Is Magic itself Overpowered?

[Brova]

Agreed. However, I think that what changes is not which power levels are available, but the arc of what power levels are available when and for how long. Rather than an either/or, I would posit that the preferable solution would be both/and. This would prolong the Lord of the Rings through Mistborn power levels, and compress the Magic: the Gathering levels toward the top (where the game might be approaching epic-level anyway).

While prolonging the number of levels that LotR through Mistborn lives at is fine, I think it's actually better to cut down the number of levels and change the leveling system. If your story is best told at 5th level, you should just stay 5th level until that story ends or advances to a point where you need to be 6th level or 8th level or 15th level. That also removes all of the problematic aspects of XP points. At that point, it's just down to defining what "tiers" should exist, deciding how many levels of granularity should happen at each of those tiers, and designing a system that works that way.


Part of the problem is that it is quite exclusively the magic system (and by extension, magic items, spell-like abilities, etc) that facilitates the shift from low to mid to high level capabilities.

Yes. That's because the "magic" power source can break with reality in a way that the "swords" power source doesn't. You can either fix that by allowing everyone to use the magic power source, or by allowing the swords power source to grant high level abilities.


I mean sure, we could suddenly say, "An Angel of the Lord grants you the ability to cast spells as a Cleric with a level equal to your Hit Dice" or "Your ancient Atlantean blood gives you the ability to cast spells as a Sorcerer of the same level," but if it were my character, I might respond with something like "Can't we just do an adventure where my character's force of personality and martial prowess are still relevant instead?"

I don't think there's any easy answer for that.

There are two solutions to that problem.

The first is the one you've outlined. You decide when "has a sword" stops being level appropriate, and then you force people to become Angel Blessed or Dragon Knights or Demon Samurai or whatever. And there is the possibility that people won't want to do that, but I think if you emphasize that doing that is how high level works and that playing at whatever level has the stories you want to tell is acceptable, you would cut down on that a lot. This solution is probably the easiest to implement in the current game (because you can just give people casting as you've described).

The second is to ensure all your classes scale to whatever power level you want. So rather than having a Knight class that is not level appropriate at 11th level and forcing people to become Planar Champions or Harmonic Crusaders, you have a Paladin class that simply naturally scales into having level appropriate high level abilities like "summon angels" or "divine invulnerability". So your "mundanes" aren't Fighter/Rogue/Ranger/Barbarian, they're the Hero (you are plucky, you get to shrug off status effects, inspire your allies, and slap people stunned), Assassin (you get shadow powers, probably some super lethal poisons), Beastmaster (you have a scaling animal/magical beast pet and you gain scaling animal/magical beast powers), and Berserker (your rage eventually makes you giant and lets you shatter mountains).

The first is easier to do in 3.5, but I think the second is better design.

[Ssalarn]

I should have called you on this earlier, and it's sort of dishonest to do it now, but really? Diplomacy? That's not really what anyone is going to consider "reasonable optimization". Also, the Rogue is better at it than you, because he has more skill points and can pick "take 10" as a Rogue ability.


I wanted to point out the big flaw in this reasoning. Having more skill points doesn't make you better at any 1 thing, it makes you better at a broader array of things. Not only does the bard get free effective skill ranks that don't count against his level granted skill points, putting the lie to the idea that the Rogue has more skill points, but the Bard has more reason to pump Charisma, and even if the Rogue pumps his Cha just as high, the Bard can use magic to pump both his Charisma and his effective Diplomacy score. Assuming equal system mastery, the Bard is always going to be a better Diplomancer.

[Tvtyrant]

But that's a different thing, and still not a thing that leads to anything like definitional power. I could make a long argument why not, but instead I'll just point at the healer. It's a class that acts in a manner roughly identical to that of the wizard, but despite its pile of subrules and thing swapping, it's still a weak class. It doesn't matter if you can do dozens of things if those dozens of things suck, and it doesn't matter if you can swap out those things for a set of different things out of thousands if those thousands of things aren't all that different.


But it doesn't actually switch subrules. Every one of the spells given to the Healer is the same until it reaches Gate, where it suddenly gets actual choices. You could remake the Healer into a mundane type with exactly three abilities and it would be the same. Lay on Hands during combat, Remove any damage or status effects out of combat with a 10 minute ceremony (the list grows to include more status effects with each level) and a unicorn at level 8.

