How to convince my DM things are unbalanced (or the other way round)

[The Smallest]

I have been getting really frustrated with my DM recently because he refuses, despite all the evidence I give him, to acknowledge that things like wizards being more powerful than fighters are true.

For example:

Him: Wizards and fighters are balanced.
Me: But wizards are so much more powerful! They can fly, teleport, polymorph and so many other things!
Him: But fighters have more HP and can do more melee damage! If a fighter won initiative against a wizard he would kill him instantly!
Me: What if the wizard had a contigencied Teleport or Dimension Door?
Him: That doesnt count.
Me: Or if it was quickened?
Him: Umm.... They are balanced.

I could continue, but you get the idea.

Then there's things like him being convinced tibbits are overpowered because they can copy a 4th level wizard spell. When I told him they can only turn into a really weak cat, all he said was: Well, you're not the DM. Or the time he got it into his head goblins are better than humans because they have a +4 to Ride and Move Silently.

I just find this infuriating. Does anyone know how to get him to change his weird ideas of what is 'balanced' ?

[mrguymiah]

I have been getting really frustrated with my DM recently because he refuses, despite all the evidence I give him, to acknowledge that things like wizards being more powerful than fighters are true.

For example:

Him: Wizards and fighters are balanced.
Me: But wizards are so much more powerful! They can fly, teleport, polymorph and so many other things!
Him: But fighters have more HP and can do more melee damage! If a fighter won initiative against a wizard he would kill him instantly!
Me: What if the wizard had a contigencied Teleport or Dimension Door?
Him: That doesnt count.
Me: Or if it was quickened?
Him: Umm.... They are balanced.

I could continue, but you get the idea.

Then there's things like him being convinced tibbits are overpowered because they can copy a 4th level wizard spell. When I told him they can only turn into a really weak cat, all he said was: Well, you're not the DM. Or the time he got it into his head goblins are better than humans because they have a +4 to Ride and Move Silently.

I just find this infuriating. Does anyone know how to get him to change his weird ideas of what is 'balanced' ?

Tell him to make the best fighter he can, make the best wizard you can, then kick his butt a dozen times to Sunday? I mean, I don't know your situation, but someone just refusing to accept something is hard to change. Gaming, politics, religion, or whatever you pick, it's hard to change someone's mind once they're set.

[Inevitability]

Start by introducing him to OOTS. Then, inform him about the OOTS-subforum. From there, slowly nudge him to the 3.5-subforum. Once he gets here, you'll be surprised how quickly his assumptions about the system change.

[Vizzerdrix]

Play a wizard. Sweep an encounter as fast as you can. Bonus points if you can do in before anyone else act. Next encounter, sit back, and tell the fighter its his turn. Bonus points if you bring a lounge chair and sip a drink served in a coconut. Extra bonus points if you bring enough for everyone both in and out of character.

[Tohsaka Rin]

Now now, let's do things fair, and not 'slap the DM in the face with his wrongness'. That's for the WILLFULLY ignorant, not someone who doesn't understand the nuance of the system.

At the end of your next session, ask the players to jot down on post-its one or two challenges for a single character to tackle. Ask them to make them somewhat difficult, but reasonably possible, for say... A 10th level character.

Ask them to keep the information to the notes, and not speak them aloud, or share them. Take the stack, put it in an envelope. Then ask the DM to whip up a good 10th level fighter. You make an 8th level wizard.

Next session, once it's over, pull out the envelope (best if you actually have another player keep it SEALED, so you can go 'the envelope please') and your wizard.

Have another player pull out a note, and read it outloud. You and the DM take a sheet of paper, and quietly write down what you do. Another note, write down your answer.

By the time you're done, everyone settles in, and you both read out your results.

The results should be very obvious. And you'll have done it, without having to bash him over the head with a book screaming 'BRO, DO YOU EVEN FIREBALL?!'

[Beheld]

Step 1: Play the game.
Step 2: Play the game.
Step 3: Play the game.
Step 4: Play the game.

I mean, ultimately, there is nothing you can do about the fact that someone can't see the difference between turning into any monster in the MM, versus turning into a cat.

I mean, by that logic, Silent Image is a 9th level spell, Disguise Self is a 9th level spell, ect.

Ultimately, why do you care? Are you mad that other people are playing Wizards? Maybe they want to play Wizards. You could just let them play Wizards, that would probably be fine.

In time, he might notice that competently played Wizards do all the work, or he might not... doing a stupid arena fight isn't going to make things better. Trying to get Wizards banned so that everybody has to play boring fighters isn't going to get better.

[Tohsaka Rin]

In time, he might notice that competently played Wizards do all the work, or he might not... doing a stupid arena fight isn't going to make things better. Trying to get Wizards banned so that everybody has to play boring fighters isn't going to get better.

Some DMs feel that they need to make some special effort to keep the difficulty balanced. Some DMs feel that they need to up the difficulty, and ignore balance, forcing the 'over-powered' character to pick up the slack.

This is only ok if the group knows and understands this before starting the campaign.

Otherwise, you run the risk of the DM throwing a green dragon at a level 2 party. I am in no way joking.

It's also important for you to go back and see the OP was talking about their DM thinking Wizards are over-powered. That kind of makes it hard for the OP to enjoy playing a Wizard, if the DM keeps saying their class is over-powered (not to mention annoying) or tosses things WAY out of the party's league, just to make things interesting.

Speaking as someone who had a DM that did that sort of thing, it is not fun, and lead to a lot of arguing. Getting an 'accidental' TPK because the DM didn't understand he was throwing things way out of the party's league at them isn't something you want to have to experience a dozen times.

[Beheld]

It's also important for you to go back and see the OP was talking about their DM thinking Wizards are over-powered.

I think it's more important for you to go back and see that you are completely 100% extra double triple mega wrong.

[Extra Anchovies]

Tohsaka's suggestion (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?477636-How-to-convince-my-DM-things-are-unbalanced-(or-the-other-way-round)&p=20394844&viewfull=1#post20394844) is a very good one - the wizard's strength isn't in having the biggest hammer, but in having the biggest toolbox. A room full of orcs? The fighter can cut them down and get a few scratches for his trouble, or you can cast Sleep or Color Spray and poke out their eyes before they wake up. A locked door? The rogue can take 20 to open it using an otherwise pointless skill, or you can cast Knock and be through it in seconds. Even a fine-tuned, perfectly built ubercharger can probably only solve combat encounters - a similarly optimized wizard can solve any encounter.

It's also worth pointing out to him that wizards aren't automatically overpowered - after all, they could still prepare Read Magic in every slot and faff about as a commoner with a good will save. What makes the wizard a poorly balanced class is that it's so easy for them to be overpowered. A sensible wizard player will make sure to choose spells that enhance the rest of the party instead of obsoleting them. Treantmonk's guide to wizards (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=394.msg8043#msg8043) gives a good overview of how to play an effective wizard without stepping on the other player's toes (it is a bit heavy on the snark, though).

[Troacctid]

Fighters do more melee damage? Please. A single Fireball does more damage on average than most Fighters' full attacks. Wizards are better than Fighters? Warmages are better than Fighters.

[Darth Ultron]

It might help help if you were not such a believer. That will not win you any points.


But all the ''balance'' stuff is mostly theoretical.

And much more importantly the ''balance' stuff is based on how you play the game.

See, nearly everyone on the board only plays D&D ''one way''. And that ''one way'' makes dozes of assumptions, leaps of logic, leaps of non logic, rulings, judgments and such. And that all adds up to: the way people play the game makes for balance or unbalance.

For example: The people with this problem will say ''A wizard can take ANY spell (or feat or template) any time they want to absolutely.'' And, as long as your the type of person that things that is true, then you will have the balance problem.

Another great example, is that the people with the balance problem are rule fanatics, and that if page 22 does or ''kinda sort of maybe'' says something then it is absolute. So they will say ''everyone'' must follow the rules, like mindless slaves. So, when their ''broken'' wizard character does something, everyone must just sit back and go ''wow''. But put them in a game with an All-might DM and that is no longer true. The person will say ''I dos my awesome things like page 25 says I can!'' and the DM can just casually say ''nope, your magic backfires, your character explodes and dies.''

And this does not even touch upon all the stupid things like how the people ''read'' or ''interpret'' things, and, the out right cheating.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Is this actually a problem for your game? Does he ban things you want to play because of his weird notions of balance? Do your party casters actually play their classes to their full potential?

Because if the answer to those questions isn't "yes" there really isn't any need.
A lot of people had great fun with D&D for years without having the slightest idea about what we call optimization here, with wizards, clerics, fighters and rogues in the same party getting along fine without anyone feeling useless.

Don't try to fix what isn't broken. If you're so much better at optimization adjust your power level to the rest of the table.
Because chances are that all it will get you is a lot of bad blood and your group possibly kicking you out or breaking up.

Fighters do more melee damage? Please. A single Fireball does more damage on average than most Fighters' full attacks. Wizards are better than Fighters? Warmages are better than Fighters.

Is this sarcasm? Or are you counting "the damage of a Fireball when every square in the radius has an enemy"?
Because a 10th level fighter does more damage in a single hit than a CL 10 Fireball unless you stack on a lot of metamagic. Unless you're playing with really incompetent melee, i guess.

[Beheld]

For example: The people with this problem will say ''A wizard can take ANY spell (or feat or template) any time they want to absolutely.'' And, as long as your the type of person that things that is true, then you will have the balance problem.

Another great example, is that the people with the balance problem are rule fanatics, and that if page 22 does or ''kinda sort of maybe'' says something then it is absolute. So they will say ''everyone'' must follow the rules, like mindless slaves. So, when their ''broken'' wizard character does something, everyone must just sit back and go ''wow''. But put them in a game with an All-might DM and that is no longer true. The person will say ''I dos my awesome things like page 25 says I can!'' and the DM can just casually say ''nope, your magic backfires, your character explodes and dies.''

And this does not even touch upon all the stupid things like how the people ''read'' or ''interpret'' things, and, the out right cheating.

Maybe this isn't the best place for you to wage war on those dirty munchkin cheaters you hate who use rules and don't enjoy it when you use your big powerful manly phallic DM powers to blow up their characters?

[Cosi]

I suspect that the way to get the DM to change his mind is going to require both theoretical argument and actual play. Presenting an SGT will just cause him to complain about it not being "a real game", but an actual game will involve passive patches like artifact swords or monsters not using their abilities.

Ultimately though, people are right to say that if you aren't being told you can't play what you want, you should just play the game.


For example: The people with this problem will say ''A wizard can take ANY spell (or feat or template) any time they want to absolutely.'' And, as long as your the type of person that things that is true, then you will have the balance problem.

That's not the assumption that people make. If Wizards "just" get 2 spells/level, they still blow Fighters out of the water.

Also, if you tell people they can't pick whatever stuff they want, casters get (relative to non-casters) stronger not weaker. The reason the Fighter is able to do anything at all in an adventure with a high level Wizard is because he's allowed to buy items (or feats, or templates if LA wasn't awful).


The person will say ''I dos my awesome things like page 25 says I can!'' and the DM can just casually say ''nope, your magic backfires, your character explodes and dies.''

That's brilliant! If you just kill Wizards when they use abilities that make them better than Fighters, they won't be better than Fighters. Why aren't you writing D&D?


And this does not even touch upon all the stupid things like how the people ''read'' or ''interpret'' things, and, the out right cheating.

You mean like cheating by unilaterally altering the rules to punish players for picking a class you don't like?

[eggynack]

If you're trying to prove imbalance between magic and mundane, and not simply between wizards and fighters, I'd advise against using wizard in your comparison. Wizards are great, of course, but not ideal for this sort of thing. This is for a few reasons. First, while it's not easy to do by any means, or even always possible, screwing with a wizard is a facet of the game that it's easy to latch on to. They have those pouches, and a spell book, and they have a fragile familiar. There are workarounds for all these issues, but they're issues nonetheless, and they give the wizard unnecessary baggage. Second, the wizard relies on what spells they can access, and while that too has workarounds, it's all too easy to just say, "Yeah, that spell just isn't in any town."

Last and certainly not least, a comparison between wizards and fighters is inevitably one of incomparables. The fighter can hit things really hard, and the wizard can teleport the party, create illusions, control minds, see into the future, and so on into forever. Who's to say that all that stuff is strictly better than hitting things really hard? Well, I am, and a lot of people are, but it's a really hard thing to get to a concrete place. Do you value invisibility more or less than a solid AC defense, and more importantly, can you prove that it's worth more? Moreover, much of a wizard's power lies outside an arena, so any comparison that relies on an arena will miss out on a lot of wizard awesome.

That's why I tend more towards the druid or cleric side of things for this sorta thing. Both classes are incredibly resilient and adaptive, with few if any ways to cut off access to their power, and the druid especially has abilities that compare in really obvious ways to more melee inclined classes. How do you compare a fleshraker animal companion with venomfire to a fighter hitting enemies with a big stick? Really easily, it turns out, cause you're looking at direct melee ability comparisons. Even the druid's more out of the way combat stuff looks quite a bit like a combat maneuver, with more BFC effects and summoned fighters and occasionally a debuff. It's a setup where you can say, "Look at this animal companion. View how it alone compares to your fighter. Now add on a wild shape'd druid. View how it alone compares, and how it combined with the companion compares. Now add summoned creatures, one after the other. Now add spells. Is this not clear cut?" And then toss in the fact that you can teleport in addition to all of that. Makes all this stuff really obvious to my mind.

[Troacctid]

Is this sarcasm? Or are you counting "the damage of a Fireball when every square in the radius has an enemy"?
Because a 10th level fighter does more damage in a single hit than a CL 10 Fireball unless you stack on a lot of metamagic. Unless you're playing with really incompetent melee, i guess.

Back-of-the-envelope calculation:

Fighter: 2d6 (greatsword) + 9 (22 Str) + 2d6+1 (+1 weapon with two damage enchantments) + 10 (Power Attack for -5) = 34 damage to one enemy, no damage on a miss

Warmage: 10d6 + 2 (Warmage edge) = 37 damage to every enemy, half damage on a miss

There's some Power Attack math that depends on the enemy's AC, and the crit factor boosts the Fighter's numbers by like 8% or something, but basically the Fighter has to work pretty hard to match the damage output of a Warmage who has done literally no optimization at all, and the more enemies there are in the fight, the more he falls behind. (Remember that the Warmage switches to Orb of Fire if there's only one enemy.)

[Âmesang]

…so am I the only one picturing munchkin goblins riding enlarged goblins?

Last I checked horses and ponies don't get a +4 to Move Silently. :smalltongue:

[Darth Ultron]

Maybe this isn't the best place for you to wage war on those dirty munchkin cheaters you hate who use rules and don't enjoy it when you use your big powerful manly phallic DM powers to blow up their characters?

And by ''place'' to you mean ''online''?


That's not the assumption that people make. If Wizards "just" get 2 spells/level, they still blow Fighters out of the water.

Well, amazingly, if you tell the player of a wizard character ''you can not just pick any spell in any book you want'' they don't ''blow'' things away so much.



That's brilliant! If you just kill Wizards when they use abilities that make them better than Fighters, they won't be better than Fighters. Why aren't you writing D&D?

I know.




You mean like cheating by unilaterally altering the rules to punish players for picking a class you don't like?

It is not cheating if the DM does it. Only players cheat.

And wizard is my favorite class.

[Troacctid]

Well, amazingly, if you tell the player of a wizard character ''you can not just pick any spell in any book you want'' they don't ''blow'' things away so much.

Most of the most powerful spells in the game are in the Player's Handbook, so they probably still do, actually.

[Cosi]

Well, amazingly, if you tell the player of a wizard character ''you can not just pick any spell in any book you want'' they don't ''blow'' things away so much.

Core Fighter 10 versus Core Wizard 10 by RAW. No infinite loops. Who wins?


It is not cheating if the DM does it. Only players cheat.

No.

The DM is a player. The rules are a contract between players. The rules can allow some players to do things other players cannot (for example, they allow Wizards but not Fighters to cast teleport). But if they do not allow a player to do something, that player doing it is cheating.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Back-of-the-envelope calculation:

Fighter: 2d6 (greatsword) + 9 (22 Str) + 2d6+1 (+1 weapon with two damage enchantments) + 10 (Power Attack for -5) = 34 damage to one enemy, no damage on a miss

Warmage: 10d6 + 2 (Warmage edge) = 37 damage to every enemy, half damage on a miss

There's some Power Attack math that depends on the enemy's AC, and the crit factor boosts the Fighter's numbers by like 8% or something, but basically the Fighter has to work pretty hard to match the damage output of a Warmage who has done literally no optimization at all, and the more enemies there are in the fight, the more he falls behind. (Remember that the Warmage switches to Orb of Fire if there's only one enemy.)

