suggest starting with the hooks. Pick some things that only mundanes are going to be able to do - spells doing them are explicitly forbidden, figure out why later. Because of the glut of magic, this means you have to create new mechanics for the world as a whole so that the mundanes can influence them. Or you have to nerf casters a little and remove spells that influence those hooks.

Edit: In magic systems in literature, this is usually created by ascribing some rule or conservation law to magic, like 'the consequences of what you do come back to you thrice' or 'you have to transfer any momentum/energy you alter, not just create/destroy it, and it passes through your body in the process' or even simply 'you cannot unmake something that has been made'. Since its magic, the strictures binding it can also be strange and arbitrary to some degree. That said, this is back on the 'nerfing magic' route.

[Psyren]

If it's not a competition, then what is the shortcoming of the mundane?

By allowing casters to "do anything and everything" but restricting mundanes from being able to solve any problem with not-magic that a mage can solve with magic, you ensure that you will always have casters "win."

Casters can "lose" just as easily, because magic can be dispelled and countered directly while mundane cannot. Someone who goes through physical conditioning to increase their strength may take longer than someone who uses a transmutation spell, but undoing the work of the latter requires nothing more than a dispel.

I put "lose" in quotes because terms like "win" and "lose" are misleading. D&D isn't a competition; different classes exist for different people, and if they haven't found the class that fits their desired level of power/complexity, they should pick another. If the DM won't let them, they should vote with their feet or wait for the next campaign.


Sure, if the contest is, "who can animate the most skeletons," then no, the mundane guy probably should be out of luck. But when it comes to actually making use of the army of the undead, the mundane guy should have alternative tools that allow him to attempt to solve the same problems.

No real problem there - indeed, I agree that a high-level Fighter/Barbarian should practically be an army. But I can still think of plenty of problems mundanes can't, and shouldn't, be able to solve without magic of some kind.



There likely should also be limits to what magic can do, or things that not-magic does better with enough effort.

There's plenty that "not-magic" does better. For instance, most magical ways to hide or impersonate someone are defeated by true seeing, but mundane Stealth and Disguise are not.



One acceptable notion is that not-magic, being not magic, works where magic is "shut off," and can't be dispelled, but is quite capable of solving numerous problems. However, for this to work, dispelling and anti-magic need to be a little more common as threats.

And SR too - we're definitely on the same page here. (Dispelling moreso than antimagic though, AMF/DMZ often feel cheap and arbitrary.)

[Komatik]

I'm one of the people who believe that the issue is not with the classes but with how GMs run the game. If spellcasters are allowed to use all their best spells in the first two encounters and then rest before there is another fight, then these spellcasters will always be better than anyone else, regardless of how you limit their number of spells per day or the number of spells their know, or even tweak the ecact effects of the spells.

I wish this "argument" dropped out of fashion. Argument in quotation marks because 1-2 spells is easily enough to trivialize an encounter, the list of such spells is pretty long, said spells are spread across all spell levels, and many aren't situational at all. So the problem isn't in the 15-minute workday, it's Polymorph => 12-headed Hydra being bonkers. It's Black Tentacles being amazing. It's Grease and Glitterdust doing a good deal of work despite being low-level. It's summons cheating the action and resource economy.

All in all, you just don't need much.


Casters can "lose" just as easily, because magic can be dispelled and countered directly while mundane cannot. Someone who goes through physical conditioning to increase their strength may take longer than someone who uses a transmutation spell, but undoing the work of the latter requires nothing more than a dispel.

I put "lose" in quotes because terms like "win" and "lose" are misleading. D&D isn't a competition; different classes exist for different people, and if they haven't found the class that fits their desired level of power/complexity, they should pick another. If the DM won't let them, they should vote with their feet or wait for the next campaign.

Mundanes rely more on equipment and equipment is suppressible. They also have a harder time using things like contignencies to their benefit, or generally just staying the hell out of harm's way.

[Psyren]

Mundanes rely more on equipment and equipment is suppressible. They also have a harder time using things like contignencies to their benefit, or generally just staying the hell out of harm's way.

Equipment is indeed suppressible, but doing so is heavily inefficient. Whereas a single targeted or area dispel can strip multiple spell-based buffs at once, dispelling gear requires targeting that piece of gear specifically. To even do that, you have to know the item is there and providing a bonus, which itself takes multiple rounds of scanning without the right spell (and which can itself be misled or even blocked.)

So for instance, a wizard buffed up with Bull's Strength and Bear's Endurance can lose them both in one round - for good, meaning they'll need to recast them - whereas a fighter wearing a Belt of Giant Strength and an Amulet of Vitality can only ever have one deactivated at a time. And even if that happens, they can potentially come back online the very next round without needing any further action from their wearer.

As for Contingencies, mundanes need them less. Get a wizard in an AMF-grapple with no contingencies and he's in a lot of trouble. Do the same to a Barbarian or Rogue and it's a lot more even.

[Segev]

Mundanes rely more on equipment and equipment is suppressible.In theory, that's why Monks have "less" power in other areas, because they are equipment-independent. In practice...needs work.


They also have a harder time using things like contignencies to their benefit, or generally just staying the hell out of harm's way.
If mundanes were better designed, they would make up for this lack by being just that much tougher. The archetype is the squishy wizard who goes down if you can get to him, and the tanky warrior who won't go down no matter what you do ti him.

[XenoGeno]

I had another thought, sort of related to my previous post. It seems to me that what makes spellcasters so versatile are things that just can't be done mundanely; no matter how BAMF a fighter is, they can't teleport, shift planes, turn themselves or someone else into a newt, etc.

But since when have the iconic fighters ever been completely mundane? At least, once they're getting past the realm of human ability? What if fighters started out completely mundane, but then started gaining supernatural and spell-like abilities as they leveled up, say from level 7 on? It could be fluffed as the child/descendant of a god, something inherently mystical about the nature of the birth, the favor of some god; these are all ridiculously common in myths and stories.

I suppose I should ask what's the goal here. Are we trying to get non-spellcasters up to Tier 1? Are we just trying to get non-spellcasters up to tier 3? Are we trying to increase their power without using any sort of supernatural abilities? Because if it's that last one, I think that goes against the genre. I can't really think of any characters in fantasy genre that're more than about level six that don't have some sort of magical help, whether it be equipment or divine blood/favor or chi or simply being friends with a spellcaster. If the goal is to make a completely, utterly mundane character that succeeds at the higher levels completely free of magic, I don't think that can, or should, work.

[Yora]

So the problem isn't in the 15-minute workday, it's Polymorph => 12-headed Hydra being bonkers. It's Black Tentacles being amazing. It's Grease and Glitterdust doing a good deal of work despite being low-level. It's summons cheating the action and resource economy.

Polymorph aside, what happens after a wizard casts black tentacles? What happens after he casts grease or glitterdust? Black tentacles deal 1d6+4 points of damage. Grease and glitterdust don't deal any damage at all, and none of these spells is save or die.
An enemy who slips on grease can still crawl out and get back up and continue comming at you. Those who are not in the spell area or make their Balance check can walk around it. An enemy blinded by glitterdust can still try to make a run for cover, take out a potion, throw alchemist fire in your general direction, try to tackle an enemy standing right next to, shout for help, or kick over a lamp. And all the enemies who are not in the spell area or make their Will save are not affected at all. And after 1 round per caster level, the whole show is over.
What happens after a wizard casts these spells?

If everything works out as expected, some guys with swords, axes, and maces come rushing in to defeat them in armed melee combat while their opponents are at a significant disadvantage.

This is how it is supposed to work.

[JusticeZero]

The number of spell slots a caster gets eventually ramps up until they can keep on going and going for longer than the fighters can stay standing. This is probably to some extent caused by the fact that people generally feel that wizards shouldn't be shooting the crossbow.

[Segev]

The number of spell slots a caster gets eventually ramps up until they can keep on going and going for longer than the fighters can stay standing.

Then perhaps the fighters need to be able to stay standing longer proportional to their levels?

[XenoGeno]

Polymorph aside, what happens after a wizard casts black tentacles? What happens after he casts grease or glitterdust? Black tentacles deal 1d6+4 points of damage. Grease and glitterdust don't deal any damage at all, and none of these spells is save or die.
An enemy who slips on grease can still crawl out and get back up and continue comming at you. Those who are not in the spell area or make their Balance check can walk around it. An enemy blinded by glitterdust can still try to make a run for cover, take out a potion, throw alchemist fire in your general direction, try to tackle an enemy standing right next to, shout for help, or kick over a lamp. And all the enemies who are not in the spell area or make their Will save are not affected at all. And after 1 round per caster level, the whole show is over.
What happens after a wizard casts these spells?

If everything works out as expected, some guys with swords, axes, and maces come rushing in to defeat them in armed melee combat while their opponents are at a significant disadvantage.

This is how it is supposed to work.

After black tentacles, the wizard and cleric buff their teammates who ready actions to attack once the spell ends. Glitterdust essentially renders enemies who fail their saves useless. With grease, even if they make their save, they have to have five ranks in Balance or be flat-footed, meaning all the sneak attacks from the rogue, and usually lower AC to everyone else. In Party vs. Single Enemy fights, this is basically enough to win. In Party vs. Party, this is enough to reduce your enemies' effective combat capability by generally 25% to 100%, depending on how they're spaced, significantly reducing risk to the party. In one-on-one fights, which seems to be what you're supposing here, the wizard takes advantage of free turns to summon monsters to win the fight for him.