The Healer, the Warmage and the Duskblade all share the issue of doing exactly one thing with a bunch of different names. They could all be rewritten as mundane characters quite easily.

[eggynack]

But it doesn't actually switch subrules. Every one of the spells given to the Healer is the same until it reaches Gate, where it suddenly gets actual choices. You could remake the Healer into a mundane type with exactly three abilities and it would be the same. Lay on Hands during combat, Remove any damage or status effects out of combat with a 10 minute ceremony (the list grows to include more status effects with each level) and a unicorn at level 8.

The Healer, the Warmage and the Duskblade all share the issue of doing exactly one thing with a bunch of different names. They could all be rewritten as mundane characters quite easily.
But whether they're capable of being rewritten as mundane or not, the fact remains that they are definitely magic. Magic is therefore not powerful by some underlying definition. It's just powerful in the specific cases we're working with. Alternatively, we could always look to the adept instead. Granted, they're more powerful than a fighter by the tier system, but they're also on the same level as a barbarian, and that class does feature some variety in their casting. You can't condense that class down to one simple ability in the same way, isn't enough to grant a high tier in and of itself. Bards are similar, except their faster and more potent casting actually does put them on a level above most mundanes. It's not hard to imagine a somewhat less powerful bard, falling in a more central spot in tier three, however.

[Psyren]

I wanted to point out the big flaw in this reasoning. Having more skill points doesn't make you better at any 1 thing, it makes you better at a broader array of things. Not only does the bard get free effective skill ranks that don't count against his level granted skill points, putting the lie to the idea that the Rogue has more skill points, but the Bard has more reason to pump Charisma, and even if the Rogue pumps his Cha just as high, the Bard can use magic to pump both his Charisma and his effective Diplomacy score. Assuming equal system mastery, the Bard is always going to be a better Diplomancer.

And let's not even bring up Bluff, where the Bard kills everyone (and lies about where the bodies are buried.)

[Troacctid]

But it doesn't actually switch subrules. Every one of the spells given to the Healer is the same until it reaches Gate, where it suddenly gets actual choices. You could remake the Healer into a mundane type with exactly three abilities and it would be the same. Lay on Hands during combat, Remove any damage or status effects out of combat with a 10 minute ceremony (the list grows to include more status effects with each level) and a unicorn at level 8.

That's not true. Healers gain access to the Symbol of X line of spells, plus all Cleric spells of 4th level or lower, starting at level 12, not to mention good chunks of the Sorcerer/Wizard list at 12 and 16. True, it's a couple spell levels behind (except for the Symbols, which are actually ahead), but given that you're effectively quickening them all for free, I think it's pretty fair.

[Gemini476]

That's not true. Healers gain access to the Symbol of X line of spells, plus all Cleric spells of 4th level or lower, starting at level 12, not to mention good chunks of the Sorcerer/Wizard list at 12 and 16. True, it's a couple spell levels behind (except for the Symbols, which are actually ahead), but given that you're effectively quickening them all for free, I think it's pretty fair.

All of that except the Symbol of X bit is as a subset of the "get a Unicorn" ability, though. Which is so nonmagical that it's an (Ex) ability on the original class. Of course, even then just saying that they get access to the Symbol of X spells is a bit of an understatement - they get a smattering of useful non-healing spells through the levels as well, like Speak with Animals, Protection from Evil, Create Food and Water, Freedom of Movement, True Seeing, Repulsion, Discern Location, Holy Aura, and Foresight.

...Speaking of which, while looking through the spell list I noticed that the Symbol of X spells aren't on there. I guess they're a subset of the "Get a Unicorn" ability as well? It's a pretty darn good Animal Companion/Special Mount-esque ability, truth to be told.



Although it is interesting to note that the Healer does break one unwritten rule - it's a prepared caster with the spell slots of a Sorcerer. (Written rules that it "breaks" include being able to talk with animals, avoiding surprise, and being able to remove energy/ability drain. Remember, it's not that it actually breaks the game's rules - it's that it creates exceptions to them. Power Attack "breaks" the attack rules, since it lets you lower your attack roll to boost damage. Perhaps more obviously, Monkey Grip "breaks" the oversized weapon rules. It's an exception-based ruleset.)