That's the bare minimum for what i'd call a competent fighter, and it's only a single attack. Bonus feats are all the class features a fighter gets, so you either have to account for damage enhancing feats (Shock Trooper, Leap Attack, Knockback) or the additional AoO's a lockdown build gets with Combat Reflexes, a reach weapon and Improved Trip (which are core, so it's not exactly hard to find even for a newbie).
Most likely both, because he certainly has the feats for it. That increases damage by a considerable margin even without pounce/free movement for consistent full attacks.
Even core-only you can get a pretty hefty amount of damage going with a mounted combat build with a lance, which is hardly high optimization.

And that's disregarding more optimized stuff like Dungeon Crasher + Knockback, Enlarge Person, the Valorous weapon enhancement, a barbarian dip for pounce, Battle Jump, Knockdown, Robilar's Gambit.... melee damage is considerably easier to optimize than caster damage, and it's not like you're going to use those feats on anything else worthwhile.

There's also the fact that the Warmage can't throw Fireballs all day, and any metamagic he uses to keep up in damage will just reduce his staying power.
Getting decent blasting out of a Warmage takes at least as much optimization as a decent melee build, and it's not like you're going to win any awards for versatility with that.

Warmage is pretty much the worst option if you're going for a "casters are better than mundanes" argument. The only situation in which the Warmage is the better option is when the player has absolutely no idea what they're doing and/or is too lazy to look at even core-only, and that's hardly a situation you want to base your balance around.

[Beheld]

And by ''place'' to you mean ''online''?

No, by place I mean this thread. If you want to create your own thread about how much you hate dirty munchkin cheaters who play by the rules and love using your DM powers to kill characters for no reason, and how you think people should thank you for that, I would be happy to discuss it there. But here, in this thread, is not really the place for an anti-rules screed.


That's the bare minimum for what i'd call a competent fighter, and it's only a single attack. Bonus feats are all the class features a fighter gets, so you either have to account for damage enhancing feats (Shock Trooper, Leap Attack, Knockback) or the additional AoO's a lockdown build gets with Combat Reflexes, a reach weapon and Improved Trip (which are core, so it's not exactly hard to find even for a newbie).
Most likely both, because he certainly has the feats for it. That increases damage by a considerable margin even without pounce/free movement for consistent full attacks.
Even core-only you can get a pretty hefty amount of damage going with a mounted combat build with a lance, which is hardly high optimization.

And that's disregarding more optimized stuff like Dungeon Crasher + Knockback, Enlarge Person, the Valorous weapon enhancement, a barbarian dip for pounce, Battle Jump, Knockdown, Robilar's Gambit.... melee damage is considerably easier to optimize than caster damage, and it's not like you're going to use those feats on anything else worthwhile.

There's also the fact that the Warmage can't throw Fireballs all day, and any metamagic he uses to keep up in damage will just reduce his staying power.
Getting decent blasting out of a Warmage takes at least as much optimization as a decent melee build, and it's not like you're going to win any awards for versatility with that.

His point, amply made by the fact that you are immediately started referencing only the pure gouda cheese of melee damage builds, is that with no optimization besides basic core race + basic core class + basic Core feats, the Warmage does more damage at the same optimzation level. Now you can totally stack every imaginable damage boosting source in the game to make a hyper ubercharger build, and then the Warmage can be an Olin Girsir/Loremaster or god forbid Incantatrix with Arcane Thesis on some select spells who does Chained 500 untyped damage touch attacks. That's fine, you can compare those, but his specific point was:

"Fighters do more melee damage? Please. A single Fireball does more damage on average than most Fighters' full attacks. Wizards are better than Fighters? Warmages are better than Fighters."
It wasn't supposed to be a strong comparison, it was supposed to be an example about how the basic fighters that people think to build before going on forums are really weak. Certainly you can do other things, but that wasn't the comparison.

[Troacctid]

Yes, it's the bare minimum for a Fighter, and the bare minimum for a Warmage. You can stack up additional optimization on both sides if you like, but on average, the Warmage is doing less work to achieve the same or better damage, while simultaneously having a wider variety of tactical and strategic options.

And while it's theoretically possible for a Warmage to run out of ammunition...in practice, they have a lot of ammunition. They're probably not going to run out.

[sleepyphoenixx]

His point, amply made by the fact that you are immediately started referencing only the pure gouda cheese of melee damage builds, is that with no optimization besides basic core race + basic core class + basic Core feats, the Warmage does more damage at the same optimzation level. Now you can totally stack every imaginable damage boosting source in the game to make a hyper ubercharger build, and then the Warmage can be an Olin Girsir/Loremaster or god forbid Incantatrix with Arcane Thesis on some select spells who does Chained 500 untyped damage touch attacks. That's fine, you can compare those, but his specific point was:


Fighters actually spending their bonus feats is now cheese? Even core only you still get Power Attack + Lance + Combat Reflexes + Improved Trip. That's "pure gouda cheese" now?
That's still more damage per round than a spell on a single target, and if you get off a full attack it's also more AoE than a Fireball unless you fight hordes of mooks. Without limited uses/day.
You're also still providing BFC, while the Warmage doesn't do anything but damage.

Yeah, if by "minimum optimization" you mean "took no (or no relevant to his build) feats" the Warmage does more damage. Barely, if the fighter doesn't get full attacks or AoO's.
As i said at the end of my post (which you didn't quote), do you really want to make assumptions about the balance of melee classes when the player in question is incapable of looking up core-only feats? Because the only case where the Warmage is actually on par is if the Fighter is literally too dumb or lazy to read.

[Troacctid]

My assumption was that the Fighter is spending his bonus feats on things like Blind-Fight and Improved [Whatever] that improve his utility rather than his damage. We could add Weapon Focus (greatsword), Weapon Specialization (greatsword), and Improved Critical (greatsword) into the equation if you like. That bumps his damage up to 38 on a hit and increases the chances of critting, which is like +15% damage or something? I dunno, that's more math than I want to do on the back of an envelope.

If you go with tripping as your main strategy, you lose a couple points of damage switching to a guisarme, and some more accounting for the additional fail case where you lose the opposed Strength check and fumble all your attacks for the turn.


You're also still providing BFC, while the Warmage doesn't do anything but damage.

Sure, I guess. I mean the Warmage only has Sleet Storm, Stinking Cloud, Black Tentacles, Wall of Fire, Cloudkill, Wall of Force, Acid Fog, and Blade Barrier...but the Fighter can trip people, so his battlefield control is way better. :smalltongue:

[Dr_S]

Back-of-the-envelope calculation:

Fighter: 2d6 (greatsword) + 9 (22 Str) + 2d6+1 (+1 weapon with two damage enchantments) + 10 (Power Attack for -5) = 34 damage to one enemy, no damage on a miss

Warmage: 10d6 + 2 (Warmage edge) = 37 damage to every enemy, half damage on a miss

There's some Power Attack math that depends on the enemy's AC, and the crit factor boosts the Fighter's numbers by like 8% or something, but basically the Fighter has to work pretty hard to match the damage output of a Warmage who has done literally no optimization at all, and the more enemies there are in the fight, the more he falls behind. (Remember that the Warmage switches to Orb of Fire if there's only one enemy.)

I don't have an opinion on the discussion at hand, in part because it's been done before and I doubt we'll see anything new.

However, the post you replied to was discussing the amount of damage a fighter can do period, not with a single attack. 10th level means unless he's charging or taking a move action, he's getting 2 attacks.

Against a single target, I'm guessing the fighter win's out on average damage, though obviously it depends on respective hit/miss chances. If they're dealing damage to an animated training dummy (and therefore no crit to make my math easier) then if the training dummy has a reflex high enough to give itself a 50% chance to save against fireball, (avg damage per spell being about 28 then) then a fighter would need to hit slightly higher than 50% to match the damage. (As in an effective attack bonus of +1 greater than the enemy's AC - 10 would make the difference in damage imperceptible)

Math on that:

Avg Damage for wizard = damage * %hit + 1/2 damage * (1-%hit)
in this case because %hit is 50% this translates to -
Avg Damage for wizard = .75 damage = 28 (using your value of 37 from above)

Avg Damage for Fighter = Sword * %hit + Sword (%hit-.25)

Avg Damage for Fighter / Sword = 2*%hit - .25

(Avg Damage for Fighter / Sword) + .25 = 2 * %hit

((Avg Damaget for Fighter / Sword) +.25)/2 = %hit

Since we're looking for point of match we'll set Avg damage to 28, and use your sword damage from above of 34

((34/28) +.25)/2 = %hit

.54% = %hit required for fighter to match damage with a fireball with a 50% chance of success.

Misses penalize the fighter more, so the fighter will need an ever higher attack bonus against harder to hit opponents, and might win out against a slow dumb opponent even with an attack penalty. (giving a +2 dex magic item to the training dummy if the 2 are dealing roughly equal damage will tip the damage in favor of the wizard, giving the training dummy 2 points of dex drain instead tips it towards the fighter)

Obviously in reality there's more to it than that, but you know... opportunity to do math.

[ATHATH]

I think we're derailing a little bit here. Why don't we all agree to disagree, and get back to the question?

I liked that envelope idea, and I think it would work well.

[Inevitability]

It is not cheating if the DM does it. Only players cheat.

And thus begins the Jedipotter saga, part II.

[Troacctid]

Remember, if there's only one enemy, the Warmage will probably be casting Orb of Fire instead of Fireball, which has a high chance of causing the opponent to skip their next turn (basically winning the whole encounter on action economy, assuming you have a full party). Also, if you model damage over two rounds, the melee Fighter is probably going to be charging on the first round because he won't be in range for a full attack, while the Warmage can cast his spells as a standard action regardless of relative positioning.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Sure, I guess. I mean the Warmage only has Sleet Storm, Stinking Cloud, Black Tentacles, Wall of Fire, Cloudkill, Wall of Force, Acid Fog, and Blade Barrier...but the Fighter can trip people, so his battlefield control is way better. :smalltongue:

Are you blasting or providing BFC? Because you're only doing one of them per round, and they're both eating up your spell slots.
The fighter meanwhile can do both at once. He has enough feats for lockdown and charging both, and he's going to do okay damage even on AoO's with Improved Trip.
Hell, he has more feats than there are decent melee feats in core, which alone should be enough to send him looking if non-core options like Warmage are on the table.:smalltongue:

And if we're talking about a fighter who is incapable of selecting efficient build options i'd say it's a little hypocritical to have the Warmage select only good spells.

Because lets face it, at an equal optimization level where the fighter doesn't know about Leap Attack, Shock Trooper, Spiked Chain, Knockdown or Dungeoncrusher the Warmage isn't likely to know about optimal caster strategy either.
One is swinging his weapon, the other throws Fireballs, the cleric prepares healing spells and the rogue is happy being the resident skillmonkey and shooting at stuff with a shortbow. None of them have ever heard of this newfangled "optimization" thing, and they're having fun anyway.

Because they're only getting into arguments about balance and relative cheese when one of them has greater system mastery, is incapable of toning it down and the rest don't want to learn.

[Troacctid]

And if we're talking about a fighter who is incapable of selecting efficient build options i'd say it's a little hypocritical to have the Warmage select only good spells.

Warmages don't select their spells. They're pre-selected. Every Warmage has all Warmage spells automatically and can cast them all spontaneously. That's basically the whole point of the Warmage.

The reason I use the Warmage as the benchmark here is because it takes almost no effort at all to match or exceed the damage output of a typical Fighter. The Warmage I used in my back-of-the-envelope calculation had zero feats and zero magic items and still did about as much damage as the Power Attacking Fighter (with a magic weapon, no less) against a single target, and easily crushed the Fighter's damage outputs against two or more enemies.

[Zanos]

The person will say ''I dos my awesome things like page 25 says I can!'' and the DM can just casually say ''nope, your magic backfires, your character explodes and dies.''
Something something Orcus.

[GnomishPride]

Proof that Wizards are unbalanced:
At 17th level the Wizard gets Wish
At 17th level the Fighter gets more BaB.
At 9th level the Wizard gets Teleport, and at 15th level they get Greater Teleport.
At 9th and 15th level the Fighter gets more BaB.
At Epic levels, the Wizard gains access to reality altering spells that can conceivably annihilate armies or even cities!
At Epic levels, the Fighter gets bonus feats.
Besides straight damage (which is easily done by Evokers), the wizards can accomplish so much more than the fighters. So many unique utility spells and functions that can change the course of the campaign. Meanwhile, a fighter whacks things (which can replaced with Fireball, Summon Monster, and so much more).
A wizard is a force of nature. A fighter is a guy with a stick.

[TheBrassDuke]

Wizards are better than Fighters? Warmages are better than Fighters.

Can I sig this?

[Beheld]

Fighters actually spending their bonus feats is now cheese? Even core only you still get Power Attack + Lance + Combat Reflexes + Improved Trip. That's "pure gouda cheese" now?

No, the things you actually said in your post, Leap Attack, Shocktrooper, a barbarian dip for pounce, Battle Jump, and Knockdown are cheese. He already mentioned Power attack in his post. You can build a tripstar fighter if you want, but you then you have to account for enemy actions and enemy types. You can claim to be Lance charging with your horse, but since the subset of enemies that either live in enclosed areas, fly, or can kill your horse incidentally while aiming attacks at you, and I don't want to get into you describing your plans to dismount run over, and remount a different horse for another charge...

Look, most fighters don't ride horses and charge for obvious reasons. Yes, your Leap Attack Battle Jump Valorous Weapon favored of Bahomet Shocktrooper Pounce Barbarian build is non-standard.

[Âmesang]

A wizard is a force of nature. A fighter is a guy with a stick.
If that fighter is Theodore Roosevelt, I'm going with him. :smallamused:

[sleepyphoenixx]

No, the things you actually said in your post, Leap Attack, Shocktrooper, a barbarian dip for pounce, Battle Jump, and Knockdown are cheese. He already mentioned Power attack in his post. You can build a tripstar fighter if you want, but you then you have to account for enemy actions and enemy types. You can claim to be Lance charging with your horse, but since the subset of enemies that either live in enclosed areas, fly, or can kill your horse incidentally while aiming attacks at you, and I don't want to get into you describing your plans to dismount run over, and remount a different horse for another charge...

Look, most fighters don't ride horses and charge for obvious reasons. Yes, your Leap Attack Battle Jump Valorous Weapon favored of Bahomet Shocktrooper Pounce Barbarian build is non-standard.

You'll notice that i've made a distinction between pretty standard non-core stuff (Leap Attack, Shock Trooper) and high optimization (Battle Jump, Valorous weapon, Pounce, Dungeoncrasher). A player doesn't even have to find half of them to be a decent melee threat - damage was never the fighters problem - and a good chunk are core or in the completes, which aren't exactly obscure sources.

What's non-standard is a 10th level fighter only having a single build-relevant feat. Taking a character that has 9-10 feats unspent as a basis for a comparison of relative strength makes no sense.

[Hiro Quester]

In our game last year, the party wizard figured out that the most effectively damaging spell he could cast was often to Haste the party ranger, fighter, rogue, and bard. Their increased damage output from a bonus to hit and an extra full BAB attack each was better than a few d6s of fireball damage (esp if enemy gets can save for half)

And that's kind of an important point here. The game is about teamwork. Players synthesizing their abilities and tactics to solve problems together.

Balance is mostly about everyone getting to feel like they can make a meaningful contribution to solving problems and getting things done.

Sure the wizard has many many many more options, for solving a wider variety of problems. But a good player of a wizard should be wary of making other players feel unnecessary. He often should st back and play a support role by laying out BFC and buffing/ protecting the other players, or debuffing enemies. That's why the wizard has so many spells with those functions. Rather than casting fireball, or summoning monsters, it's often more helpful to cast haste, invisibility, enlarge person, wall spells, protection from evil, etc.

So the wizard is not necessarily overpowered and unbalanced compared to the fighter.

But the player of a Wizard (or a cleric or Druid, as Eggynack points out) can certainly be overpowered and unbalanced if they want to be bit of a jerk and choose to play it that way. But that's the kind of play style that should get the DM having a quiet word about with the player about balance, and teamwork.

It's is harder for the player of a fighter to play that way, and for the DM to need to talk to them about not dominating encounters and stepping on everyone's roles.

It's about play style and attitude, not the class itself, that makes one overpowered. But it is certainly easier for the player of a wizard to be a jerk about it.

And a good DM can help ensure balance and teamwork, so that everyone has fun. They can also help manage things so that the wizard (Druid, cleric) is not played in an unbalanced, overpowered way.