Yes, the wizard (or cleric, or druid, or whomever) needs more than just debuffs. But their spells can reduce the rest of the party to being essentially nothing more than weapons to be used by the caster. Wizards in particular are intelligent IC. It would be hard to justify leaving themselves completely open and available to attack when they really have no reason to put themselves in that situation.

[Psyren]

The number of spell slots a caster gets eventually ramps up until they can keep on going and going for longer than the fighters can stay standing.

This is indeed a problem, but one that stems more from DMs that don't follow the encounters/day guidelines in the DMG than from the classes themselves.

This is not to say that low-combat or low-encounter campaigns are bad - just that the game wasn't designed for these as well as it should have been so we have to make some tweaks ourselves.

[JusticeZero]

The "standard" adventuring day is three encounters. By the teens, a Wizard will still have spells left after four CR-appropriate encounters.

[Psyren]

The "standard" adventuring day is three encounters. By the teens, a Wizard will still have spells left after four CR-appropriate encounters.

Ah, but how many, and which ones? And is that on his own, or with the mundanes' help?

4 encounters/day should be enough to ensure that, even if the wizard has spells left, they are from his lowest slots. If this isn't the case, the encounter design needs tweaking.

[Segev]

Yes, the wizard (or cleric, or druid, or whomever) needs more than just debuffs. But their spells can reduce the rest of the party to being essentially nothing more than weapons to be used by the caster. Wizards in particular are intelligent IC. It would be hard to justify leaving themselves completely open and available to attack when they really have no reason to put themselves in that situation.

Actually, by that logic, I could argue that the wizard is just a weapon to be used by the Paladin who leads the party. He's IC tactically trained, and has the charisma to assume command, so he gives the orders and wields his wizard to set the battlefield to his specifications, then directs the party into it.

See, this isn't "the party is one PC's weapons." This is "teamwork." Nobody is reduced to uselessness, nor to being somebody else's patsy unless they play it that way.

[ryu]

That would be true segev if the role of fighter in these mop up scenarios wasn't easily replaceable by the same wizard spamming coup de grace with his favored reach weapon of choice. He doesn't even have to be proficient with the damn thing either.

[XenoGeno]

Actually, by that logic, I could argue that the wizard is just a weapon to be used by the Paladin who leads the party. He's IC tactically trained, and has the charisma to assume command, so he gives the orders and wields his wizard to set the battlefield to his specifications, then directs the party into it.

See, this isn't "the party is one PC's weapons." This is "teamwork." Nobody is reduced to uselessness, nor to being somebody else's patsy unless they play it that way.

I generally agree, and that's how my it usually is in my group. We're thankful for our enemies to be weaker and ourselves stronger. I was just pointing out the worst-case scenario, and why class disparity is often called a bad thing. I mean, if everyone felt this way about spellcasters, that they just make us better and the enemies worse, then we wouldn't be having this discussion about how to make non-casters better, right? Anyway, I only mentioned the IC thing to point out that it requires a total lack of player skill for Yora's situation to occur.

[Segev]

That would be true segev if the role of fighter in these mop up scenarios wasn't easily replaceable by the same wizard spamming coup de grace with his favored reach weapon of choice. He doesn't even have to be proficient with the damn thing either.

Generally, what has been described so far doesn't permit coup de graces. The victims are not helpless, merely drastically impeded.

Sleep, now, can do what you describe, if used well.

So the problem can exist. The question is, must it? And is it just a function of Save-or-Lose? Or is it something else?

[ryu]

It's a function of the fact that melee as a way of doing damage easily replaced or even improved on by simple means that don't involve splitting treasure to beatsticks. This comes from the list of things that make magic simply better I posted a while back. If a class does something as simple as walking up to enemies that only avoid being outright helpless in technicality and hitting them until they stop moving their job can be replicated cheaply and easily. It'll take longer if they aren't technically helpless but have no reasonable chance of actually being threatening anymore, but all that does is make things take like thirty seconds instead the usual six to twelve.

[Segev]

See, the idea is that they're not just "not technically helpless," but that they're "probably something the wizard would wave his noodly arms at impotently until his spells wore off if there wasn't a fighter there to finish the job."


But yes. The various classes need to be more than just a guy who hits things with sharp metal objects. That's part of elevating such classes: give them tools for things other than just hitting stuff.

[ryu]

Time to get range on the enemy makes even a handcrossbow win most low level fights. Outside low levels where the crossbow doesn't matter? Summoned minions do the fighters job just as well and don't cost nearly the same resources.

[PlusSixPelican]

In the houserules we use, the official difference is between Heroes and Spellcasters (even though there are a few Hero characters who have limited spellcasting abilities). The implicit association that spellcasters are less heroic is intentional (and well deserved).

So, the people who work hard to study the mysteries of the universe, develop themselves spiritually, or to hone preternatural talents are automatically less heroic for being different. Anyone with talents deemed aberrant or incorrect has less virtue and bravery. I suppose the only heroism that counts is dumb guy punches.

Seriously, this is a problem that has been stuffed into fantasy, high and low. Musclebound anti-intellectual beats up some nerd foreigner woman who thinks for herself other "abnormal" person EVIL WIZARD. Yeah, that was totally an evil wizard. Don't think about it, evil wizard. In general, stop thinking. Thinking leads to evil magic, after all.

---


Sure, if the contest is, "who can animate the most skeletons," then no, the mundane guy probably should be out of luck. But when it comes to actually making use of the army of the undead, the mundane guy should have alternative tools that allow him to attempt to solve the same problems.

A mundane is perfectly capable of using an army of the undead. You could use Leadership, Intimidate, or just be bigger and stronger than them and scare them into following you with like, torture and stuff. Or, gods forbid, you pay them. I'm pretty sure those undead would kill for a decent wage. They'll probably be more loyal to you than undead that are being forced against their will.

A mundane of the same level where a Wizard can cast Animate Dead could use the same money spent on Onyx (the material component) to field an army. Sure, you would need to start raiding areas to keep your army fed/clothed/etc, but you have an army, so that should be fairly doable.

[Black Jester]

So, the people who work hard to study the mysteries of the universe, develop themselves spiritually, or to hone preternatural talents are automatically less heroic for being different. Anyone with talents deemed aberrant or incorrect has less virtue and bravery.

This is not an issue of 'it's different, therefore it must be bad' especially not in an average D&D setting where magic truly isn't that rare, especially not for wandering adventurers who by default meet a lot of truly weird people (and are truly weird people more often than not as well).
Spellcasters are by default less heroic, the same way an athlete doped to the eyeballs sows inferior sportsmanship to a clean one or an ambush attack with poison is less heroic than an open confrontation. Magic is basically a built-in cheating device and as such, it might make a lot of things much simpler, but it does diminish the challenge and thus, by extension the one who face it. Facing a dragon in combat and defeating it after a dangerous fight, risking injury and even death is infinitely more heroic than paralyzing said Dragon with shivering touch and then murdering the helpless beast.



I suppose the only heroism that counts is dumb guy punches.
It depends on what the dumb guy punches (and by the way, implying that only spellcasters are smart and everyone else is dumb sort of undermines your argumentation here). Dumb guy punches gong farmer? No, that's not heroic, that's bullying, but so would be coercing the gong farmer by using a friendship or a fear spell. Dumb guy punches wall? Could be under certain circumstances, but it is unlikely that heroic, mostly depending on the wall and the circumstances. Punching an Ogre? Yes, that can be quite impressive, and heroic (depending on relative power level). Punching an elder dragon and knock it out all by yourself? Yes, definitely more heroic than anything a spellcaster could ever hope to achieve in the realm of combat.


Seriously, this is a problem that has been stuffed into fantasy, high and low. Musclebound anti-intellectual beats up some nerd foreigner woman who thinks for herself other "abnormal" person EVIL WIZARD. Yeah, that was totally an evil wizard. Don't think about it, evil wizard. In general, stop thinking. Thinking leads to evil magic, after all.

No, most, especially older fantasy tales are way to busy to be openly racist and sexist to waste much time on these mere implications. And, even though I'm repeating myself, the association that "non-magical=stupid or anti-intellectual" is much closer to the kind of stereotypes you seem to dislike than the ones you actually criticized. Besides, it is usually not true. The archetype of a sword-swinging hero forced to face some kind of wizard or sorcerer is almost always resourceful and attentive or dead.

[Komatik]

I mean, a dumb musclebound hulk is pretty much ideal prey for casters. Gotta be as smart and wily as them to have the faintest chance at not dying horribly.

[Ashtagon]

This is indeed a problem, but one that stems more from DMs that don't follow the encounters/day guidelines in the DMG than from the classes themselves.

This is not to say that low-combat or low-encounter campaigns are bad - just that the game wasn't designed for these as well as it should have been so we have to make some tweaks ourselves.

Once a caster has about 16 spells in his daily memory slots (level 7 or so), he typically won't ever run out of spells in a gaming day.

Magic is balanced against the fact that it can run out. But in practice, it simply doesn't. That is a problem for game balance design.

[Black Jester]

I mean, a dumb musclebound hulk is pretty much ideal prey for casters. Gotta be as smart and wily as them to have the faintest chance at not dying horribly.