[The Smallest]

Just to answer some things that were said in this thread:

No, I didn't only use the wizard/fighter example. I said the same thing about clerics, druids and sorcerers.

Yes, his funny ideas of balance are a problem. Not so much now since the party is in low levels, but as we get higher, the spellcasters will inevitably become more powerful and versatile than the fighter and ranger (because, for all the buffs piled on them, their capabilities will still, at best, amount to 'hitting things well').

Not to mention nerfing goblins and banning tibbits for being overpowered. (Although one player managed to circumvent the goblin nerf because of the DM's bad memory).

For those who gave suggestions, thanks. I'll try some of the gentler ones out, because he is not a guy who things like making god wizards to beat up fighters would sit well with.

[Tiri]

Hello. I play the goblin in the group Smallest is talking about, and I just thought I'd add that it's actually not so much the larger-scale things like fighter/wizard debates that are annoying, it's the little weird things like tibbits and goblins. For example, the other day I homebrewed a race for one of the other players, and was told that it couldn't have both low light and darkvision (because they are so powerful). Although I ended up adding both anyway and he didn't notice.

[Arael666]

Hello. I play the goblin in the group Smallest is talking about, and I just thought I'd add that it's actually not so much the larger-scale things like fighter/wizard debates that are annoying, it's the little weird things like tibbits and goblins. For example, the other day I homebrewed a race for one of the other players, and was told that it couldn't have both low light and darkvision (because they are so powerful). Although I ended up adding both anyway and he didn't notice.

Don't whispergnomes get both low light vision and darkvision, along with a lot more benefits? Sure, whispergnomes are not know for being balanced and all... but if they can get it along with fistfull of other awesome abilities, why can't your goblin get it too? Thats hardly powerfull imho.

[Serafina]

The main reason most races don't get both Darvision and Low-Light Vision is because they are redundant, and the former is really mostly an upgrade of the latter.

Now yes, Low-Light Vision does provide longer range of sight under starlight/moonlight, or if you are using a Bullseye Lantern/a Daylight spell. It also allows you to distinguish color, which can be useful under some circumstances.
But just for your standard "illuminate a dark room" value, they're more or less equal - except Low-Light requires you to carry a source of light. And that's a pretty severe drawback - a Rogue with Darkvision can sneak down a dark corridor unimpeded, without anyone seeing them coming, if they only have Low-Light Vision they need to carry a torch that'll give them away.

So really, adding Low-Light Vision on top of Darkvision is hardly broken. Look at what it adds - it basically only allows you to see farther in an outdoors environment, and allows you to see colors further away. Someone with Darkvision can, after all, just like a lamp if they need to inspect an object or such - unless light would give them away/is unavailable, in which case someone with Low-Light Vision can't see anything at all.


I think an approach like above would probably be good. Show your GM what changes and class differences actually do, and compare them to other things.


Sadly, it won't work on everything.
For example, for the Goblin argument - well, +4 to two skills is more powerful than Skill Focus. Feats that give a bonus to two skills only give +2 after all, so it's even better than two feats!
Now we all here know that both Skill Focus and feats like Stealthy are severely underpowered, and your GM is likely unaware of that.
Which is why you should not always go for strict numerical comparison. Numbers are nice, but they're generally nowhere near as important as options.

Instead, you should probably tell him things such as this:
- the Human Bonus feat is way more flexible. And at low levels, it's almost double the feats too.
- Having +4 to Ride and Move Silently is redundant. You'll only ever going to be doing one of those at one time. So they don't stack, they just provide an alternate option - just like the human bonus feat!
- Moreover, you won't be using those skills all the time, while there are feats that are good all the time.
- Furthermore, a bonus to Move Silently isn't that useful without a bonus to Hide. You need both to sneak around after all.
- And as for the Ride-skill, that bonus quickly becomes unimportant and just saves you a few skill points. The highest Ride-DC is what, 20? You'll be making that every time pretty soon with some Dexterity, equipment and skill ranks.
- Wax on about how it only provides a much more minor option than the human bonus feat does.

If he ever whacks out numbers in response - well, that's where you'll have him beat easily.
Counter "but the numbers are better" with "but there's only limited options" (mundane full-attack damage in general, the goblin-argument and other such things).
Counter "but it adds an entire new option" with pointing out that it's only a very limited option. If it actually is - lots of things that add options ARE very good on the balance-scale. (the Low-Light Vision/Darkvision argument".

[Tiri]

The main reason most races don't get both Darvision and Low-Light Vision is because they are redundant, and the former is really mostly an upgrade of the latter.

Now yes, Low-Light Vision does provide longer range of sight under starlight/moonlight, or if you are using a Bullseye Lantern/a Daylight spell. It also allows you to distinguish color, which can be useful under some circumstances.
But just for your standard "illuminate a dark room" value, they're more or less equal - except Low-Light requires you to carry a source of light. And that's a pretty severe drawback - a Rogue with Darkvision can sneak down a dark corridor unimpeded, without anyone seeing them coming, if they only have Low-Light Vision they need to carry a torch that'll give them away.

So really, adding Low-Light Vision on top of Darkvision is hardly broken. Look at what it adds - it basically only allows you to see farther in an outdoors environment, and allows you to see colors further away. Someone with Darkvision can, after all, just like a lamp if they need to inspect an object or such - unless light would give them away/is unavailable, in which case someone with Low-Light Vision can't see anything at all.

Ok, I'm not sure whether you didn't realize I was being sarcastic when I said Darkvision and Low Light Vision together were powerful, or if you are just telling me how to convince my DM they are not.


Sadly, it won't work on everything.
For example, for the Goblin argument - well, +4 to two skills is more powerful than Skill Focus. Feats that give a bonus to two skills only give +2 after all, so it's even better than two feats!
Now we all here know that both Skill Focus and feats like Stealthy are severely underpowered, and your GM is likely unaware of that.
Which is why you should not always go for strict numerical comparison. Numbers are nice, but they're generally nowhere near as important as options.

Instead, you should probably tell him things such as this:
- the Human Bonus feat is way more flexible. And at low levels, it's almost double the feats too.
- Having +4 to Ride and Move Silently is redundant. You'll only ever going to be doing one of those at one time. So they don't stack, they just provide an alternate option - just like the human bonus feat!
- Moreover, you won't be using those skills all the time, while there are feats that are good all the time.
- Furthermore, a bonus to Move Silently isn't that useful without a bonus to Hide. You need both to sneak around after all.
- And as for the Ride-skill, that bonus quickly becomes unimportant and just saves you a few skill points. The highest Ride-DC is what, 20? You'll be making that every time pretty soon with some Dexterity, equipment and skill ranks.
- Wax on about how it only provides a much more minor option than the human bonus feat does.

I actually did make some of these points, but was met with the BRILLIANT counterargument of 'well, monsters are balanced differently from PC's. If you want to know why, go talk to the designers.' He then refused to continue the discussion and kept repeating those words.

You know, I just read what I wrote and I'm really not sure why Smallest thinks he can change how this guy thinks. It seems so devoid of logic.

[Serafina]

It was meant to be a possible explanation.

And yes, "try communicating, if they're not willing to they're a bad player/GM" always holds true of course.

[Tiri]

Well, the thing is, he's not that bad a DM. Flexible enough and good at improvising. It's just his ideas of game balance that seem to be a magnified version of whatever WoTC was suffering from when they wrote the PHB.

[Alex12]

This is a good thing for you, actually. Why? Because it means he doesn't think wizards are OP. Which means he's less likely to ban their really powerful stuff. Which means you can try out all those ridiculous OP full-caster builds you want and then, when he says they're OP, put on your best ****-eating grin and tell him you thought Fighters and Wizards were balanced.

[SimonMoon6]

The DM's comment about balance ("You're not the DM") shows a worrying personality to me, the sort of person who thinks that there is a difference between "players" (you guys who aren't allowed to ever read the DMG) and "DMs" (the guys who've read everything and so know better than every single player in the universe so shut up and sit down, I'm always right).

I think the best fix for this would be to force him to be a player. And let him (force him to) play the "overpowered" things like a tibbit fighter. And everybody else is a wizard/druid/etc. And run him through adventures where a fighter's strengths are not the solutions to the problems. See how quickly he realizes his character sucks (though he may deflect that realization into "everybody hates me, the DM hates me, blah blah" since few people can face the fact that they are wrong).

[sleepyphoenixx]

I think the best fix for this would be to force him to be a player. And let him (force him to) play the "overpowered" things like a tibbit fighter. And everybody else is a wizard/druid/etc. And run him through adventures where a fighter's strengths are not the solutions to the problems. See how quickly he realizes his character sucks (though he may deflect that realization into "everybody hates me, the DM hates me, blah blah" since few people can face the fact that they are wrong).

And he wouldn't be wrong. If you go out of your way to make his character useless you're not proving anything about the game, just yourself.

Every DM has his flaws. The ones the OP mentioned don't sound like gamebreakers to me. Unless he really really wants to play a Tibbit, i guess.

[Arbane]

Proof that Wizards are unbalanced:
At 17th level the Wizard gets Wish
At 17th level the Fighter gets more BaB.
At 9th level the Wizard gets Teleport, and at 15th level they get Greater Teleport.
At 9th and 15th level the Fighter gets more BaB.
At Epic levels, the Wizard gains access to reality altering spells that can conceivably annihilate armies or even cities!
At Epic levels, the Fighter gets bonus feats.
Besides straight damage (which is easily done by Evokers), the wizards can accomplish so much more than the fighters. So many unique utility spells and functions that can change the course of the campaign. Meanwhile, a fighter whacks things (which can replaced with Fireball, Summon Monster, and so much more).
A wizard is a force of nature. A fighter is a guy with a stick.

I posted this to the demotivator thread,
http://i.imgur.com/jNT6Ce6.png

[Angelmaker]

Best bingo ever!:smallbiggrin:

[Zanos]

Just to answer some things that were said in this thread:

No, I didn't only use the wizard/fighter example. I said the same thing about clerics, druids and sorcerers.

Yes, his funny ideas of balance are a problem. Not so much now since the party is in low levels, but as we get higher, the spellcasters will inevitably become more powerful and versatile than the fighter and ranger (because, for all the buffs piled on them, their capabilities will still, at best, amount to 'hitting things well').

Not to mention nerfing goblins and banning tibbits for being overpowered. (Although one player managed to circumvent the goblin nerf because of the DM's bad memory).

For those who gave suggestions, thanks. I'll try some of the gentler ones out, because he is not a guy who things like making god wizards to beat up fighters would sit well with.
I mean, what's your objective here? Yeah it's obvious to anyone with a bit of system mastery that Wizard >>>>>>>>>>>>> Fighter, but unless the wizards are built in such a way to actually take advantage of where their power lies, and they way they do so actually makes it less fun for you to play, I don't feel there's a problem.

I currently play in the group(FR) where one of the characters is a straight barbarian. I usually just buff him and drop debuff'd enemies in front of him to wail on. We have plenty of fun, although I'm sure he's aware his character isn't technically as powerful.

If you want him to overhaul the caster classes or ban them outright, you're probably not going to have a good time. Most DM's I know are perfectly aware of the problem and don't do anything about it because the Wizard in their group(usually me) doesn't go out of his way to invalidate other classes.

[Apricot]

Don't convince him. Just play a Wizard, and only enter encounters in such a way that lets you show off how cool you are. No buffs on other players, save-or-sucks only sometimes, craft magical items just for yourself, and once you get access to various imprisonment-style spells, use those to lock the Fighter out. Make it a game: see how many encounters you can solo and how many plot points you can utterly negate. Speaking of Gate...

This is what to do if you want to be an ******* to him. Otherwise, the argument isn't worth making. If he and everyone else in your group think that Wizard is balanced, then just do standard imbalanced Wizardly things until they either realize what's happening... or don't. If they never figure it out, you can be a happy little munchkin destroying the whole campaign while the rest of them are blissfully unaware. I don't think that's so bad.

Remember that unless a Wizard is currently destroying the campaign and everyone's unhappy, you don't actually have to convince your DM of anything. Life doesn't assign bonus points for being proven right, after all.

[eggynack]

I feel a bit like we're arguing against ourselves here, because your DM hasn't really given any reason for thinking the game is balanced. Without specific claims to refute, I'm not all that sure what the point is.

[squiggit]

It feels like the best solution here is to just play the game.

'Forcing' the DM to learn by intentionally doing broken things is just as liable to cause animosity than it is to make any progress, but if you just play the game either the casters don't get played in a problematic way and everyone has fun, or the casters do act in a problematic way and the DM can have first hand experience managing it without having someone trying to mess with him to get there and you all can discuss what to do then.

Now the DM thinking things are overpowered when they aren't is the more problematic one, because it cuts options off. It's also harder to argue because you have to prove a negative.

The biggest issue here is that your DM doesn't seem to want to discuss these issues in the first place if his answer is really "shush I'm the DM". You can't refute him because he isn't even really making an argument.

[Ruslan]

I have been getting really frustrated with my DM recently because he refuses, despite all the evidence I give him, to acknowledge that things like wizards being more powerful than fighters are true.
<snip>
I just find this infuriating. Does anyone know how to get him to change his weird ideas of what is 'balanced' ?
I would suggest just making a character and playing it, teaching him by example. In other words, the solution to your problem is to play D&D. (you'd be surprised how often this is true)

[Tiri]

I mean, what's your objective here? Yeah it's obvious to anyone with a bit of system mastery that Wizard >>>>>>>>>>>>> Fighter, but unless the wizards are built in such a way to actually take advantage of where their power lies, and they way they do so actually makes it less fun for you to play, I don't feel there's a problem.

I currently play in the group(FR) where one of the characters is a straight barbarian. I usually just buff him and drop debuff'd enemies in front of him to wail on. We have plenty of fun, although I'm sure he's aware his character isn't technically as powerful.

If you want him to overhaul the caster classes or ban them outright, you're probably not going to have a good time. Most DM's I know are perfectly aware of the problem and don't do anything about it because the Wizard in their group(usually me) doesn't go out of his way to invalidate other classes.

For the Wizard vs. Fighter problem, I don't think it is an issue now (given the party is only level 4), but we are already seeing the roots of it, like the sorcerer using Alter Self to solve an otherwise impossible problem. What me and Smallest (the rest of the group doesn't have enough system mastery to get what this is about) are worried about is that if the DM doesn't recognize this, the party fighter and ranger will eventually be overshadowed by the casters (because there really isn't a way for them to solve most of the problems at higher levels, no matter how many buffs we pile on them), and the fighter player in particular is someone who will find that kind of ineffectualness frustrating. Not that the DM can do much about the casters being better than the noncasters, but I think it would help if he actually realized there is a problem. As I said, the main problem now is him blocking off completely innocent options under false notions that they are overpowered.


I feel a bit like we're arguing against ourselves here, because your DM hasn't really given any reason for thinking the game is balanced. Without specific claims to refute, I'm not all that sure what the point is.

Actually, I'm not sure why he does. From what I've managed to figure out, it's because he believes the designers of the core 3.5 books were completely infallible, and everything they wrote is somehow balanced under his weird ideas of it.

Using the Goblin Incident as an example:

Tiri: Can I play a goblin?
DM: No.
Tiri: Why?
DM: Ok, fine, but you have to use Half-orc stats. Goblins are monsters. This means they are balanced differently from PC races.
Tiri: But goblins even have a section on playing them as PCs!
DM: It is different.
Tiri: Just look at them!
DM: *looks* Ok, fine. I'm going to have to take away your +4 to Move Silently and Ride.
Tiri: What for?!
DM: The Half-orc doesn't have them.
Tiri: The Half-orc is the second weakest race is the PHB!
DM: No, it is balanced?
Tiri: If it is balanced, why does it have no racial features apart from stat modifiers at all?
DM: You'll have to ask the designers that. They must have made it to be balanced.
Tiri: WHY ARE YOU EVEN COMPARING THIS TO A HALF-ORC?! WHY NOT HUMAN OR HALFING OR ANY OTHER RACE?! (I didn't actually shout, just got a bit agitated)
DM: Half-orc is the race closest to being a monster.

I'm sure you can see why I don't share Smallest's faith that he can be changed.

[eggynack]

That's weird, but yeah, I'm not sure what workaround there is for that. I mean, if you're cool with higher level stuff, we had a thread awhile ago where a druid, at level 15 if I'm not mistaken, was constructed to beat a same leveled (or even higher leveled, I'd expect) fighter with something like a 100% success rate. Didn't even really require much in the way of specific build or anything. And, if your DM responds that that's balanced against some early level power, I'm sure I can get positive percentage in that level range too, though perhaps not 100%. Actually, if I wanted, I guess I could probably lower the required level some by using some wild shape level boosters, and there're probably whole new strategies involving aberration wild shape. Point is, if your DM is at all capable of seeing reason, then there're some trivial proofs for class superiority. If he's not, then what are we even doing?