It's not even that.
The idea that magic is somehow more powerful than a sword to the guts is pretty much a convention, and as such not even a particularly good one.


I mean, you could just turn this idea on its head and would make at least as much sense from a high power campaign perspective:
Once you as a fighter has become so experienced and resolved and has perfected his swordplay far enough to face a city-leveling monster in a duel without hesitation or fear, the idea that a weak coward of a wizard could substantially affect such a hero is presumptuous. Sure, in mid level game it is still somewhat plausible that a hero is at least inconvenienced by a spell or so, but in high level game, the idea that a true hero who can go toe to toe with a dragon and live to tell the tale is significantly affected by something as dull and insubstantial as magic just doesn't make much sense. Apart from being massively anti-climactic ('sure, we can skip the epic swordfight for a bit of finger-waggling and false latin chanting') and therefore just unfun and basically antithetic to the whole heroic fantasy genre that spawned games like D&D.
Of course, spellcasters have their place, in particular in low level games where the true heroes haven't yet mastered their fears and are therefore not as determined or as heroic and the game as a whole is a lot more gritty, so their liability to spells in the like is at least somewhat justified, but this effectiveness declines rather steeply when you come to the more heroic tier gameplay, at least in latter mid level game. However, there is a distinct niche for spellcasters where they belong: they can always provide healing and exposition (through divination or book learning and the like), and they can create equipment for the heroes, and that's a good niche, but I really don't think that the whole concept of a spellcaster in a game dealing with heroic characters facing terrible monsters in exotic and dangerous locations is actually heroic or interesting enough to ever be more than a support character; if they are supposed to be more than that, the characters should probably learn swordplay and become a true hero.


See what I mean? That concept isn't that different from an inverse D&D logic, it even has a few arguments that are actually true and worth exploring, and it is exactly as valid as the idea "of course magic is stronger; it is magic after all".

[ryu]

Games should get more complex as levels increase not less. The last thing we need is to give flat out stupid resistance to high level magic and turn the game into an extended showcase on how boring mostly hitting each other with various forms of stick is.

[Segev]

A) Magic will always be easier to justify as versatile, but at the very least anime gives us plenty of fodder to examine non-magical power. The much-maligned Dragonball Z may have its warriors turn into gishes late on, and Bleach may have at least half its cast show up to the fight with a magic weapon that is practically a mage build on its own, but there is a lot of "not magic, honest" stuff that they do which is well within feel for the non-magic types.

II) The example of the "inverse D&D" is actually an interesting one, because "mundanes need the equipment mages make" is actually a function that we can't escape in D&D anyway, and where magic is already the direct road to winning, only reinforces how helpless non-mages are without it. In the real world, our weapons-developing scientists are not our soldiers and our policemen. Outside of comic books, they rarely use their own inventions to thrash bad guys, uncover mysteries, and generally save the day through direct heroics. They're Q to the hero, James Bond. And that, too, makes plenty of sense: one who trains in the use of weapons and investigative techniques and skills for infiltration will be better able to use the tools that make those things easier; where the gadgeteer uses them to "keep up," handing it off to their highly-trained ally allows them to stack.

The wizard-as-Batman attempts this to a degree; ideally (though arguments can be made that it doesn't hold up in practice), he needs fighter-types to "clean up" because, if they're not around, his noodly arms can't finish the job even after making them blind, dumb, and unconscious. I once built a Warmage to go alongside a Frenzied Berserker; the Warmage's favorite combat spell was said Berserker.

Unfortunately, my point about the undead army and using it was missed: if a mundane wants to directly lead an undead army, he still needs a mage out there somewhere to have created it. It's "what you use an undead army to achieve" that I would like to see mundanes of equal level of power be able to attempt, preferably without magic help.

3) I find the comparison of mages to athletes who cheat through doping to be...distasteful. One could construct an equivalent argument that it is the Fighter, hopped up on a full BAB and d10 HD who has the unfair, unheroic advantage. Sure, he's facing a dragon, but he knows he can soak a fiery blast to the face and still come out carving chunks out of the beast's neck. That spindly scholar who goes in with only a few words and gestures to protect himself is one slip-up, one dispel away from being crushed like an ant.

The truth is, properly balanced, the magic-user and the mundane will both be being heroic; the fact that the former uses magic while the latter uses highly-trained skills should not factor in to the judgment of heroism. The only reason we look at it as if it does, here, is because our modern society really loves to root for the underdog and sees heroism in the weak standing up against the odds...and mundanes in D&D 3e are, frankly, "the weak."

=============

I believe part of the issue is, again, the sheer versatility of spells. Not only are spells probably the single most-printed thing in D&D, but the second-most, feats, are something of which characters have fewer to choose over their career, and less ability to swap them out. (Yes, spontcasters largely can't swap out spells easily if at all, but they get more spells.)

In theory, spells could be narrower than feats, but in practice, feats typically suffer from "we can't make this too cool" syndrome. Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization kind-of make the point: a permanent feat for a single weapon for a +1 to hit, and the same plus a minimum of 4 levels of fighter for a +1 to damage.

Compare Divine Favor, which is +1 to hit and damage at level 1, +2 at level 6, and +3 at level 9. All for the same 1st level spell slot. The only on-the-ground costs are limited spell slots for the day, and the time it takes to cast it.

The Warblade attempts to help with this by granting a versatility: change the weapon of choice for those feats with some effort, roughly on par with a wizard or cleric changing out his spell selection.

While it's tempting to just grant bigger and better (and, if needs be, supernatural) powers to "the mundane" classes, this doesn't solve what I think is the core problem: fewer options to plumb and fewer choices permitted over the course of character design.

4e did a lot to address this by making everybody a Martial Adept, and then stepped back everyone's power a hundredfold by making every class have their own unique list of Maneuvers, so there's no "growth by splat book" that isn't expressly written for each class individually. Personally, I don't like that, but I do see the mechanical temptation.

I think we need three things:

Feats that scale with something rather than needing an "improved" version later on
Feats to be printed with as much love, variety, and creativity as spells
A new category of feat- and spell-like toys that key off of skills and ranks therein, which can also be written expansively the way spells are in 3e.

Both feats and this "new thing" need to be made both more available in quantity and need, at least for some mundane classes, mechanisms to let them alter their load-out in much the way prepped casters can.

Incarnum and Binders show us that we can have varying systems for "magic" that don't feel like spellcasting, so we should be able to do this without making "the skill Wizard" and "the feat Sorcerer."



To reiterate, the major advantage of making feats overall better and more available, and of introducing this "skill spell" system (which I'm tentatively calling Masteries), is that we can take advantage of feats' already-present section in every splatbook, but make the feats themselves good enough that the Fighter, say, getting so many, really does start to look as versatile and desirable as the Sorcerer who gets so many spells.

Adding the Masteries means there's one more "section" in splat books, with more expansion-through-new-ideas.

I'm still working on mechanics for how Masteries are obtained and limited. But they relate to skill ranks, and "better" Masteries both need more skill ranks and limit the number of additional Masteries you can have.


And yes, I know I'm just a fan, brainstorming ideas, so the actual "it can be expanded in splats" commentary is fruitless, but starting from a problem-solving vantage point that acknowledges RPG-as-business design realities is still worthwhile, I think.

[Psyren]

Once a caster has about 16 spells in his daily memory slots (level 7 or so), he typically won't ever run out of spells in a gaming day.

Magic is balanced against the fact that it can run out. But in practice, it simply doesn't. That is a problem for game balance design.

The goal isn't so much to make them run out of slots completely, as it is to make them run out of the top-level stuff that makes a real difference in level-appropriate encounters. At level 7, it won't matter to me as the DM that you have castings of Mage Armor, Disguise Self or Summon Monster I remaining so long as I'm able to make you burn through your Polymorphs, Hastes and Solid Fogs. Indeed, having lower-level slots remaining is a good thing as it (a) cuts down on "crossbow-use" in long-running fights, which is unfun and makes casters not feel like casters and (b) encourages more flavorful non-combat spell usage with those lower-level slots like Alarm, Augury, Magic Mouth etc.

However, I will again point out that reducing the character's slots or even denying bonus spells is an option available to DMs who don't feel confident that they can enforce a meaningful spells/day limitation within the confines of their narrative. This is much easier to do in a points-based system (just tweak the formula) but is at least still possible under Vancian.

[TheIronGolem]

"mundanes need the equipment mages make" is actually a function that we can't escape in D&D anyway

That's not really true. There's plenty of conceptual room for equipment that's so well-crafted ("Hanzo steel") or made of such exotic materials (Roy's reforged sword in OOTS) that it acts pretty much like magic. And between special materials like adamantine and abilities like Pathfinder's Master Craftsman feat, there's even existing game precedent to work from. All that's needed is to expand on that idea.

[Segev]

Sorry, I should have said, "can't escape from without further development."

PF goes a long way towards it, though I'm not entirely pleased that Spellcraft is the be-all and end-all skill for crafting magic items. I'd probably house-rule or create feats to empower other skills to do specific kinds of magic items (and I don't mind Spellcraft being the go-to skill for it, so long as other skills can substitute for at least specific purposes, e.g. Craft:Blacksmithing for making magic swords and the like).

[Psyren]

Sorry, I should have said, "can't escape from without further development."

PF goes a long way towards it, though I'm not entirely pleased that Spellcraft is the be-all and end-all skill for crafting magic items. I'd probably house-rule or create feats to empower other skills to do specific kinds of magic items (and I don't mind Spellcraft being the go-to skill for it, so long as other skills can substitute for at least specific purposes, e.g. Craft:Blacksmithing for making magic swords and the like).

Spellcraft is actually a suggestion, not a rule. The PF item creation rules actually tell the DM to pick a different skill if they think one would be appropriate.

[Segev]

Oh, really? That's much better than I had thought! Definitely a huge step in the right direction.

[Black Jester]

Games should get more complex as levels increase not less. The last thing we need is to give flat out stupid resistance to high level magic and turn the game into an extended showcase on how boring mostly hitting each other with various forms of stick is.

No. A more or less constant level of complexity is actually preferable to a game that develops a constantly steeper learning curve. Gurps for instance becomes actually simpler over time; while the initial access to the game is not that simple, once you have understood how the game works, it remains pretty stable as the basic principle remains the same.
And personally, I think that swordplay is infinitely more interesting than any form of magic due to its relatable and clear framework of references. High power magic is basically Calvin Ball, lacking any meaning by a lack of constraints and references to the experiences and perceptions of the player base due to its arbitrariness; It doesn't help that the vast majority of mages are horribly dull protagonists who are almost exclusively defined by what they can do and not by who they are.
(But I admit, the D&D combat system could be a lot more detailed and less abstract for its own benefit).


A) Magic will always be easier to justify as versatile, but at the very least anime gives us plenty of fodder to examine non-magical power.

This 'always' strikes me as rather unimaginative, I fear. I can easily create a magic system that is both internally consistent, very focused and utterly crippling. Actually, supernatural abilities being as much of a curse as they are a blessing are a standard of the whole fantasy genre, similarly powers which come at a dear price is a similar topic. It is utterly pointless to determine what magic has supposedly to be like; as an entirely fictional concept, it is as powerful as you want it to be, and the power level is in general not nearly as important as internal consistency.




The wizard-as-Batman attempts this to a degree; ideally (though arguments can be made that it doesn't hold up in practice), he needs fighter-types to "clean up" because, if they're not around, his noodly arms can't finish the job even after making them blind, dumb, and unconscious. I once built a Warmage to go alongside a Frenzied Berserker; the Warmage's favorite combat spell was said Berserker.

Ideally, the warriors and the spellcasters in a group are mutually dependent on each other. Not as in party A instrumentalize party B, but as in "Without my trusted bodyguard who protects me while I prepare the ritual to banish the demons, I'll be lost. Praise her tenacity and the strength of her swordarm," and "I could keep the foe at bay for a while, but without the wise mage banishing the demons, they would have overwhelmed me eventually. He is a valuable companion". By making sure both sides have significant weaknesses they cannot overcome without aid you create a balance of dependencies and thus establish the relevance of both sides of the medal. The problem with D&D 3.X (4th edition actually does this considerably better despite all of its misgivings) is, that while this dependency is very much a given fact for heroic (or mundane) characters, mitigating these weaknesses is not only possible but way too easy for most spellcasters. That's why it is so pointless trying to improve mundane characters - it doesn't solve the problem because the niche a good heroic warrior or clever and witty rogue could possibly cover are already taken by polymorph, summoning and enchantment spells. If you want to create something of a balance between these archetypes, there is no alternative to significantly nerfing spellcasters.




3) I find the comparison of mages to athletes who cheat through doping to be...distasteful.

Distasteful it may be, but it is quite accurate nonetheless. I'd also compare the average enchantment spell to the moral equivalent of a date rape drug. Actually, the closest analogy to spellcasters as in D&D would be ruthless pharmacologists using various drugs and toxins for their own advantage. There is a reason why spellcasters and the like are often described as feared and disdained individuals - the potential of abuse of their capabilities can easily overshadow the capabilities of benevolent uses.

[ryu]

I tend to think the reason mages have such a reputation is simply that they have more power than most people. Combine that with the fact that even benevolent people break sometimes and you see why the guy who is several orders of magnitude more powerful than anyone around him tends to be taken with a bit of fear or superstitious awe. A well played wizard is the closest thing people in not-faerun dnd are likely to see to a god.

[Segev]

No, I don't think it fair to say magic is "cheating" just because it works. Again, it's no different than saying that using a sword is cheating when fighting a girallon. If you're a level 10 fighter with a sword, you'll probably win more handily than without one.

If you're a level 1 commoner with a sword, it probably won't matter.

Magic is just another tool. It just happens to be one that is highly versatile and potent in the game system.

But to call it "cheating" or "unheroic" is to celebrate the underdog, sure, but is also to denigrate people who make optimal choices. And I don't just mean the players; it says, "If you choose to make yourself good at this, you're less heroic than somebody who works at less versatile and powerful things."

It's not the athlete's heroism vs. the steroid user; it's the athlete who trains his body with a strict diet regimen vs. the armchair quarterback who diets off and on and "exercises" on weekends when he plays flag football with his pals.

And yet, it is the latter who is "heroic" because the former is "cheating" by devoting himself to the more effective training techniques.

[NichG]

It's not the athlete's heroism vs. the steroid user; it's the athlete who trains his body with a strict diet regimen vs. the armchair quarterback who diets off and on and "exercises" on weekends when he plays flag football with his pals.

And yet, it is the latter who is "heroic" because the former is "cheating" by devoting himself to the more effective training techniques.

I don't know if I really buy the 'wizard is unheroic' argument, but I don't think this is fair to the comparison. The thing is, we're not talking about two identical athletes here.

I would say this is more akin to two people who want to get rich. One person learns a trade or perhaps gets a very advanced technical education and tries to create something truly new. The other person gets a business degree and spends their time networking, and ends up being hired as a CEO. The technical guy is the fighter in this example by the way.

Both might get rich, but one of them has what is perhaps a much more difficult path ahead of them to reach the same point (or at least, much less likely to succeed) because it approaches the goal obliquely. I don't think the CEO has 'cheated' somehow, but I can definitely see why some people might be more interested in stories of the technical guy's path to riches than stories of the CEO's path to riches, because we all sort of have a mental association 'well yeah of course CEOs are rich' - it makes the CEO's story seem less exceptional, even if there was just as much brilliance and hard work behind it.

So we might look at the wizard and its Tier 1 badge and find that there's some degree of 'well of course the wizard can solve the problem, its a Tier 1 character; do it with a monk and I'll be impressed'. This, I think, is the origin of the idea that the wizard might be somewhat less heroic than the fighter - because we expect the wizard to win, it is less exceptional when he does.

That said, this is a D&D-centric phenomenon. As was pointed out, there's no inherent reason why the wizard has to be the shoe-in and the warrior the underdog.

[Psyren]

No. A more or less constant level of complexity is actually preferable to a game that develops a constantly steeper learning curve. Gurps for instance becomes actually simpler over time; while the initial access to the game is not that simple, once you have understood how the game works, it remains pretty stable as the basic principle remains the same.

Well tough for GURPS and tough for you, because I think the D&D curve is fine. Complexity is fun - we start out with simple challenges like goblins and bandits and skeletons, then we have to deal with 3 dimensional combat and immunities and compulsions and having our buffs dispelled and regenerating enemies etc. It makes the game more exciting when new mechanics are added to keep track of.

And while I'm not a pro on GURPS by any means, my understanding is that you can do all of that complex stuff in it too if you want - so what's the big difference?



High power magic is basically Calvin Ball, lacking any meaning by a lack of constraints and references to the experiences and perceptions of the player base due to its arbitrariness.

I don't think you actually understand what Calvin Ball is. The rules of magic spells are defined; they don't just change on a whim. And once a caster has prepared or selected various spells, they are locked in - Schrodinger's Wizard exists on message boards, not game tables.



This 'always' strikes me as rather unimaginative, I fear. I can easily create a magic system that is both internally consistent, very focused and utterly crippling.

Why on earth would anyone bother learning or using magic if it is "utterly crippling?"

And yes, powers with a drawback are a fantasy staple, but in those stories the advantages always outweigh the drawbacks. Otherwise people would simply not use their powers and the story would be just as boring as this game you're describing would be.

[Arbane]

Casters can "lose" just as easily, because magic can be dispelled and countered directly while mundane cannot.


Here's your Dispel Mundane (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/forcecage.htm). You're welcome.


The archetype is the squishy wizard who goes down if you can get to him, and the tanky warrior who won't go down no matter what you do ti him.

Unfortunately in practice it's more like "The tanky fighter who won't go down until he flubs a Will save." One of D&D's many flaws in this regard.


The number of spell slots a caster gets eventually ramps up until they can keep on going and going for longer than the fighters can stay standing. This is probably to some extent caused by the fact that people generally feel that wizards shouldn't be shooting the crossbow.

That, and the vast proliferation of wands and scrolls and such since 3rd ed came out - before that, they were a LOT rarer.


turn the game into an extended showcase on how boring mostly hitting each other with various forms of stick is.

That just indicates that D&D needs better combat rules. Lots of games have more varied and interesting combat. D&D _could_, if the designers weren't worried that anyone who can competently trip or disarm opponents without spending 8 levels' worth of feats on it would break the game. :smallmad:


It doesn't help that the vast majority of mages are horribly dull protagonists who are almost exclusively defined by what they can do and not by who they are.