[Zanos]

You should tell him that there's a goblin as a PC section, so it must be balanced somehow. After all, the designers, in their infiite wisdom, deemed to carve it from their minds and cast it into ink. Alternatively, inform him of the level adjustment mechanic, which the designers specifically applied to races that were more powerful than the "normal" races.

Really though, it's pretty unlikely that any logical argument will convince someone who doesn't respond to logical arguments.

[Platymus Pus]

A wizard is a force of nature. A fighter is a guy with a stick.

Didn't we kill nature with sticks? :smallwink:

[Jay R]

I think we're derailing a little bit here. Why don't we all agree to disagree, and get back to the question?

Because if we were all willing to agree to disagree, there is no question to get back to. It started with the OP asking how to keep his DM from disagreeing.

[Malroth]

Step 1) actually become a real wizard
Step 2) Cast dominate person on him and force him to admit he's wrong
Step 3) dismiss dominate person and listen to his argument that it doesn't count
Step 4) continue to play Dnd but when he argues that magic doesn't work that way demonstrate with real spells
Step 5) Give Up and use Planar binding to summon a new GM

[Marlowe]

Practicing domination and bondage with your DMs might well get you talked about.

[Tiri]

Sadly, all the DMs in the known universe are Humanoids.

[Beheld]

For the Wizard vs. Fighter problem, I don't think it is an issue now (given the party is only level 4), but we are already seeing the roots of it, like the sorcerer using Alter Self to solve an otherwise impossible problem. What me and Smallest (the rest of the group doesn't have enough system mastery to get what this is about) are worried about is that if the DM doesn't recognize this, the party fighter and ranger will eventually be overshadowed by the casters (because there really isn't a way for them to solve most of the problems at higher levels, no matter how many buffs we pile on them), and the fighter player in particular is someone who will find that kind of ineffectualness frustrating. Not that the DM can do much about the casters being better than the noncasters, but I think it would help if he actually realized there is a problem. As I said, the main problem now is him blocking off completely innocent options under false notions that they are overpowered.

Okay, let's say hypothetically the DM now instantly believes you. How does this make the game better?

[Tohsaka Rin]

The DM might not, let's saaaay.... Intentionally cut all monetary and goods gains by 75%, in a game that's based around wealth by level. Just speaking from personal experience here.

A caster with almost no money is still a caster.

A fighter with no money is... One of those bandits you fight traveling between two towns, who has a short sword, and two days rations.

Playing with a DM that doesn't understand what the power curve is between classes is going to make the game less fun.

[Psyren]

Is this actually a problem for your game? Does he ban things you want to play because of his weird notions of balance? Do your party casters actually play their classes to their full potential?

Because if the answer to those questions isn't "yes" there really isn't any need.
A lot of people had great fun with D&D for years without having the slightest idea about what we call optimization here, with wizards, clerics, fighters and rogues in the same party getting along fine without anyone feeling useless.

Don't try to fix what isn't broken. If you're so much better at optimization adjust your power level to the rest of the table.
Because chances are that all it will get you is a lot of bad blood and your group possibly kicking you out or breaking up.


Is this sarcasm? Or are you counting "the damage of a Fireball when every square in the radius has an enemy"?
Because a 10th level fighter does more damage in a single hit than a CL 10 Fireball unless you stack on a lot of metamagic. Unless you're playing with really incompetent melee, i guess.

Best post so far. Only fix it if it's causing problems, not to win debate points like we do.

[Tohsaka Rin]

So, question.

Party A has a Fighter, a Wizard, a Rogue, and a Ranger.

Party B has a Wizard, a Wizard, a Rogue, and a Ranger.

Which of the two groups looks like it has overall more punch to it?

To someone who knows the difference in the power curve between a Fighter and a Wizard, B would be the answer, usually.

To someone who doesn't, these groups look equally capable.

Saying 'just play the game' and 'ignore the problem, it's just your perception' are forgetting that a DM who doesn't understand the inherent imbalance in the game is going to throw stuff at the party that they simply aren't equipped to deal with.

If they players know what the problem is, but the DM refuses to listen, this is only going to make the players frustrated, and then angry. System mastery is not a requirement of basic understanding. You don't need to know how to make a glass-cannon uber-charger to understand that a fighter vs a dragon isn't going to end well, at any level.

Most of us on here know this. The problem is we're talking about a person running a game that doesn't understand WHY this is a problem.

[Beheld]

So, question.

Party A has a Fighter, a Wizard, a Rogue, and a Ranger.

Party B has a Wizard, a Wizard, a Rogue, and a Ranger.

Which of the two groups looks like it has overall more punch to it?

To someone who knows the difference in the power curve between a Fighter and a Wizard, B would be the answer, usually.

To someone who doesn't, these groups look equally capable.

Saying 'just play the game' and 'ignore the problem, it's just your perception' are forgetting that a DM who doesn't understand the inherent imbalance in the game is going to throw stuff at the party that they simply aren't equipped to deal with.

Except that presumably the players chose those characters because they wanted to play them. So the DM realizing that the second party is stronger isn't going to change anything, because the DM is still going to give the same challenges to the same party, the only party that exists.

If the OP is saying "I want to play a Fighter, and then have the DM give me super low ball challenges of monsters several CR lower then our level, because otherwise I can't keep up" then he should figure out a way to build a better character that does the things he wants, instead of demanding that the DM do two to three times as much work.

Yes, the game is better when the DM understands balance, but the OP doesn't sound like he wants the DM to understand, it sounds like really just wants to nerf the other PCs into the ground. That sort of thing doesn't make the game better, it makes it worse.

[Tohsaka Rin]

Having played under a DM who did not understand the power curve between classes, I had a very frustrating time, as well as the rest of my table-mates.

Because a DM who sees a Fighter as powerful as a Wizard, is going to throw stuff at the party that a Wizard could nuke.

A DM that sees parties A and B as the same strength is going to throw stuff at the party that will probably take six fireballs to handle. Party A will NOT have six fireballs on hand. Do you see the problem now?

This isn't some sort of trick question, or theoretical debate. This is putting a Ferrari, a Corvette, a Porsche, and a VW Golf together, and being surprised when the Golf doesn't keep up with the Ferrari.

The guys driving the cars are fine running races the Golf can handle, the person picking the races is throwing them into drag races, and acting surprised when the Golf comes in dead last every time, and brings the entire party down.

A DM who understands the power curve will give each player at the table a chance to shine, regardless of their system mastery, character class, or equipment choices.

A DM who doesn't throws stuff at the party, and is surprised when they TPK on the first encounter. Because a rested Wizard has all his spells.

A Fighter has no spells.

But the DM doesn't get that the Fighter can't match up to a Fireball and a quickened Cone of Cold on turn 1.

[Beheld]

Because a DM who sees a Fighter as powerful as a Wizard, is going to throw stuff at the party that a Wizard could nuke.

A DM that sees parties A and B as the same strength is going to throw stuff at the party that will probably take six fireballs to handle. Party A will NOT have six fireballs on hand. Do you see the problem now?

A DM is going to throw monsters out of the MM at both parties. If your party can't deal with that, make better characters. If your party can deal with that, then you can deal with that.

[eggynack]

Yeah, if we're being realistic here, this DM that considers the word of the designers infallible is unlikely to stray too far from the established CR guidelines. That could be thought a slight problem in and of itself, but it's a different sort of problem, and not an especially critical one.

[Tohsaka Rin]

Right. So if the party fights a few Rust Monsters, it's fine, they're only CR3, a Wizard and a Fighter should have no problems.

Oh wait.

Oh, well, what about some of the things from MM2?

Oh wait.

There are several places where the books are a bit of a buggy mess, it's fair to say. A DM who has experience, understanding of the system, and is willing to listen to other people and accept that they may be wrong... Will have no problem running a fair and fun game with the players.

Or, you get a DM like I had, who didn't see why a TPK happened, the monster was only 2 CR higher than the party... Of only 3 players. Who didn't have a single spellcaster, because the DM banned them from the campaign. And ran it with no loot or money whatsoever.

Guys, I'm not saying the OP's DM is a monster, but if they say certain things, I'm going to presume that the problem isn't just 'Wizard=Fighter'.

[Psyren]

Saying 'just play the game' and 'ignore the problem, it's just your perception' are forgetting that a DM who doesn't understand the inherent imbalance in the game is going to throw stuff at the party that they simply aren't equipped to deal with.

This doesn't follow - why would he be guaranteed to do this?

Hell, if anything, his encounters are going to be too easy - OP's DM thinks Wizard is underpowered and Fighter is stronger, remember? He's going to be bringing out things that challenge the fighter, which means a controller wizard is going to have them standing on their heads in single-file in no time.

[killem2]

Your only options are:


Quit and find another group.
Play a wizard anyway. It's not like they are short on ways to be over powered.

_____i. Get grease on demand. Fill up ever slot with it. Invalidate almost every encounter.
_____i. Go summoning Specialist, fill up the field with your own fighters.
_____i. Go the worst of wizards - Evocation. Deal damage. Deal so much damage there isn't a point in having a fighter.
_____i. Go diviner - learn about everything before it happens lol.

[Tohsaka Rin]

This doesn't follow - why would he be guaranteed to do this?

Hell, if anything, his encounters are going to be too easy - OP's DM thinks Wizard is underpowered and Fighter is stronger, remember? He's going to be bringing out things that challenge the fighter, which means a controller wizard is going to have them standing on their heads in single-file in no time.

No, the problem isn't 'The DM thinks the Wizard is as weak as the Fighter.'

The problem is 'The DM thinks the Fighter is as STRONG as the Wizard.'

There's a very big difference between the two.

[sleepyphoenixx]

No, the problem isn't 'The DM thinks the Wizard is as weak as the Fighter.'

The problem is 'The DM thinks the Fighter is as STRONG as the Wizard.'

There's a very big difference between the two.

Except that players at that level of optimization are far more likely to prepare Fireball and Magic Missile instead of Grease and Glitterdust.
A challenge for a non-optimized blaster wizard is just fine for a fighter.

That's the whole point. It doesn't matter if the wizard is theoretically T1 when the player plays him like a (non-optimized) Warmage. He's effectively T4-5.

[eggynack]

Right. So if the party fights a few Rust Monsters, it's fine, they're only CR3, a Wizard and a Fighter should have no problems.

Oh wait.

Oh, well, what about some of the things from MM2?

Oh wait.

There are several places where the books are a bit of a buggy mess, it's fair to say. A DM who has experience, understanding of the system, and is willing to listen to other people and accept that they may be wrong... Will have no problem running a fair and fun game with the players.

Or, you get a DM like I had, who didn't see why a TPK happened, the monster was only 2 CR higher than the party... Of only 3 players. Who didn't have a single spellcaster, because the DM banned them from the campaign. And ran it with no loot or money whatsoever.

Guys, I'm not saying the OP's DM is a monster, but if they say certain things, I'm going to presume that the problem isn't just 'Wizard=Fighter'.
Yeah, hence me saying that it could still be a problem. But, a different problem, and a less critical problem, and one that's likely not going to be solved in this context, unless you want to personally vet every one of this DM's encounters, assuming that's even a thing they'd let you do. Even were you to prove to this person that CR is borked, it's not like that'd have plausible ramifications on how the DM builds stuff, given their established lack of ability to natively understand balance. After all, there's no easy to reference tier system for monsters.

[Psyren]

No, the problem isn't 'The DM thinks the Wizard is as weak as the Fighter.'

The problem is 'The DM thinks the Fighter is as STRONG as the Wizard.'

There's a very big difference between the two.

I didn't get that from the OP though; his DM didn't say "Fighters can fly, teleport etc." He seems to be basing his assessment entirely on straight DPR, which means his encounters would be weaker as they're only taking raw damage into account.

[Tohsaka Rin]

Except that players at that level of optimization are far more likely to prepare Fireball and Magic Missile instead of Grease and Glitterdust.
A challenge for a non-optimized blaster wizard is just fine for a fighter.

That's the whole point. It doesn't matter if the wizard is theoretically T1 when the player plays him like a (non-optimized) Warmage. He's effectively T4-5.

The problem isn't optimization. The problem is the DM seeing that as a whole, the Fighter is a Tier 1.

@Psyren

I'm speaking from personal experience, so obviously my views are going to be colored differently than the OP's situation.

In my personal experience, the DM was continually cranking up the CRs we were facing, because the DM wasn't thinking things by numbers. They were thinking 'Wizard strong! Fighter strong!'

You have to remember that people who make knee-jerk opinions aren't going to carefully address problems. They're going to apply the hammer until it goes away. In the case of DMs who don't understand where they're making mistakes, they're just keep using bigger, and bigger hammers.

In the case of the OP...



Him: Wizards and fighters are balanced.
Me: But wizards are so much more powerful! They can fly, teleport, polymorph and so many other things!
Him: But fighters have more HP and can do more melee damage! If a fighter won initiative against a wizard he would kill him instantly!
Me: What if the wizard had a contigencied Teleport or Dimension Door?
Him: That doesnt count.
Me: Or if it was quickened?
Him: Umm.... They are balanced.


Even when given examples that blatantly prove the DM's own example wrong, he ignores them in favor of his own stance.

[Agincourt]

Well, the thing is, he's not that bad a DM. Flexible enough and good at improvising. It's just his ideas of game balance that seem to be a magnified version of whatever WoTC was suffering from when they wrote the PHB.

I can see how it's frustrating not to be able to play the character you want, such as a goblin. But on the whole, you're having a good time.

There does seem to be a disconnect here, though. On the one hand, your DM believes the designers well-balanced everything and on the other hand seems to believe monster races are unbalanced. If you succeed in convincing him that everything is not balanced, does that help you play the race you want? I'm not sure it does. That gives the DM more license to ban things.

[sleepyphoenixx]

The problem isn't optimization. The problem is the DM seeing that as a whole, the Fighter is a Tier 1.


I doubt that the DM thinks of classes in terms of tier or optimization potential at all.
As long as he's not seeing a massive disparity in power between his fighter and his wizard he won't realize that it's a possible problem, and he doesn't really need to.

[Segev]

My advice would be to simply play a caster. Don't do it with deliberate intent to wreck the game. Just play one and have fun. Your DM will not accuse you of powergaming because you're just playing the totally balanced caster class of your choice.

[Beheld]

The problem isn't optimization. The problem is the DM seeing that as a whole, the Fighter is a Tier 1.

In my personal experience, the DM was continually cranking up the CRs we were facing, because the DM wasn't thinking things by numbers. They were thinking 'Wizard strong! Fighter strong!'

If the DM is constantly cranking up the CRs that is a different problem completely unrelated to Fighter and Wizard balance.

If you as a player have difficulty getting your fighter to measure up to monsters of your CR, that's a balance problem. If the DM decides to throw EL Party level +4-5 monsters every single fight, that's a completely different and unrelated problem where he either doesn't know the CR/EL rules, or is just kind of a ****.

People who think that Wizards and Fighters are balanced don't think "They are both Tier 1 and break the game unless I mod them with high level monsters" they think "They are both balanced for the monsters in the game."

The idea that "Tier 1" means you have to mod parties with too high level monsters is purely nonsense affectation that only exists on forums that are suffering from some sort of collective delusion because they really want to ban Wizards from their games.

[Psyren]

The problem isn't optimization. The problem is the DM seeing that as a whole, the Fighter is a Tier 1.

@Psyren

I'm speaking from personal experience, so obviously my views are going to be colored differently than the OP's situation.

In my personal experience, the DM was continually cranking up the CRs we were facing, because the DM wasn't thinking things by numbers. They were thinking 'Wizard strong! Fighter strong!'

You have to remember that people who make knee-jerk opinions aren't going to carefully address problems. They're going to apply the hammer until it goes away. In the case of DMs who don't understand where they're making mistakes, they're just keep using bigger, and bigger hammers.

In the case of the OP...



Even when given examples that blatantly prove the DM's own example wrong, he ignores them in favor of his own stance.

I agree, but if his stance is "fighters = wizards because they do a lot of damage," then I don't think your conclusion is necessarily accurate, i.e. that he would escalate encounters to something a fighter can't handle. In short, he thinks fighters are okay and thus won't be going far above that paradigm, rather than trying to challenge wizards (who'll be able to handle the former easily as well with only a little optimization.)

In short, I think we're putting the cart before the horse, and assuming this will be a problem before it actually becomes one. Certainly it could, but it also might not.


My advice would be to simply play a caster. Don't do it with deliberate intent to wreck the game. Just play one and have fun. Your DM will not accuse you of powergaming because you're just playing the totally balanced caster class of your choice.