I think WAY too many RPG characters are dull protagonists defined by what they do. not just the wizards.

[Psyren]

Here's your Dispel Mundane (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/forcecage.htm). You're welcome.

I play PF, where cages can be battered down or evaded entirely. (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/f/forcecage) I agree that they're kind of stupid in 3.5, but lots of things were stupid in 3.5.

[ryu]

Does shatter still do it's thing in pathfinder? breaking any gear the mundane has that isn't enchanted renders them impotent even at the levels where they could theoretically be relevant in low op.

[Psyren]

Does shatter still do it's thing in pathfinder? breaking any gear the mundane has that isn't enchanted renders them impotent even at the levels where they could theoretically be relevant in low op.

Breaking gear with Shatter requires a separate cast for each item. Given that nonmagical weapons are literally a dime a dozen, you should have backups even if the caster catches you off-guard. (Also, a 50gp oil will protect your weapon for the entire combat if you're really worried.)

[ryu]

You asked for dispel mundane not mordenkainen's mundane disjunction. That would just be disjunction and and a low will save or just summoning ALL of the rust monsters.

[Arbane]

I play PF, where cages can be battered down or evaded entirely. (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/f/forcecage) I agree that they're kind of stupid in 3.5, but lots of things were stupid in 3.5.

There's (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/s/sleep) plenty (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/h/hold-person) more (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/f/flesh-to-stone) where that came from.

[Komatik]

That just indicates that D&D needs better combat rules. Lots of games have more varied and interesting combat. D&D _could_, if the designers weren't worried that anyone who can competently trip or disarm opponents without spending 8 levels' worth of feats on it would break the game. :smallmad

<SKR> Toughness costs 10 feat points
<SKR> Natural Spell costs 5 feat points
<anyone with a brain> ???

[TuggyNE]

<SKR> Toughness costs 10 feat points
<SKR> Natural Spell costs 5 feat points
<anyone with a brain> ???

Yeah, good ol' feat points. Nice inspiration, astonishingly terrible calibration.

[Psyren]

There's (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/s/sleep) plenty (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/h/hold-person) more (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/f/flesh-to-stone) where that came from.

Sleep: 1 round casting time. Charge the caster. Also, make your will save (or be an elf/android/etc.) Also, mind-affecting, HD limit.
Hold Person: Multiple will saves; make one. Also, mind-affecting.
Flesh to Stone: Fort save, need I say more?

And every last one is SR: Yes.

If your melee is getting shut down by these, he is undergeared, under-statted or both, and that's his fault. None are silver bullets.

The problem is overblown as usual.

[Segev]

To be fair, particularly on Sleep, it's astonishing how common it is for DMs and players alike not to realize that it has a 1 round casting time.

[Krobar]

Here's a simple idea I've been toying with, but haven't implemented as of yet...

Make Leadership a fighter-only feat, and give it to them for free at 9th level. At 9th level your fighter attracts a 7th level fighter cohort, and followers. Now, when your fighter hits 11th level, his fighter cohort hits 9th level and gets Leadership himself/herself, and attracts a 7th level fighter cohort, and followers. And so on ... basically fighters automatically spam leadership.

Go ahead Mr. Wizard. Polymorph into a hydra. You'll just give my archers a bigger target for their volley.

[Fax Celestis]

Here's a simple idea I've been toying with, but haven't implemented as of yet...

Make Leadership a fighter-only feat, and give it to them for free at 9th level. At 9th level your fighter attracts a 7th level fighter cohort, and followers. Now, when your fighter hits 11th level, his fighter cohort hits 9th level and gets Leadership himself/herself, and attracts a 7th level fighter cohort, and followers. And so on ... basically fighters automatically spam leadership.

Go ahead Mr. Wizard. Polymorph into a hydra. You'll just give my archers a bigger target for their volley.

Does it not strike you as problematic that the answer to equaling a wizard is "give the fighter an army"?

[Krobar]

Does it not strike you as problematic that the answer to equaling a wizard is "give the fighter an army"?

Powerful wizards are always going to be powerful wizards, and this thread wasn't about nerfing wizards. It was about raising fighters/mundanes in power, and the method I illustrated is only a very small change to the rules. Truthfully, there is nothing you can do to make a single fighter equal in power to a wizard without entirely rewriting the rules of magic. This has been a problem of varying degrees in every version of D&D. I've played them all, and wizards always outclass fighters if they're played well.

But another idea that might help to raise the fighter a bit, is this: Get rid of "SR: No" and "Saving Throw: None", so all spells are subject to resistance and saves, then give fighters/mundanes innate spell resistance due to their lack of magical abilities. Maybe Level+Con Bonus or something. That will go a long way toward shutting down a lot of the the spellcaster's "Instant Win" buttons by making them not so automatic.

Don't know what else to say... but there's not much you can really do to raise fighters to be the equal of wizards without squashing the wizards. There never has been.

[ryu]

Sleep: 1 round casting time. Charge the caster. Also, make your will save (or be an elf/android/etc.) Also, mind-affecting, HD limit.
Hold Person: Multiple will saves; make one. Also, mind-affecting.
Flesh to Stone: Fort save, need I say more?

And every last one is SR: Yes.

If your melee is getting shut down by these, he is undergeared, under-statted or both, and that's his fault. None are silver bullets.

The problem is overblown as usual.

Summon a bunch of rust monsters. The more you summon the more likely the dispel checks are to succeed.

[Psyren]

Summon a bunch of rust monsters. The more you summon the more likely the dispel checks are to succeed.

Which Summon Monster gets you rust monsters in PF/3.5?

[ryu]

Handle animal and polymorph any object is best if you want a consistent army though throwing a gate at the problem is the most hilarious bit of overkill I've ever used on someone.

[Psyren]

Rust Monsters are aberrations, so Handle Animal won't work on them. Even if it did, you'd need a move action per monster to get them to attack anything (full-round if you didn't teach them the "attack" trick) so your army is going to be pretty ridiculously slow. And by the level you can run around PAOing things, a DC 17 Reflex save is trivial anyway.

It's just an awful idea all around.

[ryu]

The handle animal is why we need polymorph any object. Find scores of harmless things. Skill check them into obedient and polymorph. I don't do these things because they're practical. There's already a million ways to beat mundanes. I like to go that extra mile, focus a bit, and make the target feel like the method was personalized to them as they roll hundreds of saves and eventually fall prey to random chance and feel despair.

[Psyren]

The handle animal is why we need polymorph any object. Find scores of harmless things. Skill check them into obedient and polymorph.

That's what I'm saying - once you "morph" them, you can't Handle them anymore. And since a Rust Monster's Int is 2, it's too dumb to follow your commands any other way.


There's already a million ways to beat mundanes.

You should probably pick one that works then.

But again, my point was never that "casters can't beat mundanes." My point was that magic has weaknesses of its own, and it's the DM's job to exploit them. If he/she does not and the casters run wild over the campaign, the DM has only themselves to blame.

[ryu]

The fact that I've been running around for the past few days experimenting with being a wizard in a world where every nonliving object constantly emanates an anti-magic field and that the only thing that has even proved to be an obstacle so far was a dragon two CR above mine shows that DMs can only even inconvenience a wizard who's actually trying by building the world to resist them at every turn or to outright change the rules on them or both.

[Psyren]

The simple solution if you have a player that is out to break the world is to ban Wizards and substitute something weaker (like Staff Magus.) Certainly it's a lot easier than making every object radiate antimagic or anything else ridiculous like that.

But I didn't see anything in that story about actually dispelling or counterspelling the wizard either.

[ryu]

Which is exactly as I stated before. You can't inconvenience a wizard who's trying without outright changing rules. Banning things is changing rules. The antimagic emanating everywhere is just a setting detail and explicit license to not hold back with any tricks I can think of.

[Psyren]

Right, but if your players can't control themselves, that's a player problem, not a system one. Raising all the mundane to T3 won't keep those players in check, and raising all the mundane to T2/T1 will just break the campaign that much more quickly. Better to play some other system entirely if the group isn't capable of gentleman's agreements.

[NichG]

Trying to get this back on track...

For the Leadership thing, why is it unreasonable for the mundanes to have an army at the point where the wizards can create entire planes of existence with a spell? Is 'having an army' particularly outside of characters' purview?

I mean, the big limit is that the system doesn't really support large-scale battles in an efficient fashion. You might have an army but you can't really wield it in most adventuring situations that the game is written to support, and when you go outside of that zone there are few mechanical guidelines to what having an army should actually do for you.

I could see a 'you get an army' mechanic as being a good step towards elevating mundanes if there were some concrete examples in the rules of things an army could accomplish for you (mostly as a guide to the thought processes of the DM and the player; the DM has to design around 'the campaign will be about armies and things of that scale after Lv9' for example, and the player needs to be able to plan things like 'okay, I get my army, then I can grab a center of trade which I can use for a 5% item discount, then...')

The game is pretty clear about the conceit of 'there's a dungeon and treasure, go into the dungeon and get the treasure' but it provides a lot less guidance on bigger scopes and how to challenge players to think big and do big things. It would be a very different game, but one worth exploring I think.

[Fax Celestis]

Trying to get this back on track...

For the Leadership thing, why is it unreasonable for the mundanes to have an army at the point where the wizards can create entire planes of existence with a spell? Is 'having an army' particularly outside of characters' purview?