Also this.

[Jay R]

My experience is that any time the DM is mistaken about relative power, that's an opportunity for me to exploit my own knowledge.

In this case, the obvious solution is to play a wizard.

[Platymus Pus]

My experience is that any time the DM is mistaken about relative power, that's an opportunity for me to exploit my own knowledge.

In this case, the obvious solution is to play a wizard.

My solution as DM would be to confuse/dominate the fighter/Barb and have him full attack the squishy wizard.
Tiers don't matter if you're dead and in general most aren't prepared for their own allies killing them no matter the class.
So watch out for that if you decide to go on this route op.

[eggynack]

My solution as DM would be to confuse/dominate the fighter/Barb and have him full attack the squishy wizard.
Tiers don't matter if you're dead and in general most aren't prepared for their own allies killing them no matter the class.
So watch out for that if you decide to go on this route op.
That strategy doesn't seem too substantially different from sending some arbitrary melee fellow after the wizard, and arbitrary melee fellows definitely have available defenses. In fact, this strategy has even more defenses, cause it relies on domination, and can thus be defeated through the use of magic circle effects, or it has substantial randomness, because you're relying on specific confusion rolls, specifically a 30% chance that the fighter will attack the caster before the caster will have a turn free to put up a new defense, and that's further assuming that the caster is the closest creature and that the fighter's initiative is between the enemy caster's and the new caster's. In fact, that's an issue with both strategies. one which could make the solution as trivial as flying out of reach and/or using dispel magic.

Point is, the domination plan isn't an especially scary one. I haven't even gone into all the problems with it yet, like the fact that you're opening yourself up to total mind-affecting immunity, or the fact that you're adding on a save to the list of rolls that could stop the plan without outside interference. I also still haven't explicitly gone through the melee defenses, so add stuff like mirror image, high AC (which a wizard can absolutely pull off), invisibility of some sort, friendly fire if you're using archery, just keeping at a distance if you're not using archery, and so many more. This discussion hasn't really gone into why the DM is mistaken in his assertion that the fighter automatically wins if he gets initiative, but, y'know, he is mistaken.

[Zanos]

The problem isn't optimization. The problem is the DM seeing that as a whole, the Fighter is a Tier 1.
He isn't seeing Fighter as tier 1. He sees wizard as tier 4.

[Crake]

He isn't seeing Fighter as tier 1. He sees wizard as tier 4.

This argument is fallacious, in that it assumes the DM has any concept of tiers at all.

[Zanos]

This argument is fallacious, in that it assumes the DM has any concept of tiers at all.
Not at all. Someone can view classes as falling into a tier without even knowing they exist.

"Capable of doing one thing quite well, but often useless when encounters require other areas of expertise, or capable of doing many things to a reasonable degree of competance without truly shining. Rarely has any abilities that can outright handle an encounter unless that encounter plays directly to the class's main strength. "

Sounds about right for what a low-op DM who thinks all classes is equal would expect of most characters. In his worldview, all classes are of the same non-gamebreaking tier. Ergo, Wizard is Tier 4, or maybe 3, depending on how generous his views are.

[Platymus Pus]

That strategy doesn't seem too substantially different from sending some arbitrary melee fellow after the wizard, and arbitrary melee fellows definitely have available defenses. In fact, this strategy has even more defenses, cause it relies on domination, and can thus be defeated through the use of magic circle effects, or it has substantial randomness, because you're relying on specific confusion rolls, specifically a 30% chance that the fighter will attack the caster before the caster will have a turn free to put up a new defense, and that's further assuming that the caster is the closest creature and that the fighter's initiative is between the enemy caster's and the new caster's. In fact, that's an issue with both strategies. one which could make the solution as trivial as flying out of reach and/or using dispel magic.

Point is, the domination plan isn't an especially scary one. I haven't even gone into all the problems with it yet, like the fact that you're opening yourself up to total mind-affecting immunity, or the fact that you're adding on a save to the list of rolls that could stop the plan without outside interference. I also still haven't explicitly gone through the melee defenses, so add stuff like mirror image, high AC (which a wizard can absolutely pull off), invisibility of some sort, friendly fire if you're using archery, just keeping at a distance if you're not using archery, and so many more. This discussion hasn't really gone into why the DM is mistaken in his assertion that the fighter automatically wins if he gets initiative, but, y'know, he is mistaken.

There is a cat in the box is it alive or dead?

[eggynack]

There is a cat in the box is it alive or dead?
Not really pertinent to the topic at hand, I think, though I suppose that, absent any killing mechanism, the cat's probability of deadness would relate to how long they've been in the box. Point is, we can definitely put a percentage on it, as long as we have some information.

Edit: If you're trying to argue schrodinger's wizard here, I'm not sure how you can justify that. I didn't say I needed all of those relatively common spells. I only need one, maybe two. Those spells I mentioned have one especially potent quality, that being that they're good against a variety of foes. Such is the usual state for wizard spells. You cast magic circle cause it's good against a variety of attacks, not cause you specifically expect a dominated wizard. The point, overall, is that you're introducing all of these points of weakness which a wizard has a good chance of exploiting.

[Darth Ultron]

This isn't some sort of trick question, or theoretical debate. This is putting a Ferrari, a Corvette, a Porsche, and a VW Golf together, and being surprised when the Golf doesn't keep up with the Ferrari.


There is more to it then just that. Even taking your car example your assuming a lot of ''fair'' things and things that are obvious...to you.. Just like modern players of RPGs assume a lot of fairness.

So you have the three cars lined up to race. The first three have empty gas tanks and the fourth one has a full tank of gas. So the VW Golf wins the race. Now, see, you just blatantly assumed that every car had a full tank of gas, and for no other reason then you wanted it to be that way. Or how about the drivers of cars 1-3 are all 15 years old, have never, ever driven a car and car number four just has any adult over 21. Again, amazingly, car number four will likely win the race. And again, you were just blatantly assuming that each car was driven by a professional race car driver.

And it is the same in RPGs. The people that have the whole teir power problem create that very problem. It is exactly a self fulling prophecy.

When you limit the game by a very one sided view of things, you get what you create.

[Tiri]

I can see how it's frustrating not to be able to play the character you want, such as a goblin. But on the whole, you're having a good time.

There does seem to be a disconnect here, though. On the one hand, your DM believes the designers well-balanced everything and on the other hand seems to believe monster races are unbalanced. If you succeed in convincing him that everything is not balanced, does that help you play the race you want? I'm not sure it does. That gives the DM more license to ban things.

I don't want him to believe that everything is not balanced. I want him to believe that things that are balanced are that way, so that he will stop denying us playing the characters we want to play. Not that he's done a very good job of even that, but it is a problem. Also, I have to say that I don't understand his logic either.

[ryu]

There is more to it then just that. Even taking your car example your assuming a lot of ''fair'' things and things that are obvious...to you.. Just like modern players of RPGs assume a lot of fairness.

So you have the three cars lined up to race. The first three have empty gas tanks and the fourth one has a full tank of gas. So the VW Golf wins the race. Now, see, you just blatantly assumed that every car had a full tank of gas, and for no other reason then you wanted it to be that way. Or how about the drivers of cars 1-3 are all 15 years old, have never, ever driven a car and car number four just has any adult over 21. Again, amazingly, car number four will likely win the race. And again, you were just blatantly assuming that each car was driven by a professional race car driver.

And it is the same in RPGs. The people that have the whole teir power problem create that very problem. It is exactly a self fulling prophecy.

When you limit the game by a very one sided view of things, you get what you create.

Patently false. Even if the person playing the character with higher tier class and thus better overall options is so terrible that they're literally picking spells at random, they're still likely to do better than the average fighter. This is because literally most spells are directly more useful than the fighter itself. This is also making the very generous assumption that the person playing the wizard makes no attempt to alter strategy when met with failure as would be expected from any sane human being.

[Florian]

Patently false. Even if the person playing the character with higher tier class and thus better overall options is so terrible that they're literally picking spells at random, they're still likely to do better than the average fighter. This is because literally most spells are directly more useful than the fighter itself. This is also making the very generous assumption that the person playing the wizard makes no attempt to alter strategy when met with failure as would be expected from any sane human being.

I´m actually with DU on this. The gm is in absolute control of the game world and only the stuff he choses to include will happen. Full casters might be able to reach a high power ceiling, but it´s entirely in the hands of the gm where this ceiling actually is.

[Beheld]

I´m actually with DU on this. The gm is in absolute control of the game world and only the stuff he choses to include will happen. Full casters might be able to reach a high power ceiling, but it´s entirely in the hands of the gm where this ceiling actually is.

It is trivially true that a DM could do any number of stupid terrible things, such as declaring that your Wizard literally explodes when he casts Color Spray.

But it is equally trivially true that he won't, and that if you play a Wizard in an actual game, you will be allowed to cast spells which force saving throws which literally win fights if failed. And if your DM decides to add 20 to all enemy saves, then sure you will suck. Of course, if he chooses to add 20 to AC, the party fighter would also be up **** creak without a paddle. The lesson to learn is to not play with DMs who get mad when PCs win, because those are terrible people and terrible DMs, and then you can just play a Wizard and be better than a Fighter in some other game where the DM didn't replace his brain with a spite fueled engine of hatred.

[Florian]

It is trivially true that a DM could do any number of stupid terrible things, such as declaring that your Wizard literally explodes when he casts Color Spray.

But it is equally trivially true that he won't, and that if you play a Wizard in an actual game, you will be allowed to cast spells which force saving throws which literally win fights if failed. And if your DM decides to add 20 to all enemy saves, then sure you will suck. Of course, if he chooses to add 20 to AC, the party fighter would also be up **** creak without a paddle. The lesson to learn is to not play with DMs who get mad when PCs win, because those are terrible people and terrible DMs, and then you can just play a Wizard and be better than a Fighter in some other game where the DM didn't replace his brain with a spite fueled engine of hatred.

That´s baseless hyperbole. The thing simply is that a gm prepares a setting/scenario and that is what is available for playing with. The main concern with spells is mostly breaking the game or leaving/negating the prepared scenario. And that simply destroys the game and is not fun for your fellow players.

I think most gms actually do not really care how exactly you beat an prepared encounter, so it doesn´t matter if by color spray or sword, as long as you engage in that encounter. On that level, all classes actually can be considered equal. Problems start when you try to circumvent prepared encounters by using spells to do it. That might be a smart way to manage your resources and shows of your system mastery, but ultimately, it simply kills the game the same way as simply leaving the prepared scenario would do.

Edit: Sure, a lot of things make no sense as encounters/scenarios after a certain level is reached. Stuff like traveling adventures become obsolete once good traveling magic becomes available, and so on.
But that is not on the same page as, say, starting planes-hopping only because you can.

[Beheld]

That´s baseless hyperbole.

What is, that someone might literally explode your Wizard for casting a spell? You'd think so, but I'm only referring to the conversation that has already occurred in this thread:


So they will say ''everyone'' must follow the rules, like mindless slaves. So, when their ''broken'' wizard character does something, everyone must just sit back and go ''wow''. But put them in a game with an All-might DM and that is no longer true. The person will say ''I dos my awesome things like page 25 says I can!'' and the DM can just casually say ''nope, your magic backfires, your character explodes and dies.''


The thing simply is that a gm prepares a setting/scenario and that is what is available for playing with. The main concern with spells is mostly breaking the game or leaving/negating the prepared scenario. And that simply destroys the game and is not fun for your fellow players.

The main concern with spells is that there are a bunch of spells that give you minions equally as strong as you for the cost of zero spells today. That's also pretty much the only concern with spells. Which is why there is no goddam reason to nerf the Wizard, in game, out of game, with houserules, with DMs who design encounters specifically to nerf them, or with DMs who explode characters who cast Color Spray.

No reason for any of that. At all.

[Arcanist]

It is not cheating if the DM does it. Only players cheat.


Yeah, if we're being realistic here, this DM that considers the word of the designers infallible is unlikely to stray too far from the established CR guidelines. That could be thought a slight problem in and of itself, but it's a different sort of problem, and not an especially critical one.


The person will say ''I dos my awesome things like which page 25 says I can!'' and the DM can just casually say ''nope, your magic backfires, your character explodes and dies.''

These are some of the most terrifying prospects I've seen brought up in this discussion. Granted, I will admit that DM's cannot technically cheat due to Rule Zero being a thing, there is a point where you're essentially just being a poor sport. You can get to a point as a DM where you're just being an overly sadistic jerk to your players in some madman's gambit at "winning D&D" (which is like trying to win in an MMO)

I recommend you just take the high road on this one, roll a Wizard, and take Invisible Spell and Still Spell and just protect the party like an Invisible Angel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFuMpYTyRjw) (I don't think it's been linked yet so its okay, right?).

EDIT: Also, don't follow the CR guidelines. A 4-man party of 3rd level characters against a single Allip (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/allip.htm) is a terrible, terrible idea.

[Beheld]

EDIT: Also, don't follow the CR guidelines. A 4-man party of 3rd level characters against a single Allip (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/allip.htm) is a terrible, terrible idea.

See here's the thing, the very fact that you are complaining about the Allip proves that the CR guidelines are pretty damn good.

When it comes to complaining about how the CR guidelines are terrible, people always name pretty much the same exact very few monsters... Because 97% of monsters fit just fine at their CR. A few outliers doesn't mean throw the entire system away.

Also, what do you propose people replace it with? Throwing darts? Perfect system mastery that they don't have and also results in them sending the same monsters as the CR guidelines 97% of the time?

Although, a party with a Cleric who can roll to turn, and someone with a Magic weapon, and the designers true and certain belief that every first level slot will be spent on Magic Missile, will win almost all the time.

[Florian]

@Arcanist:

The point he is making is about "entitlement". "I can do it, the rules are there" basically is a jerk move and will break games when not discussed beforehand. Smart move? Sure, yes, but not a cooperative move, something pretty much necessary in a social game. The rules are there so that you can make "informed decisions" w/o the need for dm fiat on any occasion, but it´s a judgment call whether using those rules will lead to breaking the game or not.

@Behest:

The things you constantly mention are the cases that will alter a game if used unchecked, more so, they will "entitle" a player to enforce the direction the whole action is developing into.
To be frank, I see no real difference between a Necromancer starting a Wight/Shadow-Apocalypse and a Commoner moving to the caribeans, avoiding dungeons and sipping Rum. In both cases, the players want to dictate the action and enforce a gm-reaction. That can be fine if agreed upon, but any unilateral decisions here are simply jerk moves.

[Arcanist]

See here's the thing, the very fact that you are complaining about the Allip proves that the CR guidelines are pretty damn good.

Alright.


When it comes to complaining about how the CR guidelines are terrible, people always name pretty much the same exact very few monsters... Because 97% of monsters fit just fine at their CR. A few outliers doesn't mean throw the entire system away.

The reason the Allip is brought up as an example of bad CR is because of it's CR along with being an incorporeal creature and being able to completely negate the line of effect that is required for a Turning attempt on it. Allips are described as being insane, but they are not unintelligent undead and can make plans. The point is, the system is flawed and it is more than just the CR system.


Also, what do you propose people replace it with? Throwing darts? Perfect system mastery that they don't have and also results in them sending the same monsters as the CR guidelines 97% of the time?

The throwing darts threw me off. If this is a reference to something, I don't understand it. Regardless, I've grown into the habit of quick-building mooks for my party to fight and not throwing anything at my party I don't expect them to not be able to beat, while still creating a threatening environment. My secret is that the mook they killed at the beginning of the dungeon is the same mook (statistically at least) that they killed at the end. The only difference is that they had to make more skill checks and had less resources to deal with the last mook.

It takes very little system mastery beyond knowing the 3 NPC classes, a couple PC classes (on requirement), a handful of feats, and the statistics for the races in the PHB or any other sourcebook you need. Are the PCs fighting Goblins? Pull up the Goblin stat block and customize from that. Using Undead? Pull up some Skeletons and Zombies and maybe throw a Wight with a Rogue level in there. Just prepare a few traps, a bundle of mooks for the party to fight, and a boss at the end of the dungeon and the PCs will be satisfied.


Although, a party with a Cleric who can roll to turn, and someone with a Magic weapon, and the designers true and certain belief that every first level slot will be spent on Magic Missile, will win almost all the time.

A 3rd level Cleric has to make a single Turning attempt of at least 19 (to which they gain their Charisma modifier on that note). It is possible, but is risky. Presuming you rolled/put an 18 in Charisma you'll need to roll at least a 15 or higher to succeed. There are examples in this game that show the designers didn't fully comprehend their own rules in this game and relying on a Magic Weapon, that the party might have is outright naive, especially as it only provides a 50% chance of even applying damage in the first place.


@Arcanist:

The point he is making is about "entitlement". "I can do it, the rules are there" basically is a jerk move and will break games when not discussed beforehand. Smart move? Sure, yes, but not a cooperative move, something pretty much necessary in a social game. The rules are there so that you can make "informed decisions" w/o the need for dm fiat on any occasion, but it´s a judgment call whether using those rules will lead to breaking the game or not.

The emphasized words are pretty much my original point. This game requires a certain level of cooperation (I'm not saying it is always a team game, but) there is always some coordination between the players and the DM in an unwritten Gentlemen's agreement of sorts to not allow the game to slip into a rousing game of Pigeon Chess.

[Zanos]

The throwing darts threw me off. If this is a reference to something, I don't understand it.
A joke method of random selection by which one throws darts at a board with your options on it.

Also I think there was an old and very bad topic here related to optimizing a dart throwing build, and darts are terrible. Probably not related.

[Arcanist]

A joke method of random selection by which one throws darts at a board with your options on it.

It wasn't clear enough. I can see what he means now. Thank you.

[Florian]

@Arcanist:

And that leads us full circle in the whole discussion here. The GM mentioned in the OP seems to want to host a game where purely mundane classes will stay relevant the whole time. Works, can be done, no biggie there.
I see the counter-argument to this as posted by The Smallest to be a bit anti-social, as it is not about system mastery but about shifting the intended balance and pacing more towards unrestricted use of spells, empowering the players, altering the social contract for this group.

[Beheld]

The reason the Allip is brought up as an example of bad CR is because of it's CR along with being an incorporeal creature and being able to completely negate the line of effect that is required for a Turning attempt on it. Allips are described as being insane, but they are not unintelligent undead and can make plans. The point is, the system is flawed and it is more than just the CR system.

I'm not saying the Allips CR is good. The Allips CR is bad. Everyone knows this and Everyone knows why because 9999/10000 that someone says "The CR system is terrible, and you shouldn't use it" they immediately follow it with "Just look at the Allip" they never follow it with "Just look at [any Devil, Demon, Inevitable, or Slaad, Beholder, Mindflayer, Giants, ect.]" Which is my point.

Although, I will point out that turning is a standard action, and can be readied, so you can totally still hit him with it.


Regardless, I've grown into the habit of quick-building mooks for my party to fight and not throwing anything at my party I don't expect them to not be able to beat, while still creating a threatening environment. My secret is that the mook they killed at the beginning of the dungeon is the same mook (statistically at least) that they killed at the end. The only difference is that they had to make more skill checks and had less resources to deal with the last mook.

It takes very little system mastery beyond knowing the 3 NPC classes, a couple PC classes (on requirement), a handful of feats, and the statistics for the races in the PHB or any other sourcebook you need. Are the PCs fighting Goblins? Pull up the Goblin stat block and customize from that. Using Undead? Pull up some Skeletons and Zombies and maybe throw a Wight with a Rogue level in there. Just prepare a few traps, a bundle of mooks for the party to fight, and a boss at the end of the dungeon and the PCs will be satisfied.

This didn't answer my question at all in any way even a little bit.


A 3rd level Cleric has to make a single Turning attempt of at least 19 (to which they gain their Charisma modifier on that note). It is possible, but is risky. Presuming you rolled/put an 18 in Charisma you'll need to roll at least a 15 or higher to succeed. There are examples in this game that show the designers didn't fully comprehend their own rules in this game and relying on a Magic Weapon, that the party might have is outright naive, especially as it only provides a 50% chance of even applying damage in the first place.

1) A 3rd level Cleric needs to roll a 13 to turn an Allip. So if you have a 14 Charisma (pretty reasonable) a roll of 11 instantly wins the fight. That's pretty fine to me. Do that as your (readied) standard action every round.Turn Resistance, hot damn, that's annoying, I guess just cast magic weapon then...

2) Your party will probably have a magic weapon. By the rules, they should, if they don't, oh well.

3) Yes, the magic weapon only hits half the time, one the other hand if you are a Best Race 16 PB Barbarian Power Attacking for full while raging you do 2d6+17 damage, average 24 damage, which combined with a Magic Missile (average damage 7) you kill it with your first hit (which will presumably happen after the magic missile).

Now I agree, in practice, people aren't learning magic missile, so you might very well have to hit twice unless you 18PB and do average damage 26.

[Florian]

@Behest:

But you´re right there and pretty much on spot, too.
A lot of TO discussions are based on the spells or class features and simply do not compare them to the actual Bestiary/MM critters they should be used against.
Yeah, color spray is cool and all that, but Shadows and Allips exist and you need a way to combat them. That´s what your Magic Missiles and Lesser Orb of Force is for. Same holds true for clerics and a decent CHA score. Useless on its own, but compared to critters, can be pretty deadly and you want to beat that turn resistance...

[Beheld]

@Behest:

Could you stop this? It's mildly annoying.

[Necroticplague]

Could you stop this? It's mildly annoying.

Referring to you as Behest, instead of Beheld, or using "@ ____" instead of quoting?

[Segev]

I don't want him to believe that everything is not balanced. I want him to believe that things that are balanced are that way, so that he will stop denying us playing the characters we want to play. Not that he's done a very good job of even that, but it is a problem. Also, I have to say that I don't understand his logic either.

This is an interesting statement. It redefines the problem, for me, from what I had thought it was to a more difficult one to address. We need more information, however: What is the DM doing that denies you the ability to play characters you want to play? (I'm not saying I don't believe he is; I just don't know what mechanism he's using, nor how he applies it. Perhaps examples would also be helpful, if you could share some.)

[Florian]

Could you stop this? It's mildly annoying.

Autocorrect at work, sorry. I´ll try to watch out for it.

[The Smallest]

@Arcanist:

And that leads us full circle in the whole discussion here. The GM mentioned in the OP seems to want to host a game where purely mundane classes will stay relevant the whole time. Works, can be done, no biggie there.
I see the counter-argument to this as posted by The Smallest to be a bit anti-social, as it is not about system mastery but about shifting the intended balance and pacing more towards unrestricted use of spells, empowering the players, altering the social contract for this group.

Well, no, it's not that I want unrestricted use of spells or alter our group's social contract in any way. Most of the spellcasters in the party do restrict their usage so as not to overshadow the mundanes, but as level increases (and it is doing so fairly quickly in-game) the mundanes will inevitably become less and less useful. The sorcerer, cleric, and possibly the bard will simply have a wider range of things that they can do (and often more effectively too). The fighter and ranger will basically be restricted to 'shoot really well' (and I'm not completely sure the ranger player will be able to build well enough for that) and 'hit things really hard'. The way I see it is that the DM can only help with this if he recognises the problem in the first place (clearly, he does not).

[Arcanist]

I'm not saying the Allips CR is good. The Allips CR is bad. Everyone knows this and Everyone knows why because 9999/10000 that someone says "The CR system is terrible, and you shouldn't use it" they immediately follow it with "Just look at the Allip" they never follow it with "Just look at [any Devil, Demon, Inevitable, or Slaad, Beholder, Mindflayer, Giants, ect.]" Which is my point.

Would you like to take a walk through the Monster Manual 2 or the Fiend Folio first? Or do you think it would be moving the goalpost to begin analyzing the Dread Blossom Swarm in Monster Manual 3? Or the Daleks Clockwork Horrors in Monster Manual 2? Or perhaps the Catoblepas of the same book? Or how about the Belker from the Monster Manual? Or since you want to talk about Devils, lets look at the weakest of the weak: The Imp at a measly CR 2. It has Invisibility at will, Damage Reduction 5 (good or silver) and fast healing 2. It is MORE than equipped to handle a party of 2nd level characters, possibly even 4th level characters. How about the Rust Monster? Should I go on?

This is just me listing off monsters that are unsuitable for their appropriate challenge ratings (Really? CR 9 gets Disintegrate and Disjunction at will? Really?) and completely ignoring monsters that are utterly underpowered for their CR.


Although, I will point out that turning is a standard action, and can be readied, so you can totally still hit him with it.

This is missing the point, but it is accurate, albeit still a gamble. Enjoy your pizza if it works, endure the scowls if it fumbles.


This didn't answer my question at all in any way even a little bit.

I gave you an answer rooted in my experience as a DM. I fail to see how this is at all my problem.


1) I guess just cast magic weapon then...

Still a 50% chance of doing no damage to a creature that registers as an "easy" encounter for your party and will earn you a net increase in xp of


2) Your party will probably have a magic weapon. By the rules, they should, if they don't, oh well.

They can also probably have a Divine Rank: Infinity, but we're not accounting for that. I'm also curious where it stats that 3rd level characters are in any way required to have certain items because if my understanding of wealth by level is accurate, it is only a measure of how much you should have at that level and not how much you actually have. Unless we're using the Magic Item rules described in the MiC (page 228).


3) Yes, the magic weapon only hits half the time, one the other hand if you are a Best Race 16 PB Barbarian Power Attacking for full while raging you do 2d6+17 damage, average 24 damage, which combined with a Magic Missile (average damage 7) you kill it with your first hit (which will presumably happen after the magic missile).

Now I agree, in practice, people aren't learning magic missile, so you might very well have to hit twice unless you 18PB and do average damage 26.

The Allip has an initiative of +5 and that is a 50% chance of doing 0 damage after nova'ing your Barbarian. Immediately after which, the Barbarian and the rest of the party can be exposed to the Allip's Babble ability and be picked off one at a time over a period of 2d4 rounds. There is a very high probability where your first action may very well be your last action in such an encounter.


That's what your Magic Missiles and Lesser Orb of Force is for. Same holds true for clerics and a decent CHA score. Useless on its own, but compared to critters, can be pretty deadly and you want to beat that turn resistance...

My heart was broken when I remembered that Lesser Orb of Force isn't an actual spell :smallfrown:

Now, before having access to 3rd level spells, there are 40~ spells in the official WoTC sourcebooks that have the Force descriptor and are thus able to harm Incorporeal creatures, no questions asked. Of them, a Wizard can learn (without DM's fiat) 28~ of them, of those spells only 8~ do any damage what so ever. It's not any better for the Cleric who has 2~ and the Druid who has 1 (the rest either belong to prestige classes, domains, or require some other method to obtain them). Force damage is an exceedingly rare resource at those levels and the fact that WoTC is so generous as to give PC's one, at 1st level, that cannot miss is a gift too good for rotten min/max'ers. The fact that there aren't Wizards out in the world with entire spellbooks detailing the greatness that is the Magic Missile is a downright shame.

[Cosi]

*six monsters*

Stop proving Beheld's point. Do you know how many monsters are in those books? Pro tip: more than six. More than the eleven you would need for OP monsters to be a majority. If you want to prove the CR system falls apart, you're better off talking about how melee monsters like Giant Vermin or the Torrasque don't ever get higher than CR 5. Pointing to a bunch of individual monsters to prove that overall monsters are imbalanced doesn't get you anywhere.

[Arcanist]

Stop proving Beheld's point. Do you know how many monsters are in those books? Pro tip: more than six. More than the eleven you would need for OP monsters to be a majority. If you want to prove the CR system falls apart, you're better off talking about how melee monsters like Giant Vermin or the Torrasque don't ever get higher than CR 5. Pointing to a bunch of individual monsters to prove that overall monsters are imbalanced doesn't get you anywhere.

If you sincerely believe this is what I am trying to prove, you're not understanding me.

My point is that the Challenge Rating system as a whole is a malarkey method of determining what is and isn't challenging in this game. If anything, him whipping out a moderately min/maxed barbarian essentially proves that Challenge Rating is, as has been previously stated in this thread, a guideline at best (and a poor one at that).

[Cosi]

If you sincerely believe this is what I am trying to prove, you're not understanding me.

Obviously, that's not what you're trying to prove. It is what you're actually proving though.

If you want to prove that CR in general is a bad guideline, you could do a bunch of things. You could look at all the monsters of CR X in some book, and demonstrate that a majority of them are mis-CRed. You could talk about how specific categories of monsters (i.e. bruisers, or casters, or ambush monsters) are generally mis-CRed. You could make an argument about how the discrepancy between PC classes makes CR a bad rubric for assessing threat to a party, even if monsters of a given CR are similarly threatening. But you can't say "here are a bunch of individual monsters that are mis-CRed, that disproves your claim that individual monsters are mis-CRed".

[johnbragg]

While the eternal caster supremacy debate is great and all, I'd like to focus on actually helping OP and his (or her) game table.

(BTW, whether or not an equally Fighter produces 80%, 100% or 120% of an equally optimized Warmage, that doesn't change the fact that an equally optimized Wizard is going to do that same damage, while mirror imaged and flying.)


I have been getting really frustrated with my DM recently because he refuses, despite all the evidence I give him, to acknowledge that things like wizards being more powerful than fighters are true.

This is not the problem. This is a symptom of the problem. The problem is the particular strengths, and especially the particular weaknesses, of your DM.

If, overnight, your DM read JaronK's Tier List, and some random campaign journal where from levels 7-11 every single problem was solved by the players bookdiving together to find the ideal form to polymorph the wizard or wildshape the druid into--a scenario that can easily happen even (or especially) at low-op tables, you would still have 90% of your problem.

For example:


Just to answer some things that were said in this thread:

No, I didn't only use the wizard/fighter example. I said the same thing about clerics, druids and sorcerers.

Yes, his funny ideas of balance are a problem. Not so much now since the party is in low levels, but as we get higher, the spellcasters will inevitably become more powerful and versatile than the fighter and ranger (because, for all the buffs piled on them, their capabilities will still, at best, amount to 'hitting things well').

Not to mention nerfing goblins and banning tibbits for being overpowered. (Although one player managed to circumvent the goblin nerf because of the DM's bad memory).

For those who gave suggestions, thanks. I'll try some of the gentler ones out, because he is not a guy who things like making god wizards to beat up fighters would sit well with.

From reading the thread, I propose some statements about your GM
1. You and Tiri have better 3E system mastery than your GM.
2. Your GM is, in his low animal cunning way, aware of this.

From these 2 statements, it's pretty reasonable for your GM to rely on the designer's system mastery rather than his own, never mind his own under the influence of possibly munchkinizing players. Otherwise he could very easily end up with some players' PCs in control of the campaign and a shredded social contract. You wouldn't do that, but he's right that you probably COULD.

Add another postulate:
3. Your GM does not like to be wrong, and will not necessarily change his mind just because he's logically proven wrong.



I actually did make some of these points, but was met with the BRILLIANT counterargument of 'well, monsters are balanced differently from PC's. If you want to know why, go talk to the designers.' He then refused to continue the discussion and kept repeating those words.

Um, one of the design features of 3E is monster/PC transparency. That was one of the amazing things when 3E came out, you could monkey around with monster feats and skill points and slap class levels and templates on. As the old tagline ran, you could run a 1-20 "fight the orcs" campaign and have it work. (For a certain value of "works." Sure, today's forum-educated players would dismantle those Half-Fiendish Orc Barbarian 15s, but in 2003 or so they were still a challenge because we were still playing blaster wizards and CoDzilla had just been discovered.)


You know, I just read what I wrote and I'm really not sure why Smallest thinks he can change how this guy thinks. It seems so devoid of logic.

Changing the way he thinks is the wrong goal, because it's not an achievable goal. Identifying and working with the way he thinks is (should be) the goal.


Well, the thing is, he's not that bad a DM. Flexible enough and good at improvising. It's just his ideas of game balance that seem to be a magnified version of whatever WoTC was suffering from when they wrote the PHB.

I think this is the bit that got me thinking about the postulates above while I was shoveling/pushbrooming snow.


For the Wizard vs. Fighter problem, I don't think it is an issue now (given the party is only level 4), but we are already seeing the roots of it, like the sorcerer using Alter Self to solve an otherwise impossible problem. What me and Smallest (the rest of the group doesn't have enough system mastery to get what this is about) are worried about is that if the DM doesn't recognize this, the party fighter and ranger will eventually be overshadowed by the casters (because there really isn't a way for them to solve most of the problems at higher levels, no matter how many buffs we pile on them), and the fighter player in particular is someone who will find that kind of ineffectualness frustrating. Not that the DM can do much about the casters being better than the noncasters, but I think it would help if he actually realized there is a problem. As I said, the main problem now is him blocking off completely innocent options under false notions that they are overpowered.

I don't think this is the problem you think it is. You're worried about high-CR challenges that can only be overcome by Tier 1 casters playing reasonably well, challenges which obsolete the mundanes.

Your DM is not likely to present those challenges to you. And if he does, he usually won't present them in their nastiest form, because he doesn't have the system mastery to run them appropriately. (Not really a knock on your DM, I couldn't do it either. But I at least know that.)