I only think it's an unreasonable balancing mechanism in the disproportion of manpower. If a fighter needs a literal army of other fighters to match one wizard, there is a huge problem with the power disparity. I don't think anyone's contesting that, but saying "oh, you have minions" feels like a gigantic cop-out.

[Psyren]

Having a plane doesn't have much game impact though. Oh it's a cool place for the party to have a base and store their swag maybe, but the actual adventures will be happening elsewhere.

An army though? Either you don't let them use it in combat (in which case having it is pointless) or you do (and the game slows to a crawl - well, even more of a crawl.)

And casters get way more out of having cohorts than mundanes do - cooperative crafting, circle magic, research aides, possession hosts etc.

[Segev]

The goal in elevating the mundanes is, if not to provide them specific things casters cannot access, at least provide them things that are as expandable systems as are spells. These "things" should be more accessible to them than to spellcasters. Sadly, for whatever reason, feats were not generally handed out to non-casters more readily than casters, with Fighter being a notable exception. Feat weakness in general conspired to make the Fighter's concentration on them lack even more luster.

[NichG]

On the army thing:

I'm actually okay with someone needing a thousand men to equal another character in a direct conflict - thats just another archetype, and not an uninteresting one (after all, we have tons of stories about historical figures who did amazing things with their armies and nations but weren't necessarily that skilled in personal combat). The wizard can say 'I am the equal of a hundred men', and the general can say 'I have ten thousand' - thats a kind of balance, especially if the general has stuff that makes his army more effective than the ten thousand skeletons the wizard can raise or the ten thousand mercenaries he can pay off.

The real problem is that the game mechanics don't support it elegantly, and worse, the main style of the game (squad-based skirmishing) is inconsistent with it.

But if you had a D&D campaign that, from the ground up, was about conquering the world or other map-scale endeavors, it'd be a decent balancing factor. D&D meets Civilization meets message board god-games, basically.

Edit: I think part of it is that squad-based skirmishing is also inconsistent with the kind of power/versatility that wizards wield. The 'real' all-out high-end game looks a lot different than what the game was designed to be.

On feats:

I think feats really aren't the way to go. The system seems built more for 'customize your character' than 'this is X's power source', and there are very few things that say 'only class X gets these feats while only class Y gets those feats' outside of very specific 'modify your class feature' deals.

If you want feats to really elevate mundanes, you can't have them be feats that the casters can also take. That will just elevate both. I also don't think that most feats actually provide real versatility that competes even a bit with the kind of versatility you get in magic, and its that versatility, not raw mechanical advantage, that really puts casters ahead.

For example, lets say Weapon Focus was fighter-only and guaranteed that every attack you make with that weapon automatically hit. Thats really nice for fighters, but it doesn't actually give them real utility. If you had a followup feat 'any enemy you successfully damage is automatically killed' it still doesn't do much to bridge the gap - all you've done is made it easier to build an ubercharger.

[Krobar]

I only think it's an unreasonable balancing mechanism in the disproportion of manpower. If a fighter needs a literal army of other fighters to match one wizard, there is a huge problem with the power disparity. I don't think anyone's contesting that, but saying "oh, you have minions" feels like a gigantic cop-out.

Do you have a better suggestion given the 3.5 framework that doesn't involve destroying wizards as a class?

[Fax Celestis]

Do you have a better suggestion given the 3.5 framework that doesn't involve destroying wizards as a class?

No, because the best elevation for the "mundane" classes is to make their competition worse.

[Psyren]

Do you have a better suggestion given the 3.5 framework that doesn't involve destroying wizards as a class?

Gentleman's agreement. Magic's ceiling is in the stratosphere, but that doesn't mean players have to climb up there for a good view.

[Krobar]

No, because the best elevation for the "mundane" classes is to make their competition worse.

So you don't actually have any helpful suggestions given the focus of the thread. You're just going to dog everything you read instead.

Way to contribute. Keep up the good work.



Gentleman's agreement. Magic's ceiling is in the stratosphere, but that doesn't mean players have to climb up there for a good view.

That works in a lot of games. Mine included. But apparently not all.

The problem is that the D&D wizard is so much more powerful than any wizard from any swords/sorcery story that it's ridiculous. Magic is in fact over-powered in D&D (not just 3.5), and without nerfing the wizard there's nothing that can really be done without manpower.

Elric would be absolutely slaughtered by my sorcerer. No chance.

[ScrambledBrains]

No, because the best elevation for the "mundane" classes is to make their competition worse.

This strikes me as extrodinarily petty; and, quite frankly, defeatist as well. Why not boost the melee classes so that, like the magic ones, they go from Tier 6(Truenamer) to Tier one? Why do the Wizard, Cleric, and Druid have to take a dive just so the Fighter looks better by comparison? :smallannoyed:

Across our planet, we have many, many myths of men who, with their bare hands, brought down monsters, terraformed the planet, and yes, even took out mages. So why can't a group of dedicated homebrewers on here fix the problem? I know of most of the major homebrewers on here, and you're all intelligent, rational and creative folks...seems like with that much raw brainpower, you could come up with...something. :smallconfused: :smallbiggrin:

[ryu]

This strikes me as extrodinarily petty; and, quite frankly, defeatist as well. Why not boost the melee classes so that, like the magic ones, they go from Tier 6(Truenamer) to Tier one? Why do the Wizard, Cleric, and Druid have to take a dive just so the Fighter looks better by comparison? :smallannoyed:

Across our planet, we have many, many myths of men who, with their bare hands, brought down monsters, terraformed the planet, and yes, even took out mages. So why can't a group of dedicated homebrewers on here fix the problem? I know of most of the major homebrewers on here, and you're all intelligent, rational and creative folks...seems like with that much raw brainpower, you could come up with...something. :smallconfused: :smallbiggrin:

Because this isn't as simple as a difference in numbers. This is about raw versatility based on powerful abilities. Boosting mundanes to even remotely come near the power of magic would pretty much mean doing what tome of battle did with pretending clearly magical powers were mundane except on a much larger and more blatant scale. Do I need to repost the list of nice things magic has that mundanes don't to prove this point?

[NichG]

This strikes me as extrodinarily petty; and, quite frankly, defeatist as well. Why not boost the melee classes so that, like the magic ones, they go from Tier 6(Truenamer) to Tier one? Why do the Wizard, Cleric, and Druid have to take a dive just so the Fighter looks better by comparison? :smallannoyed:

Across our planet, we have many, many myths of men who, with their bare hands, brought down monsters, terraformed the planet, and yes, even took out mages. So why can't a group of dedicated homebrewers on here fix the problem? I know of most of the major homebrewers on here, and you're all intelligent, rational and creative folks...seems like with that much raw brainpower, you could come up with...something. :smallconfused: :smallbiggrin:

Its because the community is fragmented on what it wants here and there's a lot of circular logic going around. Basically, at some point people will say 'thats not mundane anymore' based on the outcomes, never mind the method. So there's an implicit 'mundanes can't do X' going around. Mythic heroes were not what one would generally call mundane unless one was trying to contrast them with direct users of magic. Drinking an ocean or 'knowing all things' from sucking your thumb to the marrow are pretty supernatural feats. If you don't mind that, then this is a solved problem basically - I've seen Exalted to D&D conversions that basically do the job, for example.

If you do mind that however then you're really tying both hands behind your back and trying to climb a cliff with your teeth, because you simultaneously have to satisfy 'on equal footing with people who do mythic things' and 'can't do mythic things'. Thats why I've been pushing scale so much - the only thing that really competes with the deeds of mythic figures is the accomplishments of entire societies and civilizations. If you have someone whose schtick is that they have an entire civilization behind them, they can manage to compete while still being completely mundane in the non-mythical sense. The wizard throws a fireball, the king commissions philosophers to invent gunpowder and has a catapult lob a lit barrel of the stuff. It can be done, but you get the problem that the game is no longer about individuals anymore.

This makes me want to write a game 'kings and councillors'...

[ScrambledBrains]

Because this isn't as simple as a difference in numbers. This is about raw versatility based on powerful abilities. Boosting mundanes to even remotely come near the power of magic would pretty much mean doing what tome of battle did with pretending clearly magical powers were mundane except on a much larger and more blatant scale. Do I need to repost the list of nice things magic has that mundanes don't to prove this point?

I fail to see why you cannot just refluff the magic as just advanced mundane things. Who cares if it's not 'Physically possible in the real world', if a Melee guy needs flight suddenly, he should be able to on sheer freaking willpower. And the same goes for anything else Melee can't do currently.

[ryu]

Because if you're going to just make everyone magic anyway why bother calling anyone mundane or otherwise nonmagical. It's a perfectly fine fix don't get me wrong. Making the current mundane classes into wizards who use swords as some kind of focus is pointless because at that point all you've really done is banned the classes that aren't wizards. If you're going to do that may as well admit up front that only npcs are actually fighters and solve things neatly.

[Fax Celestis]

So you don't actually have any helpful suggestions given the focus of the thread. You're just going to dog everything you read instead.

Way to contribute. Keep up the good work.

I (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=218251) will (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=170780) continue (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=181496) to (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=172606) contribute (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=170437), sir (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=165950), and (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=100936) I will (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=164574) thank you (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=162194) to actually (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=98238) look (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=99504) at what (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=99519) I have (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=124934) done (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=101419) before (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=92221) attributing (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=105007) my statements (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=121942) to a status (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=100441) they (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=59250) do (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=48591) not (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=104775) actually (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=99519) embody (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=98722).

[Psyren]

The problem is that the D&D wizard is so much more powerful than any wizard from any swords/sorcery story that it's ridiculous.

Of course D&D magic is powerful - the idea was that D&D would be able to encompass all of these settings, or at least a lot of them. Just about anything that inspired Gygax and co. was thrown in.

Besides which, there are plenty of non-D&D settings where magic has massive potential. Wheel of Time has channelers ripping through mundanes like cheesecloth, when they aren't moving armies around the world or unraveling time itself. Dragonlance had several elements that are similarly difficult if not impossible to pull off in the games. Milamber (Pug) tore apart an entire arena with a thought. Earthsea, Shannara, Dying Earth... examples abound.


I fail to see why you cannot just refluff the magic as just advanced mundane things. Who cares if it's not 'Physically possible in the real world', if a Melee guy needs flight suddenly, he should be able to on sheer freaking willpower. And the same goes for anything else Melee can't do currently.

You might as well give everyone magic at that point. Why even bother calling it anything else?

[ScrambledBrains]

You might as well give everyone magic at that point. Why even bother calling it anything else?

Ok, so it's not a perfect idea. But...I get so damn sick of these people who would rather punt down the magic classes than bring the melee classes up. It might take some doing...maybe even a new subsystem...but there has to be some way to make a melee class who can compete with the Tier 1s! And if I didn't suck at homebrew(Mostly), I'd try to make it myself! :smallmad:

[Fax Celestis]

Ok, so it's not a perfect idea. But...I get so damn sick of these people who would rather punt down the magic classes than bring the melee classes up. It might take some doing...maybe even a new subsystem...but there has to be some way to make a melee class who can compete with the Tier 1s! And if I didn't suck at homebrew(Mostly), I'd try to make it myself! :smallmad:

Tier 1 is a terrible place to balance, as it makes bookkeeping and planning for a DM into a logistical nightmare. When a player says "I'm making a rogue" (tier 3), you can get a general idea of what they're capable of, with a smallish window of variance. When a player says "I'm making a wizard" (tier 1), you can't, really, because it varies from day to day and from player to player so wildly that it could mean basically anything.

[Psyren]

If you really want to homebrew, fix the spells. The classes will be fine after that.

[Arbane]

Mythic heroes were not what one would generally call mundane unless one was trying to contrast them with direct users of magic. Drinking an ocean or 'knowing all things' from sucking your thumb to the marrow are pretty supernatural feats. If you don't mind that, then this is a solved problem basically - I've seen Exalted to D&D conversions that basically do the job, for example.

If you do mind that however then you're really tying both hands behind your back and trying to climb a cliff with your teeth, because you simultaneously have to satisfy 'on equal footing with people who do mythic things' and 'can't do mythic things'.

Pretty much, yeah. Guys like Herakles, Rama, and Beowulf aren't 'mundane', they're just not spellcasters. (I was going to say Cu Chulainn, but I think he actually DID cast spells...)


Ok, so it's not a perfect idea. But...I get so damn sick of these people who would rather punt down the magic classes than bring the melee classes up. It might take some doing...maybe even a new subsystem...but there has to be some way to make a melee class who can compete with the Tier 1s! And if I didn't suck at homebrew(Mostly), I'd try to make it myself! :smallmad:

Good luck with that.

For an example: Even if your character is the Greatest Long-Distance Runner Ever, they'll STILL lose a race* with a teleporting sorcerer, unless you completely toss these wrongheaded notions of 'realism' out the window. So either the fighty-types need to break physics like Dragonball Z characters, or the magic-types need the loving caress of the Nerfbat.

*If the race is longer than one turn's movement, you nitpickers. Because I KNOW if I don't add this, one of you will break out the pedantry.

[Krobar]

I (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=218251) will (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=170780) continue (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=181496) to (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=172606) contribute (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=170437), sir (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=165950), and (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=100936) I will (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=164574) thank you (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=162194) to actually (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=98238) look (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=99504) at what (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=99519) I have (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=124934) done (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=101419) before (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=92221) attributing (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=105007) my statements (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=121942) to a status (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=100441) they (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=59250) do (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=48591) not (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=104775) actually (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=99519) embody (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=98722).

You yourself said you have no solution to the question posed that doesn't involved wrecking wizards.

So what, exactly, have you contributed to this thread, given the OP is specifically looking to boost mundanes while not wrecking spellcasters?

[Psyren]

Fax actually said "make them worse" which doesn't necessarily mean "wrecking" them. If you wave your wand and zap a new Ferrari so that it becomes a brand new Honda Accord, you've made it worse - but it can still function just fine.

And Fax's d20r does just that - it makes casters worse, by dialing them down a few notches.

[PlusSixPelican]

Oh! I have one.

Give the Fighters "crazy" amounts of Str. Like...40 Str. For freesies.

No, seriously.

Eventually, their strength turns crazy-high and can start going stuff like huck boulders, fist-kiss elder dragons, or tear through stone with the power of MUSCLES. With even MOAR MUSCLES, they could start to alter reality, in some kind of reverse mind over matter thing. Sorta like Flex Mentallo.

[ryu]

Most of what you described is stuff fighters can already easily be made to do. Still tier 5 or 4 tops if built that way.

[TuggyNE]

Most of what you described is stuff fighters can already easily be made to do. Still tier 5 or 4 tops if built that way.

Barring the bending reality stuff, at least, and that's kind of the hard part to write.

[Black Jester]

If you really want to homebrew, fix the spells. The classes will be fine after that.
I am pretty sure that fixing the hundreds of spells in D&D is a more efficient solution for a fix of a problem between classes than facing the 10 or so classes in question (and most importantly the general rules for spellcasting).


Do you have a better suggestion given the 3.5 framework that doesn't involve destroying wizards as a class?

Isn't that a bit overly dramatic? You can (and should) easily nerf wizards etc. significantly without making them either incongizable as wizards etc. or turning them into something unworthy to play. Many of these archetypes would actually benefit from a more focused frame and a clearer definition of their capabilities instead of the mostly arbitrary and vague 'do whatever you want' stuff (this is, however, more specifically a problem for clerics than for wizards).

Again, the problem is not that heroic characters are too weak; that's a symptom. To stray true to the car analogy used before, it's like stating that the traveling time increases as a result of an increased traffic volume and the resulting jams can be solved by removing speed limits and buy everyone a faster car.
The actual problem is that casters (and spellcasting in general) are too powerful, not that heroic characters are too weak (a few classes could use a bit more oomph here and there, but that's not the point). One of the issues I mentioned before is that class balance absolutely requires the existence of weaknesses which then ca be covered by other classes to create a mutual dependency between characters which grants everybody the opportunity to help and protect the others and the need to rely on others. That's (apart from the sheer logistic issue) is a reason why just elevating heroic characters to the same absurd level as their spellcasting counterparts isn't a particular good solution - or any solution at all - for the balancing problem - even if you find a viable way to boost the power levels, you just have more mostly invulnerable characters with arbitrary large numbers and more bookkeeping (especially for the GM).
if you want to solve the problem instead of curing symptoms, there is no alternative to a standard where a wizard needs a fighter as much for success and survival as a fighter needs a wiziard.


You yourself said you have no solution to the question posed that doesn't involved wrecking wizards.

For a good reason: There is no good solution to the question that doesn't involve 'wrecking' wizards. And while I can't speak for others, this exaggerated dramatic terms are neither factual nor constructive.

[NichG]

I am pretty sure that fixing the hundreds of spells in D&D is a more efficient solution for a fix of a problem between classes than facing the 10 or so classes in question (and most importantly the general rules for spellcasting).


Actually, in my experience replacing the spells solves 90% of the problem, whereas messing with the casting mechanics has a tendency to just encourage players to try to get around whatever changes you've made.

I ran a campaign where everything above Lv3 spells was taken out and replaced with a much smaller spell list that I wrote for the campaign. At the same time I strongly encouraged in-character spell research to expand this list, but put stringent requirements on how spell research worked (you had to start with what went into it, not what you were trying to get out, and you could use certain abilities to get DM hints. This meant that the players never proposed mechanics for spells, only combinations)

I tried to encourage people not to try to get every spell by making sub-sets of spells that required certain PrCs to get access to - this resulted in someone playing an Archivist and doing their damnedest to get every spell (and this is what I mean by 'encouraging the players to try to get around the limits you impose').

That said, even as an Archivist, he was not the most effective combat character in the party by a long shot. He was probably the most versatile character - by the end of the campaign he had accumulated enough tricks to basically do spell research on the fly, and could try crazy spell combos when nothing else seemed to be working - but at the same time, he didn't have things that could just 'conclude' a fight.

Details of the party makeup:

We ended up with a skill-monkey who used Divine Insight to be epically good at stealing things, a Swordsage who by far did the most damage in the party and pretty much was responsible for 80% of the combat damage dealt, a tanky-character who could basically survive something like 9 deaths per game session due to having all the luck feats/fearless destiny/etc stuff, the archivist with every spell, a ranged character/confidence man kind of build, and a necro-minionmancer (later replaced by an alien space-pilot built on when the game went sci-fi). Pretty much everyone's niche was preserved and essential.

[Psyren]

I am pretty sure that fixing the hundreds of spells in D&D is a more efficient solution for a fix of a problem between classes than facing the 10 or so classes in question (and most importantly the general rules for spellcasting).

I'm glad you agree.

(And in case you were being sarcastic, you forgot something.)

[Segev]

Honestly, I do not sit in the "you can't achieve that; it's not mundane" camp. I do want a subsystem to toy with that is not "spells" or "magical capabilities" in the sense of Incarnum or even Binding.

The problem of 4e is that it reduced all subsystems to the same one. Magic and not-magic feel samey because they're all really just martial adepts. There's literally nothing a wizard can do that you couldn't just say, "er, now it's psionics," and vice-versa, and there's little a wizard CAN do that you couldn't re-fluff as a Fighter ability.

3e actually uses different subsystems to capture different "feels" of abilities. Spells feel magical, psionics has a distinct flavor in playstyle from spells, Incarnum and Binding have distinct ways of looking at and achieving their mystic effects.

The solution doesn't lie in simply giving fighters and rogues "non-magical spells," but it does lie in giving them something as expansive and expandable as magic. ToB was a nice attempt; I am not enamored of it, but it's an interesting effort. It's two biggest failings, in my mind, are that it treats it, still, like "spells" in how level breakdown goes and the "use once then deplete resource" manner, and in that it's 95% purely useful in combat. Even with all the combat-focus in D&D, spells manage to have tons of utility and other non-combat areas of the game in which they can be used. And a fair bit of the T1-nature of full casters comes from the fact that utility spells have oblique combat uses.

To "elevate the mundane" isn't to "avoid magic, but make them achieve magical results." It's to elevate them by doing something OTHER than "give them spellcasting/psionic manifestation/look-alike mechanics." If (Su) and possibly even the occasional (Sp) ability is needed, so be it.

[aleucard]

There's two main things that need to be done in order to balance martial and magical classes (is a better phrase than mundane, I'll explain why in a bit).

First, magical classes need to have several aspects of casting DRASTICALLY altered. I'll run down the list provided by ryu in the first page of this topic, then add whatever I feel needs mentioned after.

1) Make those things non-binary, then scale the max and average effect as much as desired. Should make those Maximize/Empower/etc. feats much more juicy, too, which is a bonus for those of us who think that everything should be useful more than once in a blue moon (with exceptions, but most of those aren't class features or feats).

2 & 3) I actually like versatility in general, and my only quibble here is making some of them have to work with a character's base abilities, which turns some of those 'I win encounters on my own' spells into non-caster buffs. The best counter for these is to increase martial versatility, which I'll get to later.

4) This is mainly a problem thanks to the ungodly amount of spells a caster who can do this has access to, and how ****ing MANY of them fall under #1 or more. This can be 'fixed' by banning those spells, but that feels like punishing the caster. The best way would be to make sure that no auto-win spells exist, and all have weaknesses that can be exploited with some thought. Essentially, the fix falls under the previous 2 points, but it still demands consideration.

5) This is in part due to WotC not having an idea as to what constitutes a standard day in a campaign (and the DM not pushing his party to a certain degree, but the main burden is not on him/her/it), but it's mainly due to the fact that this just lets you completely wipe an encounter at least one more time per day, or lets you contribute well beyond your percentage of the party (25% of the party doing >25% of the work is imbalanced) several times a day (with some change for non-encounter contribution to boot). Again, the best way is to make sure those spells don't go overboard without commensurate costs. Then, this is actually a boon for the caster (since they don't become 1-minute wonders due to not having enough reserves to do what they need to).

6) This is fixed by making actual counters, as well as making those caster-generated counters actually matter in a noticeable way (how about something that does damage to someone based on how many spell slots/points/[insert appropriate thing here] the target has, a la mana burn?). They should be somewhat involved to pull off, which means that the opportunities for a pc to pull it off themselves are limited. This does give the 'DMs are supposed to kill the players' issue more weight, though, so tread lightly.

7) Aside from things mentioned in the previous point, I'll be going over possible methods for this below. Stay tuned.

8) This encompasses several things.

8a) Summon spells should be restricted to varying levels/varieties of Calling spells and/or essentially remaking a monster/beastie/etc. by magic, which would both be very inefficient compared to now and need massive familiarity to do it with any level of speed or capability. It would mean that they stick around much longer, but actively controlling them would either be impossible (in most instances of the first idea) or very taxing (some beings would need a contract, and the more power given to one side, the more they need to offer in return). With some exception for the 'True Conjuration' idea, this would remove the problem of casters being able to get no-strings beefcake replacements for a single spell slot, and the ones that could work in that way are going to be mediocre at best.

8b) Spells that give buffs to people that let them do other classes' jobs as good as that class can should be heavily restricted, need massive energy investiture (works best in point systems, so that costs of individual spells can be adjusted), or be just plain nonexistent. Spells that let classes with certain abilities do those abilities better DO have a place, though.

9) This is a very hazy issue, and one that I'm hesitant to gut an entire school of magic over. The best solution is to make that information comparatively hazy, with as few specifics as possible. That, and make getting detailed info the realm of high levels, where there are more counters (both direct and otherwise) to this sort of thing.

10) This would be best fixed if a proper 'speed' system were in place. My thoughts are of there being two types of speed; perception (how fast you can perceive something and mentally react to it, also allows mental actions to go faster), and movement (how fast you can go about and act, from actual movement speed to attacks/round, and other related things). Magic allows for modification of a person's base speed levels (everyone gets a rating; 0 is normal, -2 is {Slow}, +2 is {Haste}, +mid-20s is {Time Stop}), but this is heavily reliant on personal training, and the vast majority of casting classes (and most gishes) don't allow for that kind of training (and most casted spells can't be sped up that way).


The second thing that needs to be done would be, somewhat obviously, the elevation of Martial classes and (to a lesser degree) Martial abilities in general. For future reference, my benchmark for a target Tier is 3 to 2, with a FEW things being strictly better than magic, though it must be kept in balance so we don't get the inverse issue of PC's gimping themselves by picking a magic class. To do this, several things NEED to be adressed.

1) Feats for Martial bonuses are almost across the board strictly weaker pound-for-pound than Magic feats, sometimes even for Martial classes themselves. This needs to be changed. Frozen Feet's Feat synergy homebrew goes a long way towards this, though his method is somewhat intricate, and would work much better if some program existed to keep track of everything automatically (doesn't seem like a hard problem, just a drawn-out one).

2) +1 to BAB and similar bonuses (+1 damage especially) just simply aren't worth what they cost, even when they're a part of a cool feat tree. Unless if the party's starting out at a higher level, actually surviving to that point can be an issue. This problem exists mainly thanks to how combat is put together, but aspects of this can at least be made better one-by-one.

For example, precision damage; I want this switched from a class ability for certain ones into a damage bonus based on how much a character beats their opponent's AC by, with classes who get precision damage getting their damage multiplied if they satisfy their regular conditions. Another example would be the different mundane damage types actually meaning something more than HP damage; bludgeoning could do improved damage against armor (more on this later) with some dazing and possible forced repositioning, piercing could bypass armor better (ditto) and more difficult-to-heal wounds, and slashing could do improved damage to lightly armored & unarmored targets (I'm repeating myself, aren't I?) and help disable the limbs it hits.

3) Situations where magic use is ill-advised or even completely prohibited are almost entirely generated by other Magic-users, either directly (spells, SU, SLA, etc.) or indirectly (who makes that Anti-Magic Field item?). This can be helped by a combination of things, but the main issue here is that 3.5 was designed from the ground up with magic being the glue that holds everything together. Changing that makes it an entirely different game, whether it's better or worse is irrelevant.

4) Even discounting the top 40% best spells out there, the abilities that Martials get just simply don't match up to the power and versatility provided by spells. The fact that most caster classes have either their entire class spell list to play with or can add to their own list when desired with no upper limits means they also get several times as many abilities as well. If this is to be fixed, Martials need to either get a large list of things they can do (ToB method), or have the things they can do upgraded to provide that versatility themselves (turn the one-trick-ponies into living Swiss Army Knives, with one of the bits being a full-size lightsaber).

5) Thanks in part to #4, a great deal of the benefit that at least 2 of the things that Martial classes get that's almost strictly better than what casters get in the category (hit dice and protective proficiencies) can be partially or completely negated (either by most spells being touch-attacks or most of the rest being area'effect, with several of both being save-or's rather than hp damage).

One idea of mine is to make armor work differently; rather than just giving a bonus to AC, it serves as a sort of secondary HP for the wearer, taking damage instead of the wearer as described in a percentages table (bludgeoning, slashing, piercing, elemental, raw magic, etc.) rounded up (if something says it takes 1% of damage and the wearer takes only 1 damage, the armor takes the 1 damage). This would help make certain skills MUCH more relevant, which is usually better than it is worse. Obviously, classes that have precision damage right now would be able to bypass certain percentages of armor, but still. Also bear in mind that Hardness still applies.


Obviously, these are the words of someone not in the Tabletop RPG industry, so take it with a barrel of salt. Hopefully someone more experienced with this sort of thing can take my balls and run with them to somewhere fun.

That sounded wrong for some reason.


EDIT: Notepad is stupid sometimes. ^_^;;