Actually, I'm not sure why he does. From what I've managed to figure out, it's because he believes the designers of the core 3.5 books were completely infallible, and everything they wrote is somehow balanced under his weird ideas of it.

Alternately, they did a better job of balancing than he's likely to left to his own devices.


I'm sure you can see why I don't share Smallest's faith that he can be changed.


I don't want him to believe that everything is not balanced. I want him to believe that things that are balanced are that way, so that he will stop denying us playing the characters we want to play. Not that he's done a very good job of even that, but it is a problem. Also, I have to say that I don't understand his logic either.


Well, no, it's not that I want unrestricted use of spells or alter our group's social contract in any way. Most of the spellcasters in the party do restrict their usage so as not to overshadow the mundanes, but as level increases (and it is doing so fairly quickly in-game) the mundanes will inevitably become less and less useful. The sorcerer, cleric, and possibly the bard will simply have a wider range of things that they can do (and often more effectively too). The fighter and ranger will basically be restricted to 'shoot really well' (and I'm not completely sure the ranger player will be able to build well enough for that) and 'hit things really hard'. The way I see it is that the DM can only help with this if he recognises the problem in the first place (clearly, he does not).

Fortunately, your DM is likely to present your party with plenty of things that need to be hit really hard, and plenty of things that can be shot with arrows. IF he accidentally throws something wildly inappropriate at you, you'll probably muddle through and then off to the magic mart to patch the deficiencies of the Tier 4-5s.

[Arcanist]

If you want to prove that CR in general is a bad guideline, you could do a bunch of things. You could look at all the monsters of CR X in some book, and demonstrate that a majority of them are mis-CRed. You could talk about how specific categories of monsters (i.e. bruisers, or casters, or ambush monsters) are generally mis-CRed. You could make an argument about how the discrepancy between PC classes makes CR a bad rubric for assessing threat to a party, even if monsters of a given CR are similarly threatening.


Do you know how many monsters are in those books? Pro tip: more than six. More than the eleven you would need for OP monsters to be a majority.

lol okay


But you can't say "here are a bunch of individual monsters that are mis-CRed, that disproves your claim that individual monsters are mis-CRed".

Look, I can tell when someone isn't really looking for an honest dialog here and this one reaks of pure bad faith because there is no suitable answer that will lead you to my conclusion. You'll just move the goalpost further and further by declaring that "it's not ALL bad" and that is just disingenuous and I'm not going to put up with it. So as much as I enjoy experiments in futility, I must resign on this one.

[Cosi]

lol okay

What do you think the gotcha is? I'm asking you to look at a random(ish) sample rather than a cherry-picked one. Frankly, you should probably look at several random samples.


Look, I can tell when someone isn't really looking for an honest dialog here and this one reaks of pure bad faith because there is no suitable answer that will lead you to my conclusion. You'll just move the goalpost further and further by declaring that "it's not ALL bad" and that is just disingenuous and I'm not going to put up with it. So as much as I enjoy experiments in futility, I must resign on this one.

If you can prove across a sample of, say, a hundred monsters that a majority of them are mis-CRed by more than a point, then I'll reconsider my position, provided that sample isn't a hundred monsters you pick.

What evidence would make you reconsider your position?

[Beheld]

The sorcerer, cleric, and possibly the bard will simply have a wider range of things that they can do (and often more effectively too). The fighter and ranger will basically be restricted to 'shoot really well' (and I'm not completely sure the ranger player will be able to build well enough for that) and 'hit things really hard'. The way I see it is that the DM can only help with this if he recognises the problem in the first place (clearly, he does not).

And the solution you propose is what again? Nerf the casters? It's the nerf the casters isn't it? It's always nerf the casters :smallfrown: .


Would you like to take a walk through the Monster Manual 2 or the Fiend Folio first? Or do you think it would be moving the goalpost to begin analyzing the Dread Blossom Swarm in Monster Manual 3? Or the Daleks Clockwork Horrors in Monster Manual 2? Or perhaps the Catoblepas of the same book? Or how about the Belker from the Monster Manual? Or since you want to talk about Devils, lets look at the weakest of the weak: The Imp at a measly CR 2. It has Invisibility at will, Damage Reduction 5 (good or silver) and fast healing 2. It is MORE than equipped to handle a party of 2nd level characters, possibly even 4th level characters. How about the Rust Monster? Should I go on?

Yes, let's walk through the other Monster Manuals and your suggestions:

1) Yes everyone always mentions the Clockwork Horror and Catoblepas, because those are also terribly CRed. Naming the same small number of monsters that everyone always names is not supporting your point, it's supporting mine. If CR 9 fluctuated wildly instead of mostly tracking, people wouldn't always name specifically Clockwork Horrors. I mean, there are 10 CR 6 monsters in that book, is Catoblepas the only one that's a problem?

2) Dread Blossom Swarm: That's a new one, I've never heard anyone complain about that before, probably because it's not any more dangerous than any other CR 6. It's a fast swarm, fair enough, but that's all it is. If you fail like 10 saving throws and you aren't immune to poison then you die, but a CR 6 Slaad can save or die the whole party, if they aren't immune to poison, so who cares? Level 6 is probably the time to start thinking about poison immunity. Not everyone has it, but give whomever does a big old mace and send them charging in. You can also just fireball the crap out of it, or stack a slow, glitterdust, and Kelgore's Grave Mist on it to do constant cold damage while it moves 5ft per round while you throw alchemist flask at it, or wave a torch at it from 10ft away. I mean, +2 Will save.

3) Imps and Belkars, really? I mean, I've definitely never seen anyone complain about those. The Belkar does 3d4 damage if you fail a (low DC) fort save after letting it climb on top of you. It does 1d6+2 otherwise. I'm so not worried at all. This thing could lose 1v1 against a level 3 Barbarian. Imps do basically no damage and their poison doesn't even effect your Fort save or offensive output. The Barbarian kills it in one hit if it attacks anyone within his charge range, the Druid Faerie Fires it and lets his AC eat it, anyone at all can just grab the thing in a grapple on a readied action and explain in no uncertain terms how incredibly dead it is going to be if it doesn't surrender right now.


This is just me listing off monsters that are unsuitable for their appropriate challenge ratings (Really? CR 9 gets Disintegrate and Disjunction at will? Really?) and completely ignoring monsters that are utterly underpowered for their CR.

This is you reaching across three monster manuals to name 6 monsters out of like, 1000. And Belkars just have no place on any list, at least the Dread Blossum is actually scary and the Imp can try to harass you to death if you don't know how to use readied actions. The Belkar only kills you if you stand next to for no reason.


I gave you an answer rooted in my experience as a DM. I fail to see how this is at all my problem.

You gave me a pile of words that aren't even remotely relevant to the question I asked. I mean, okay sure. It's technically my problem that you refused to answer my question, but you know... that's kinda mean.


Still a 50% chance of doing no damage to a creature that registers as an "easy" encounter for your party and will earn you a net increase in xp of

A 50% chance each attack. So what. You hit it in the face and it dies, you have to close your eyes and accept a 50% chance to miss against Basilisks too, because that's part of the monster.


They can also probably have a Divine Rank: Infinity, but we're not accounting for that. I'm also curious where it stats that 3rd level characters are in any way required to have certain items because if my understanding of wealth by level is accurate, it is only a measure of how much you should have at that level and not how much you actually have. Unless we're using the Magic Item rules described in the MiC (page 228).

Wow, you are... so so so so so so wrong. No, they probably have a magic weapon because each encounter gives a certain amount of treasure, often in the form of items, and you usually end up with a magic weapon, or enough treasure to buy one. You can also just cast a 1st level spell that is one of the better first level Cleric buffs (for low level) too, but generally speaking the rules for giving treasure and buying items dictate that parties with someone who uses weapons gets a magic weapon. Your completely terrible comment about Divine Ranks is of course, nonsense.


The Allip has an initiative of +5 and that is a 50% chance of doing 0 damage after nova'ing your Barbarian. Immediately after which, the Barbarian and the rest of the party can be exposed to the Allip's Babble ability and be picked off one at a time over a period of 2d4 rounds. There is a very high probability where your first action may very well be your last action in such an encounter.

The Novaing Barbarian can do this again every round for the next forever. That's quite a Nova. If he spent his level 1 feat on the mandatory low level Barbarian Feat Tax Extra Rage, he can do it again three more times today.

But yes, if all four of you fail a DC 16 Will save you might be Fascinated for 2 rounds, because the Allip will attack one person, breaking the effect, and then that person can shake the Barbarian with a standard action. And then you are right back to "Aim for the Allip, if you hit, 50% chance it lives, 50% chance it dies." Meanwhile, the Allip can knock someone unconscious in 4-16 rounds! And then start on a second person!

[johnbragg]

And the solution you propose is what again? Nerf the casters? It's the nerf the casters isn't it? It's always nerf the casters :smallfrown:

To be fair, OP and his partner-in-crime have not proposed any solutions. They asked the Playground for help/advice. They got some advice about how to teach their DM the One True FAith of caster supremacy and then they got a heapin' helpin' of the "caster supremacy" debate and the "CR is borked" debate.

My reading of what OP is worried about is
1. The unfun table experience of, in a few levels, playing Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit
and/or
2. Clueless DM throwing some mis-CR'ed horror at them that casters-playing-nice-with-mundanes can't handle because they're polymorphing the Fighter into a HJill Giant instead of, I'm not exactly sure what the ideal use of that slot would be, but I'm sure someone will tell us.

[Arcanist]

What do you think the gotcha is? I'm asking you to look at a random(ish) sample rather than a cherry-picked one. Frankly, you should probably look at several random samples.

The "gotcha", as you put it, is that you would declare any list that I selected as "cherry-picked" and I'd be immediately skeptical of your list as being equally "cherry-picked". Which is why I am going to just propose that you make an RNG for it and we can go by that. Sound reasonable?


If you can prove across a sample of, say, a hundred monsters that a majority of them are mis-CRed by more than a point, then I'll reconsider my position, provided that sample isn't a hundred monsters you pick.

Sure. Go make a RNG and assign a number to every monster in the game and we can look through the first 1,000 (100 per sample size) that pop up. PM and we can do it together on Skype.


What evidence would make you reconsider your position?

Well a cheap, efficient and reliable, core only method of dealing with creatures with flying or Incorporeal, or ability drain, or negative levels as low as ELC 3 would help. Some analysis beyond monsters and a more thorough examination of the trap system might help. But ultimately? I'd settle with an overwhelming majority if you're willing to seriously sit down and analyze with me.

[Beheld]

The "gotcha", as you put it, is that you would declare any list that I selected as "cherry-picked" and I'd be immediately skeptical of your list as being equally "cherry-picked". Which is why I am going to just propose that you make an RNG for it and we can go by that. Sound reasonable?

He gave you an example of a non-cherry picked system. You just pick a CR, and go through all the MMs for monster of that CR and just look at those 50 or so.


Well a cheap, efficient and reliable, core only method of dealing with creatures with flying or Incorporeal, or ability drain, or negative levels as low as ELC 3 would help. Some analysis beyond monsters and a more thorough examination of the trap system might help. But ultimately? I'd settle with an overwhelming majority if you're willing to seriously sit down and analyze with me.

So... A Composite Bow, and Orc Barbarian with Power attack and a +1 Sword or a Cleric buddy would change your mind? Just fighting on that day and then paying someone to cast restoration, and/or making Fort saves?

But more importantly, are you then contending that the existence of the Allip and Wight and... I don't know, some flying ranged attacker at CR 3, somehow means the entire system that applies to thousands of monsters? Or do you have more than one creature to point to for each of those things?

[Shnigda]

Sure. Go make a RNG and assign a number to every monster in the game and we can look through the first 1,000 (100 per sample size) that pop up. PM and we can do it together on Skype.

If you do this, could you please come back and post your findings (here or in a new thread, perhaps with reference to everything that came before)?

Also, for OP, my suggestion would be to play the caster with whatever race that is beneficial (if DM says that you lose a bonus (+2 to int, say), choose another race that he says is fine) and then demonstrate how casters can solve far more encounters than a fighter can.

[Cosi]

The "gotcha", as you put it, is that you would declare any list that I selected as "cherry-picked" and I'd be immediately skeptical of your list as being equally "cherry-picked". Which is why I am going to just propose that you make an RNG for it and we can go by that. Sound reasonable?

How exactly is "monsters of CR X" cherry-picked?


Sure. Go make a RNG and assign a number to every monster in the game and we can look through the first 1,000 (100 per sample size) that pop up. PM and we can do it together on Skype.

Why? Do you have some reason to believe the imbalance of monsters is clustered at specific CRs? This seems like a transparent attempt to make proving my point hard enough I give up, and to shift the burden of proof away from yourself. You're the one claiming that the CR system doesn't work, you should be the one who proves it.


Well a cheap, efficient and reliable, core only method of dealing with creatures with flying or Incorporeal, or ability drain, or negative levels as low as ELC 3 would help. Some analysis beyond monsters and a more thorough examination of the trap system might help. But ultimately? I'd settle with an overwhelming majority if you're willing to seriously sit down and analyze with me.

"Allips are mis-CRed" does not imply "the CR system is broken". You are making the extraordinary claim, you provide the extraordinary evidence. If it's so important it be random, roll 1d6 for MM (I - V plus FF on 6) then 1d20 for CR. That should be random enough for purpose. Do that four or five times, then post your analysis of those stats.

EDIT: I will post something to that effect sometime today or tomorrow. Five samples, d6 for MM, d20 for CR. I'll figure out something for fractional CRs if people think not doing that biases the sample, but Epic is broken six ways from Sunday and making balance claims in that environment is all but impossible.

[Florian]

@The Smallest:

You seem to already have formed an opinion of what "useful" might mean in this game. I think you might be wrong there.
Let me remind you of something: "Balance" in this system is measured via spent resources. An equal CR encounter should cost you 25% of your resources and that´s it, basics explained.
Look into a DMG and look up what EL means in this regard.

Having written that, I think it´s your turn to clear up something here: You want to draw a line in the sand here but it´s arbitrary where that line should be. A full caster by itself is not more powerful than a total mundane, the "real" power comes from either being able to try to circumvent encounters or combine spells the way they were not intended to.

If the only thing ahead of you is a 5 room dungeon and everything is predefined, what options your character has are pretty much limited by how they could interact with the environment and that´s it.

[torrasque666]

This is neither the time nor place for a discussion on tiers, TO/PO, Wizard vs Fighter or half of the stuff that's dominated this thread. This is however, the time and place to discuss how to help the Smallest. We have a half a billion threads on how borked the game is. There's no need to derail every balance-type thread into more of these.

[ExLibrisMortis]

The CR system is broken, by your own admission, Cosi. Because the Tarrasque is not strong enough to be CR 20, and doubling its HD will not making it noticably stronger, even though the rules say it should (iirc the 40-odd extra HD should amount to +10 CR). That is not a problem with a single monster, that is a problem with the general 'adding HD' rule. It is also a problem with melee-only monsters, of which there are loads. Not only all animals, dire animals, dinosaurs and whatnot, but also many undead, elementals, plants, vermin, oozes, many monstrous humanoids, typical golems, giants, magical beasts... these creatures/types are often varieties on the 'dumb/animalistic bruiser' type. Fly beats huge parts of the monster manuals.

The CR system does not take into account the qualitative difference between a creature with, say, astral projection or shapechange at-will, and a creature with meteor swarm or black blade of disaster at-will (or really sharp claws). To be sure, the latter creatures are threatening, but at least they are killable and catchable (presuming the lack of further abilities). The first group of creatures is functionally invincible/unkillable, and will - given enough time - TPK any party not specifically prepared to fight it. Again, that's not a problem based on a specific monster, but a problem based on WoTC's blindness to the power of non-damaging or open-ended effects.

[eggynack]

This is neither the time nor place for a discussion on tiers, TO/PO, Wizard vs Fighter or half of the stuff that's dominated this thread. This is however, the time and place to discuss how to help the Smallest. We have a half a billion threads on how borked the game is. There's no need to derail every balance-type thread into more of these.
So, go ahead on that. Tell him what should be done. Cause I got nothing. The DM is seemingly just fully unwilling to listen to reason, and the biggest impact here is on small stuff that isn't particularly easy to demonstrate the balance of in a game setting. Racial choice amounts to about two feats of value, at the greatest extremes, and losing two feats is unlikely to even result in a tier shift. Having these balance arguments, and then theoretically having them shown to the DM, is about all we have. And it's really not much. But, in the end, I'd much rather have a discussion on tiers and junk then a meta-discussion on whether said discussion is a good thing. I suppose an idea would be better than either one though, so again, the floor is open for your suggestions.

[Beheld]

The CR system is broken, by your own admission, Cosi. Because the Tarrasque is not strong enough to be CR 20, and doubling its HD will not making it noticably stronger, even though the rules say it should (iirc the 40-odd extra HD should amount to +10 CR). That is not a problem with a single monster, that is a problem with the general 'adding HD' rule. It is also a problem with melee-only monsters, of which there are loads.

Problems with Melee monster may or may not exist, I'll get into that if necessary, but I don't think "specific rules for advaning creatures by HD suck" (even if we accepted that, which to be honest, I kind of do, not that they are necessarily too powerful or too weak, just that they are too boring) would not be evidence that CR system was broken. It would be the evidence that advancing by HD was broken.

To further clarify the point, the thing that is great about the CR system to me is that I can grab any monster out of any of hundreds of books, and know what level PCs should be fighting that monster (or that set of monsters) just on the CR alone, and be right 99% of the time. That makes my life as DM way easier.

It also helps me balance my homebrew classes by looking at what monsters they are actually going to be facing, and making sure they contribute within acceptable parameters for their level, but the DMing part is more important.


Not only all animals, dire animals, dinosaurs and whatnot, but also many undead, elementals, plants, vermin, oozes, many monstrous humanoids, typical golems, giants, magical beasts... these creatures/types are often varieties on the 'dumb/animalistic bruiser' type. Fly beats huge parts of the monster manuals.

You Take That Back! 3/4ths of all elementals are fine for all their CR. Fire can be range kited, sure, poor fire, but they also start at low level and can't be fly kited by the party without a lot of resource expenditure until CR 7-10. Most Elementals are not weak for their CR.


The CR system does not take into account the qualitative difference between a creature with, say, astral projection or shapechange at-will, and a creature with meteor swarm or black blade of disaster at-will (or really sharp claws). To be sure, the latter creatures are threatening, but at least they are killable and catchable (presuming the lack of further abilities). The first group of creatures is functionally invincible/unkillable, and will - given enough time - TPK any party not specifically prepared to fight it.

Those seem pretty fair to me (as monsters). I'm not sure how the monster with Astral Projection or Shapechange at will is unkillable to a level 17+ party. Much less how they are expecting to come back a second and third and fourth time to fight the "unprepared" PCs. I suspect most people might start getting prepared around the 4th or 5th fight...

[Florian]

This is neither the time nor place for a discussion on tiers, TO/PO, Wizard vs Fighter or half of the stuff that's dominated this thread. This is however, the time and place to discuss how to help the Smallest. We have a half a billion threads on how borked the game is. There's no need to derail every balance-type thread into more of these.

Forget it. The main problem cited here is based on perception without accompanying reality, so nothing can be done here.

[torrasque666]

So, go ahead on that. Tell him what should be done. Cause I got nothing. The DM is seemingly just fully unwilling to listen to reason, and the biggest impact here is on small stuff that isn't particularly easy to demonstrate the balance of in a game setting. Racial choice amounts to about two feats of value, at the greatest extremes, and losing two feats is unlikely to even result in a tier shift. Having these balance arguments, and then theoretically having them shown to the DM, is about all we have. And it's really not much. But, in the end, I'd much rather have a discussion on tiers and junk then a meta-discussion on whether said discussion is a good thing. I suppose an idea would be better than either one though, so again, the floor is open for your suggestions.

To be honest, I dont have any either. This seems like an inexperienced DM, looking at pure damage dealt rather then uility. Thus, these arguments about tiers and even probably metamagic more advanced than empower/maximize are going to fly over his head. Granted, I'm not even surewhat Smallest's problem is. I can understand frustration over racial limitations, but the idea of classes being balaced when played/looked at by a DM of this skill level (straight damage, numers, enemies that just charge and attack without strategy) isn't a problem. At least, not without information about how this is actually impacting the game. Otherwise, this is just a pissing contest.

[Segev]

Forget it. The main problem cited here is based on perception without accompanying reality, so nothing can be done here.

I stand by my solution, suggested on a prior page: play a caster of your choice. Not deliberately to break the game, but just...play it. Don't try to prove a point. Just enjoy the fact that the DM is not going to accuse you of being a munchkin for playing such a character, and enjoy the power level it entails.

It will either enlighten the DM through experience, or he'll remain blissfully ignorant and you'll have fun playing a powerful PC.

And if you want to play a Tibbit-like character, perhaps a druid will work? Wild Shape into a kitty.

[Platymus Pus]

The point, overall, is that you're introducing all of these points of weakness which a wizard has a good chance of exploiting.

You'd have to had them set ahead of time is the point, your answers require resources, turns specifically or preparation. Domination only takes one failed save on the other hand and a surprise round even.
The DM is going to know when you don't have those defenses.
You don't get unlimited rounds to cast everything you want, there is a chance that the enemy wins ini, and the dominated individual also wins ini.
There is a chance you don't get to cast at all because of that and you get one shot, it happens.
You as the wizard is eventually going to **** up or the dice will kill you. Granted you'll probably be revived later, but the DM would have made his point to a degree.
You most certainly have to rely on your team mates, they make more efficient use of your spells than you will a majority of the time.
The wizard isn't going to be doing much if he gets focused down because he's the powerhouse and the party falls apart without him.
Play team games like DOTA or LoL and that would be obvious. The DM balances the game. Tiers are a rare occurrence in actuality and only occur in high level play.

[Andorn]

I have been getting really frustrated with my DM recently because he refuses, despite all the evidence I give him, to acknowledge that things like wizards being more powerful than fighters are true.

For example:

Him: Wizards and fighters are balanced.
Me: But wizards are so much more powerful! They can fly, teleport, polymorph and so many other things!
Him: But fighters have more HP and can do more melee damage! If a fighter won initiative against a wizard he would kill him instantly!
Me: What if the wizard had a contigencied Teleport or Dimension Door?
Him: That doesnt count.
Me: Or if it was quickened?
Him: Umm.... They are balanced.

I could continue, but you get the idea.

Then there's things like him being convinced tibbits are overpowered because they can copy a 4th level wizard spell. When I told him they can only turn into a really weak cat, all he said was: Well, you're not the DM. Or the time he got it into his head goblins are better than humans because they have a +4 to Ride and Move Silently.

I just find this infuriating. Does anyone know how to get him to change his weird ideas of what is 'balanced' ?

Don't waste your time. Instead, become a DM.

[eggynack]

You'd have to had them set ahead of time is the point, your answers require resources, turns specifically or preparation.
Yes, they take resources, but they take one out of a wide variety of resources. Had I said, "The wizard could have defeated this plan by casting, and anything else would lead to wizard-death," then that would be problematic. But I didn't. The wizard could have up magic circle, or they could have mirror image, or have greater mirror image, or be flying (extremely common), or be invisible, or any number of other things. A wizard is going to spend their resources in some fashion, no matter what. My claim is that it's likely that their method of resource expenditure overlaps with a way to stop this plan. I mean, it's not like most of this is specific to domination. All that's required is that the wizard have defense against, "Some melee fellow is attacking me." In other words, one of the most common modes of enemy attack out there.

And, critically, they don't even need to have that defense. They can just have either that defense, or defense against mind-affecting. Or defense against spells in general, actually, in the form of dispel magic or something like a ring of spell-battle. Or, hell, you could have some of that crazy wizard stuff that makes you go first. Nerveskitter is great, as is a hummingbird familiar if you want to go deep, as is swapping out scribe scroll for improved initiative if you want to go less deep, as is stuff like celerity if you want to go awesome, as is shapechange for dire tortoise form if you want to go high level (or, y'know, foresight). So, your argument at this point is, "You're presenting a Schrodinger's wizard, because you're claiming that a wizard isn't likely to neglect all of these defense forms, as well as several probable others, simultaneously," and I think that argument is ridiculous.



Domination only takes one failed save on the other hand and a surprise round even.
Well, the domination succeeding takes only that, but the domination successfully killing the wizard takes a lot more.


The DM is going to know when you don't have those defenses.
Sure, if the DM metagames around all of your decisions, and decides to kill you, they're almost certainly going to win. Such is the way of things.


You don't get unlimited rounds to cast everything you want, there is a chance that the enemy wins ini, and the dominated individual also wins ini.
Don't have them but don't need them. Lots of these plans work in a way that doesn't directly touch the action economy. For example, you cast overland flight, a very common spell, and have friendly fire prepared, a spell that would be more common were it less obscure, and you're defended quite well. Even a surprise round doesn't help much, because while the fighter will be dominated, they can't attack the distant wizard in that stretch of time.


There is a chance you don't get to cast at all because of that and you get one shot, it happens.
Sure, but the chance is lower with this plan than with many others, and mitigating the chance of that is very possible.


You as the wizard is eventually going to **** up or the dice will kill you. Granted you'll probably be revived later, but the DM would have made his point to a degree.
What point is that? That the DM can kill PC's? Yes, the wizard can be killed, but the fighter can likely be killed far easier. After all, none of these listed options are directly accessible to the fighter. And, simultaneously, the wizard also does better at offense, capable of impacting the battlefield in ways that the fighter couldn't dream of. Being better doesn't mean 100% success. It means a success rate that's a significant percent higher than that of other classes in the same situation.


You most certainly have to rely on your team mates, they make more efficient use of your spells than you will a majority of the time.
More efficient, sure. So much more efficient that their presence is strictly necessary, not really.


The wizard isn't going to be doing much if he gets focused down because he's the powerhouse and the party falls apart without him.
The wizard doesn't really need all that much help to go from awesome to insanely awesome. What you really want is just any form of inevitability, such that your BFC and debuffs lead to death without the need for extra spells. What form that inevitability comes in doesn't matter that much.

Play team games like DOTA or LoL and that would be obvious. The DM balances the game. Tiers are a rare occurrence in actuality and only occur in high level play.
I disagree completely as applies to this game. What makes tiers a thing isn't solely some ridiculous idea that wizards never die. It's the fact that they're able to solve and/or help solve far more problems, and to a far greater degree of effectiveness, all while being more difficult to kill. You don't need to be playing super optimized for that to happen either. Many reasonably popular spells are very powerful, capable of aiding in combat significantly more than a fighter. Sure, if you just pack all your slots with ghost sound and fireball, then you're not going to outpace most characters, but anything around mid-op should lead to good results. The tier system assumes that approximate level of optimization after all.

[Zanos]

What do you think the gotcha is? I'm asking you to look at a random(ish) sample rather than a cherry-picked one. Frankly, you should probably look at several random samples.
I can't be bothered to read through this entire thread at this point, but you should know that it only takes one OP monster to end the campaign.

[The Smallest]

And the solution you propose is what again? Nerf the casters? It's the nerf the casters isn't it? It's always nerf the casters :smallfrown: .

Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of maybe giving the noncasters some magic items that help out with their deficiencies. If the DM actually does end up recognizing the problem, then he may decide to nerf the casters. That's his decision. I haven't had a chance to talk to him about it yet.


So, go ahead on that. Tell him what should be done. Cause I got nothing. The DM is seemingly just fully unwilling to listen to reason,

Actually, he does seemingly listen sometimes. For example, when Tiri was making a homebrew race for one of the other players (who wanted to play a weird shadow-woman after getting her tibbit character rejected), he included a limited form of incorporeality at level 10. I can't remember the details, but the DM was initially against it and then got persuaded to leave it. Then his irrationality came back and he decided that the race was too powerful because it had low-light AND darkvision. So reason is kind of an on-off thing with our DM.


To be fair, OP and his partner-in-crime have not proposed any solutions. They asked the Playground for help/advice. They got some advice about how to teach their DM the One True FAith of caster supremacy and then they got a heapin' helpin' of the "caster supremacy" debate and the "CR is borked" debate.

My reading of what OP is worried about is
1. The unfun table experience of, in a few levels, playing Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit
and/or
2. Clueless DM throwing some mis-CR'ed horror at them that casters-playing-nice-with-mundanes can't handle because they're polymorphing the Fighter into a Hill Giant instead of, I'm not exactly sure what the ideal use of that slot would be, but I'm sure someone will tell us.

Yes, this sums up my worries quite well. The mis-CRed thing, I think, is quite likely to happen given the DM's blind faith in the rules.

[Tiri]

This is an interesting statement. It redefines the problem, for me, from what I had thought it was to a more difficult one to address. We need more information, however: What is the DM doing that denies you the ability to play characters you want to play? (I'm not saying I don't believe he is; I just don't know what mechanism he's using, nor how he applies it. Perhaps examples would also be helpful, if you could share some.)

Well, it just so happens that two of the members in our group like playing slightly unusual things. Like goblins or tibbits or weird homebrewed shadow-people. The problem is that the DM has a very erratic and ridiculous way of judging balance. So, for example, monster races (he hasn't quite caught on to the fact that 3E allowed for more PC/NPC transparency, despite playing it for 16 years) like goblin are nerfed, things like tibbit (I don't even know how he came to the conclusion that turning into a weak cat is as powerful as any polymorph form) are outright banned, and the homebrew shadow-person race, despite having abilities that are much more useful (albeit probably more useful to a rogue than a fighter or wizard), get his full approval. Oh, and then he puts his foot down and says that its low-light vision is just too powerful in conjunction with its darkvision.

[Tetraplex]

And thus begins the Jedipotter saga, part II.

I'm starting to believe they *are* Jedipotter, returned from Orcus' domain to test us once more.

[The Smallest]

I'm starting to believe they *are* Jedipotter, returned from Orcus' domain to test us once more.

They? Darth Ultron is one person.

Edit: Oh, you were using it as a gender-neutral way of referring to Darth Ultron.

[Segev]

Well, it just so happens that two of the members in our group like playing slightly unusual things. Like goblins or tibbits or weird homebrewed shadow-people. The problem is that the DM has a very erratic and ridiculous way of judging balance. So, for example, monster races (he hasn't quite caught on to the fact that 3E allowed for more PC/NPC transparency, despite playing it for 16 years) like goblin are nerfed, things like tibbit (I don't even know how he came to the conclusion that turning into a weak cat is as powerful as any polymorph form) are outright banned, and the homebrew shadow-person race, despite having abilities that are much more useful (albeit probably more useful to a rogue than a fighter or wizard), get his full approval. Oh, and then he puts his foot down and says that it's low-light vision is just too powerful in conjunction with it's darkvision.

You're only going to fix that if you play the over-nerfed concepts and demonstrate in-game that they're too weak compared to comparable builds others are doing. And you're not going to be able to do much about the Tibbit; if it's banned, you can't demonstrate anything.

Moreover, anything you talk him into allowing that he feels is overpowered will be subject to confirmation bias: if you do ANYTHING effective or out-of-the-box, it will be "proof" that it's that race or class or whatever that's broken.

My advice would be to just play things he'll allow, and warp them around to work for your concept. Want to play a Tibbit? Go druid and concentrate on getting little-kitty form. I've got no advice if you want to play a goblin. I'm not even sure HOW you'd nerf them beyond where they are. They're already weaker than halflings or gnomes.

[Tiri]

Well, I actually ended up playing the un-nerfed goblin, but only because he forgot that he'd nerfed it in the first place. The player who wanted to play a tibbit is now playing a homebrewed shadow-girl, so that's not a problem anymore (as long as he forgets what he said about the low-light and darkvision). So the DM's own forgetfulness actually helps most of the time. It can get a little silly though, like the time we were playing Sunless Citadel and he forgot that the kobolds were kobolds (he only remembered 'low-level minions', so his brain defaulted to goblins).

[johnbragg]

Well, I actually ended up playing the un-nerfed goblin, but only because he forgot that he'd nerfed it in the first place. The player who wanted to play a tibbit is now playing a homebrewed shadow-girl, so that's not a problem anymore (as long as he forgets what he said about the low-light and darkvision). So the DM's own forgetfulness actually helps most of the time. It can get a little silly though, like the time we were playing Sunless Citadel and he forgot that the kobolds were kobolds (he only remembered 'low-level minions', so his brain defaulted to goblins).

This is the sort of thing that leads me to believe that things will be okay. If he throws an under-CRed CR 10 at you when you're 8th level, he'll probably forget to use its TPK ability or not figure out how its used correctly.

[Tiri]

Until he forgets that the TPK ability allows a save.

[johnbragg]

Until he forgets that the TPK ability allows a save.

That's the sort of thing you and The SMallest will remind him of, pull up the SRD, etc. AFter he's declared TPK, you'll have plenty of time to argue the point and push for a retcon.

Your DM has been playing and DMing for a long time. He;s not going to improve very much. So trying to fix your DM is a low-rate-of-return strategy. Rationalizing why it's not so bad might work better. :smallbiggrin: