DnD's Legacy Curse: High level casters

[Skylivedk]

Dear Playground,

I've my ABC-suit on, ready to be flamed.

I really hope you won't though, since I'd rather hear some of your insights than being yelled at for asking you a question that has been boggling my mind.

To put it simply, I don't get the idea of the caster progression from 13 and onwards.

It breaks my suspension of disbelief that elven wizard/liches/dragons, basically any spell-caster with a lifespan approximating a thousand years, isn't ruling more or less everything. I've created a huge incentive to kill spell-casters in my world (their life essence is essential for crafting) to somehow make it more believable, but still...

Level 11 is Magic Jar (first step towards immortality), 13 is Simulacrum, 15 is Clone and 17 is Wish.

If I understand how intelligent you are supposed to with an INT score of 20, those three spells ought to have made utter domination of non-casters a laughing matter.

I really like the progression between level 3 and up till 9 (I guess up till 11, but haven't played it in 5e yet), but just wrapping my head around an in-world explanation of why wizards haven't conquered everything is head-ache inducing.

How do you go about it? What is your in-game rationale for this not happening (and in particular, not having already happened?)

I know a lot of people play with level caps for NPC, but why dear Giants, would an Elven Wizard at some point in time have reached for, and grabbed, true power?

[EDIT] And perhaps even more importantly: what do you do when there's a level 13/15 wizard in the group? Why would he even bother doing quests with the other dudes? At this point various contingencies and immortality paths would probably top his list, no?

[NewDM]

Read my signature. Basically the world ties itself in knots to prevent it.

[hymer]

One perspective:
There's a colony of ants living in my garden (or possibly two, can't be sure). I could certainly dominate them, should I choose. I have the technology, the skills, the resources, the sheer intellect. But then again, who cares about ants, as long as they don't get inside the house? Which I've made sure they can't. The one time they did, I hoovered the lot, took me five minutes to clear up the infestation. Another ten to seal the crack they used to get in.
Let ants be ants. I've got really important things going on, like setting people on the internet straight, and complaining that the postman knocks on the glass door with his grimy knuckles rather than use the door bell.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

So you're only screwed if the PC's care about the plot?

That certainly helps the world stay in one piece.

[Gastronomie]

In a particular game (original setting) I'm DM'ing with IRL friends, I have given some solutions (not because they asked me to give me solutions, but becuse I hate it when a world's setting is really loose and doesn't make any sense):

1. Casters HAVE already conquered everything.
Just like samurai of medieval Japan and the knights of dark age Europe, power means authority, and authority means power. It simply does not make sense for the casters to not be in charge of everything, and thus I made it Magiocracy as a general rule. Then again, some parts of the world are ruled by a dragon, or a beholder, or some other powerful and intelligent monster.
In my world, I have it that sorcerers and warlocks (and in some cases, monsters) have been dominating humans as absolute tyrants in the ancient times. Wizardry (magic as a study) was discovered only about a thousand years ago, and those lucky enough to first lay their hands upon them became magical aristocrats, never showing their studies to other people (sorcerers and warlocks were rare, even then, and the rapidly spreading wizards united and overthrew their rule, creating a new structure of authority). In my world, while it is technically possible for anyone willing to study very hard to become a Wizard, only the magical aristocrats know how to study, and thus it's sorta like a privilege.
Of course, not all of my player character casters are aristocrats. Which means, they learnt it in secret.

2. A majority of casters are only talented enough to go up to 5th level at best.
And that's only if they get proper education. For this reason, Wizard aristocrats generally get at least a dozen wives, producing dozens of children, and have them compete with each other. Only one in several dozen children can hope to become even mid-level casters, but unless you're at least 10th level, it's difficult to have others acknowledge you as a proper heir of a magical family. Over 13th level if you’re one of the best families. Being an aristocrat is tough. (Also, the dozens of low-level casters born in the process dominate the government's posts from high to low).
Some families, however, have decided this process that resembles Pokemon-training is dull. They simply adopt talented children.
The player characters started at 6th level in my game (all of them still young, either in their 10's, 20's or 30's) - indicating they're all extremely talented, to give them a superhero-ish feel. One of them is even a talented son of an aristocrat who got framed in a political conspiracy.
This was added to the setting because otherwise there’d be all these high-level casters running about and WHAT IS THIS I DON’T EVEN
(I also have it that Sorcerers and Warlocks generally become high-level easier - but there's only a handful of them in the world. Some major antagonists in my campaign are high-level warlocks or sorcerers.)

3. Casters need licenses.
Imagine Fullmetal Alchemist, except prolly more strict than that. Just like how any modern government in its right mind will ban normal civilians from holding guns, the government of a fantasy world will ban normal civilians from using magic. Even cantrips are deadly (a commoner has 4 HP, and Firebolt inflicts 5.5 damage average), and a world where everyone can learn magic is just... it wouldn't be even possible to create a properly functioning society.
If anyone without a proper license is found casting magic, he will be sentenced to a swift death penalty. This license requires being one of the following:
-A wizard or Eldritch Knight (with the acknowledging of an official family)
-A warlock (who has proved himself to not be of ill will - extremely rare case)
-A bard who belongs in an officially approved guild (read: college)
-A cleric or paladin (the gods' existence is not proved in this world - rather, clerics and paladins are elite warriors trained from young times to fight monsters and evil casters)
Apart from the above, druids exist in this world, but rarely appear in civilization, and they have no wish to aspire in power anyways - thus they are generally fine (one major reason the license is required is to not let anyone challenge the rule of the wizards, so). Rangers' magic is viewed as more of "natural instinct" or "honed senses" (I mean, not many of them have dazzling effects) so that's fine as well.
As for Arcane Tricksters, Sorcerers, and Warlocks... if they found out you were one of them, you wouldn't be very happy (Arcane Tricksters are… Tricksters. Sorcerers are a threat for the wizards’ rule, and the same with Warlocks. Sorcerers' bloodlines have been hunted down, and the knowledge of the rituals required to form pacts with otherworldly entities has been almost entirely libricided). But, it’s not really required to show people your license every single time you cast a spell (that’s really tedious). If you boldly cast spells in a town square, chances are all the civilians around you will just assume you’re a wizard. Unless you really kill someone or otherwise do other immoral acts, you wouldn’t be told to show your license.

4. Races' life spans are generally very similar to each other.
I've always found the ideas of people with life spans of hundreds of years really stupid, and so I have it that in my games, elves and dwarves and such generally have a life span sorta similar to humans (150 years at best with elves, 120 years with Dwarves). My players haven't really objected to it either, agreeing it makes a more realistic world (apart from how role-playing a 500-year-old can get weird), and unless a player argues his character wants to be 500 years old due to some weird reason or another, I would implement this in almost all of my future games as well.
A particular country in the world is ruled by Liches, much like Thay in the Forgotten Realms. Needless to say, it’s hated by other countries.

I dunno if this can solve the problems in your campaign. Just my ideas, but hope it helps.

[Alerad]

In my game there is a 15th level Wizard and he does rule the world, at least going to soon. The party is to stop him. The second highest level Wizard known is in the party, currently level 6. We don't have a temple that can Raise people. (In most towns you're lucky if the priests have any Cleric levels). When you play in low magic setting, the spells make a lot of sense.

[JellyPooga]

2. A majority of casters are only talented enough to go up to 5th level at best.

For me, it's pretty much this. Spellcasters above a certain level are rare. Yes, the PC's encounter high level casters on a regular basis, because they're doing things that bring them into contact with rare and dangerous things; they're the ones fighting against the Lich that is making his play for world domination or the Elven Sorcerer who's gone off the rails and is usurping his rulers dominion, for example.

The PC's also fight Dragons every other month, stop Illithid cults and know what a Drow is, despite the fact that most people in the world have never seen any of those things and, at best, have heard of them only in tales or legends, if at all. So yeah, the odd high level Wizard is to be expected too.

For the common populace, however, the tinker down the street who knows a couple of cantrips is about the only magic they'll ever see. The Firebolt Cantrip, to the common peasant, is a wonder they've never seen; it's even better than a bow! Scorching Ray, on the other hand, is a godlike spell of destruction, let alone Fireball or Fire Storm. What the PC's consider "normal" is not the same as what 99% of the world considers "normal".

[kaoskonfety]

Ars Magica gets into this a bit...

Mighty wizards are nightmares of power able to level villages in moments. But they are still mortal men. Sure you could conquer France in a lazy week of moderate labour. But that is a sure fire way to get the king of Spain and Germany to rally the troops, the somewhat lesser magical talent they command and their holy warriors to come f*** you up before you come after their thrones. And a war of escalation with all the peoples of all the kingdoms is not exactly an ideal state for research so your few colleagues in your league are ALSO quite interested to you not conquering nations.

As presented in this state most wizards are not concerned with politics because they are too busy working out immortality and the underlying nature of reality(s) to CARE what mortal king claims to own the land they are sitting on. Once your been to Acheron, Aboria and the Nine Hells which one of the kings sons survives to ascend to the throne kinda... pales?

And most mortal kings know enough not to kick the hornets nest that a wizards home is - natural selection sees to that.

That said if you WANT Wizard Kings it just take a mild re-framing of the cost/benefit. Make ruling nations in some way useful to the wizards - rare minerals of great value, geomantic constructs that need large amounts of manual labour or "it's tradition and everyone thinks that's the way it works"

[Lucas Yew]

In a particular game (original setting) I'm DM'ing with IRL friends, I have given some solutions (not because they asked me to give me solutions, but becuse I hate it when a world's setting is really loose and doesn't make any sense):

1. Casters HAVE already conquered everything.
(snip)

2. A majority of casters are only talented enough to go up to 5th level at best.
(snip)

3. Casters need licenses.
(snip)

4. Races' life spans are generally very similar to each other.
(snip)

I dunno if this can solve the problems in your campaign. Just my ideas, but hope it helps.

Whoa, can I steal your awesome settings, please?

[AvatarVecna]

Possibilities include:
The rarity of mages with double-digit levels.
The license requirement to learn and practice magic.
The limited resources of higher-level spells.
The ultimate game of Diplomacy.

In regards to that last one, I feel the need to explain it a bit: the problem with a mage dedicating some of their time and spell slots to taking over the world is time and spell slots not being spent keeping themselves protected from other powerful mages, who also wish to take over the world and are waiting for the opportunity to scry-and-die whoever lets their guard down first. They leave other powerful mages alone if they're not the "world conquering" type (like most adventurers), but if you want to get into the world domination game, you'd best be prepared for the other people playing that game to be ready and waiting to pwn this newb trying to play their game without knowing the rules.

[NewDM]

I just make it where high level casters are few and far between. Many have taken short cuts to power (Warlock) or have sought immortality (lichs, demi-lichs, and pseudo-lichs). The rest die of old age locked in their towers studying arcane lores that have nothing to do with adventuring.

Occasionally you'll have a spell caster or two in the employ of someone or a high level spell caster that is the BBEG.

[MaxWilson]

Dear Playground,

I've my ABC-suit, ready to be flamed.

I really hope you won't though, since I'd rather hear some of your insights than being yelled at it.

To put it simply, I don't get the idea of the caster progression from 13 and onwards.

It breaks my suspension of disbelief that elven wizard/liches/dragons, basically any spell-caster with a lifespan approximating a thousand years, isn't ruling more or less everything. I've created a huge incentive to kill spell-casters in my world (their life essence is essential for crafting) to somehow make it more believable, but still...

Level 13 is Simulacrum, 15 is Clone and 17 is Wish.

If I understand how intelligent you are supposed to with an INT score of 20, those three spells ought to have made utter domination of non-casters a laughing matter.

I really like the progression between level 3 and up till 9 (I guess up till 11, but haven't played it in 5e yet), but just wrapping my head around an in-world explanation of why wizards haven't conquered everything is head-ache inducing.

How do you go about it? What is your in-game rationale for this not happening (and in particular, not having already happened?)

In my latest 5E campaign, there are a couple of reasons:

(1) I've rewritten Simulacrum to be more AD&D-like. A simulacrum only has 40-65% of the skills and abilities of the original creature. (But, it doesn't have to be humanoid, and it can recover spell slots.) So "infinite Simulacra via Wish" isn't a thing because there aren't any 30th level wizards around to cast it, and if there were, they'd be aware of the downsides (like the fact that commanding all of your simulacra's simulacra to 'obey the original' makes your empire horribly vulnerable to illusion magic--it's basically an omnipotent botnet that obeys anyone who can successfully impersonate you). I've also considered making Simulacrum require a cubic inch of flesh just like Clone. (I'd word it in such a way that it's not a material component, so Wish wouldn't get you out of the requirement.)

(2) XP requirements to level up are 10x PHB normal, and kill XP from monsters has diminishing returns. (Most XP gain comes from finding and spending treasure.)

(3) Pain is a thing. HP damage hurts.

#2 means there isn't any vicious circle in play, unlike vanilla 5E wherein earning XP makes you better at earning XP which makes anyone who reaches 5th level a shoo-in for 20th level sometime in the near future. Instead, between #2 and #3 and simple survival instinct, retiring at any given point after you've accomplished your in-character goals makes perfect sense, which means that your average sane NPC wizard (if any exist) would generally retire at or before 230,000 XP (7th level) and spend their careers casting Fabricate spells and enjoying creature comforts and an easy life.

Basically, there just aren't very many archmages around in the first place, and the ones that do exist don't have any way to trigger a Simulacrum Singularity.

[Gastronomie]

Whoa, can I steal your awesome settings, please?NO U CANT LOLOLOLOLOLHahaha I'm just kidding, feel free to use it as you want. It's the whole purpose of why I posted it here anyways~~

EDIT: Add how in my setting, the wizards generally keep their spells' information to themselves, making it extremely difficult for even a high-level caster in this setting to get to learn all the good spells. For instance, a particular wizard family may be an expert of Fire-blasting (Fireball, Firestorm, once in several centuries someone with Meteor Swarm) but no one in the bloodline would know how to use Simulacrum. Meanwhile, the particular family who knows how to use Simulacrum may also be a master of other illusion spells (Phantasmal Force etc.) but the wizards of that family will probably not know many blasting spells. Stealing magical secrets from a wizard family is the most terrible violation of the law one can hope to commit. Then again, some families may bond together, sharing their spells' knowledge to power each other.

There is a Wizard in the party (former heir of a family), and he is of the School of Illusions - this being because he was raised in a wizard family which mainly studied about illusions. He's a real roleplayer and doesn't really care about power-gaming, so he's chosen his spells to make sense with his background (no Fireball, for instance). If someone really hates having a restricted list, you could have his Spellbook be a special artifact, some sort of forbidden "Index" of the spells in the world, so that he can get any spells from levelling up. But in my party's case, that was unneeded.

[Skylivedk]

In a particular game (original setting) I'm DM'ing with IRL friends, I have given some solutions (not because they asked me to give me solutions, but becuse I hate it when a world's setting is really loose and doesn't make any sense):

1. Casters HAVE already conquered everything.

2. A majority of casters are only talented enough to go up to 5th level at best.

3. Casters need licenses.

4. Races' life spans are generally very similar to each other.

I dunno if this can solve the problems in your campaign. Just my ideas, but hope it helps.

Thank you very much. My current campaign is in a modded version of Faerun (mostly due to the fact that life essence can be drained - but this also has ramifications on how guilds function, power structures, how gods are seen, etc.)

I guess, I'll have #1 be kind of true in the sense that casters quite often would rule from the shadows. #2 isn't as necessary as a biological limit. Low-level casters get shanked on the regular for their life essence. #3 would be true in Amn (and other empires). #4 is something, I think, I'll implement in the future. I must admit to not having thought the life-span through properly. The more I think about it, the less I like the Tolkien-inspired life-spans.


For me, it's pretty much this. Spellcasters above a certain level are rare. Yes, the PC's encounter high level casters on a regular basis, because they're doing things that bring them into contact with rare and dangerous things; they're the ones fighting against the Lich that is making his play for world domination or the Elven Sorcerer who's gone off the rails and is usurping his rulers dominion, for example.

The PC's also fight Dragons every other month, stop Illithid cults and know what a Drow is, despite the fact that most people in the world have never seen any of those things and, at best, have heard of them only in tales or legends, if at all. So yeah, the odd high level Wizard is to be expected too.

For the common populace, however, the tinker down the street who knows a couple of cantrips is about the only magic they'll ever see. The Firebolt Cantrip, to the common peasant, is a wonder they've never seen; it's even better than a bow! Scorching Ray, on the other hand, is a godlike spell of destruction, let alone Fireball or Fire Storm. What the PC's consider "normal" is not the same as what 99% of the world considers "normal".

Agreed; they're rare. In Forgotten Realms, they don't seem all that rare though. It's not so much the destructive spells, I feel are breaking the world to me; it's the many options of becoming immortal that makes it hard for me. With Magic Jar/Clone your 20 INT wizard is essentially Voldemort from Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality on steroids.


Ars Magica gets into this a bit...

Mighty wizards are nightmares of power able to level villages in moments. But they are still mortal men. Sure you could conquer France in a lazy week of moderate labour. But that is a sure fire way to get the king of Spain and Germany to rally the troops, the somewhat lesser magical talent they command and their holy warriors to come f*** you up before you come after their thrones. And a war of escalation with all the peoples of all the kingdoms is not exactly an ideal state for research so your few colleagues in your league are ALSO quite interested to you not conquering nations.

As presented in this state most wizards are not concerned with politics because they are too busy working out immortality and the underlying nature of reality(s) to CARE what mortal king claims to own the land they are sitting on. Once your been to Acheron, Aboria and the Nine Hells which one of the kings sons survives to ascend to the throne kinda... pales?

And most mortal kings know enough not to kick the hornets nest that a wizards home is - natural selection sees to that.

That said if you WANT Wizard Kings it just take a mild re-framing of the cost/benefit. Make ruling nations in some way useful to the wizards - rare minerals of great value, geomantic constructs that need large amounts of manual labour or "it's tradition and everyone thinks that's the way it works"

I agree with the "pales" part. Unfortunately, human history has shown us that some men will go to extremes to dominate others - even quite unnecessarily so (Hi Genghis!)


Possibilities include:
The rarity of mages with double-digit levels.
The license requirement to learn and practice magic.
The limited resources of higher-level spells.
The ultimate game of Diplomacy.

In regards to that last one, I feel the need to explain it a bit: the problem with a mage dedicating some of their time and spell slots to taking over the world is time and spell slots not being spent keeping themselves protected from other powerful mages, who also wish to take over the world and are waiting for the opportunity to scry-and-die whoever lets their guard down first. They leave other powerful mages alone if they're not the "world conquering" type (like most adventurers), but if you want to get into the world domination game, you'd best be prepared for the other people playing that game to be ready and waiting to pwn this newb trying to play their game without knowing the rules.

I like this part, but how do you make it fun for anyone who isn't a caster in the group?


In my latest 5E campaign, there are a couple of reasons:

(1) I've rewritten Simulacrum to be more AD&D-like. A simulacrum only has 40-65% of the skills and abilities of the original creature. (But, it doesn't have to be humanoid, and it can recover spell slots.) So "infinite Simulacra via Wish" isn't a thing because there aren't any 30th level wizards around to cast it, and if there were, they'd be aware of the downsides (like the fact that commanding all of your simulacra's simulacra to 'obey the original' makes your empire horribly vulnerable to illusion magic--it's basically an omnipotent botnet that obeys anyone who can successfully impersonate you). I've also considered making Simulacrum require a cubic inch of flesh just like Clone. (I'd word it in such a way that it's not a material component, so Wish wouldn't get you out of the requirement.)

(2) XP requirements to level up are 10x PHB normal, and kill XP from monsters has diminishing returns. (Most XP gain comes from finding and spending treasure.)

(3) Pain is a thing. HP damage hurts.

#2 means there isn't any vicious circle in play, unlike vanilla 5E wherein earning XP makes you better at earning XP which makes anyone who reaches 5th level a shoo-in for 20th level sometime in the near future. Instead, between #2 and #3 and simple survival instinct, retiring at any given point after you've accomplished your in-character goals makes perfect sense, which means that your average sane NPC wizard (if any exist) would generally retire at or before 230,000 XP (7th level) and spend their careers casting Fabricate spells and enjoying creature comforts and an easy life.

Basically, there just aren't very many archmages around in the first place, and the ones that do exist don't have any way to trigger a Simulacrum Singularity.

I'm thinking of removing Simulacrum entirely (at least its ability to cast spells). I don't really get the point of the spell being in the game as it is. How do your players like the change in XP? I think that might sadden those of my players who like levelling up. My players are definitely afraid to die... Very much so. All the time.

I've edited the OP to include a core question I forgot: how do you make the campaign not center on the party-wizard after level 11?

Thank you all for you great feedback!

[Gastronomie]

As for that new question: Giving the Fighter a magical weapon or perhaps even an artifact-ish weapon (the original DMG artifacts are too broken to be wielded without breaking the game, so an original item). It should work enough. And besides, combat isn't everything - role-playing is the main point of any table-talk game. Being a Fighter or whatever doesn't really limit your role-playing potential, does it?

[Kite474]

As for that new question: Giving the Fighter a magical weapon or perhaps even an artifact-ish weapon (the original DMG artifacts are too broken to be wielded without breaking the game, so an original item). It should work enough. And besides, combat isn't everything - role-playing is the main point of any table-talk game. Being a Fighter or whatever doesn't really limit your role-playing potential, does it?

I would say on some level... Kind of?

I mean taking it from the basics Combat is all you really can excel at. In terms of the social or exploration pillar it's very possible to become chopped liver.

[Skylivedk]

I would say on some level... Kind of?

I mean taking it from the basics Combat is all you really can excel at. In terms of the social or exploration pillar it's very possible to become chopped liver.

Agreed. The fighter isn't holding a candle to the mental stats of casters nor the impact and utility provided by spells.

It's another, albeit related, discussion, but I'm not so fond of how the three pillars are currently working.

[Roughishguy86]

I basically run it in my games that magic is extremely rare which is what makes the adventurers so important.

Therefore they may be a few archmages out there hellbent on ruling the world but thats kind of the whole point for the pc's too exist.

[Tanarii]

I like this part, but how do you make it fun for anyone who isn't a caster in the group?
You mean the Barbarian, the Champion or Battlemaster Fighter, or the Thief or Assassin Rogue?

(Edit: I realize that your comment was specific to his setting. But those are the 'non-caster' classes 5e has.)

They do aight. But yeah, they do tend to be avoided for single class PCs. In games where I allow split-class style multi classing (ie roughly even levels in classes taken), my players will sometimes use them. The one time I've allowed MC as a dip, Fighter and Rogue were exclusively the chosen dip.

But otherwise, they're usually sought after as henchmen, backing up the primary PC and filling in the weak spots, with no chance of overshadowing the primary.

This pretty much matches every game of D&D I've ever run since they dropped the emphasis on 'name' level being a switch to becoming a ruler & gaining followers for Fighters. (Thieves have never been popular for single class.) when I intentionally add it back in, players get more interested in playing non-magical characters that are a good fit for ruling. But when any class can be an effective ruler, or ruling isn't part of the game, magical classes are highly likely to be selected.

And what's good for the goose (PCs) is good for the gander (the campaign world as a whole). If there's no reason for non-magical classes to be a better fit as rulers, or more inclined to actually care about ruling, then of course there's no reason to find many non-magical rulers.

Edit: one last comment. Remember that characters over level 11 are supposed to be world shaking adventurers that do things that impact entire regions and continents. Even at level 5-10 they're impacting entire kingdoms. Effectively, anything over level 10 is 'endgame' levels of power.

[smcmike]

Wizards are very powerful, sure, but so are other things, and wizarding is neither easy nor hazard-free. Also, ruling the world isn't t necessarily very high on a wizard's list of priorities.

[kaoskonfety]

I agree with the "pales" part. Unfortunately, human history has shown us that some men will go to extremes to dominate others - even quite unnecessarily so (Hi Genghis!)



Oh yes, there are certainly powers with such ambitions, but when there are say... 12 great wizards and 10 of them want nothing to do with 'mortal' politics there will be... pressures... on the last 2 to not rock the boat too hard lest the other 10 show up and explain, in detail, why they do not want wars with the empires of mortal kings.

Basically its an arrangement that leaves "Wizard Kings" something other than an automatic assumption.

[AvatarVecna]

like this part, but how do you make it fun for anyone who isn't a caster in the group?

If your group has non-casters that are at "world domination" levels of power, it's okay to get them involved in the international/interdimensional magical politics. If the non-casters aren't at the level of the casters, you need to get everyone on the same level and work from there (whether it's convincing the caster to turn it down, convincing the non-casters to turn it up, or both), but that's an OoC issue about group party balance. If there's no "world domination" level casters in the group, there's no need for casters at such a level to bother the party, since the party has no ability/intention to conquer the world.

EDIT: I briefly played a 3.5 epic game where the party were all epic casters in a "epic casters keep each other in line via mutually assured destruction" kind of world. It was pretty fun while it lasted, but only because the players and DM agree to keep away from the truly broken stuff.

[Sigreid]

The Myth setting based on the video game series had this covered pretty well.


Ruling a kingdom or empire is time consuming. Does your archmage want to spend his time with affairs of state, or expanding his incredible cosmic power?
People are more comfortable with warrior kings. They can relate to physical violence so it's easier for fighters to rule.
Clerics have to kow-tow to their gods wishes and their wishes do not include high level clerics being the rulers.


Beyond that, as an archmage you can already do pretty much as you please, and unless you make someone very desperate they aren't going to risk trying to stop you.
Even other high level mages probably don't want to go at each other. why pick a fight with one of the few people who could very well kill you? Live and let live is easier.
An Archmage can dominate nearly any field of battle, but he can be on only one at a time and is vulnerable and needs to recover after.
Good aligned mages are not going to want to impose their will on others through force (magic)
Neutral mages probably just want everyone to stay out of their way.
Evil mages...well, adventurers have to have an enemy.

Much of this applies just as well to powerful monsters with the addendum that monsters are often manifestations of a particular trait, and it's quite simply not in the nature of most of them.

[Kite474]

A small caviat I've noticed is that all the answers stated all revolve around Wizards all being really, really, really, REALLY stuffy academics with no interest in power or adventuring. Which confuses me to no end. You god-like cosmic power. Why not get a nice castle and all the resources a kingdom provides? I imagine only a small portion of Wizards actually want to keep studying, much like only a small portion of college students stay with academia. That may have something to do with it.

[Sigreid]

A small caviat I've noticed is that all the answers stated all revolve around Wizards all being really, really, really, REALLY stuffy academics with no interest in power or adventuring. Which confuses me to no end. You god-like cosmic power. Why not get a nice castle and all the resources a kingdom provides? I imagine only a small portion of Wizards actually want to keep studying, much like only a small portion of college students stay with academia. That may have something to do with it.

Actually my answers largely revolve around the idea that you mostly just get headaches by being officially in-charge once you can have anything you want anyway.

[AvatarVecna]

A small caviat I've noticed is that all the answers stated all revolve around Wizards all being really, really, really, REALLY stuffy academics with no interest in power or adventuring. Which confuses me to no end. You god-like cosmic power. Why not get a nice castle and all the resources a kingdom provides? I imagine only a small portion of Wizards actually want to keep studying, much like only a small portion of college students stay with academia. That may have something to do with it.

And my main answer was "you enter into a game of international interdimensional magical politics with all the other super-powerful wizards that want to take over the world, but can't because the other super-powerful wizards would destroy them for trying".

[Stray]

I imagine only a small portion of Wizards actually want to keep studying, much like only a small portion of college students stay with academia. That may have something to do with it.

I think an Archmage is more like tenured professor and not like college student, so a least likely person to leave academia. If a wizard stops studying magic they should stop improving.

[R.Shackleford]

Dear Playground,

I've my ABC-suit on, ready to be flamed.

I really hope you won't though, since I'd rather hear some of your insights than being yelled at for asking you a question that has been boggling my mind.

To put it simply, I don't get the idea of the caster progression from 13 and onwards.

It breaks my suspension of disbelief that elven wizard/liches/dragons, basically any spell-caster with a lifespan approximating a thousand years, isn't ruling more or less everything. I've created a huge incentive to kill spell-casters in my world (their life essence is essential for crafting) to somehow make it more believable, but still...

Level 11 is Magic Jar (first step towards immortality), 13 is Simulacrum, 15 is Clone and 17 is Wish.

If I understand how intelligent you are supposed to with an INT score of 20, those three spells ought to have made utter domination of non-casters a laughing matter.

I really like the progression between level 3 and up till 9 (I guess up till 11, but haven't played it in 5e yet), but just wrapping my head around an in-world explanation of why wizards haven't conquered everything is head-ache inducing.

How do you go about it? What is your in-game rationale for this not happening (and in particular, not having already happened?)

I know a lot of people play with level caps for NPC, but why dear Giants, would an Elven Wizard at some point in time have reached for, and grabbed, true power?

[EDIT] And perhaps even more importantly: what do you do when there's a level 13/15 wizard in the group? Why would he even bother doing quests with the other dudes? At this point various contingencies and immortality paths would probably top his list, no?

My favorite system changes to D&D is 3.5 E6 and 4e E10. I'm working on a D&D 5e E5.

A lot of these issues can be solved with this type of setting.

[MaxWilson]

Agreed; they're rare. In Forgotten Realms, they don't seem all that rare though. It's not so much the destructive spells, I feel are breaking the world to me; it's the many options of becoming immortal that makes it hard for me. With Magic Jar/Clone your 20 INT wizard is essentially Voldemort from Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality on steroids.

(1) Remember how Harry dealt with Voldemort in HPMoR? Yeah, it still works in D&D. There are worse things than death.
(2) Magic Jar is unreliable. Clone is good insurance, but it takes you out of commission until a new clone grows, unless you're willing to operate without a clone safety net. Neither is as powerful as Voldemort's horcrux network or a lich's phylactery.


I'm thinking of removing Simulacrum entirely (at least its ability to cast spells). I don't really get the point of the spell being in the game as it is. How do your players like the change in XP? I think that might sadden those of my players who like levelling up. My players are definitely afraid to die... Very much so. All the time.

My players are fully on board with the XP change. One of them had actually requested a low-level game previously, and two sessions into the new campaign he was thrilled that he was still first level. In our old sandbox campaign I ran everything by DMG rules, and it wasn't unusual for a new PC to quickly rocket up to 7th or 8th level over what felt, to me, like only a few sessions. There were at least three or four fights over the course of the campaign that had 100K or more adjusted XP, which meant that the actual XP earned was still in the neighborhood of 25K+ for a single fight... which isn't much by AD&D standards, but coupled with vanilla 5E's XP table it's six or seven levels of advancement in a single fight. So maybe it's no wonder that S. was so happy to spend some real time at low level in this new campaign.

[Skylivedk]

My favorite system changes to D&D is 3.5 E6 and 4e E10. I'm working on a D&D 5e E5.

A lot of these issues can be solved with this type of setting.

I'm intrigued and entirely in the dark. E5, E6, E10?

[Xetheral]

Dear Playground,

I've my ABC-suit on, ready to be flamed.

I really hope you won't though, since I'd rather hear some of your insights than being yelled at for asking you a question that has been boggling my mind.

To put it simply, I don't get the idea of the caster progression from 13 and onwards.

It breaks my suspension of disbelief that elven wizard/liches/dragons, basically any spell-caster with a lifespan approximating a thousand years, isn't ruling more or less everything. I've created a huge incentive to kill spell-casters in my world (their life essence is essential for crafting) to somehow make it more believable, but still...

Level 11 is Magic Jar (first step towards immortality), 13 is Simulacrum, 15 is Clone and 17 is Wish.

If I understand how intelligent you are supposed to with an INT score of 20, those three spells ought to have made utter domination of non-casters a laughing matter.

I really like the progression between level 3 and up till 9 (I guess up till 11, but haven't played it in 5e yet), but just wrapping my head around an in-world explanation of why wizards haven't conquered everything is head-ache inducing.

How do you go about it? What is your in-game rationale for this not happening (and in particular, not having already happened?)

I know a lot of people play with level caps for NPC, but why dear Giants, would an Elven Wizard at some point in time have reached for, and grabbed, true power?

[EDIT] And perhaps even more importantly: what do you do when there's a level 13/15 wizard in the group? Why would he even bother doing quests with the other dudes? At this point various contingencies and immortality paths would probably top his list, no?

The way I see it, magic gives phenomenal personal power, but that power is bounded by its inherent mechanical constraints (spells per day, etc.). Politics, on the other hand, provides (relatively) unbounded power. While nothing stops the magic-user from also amassing political power (and their magic makes it easier to do so), that's not an efficient allocation of resources (e.g. time) from the perspective of the society: it's better to have everyone specialize in the areas where they have a relative advantage over others. This means that a society where magic-users focus on magic and political specialists focus on politics is (all else equal) potentially stronger than one where the same person has both the magical and the political power. Ergo, not all societies will be ruled by magic-users.

As for the high-level wizard in the group, he's there for the same reason everyone else is: because he can accomplish his objectives more easily with allies than without. In the case of a wizard, his personal power gives him more options than non-magic-users, and therefore it might be somewhat rarer for wizards to choose objectives where allies are beneficial. But just because a wizard chosen at random may not have any interest in adventuring with a party doesn't mean that one can't design a PC Wizard for whom adventuring with a party is advantageous. It is beholden upon the player to design a character that wants to adventure with the group, and it's a self-correcting problem if the player fails to do so.

[R.Shackleford]

I'm intrigued and entirely in the dark. E5, E6, E10?

Epic 6 was a 3.5 leveling system that maxed level was 6. You then could keep taking feats but the math didn't get any higher. Kinda like putting bounded accuracy in 3.5. Higher level magic became rituals and monsters were deleved.

Epic 10 essentially took 4e and smooshed it down to 10 levels. You got paragon and epic features but your powers stayed heroic as did the math.

For 5e I'm doing essentially the same.

Fighter example

Level 1: Fighting Style, Second Wind
Level 2: Action Surge
Level 3: Martial Archetype
Level 4: Extra Attack
Level 5: Indomitable

Cleric
Level 1: Spellcasting, Cleric 's cantrips
Level 2: Channel Divinity
Level 3: Divine Domain
Level 4: Feature (smite or cantrip boost)
Level 5: Divine Intervention

High level magic will be rituals.

Class Level and character level will be separated. Character level will be coupled with background.

Saving throws will be fort, ref, and will like 4e except the defender rolls like in 5e (fort save will be 1d20 + str or con mod + prof versus DC).

Edit: a lot of what I'm putting for classes have changed. Channel Divinity for example will be completely different than the 5e version. I just used these terms as an example.

[Tanarii]

In our old sandbox campaign I ran everything by DMG rules, and it wasn't unusual for a new PC to quickly rocket up to 7th or 8th level over what felt, to me, like only a few sessions. There were at least three or four fights over the course of the campaign that had 100K or more adjusted XP, which meant that the actual XP earned was still in the neighborhood of 25K+ for a single fight... which isn't much by AD&D standards, but coupled with vanilla 5E's XP table it's six or seven levels of advancement in a single fight. sorry Max, but claiming that you ran everything by the DMG rules, then claiming 100k adjusted XP fights that were beaten, is plain bull****. And even if they somehow survived a 2xDeadly fight for level 20 characters (assuming a party of four), there's no way to jump 6 levels from a party award of 25k. Even if you meant a party of 4 getting 25k each, which means the 'adjusted XP' was a x1 multiplier since XP awarded is the total before adjustments, then they would have advanced 6 levels if they started at level 1.

If your party of 4 level one adventures is beating fights that are 2xDeadly for level 20 parties, then first you should reexamine your house rules. And second you should give them the six damn levels.

[p_johnston]

I just thought I would chip in my two cents. It's kind of similar to what everyone else has said but I still want to put in my two cents.

I actually ran into this problem when making up my current campaign. In a world where Ancient dragons, Powerful wizards, etc are anything less then super rare it starts getting weird. Like imagine if their was just some random guy walking around the united states who had the power to Nuke cities with a thought. How does the government deal with him? Does he take over the world? Does he not bother and just take whatever he wants?

I ended up solving it by pretty much just wiping out magic users, and wizards in particular, out to the point of almost none existence. I have about 5 PC's in the group and they are the largest concentration of spell casters in existence (It's worth noting all five are casters of some kind). The most powerful magic user known to mankind is a sixth level cleric. The only wizard in existence is a really old and somewhat hedonistic illusionist. He doesn't take over the world because it's just seems like a hassle to run it. I just find the idea of a D&D world a lot easier to believe the more rare magic is.

[JackPhoenix]

How do you go about it? What is your in-game rationale for this not happening (and in particular, not having already happened?)

I know a lot of people play with level caps for NPC, but why dear Giants, would an Elven Wizard at some point in time have reached for, and grabbed, true power?

[EDIT] And perhaps even more importantly: what do you do when there's a level 13/15 wizard in the group? Why would he even bother doing quests with the other dudes? At this point various contingencies and immortality paths would probably top his list, no?

There are almost no high level casters (about 2 13+ wizards on the continent, one high level cleric, one level 20 druid), most people hit their natural limits before reaching that (elven wizard may be level 6 even after centuries of studies, because he's just incapable of mastering stronger magic, no matter how much he tries). One of the casters is level 16 (I think) lich who created a cult serving her goals, but who can't openly do anything, or she'll be destroyed by other players (dragons are organised, elves lack the individual power, but they have numbers, and she's not THAT strong. And both hate her. And fiends would destroy her if she threatened their machinations). The other one is level 18 transmuter, thoroughly insane and interested only in his own mysterious goals. He IS immortal, though, and I suppose mass cloning would be right up his alley (he's got clones of famous and powerful historic personalities living in a hidden village). Both cleric and druid are bound to their locations (onel by losing her power if she moves away from the cathedral, the other is a talking tree.) and neither of them are malicious or interested in ruling the world.

There are greater powers at work, dragons and fiends, lot of them with spellcaster levels. If you ask them why they aren't ruling the world, they'll grin and ask you in turn: "Are you sure we don't?". They are hostile to each other and prefer subtlety. The dragons aren't interested in lesser races, both are limited by Prophecy. There are other powerful forces, but compared to dragons and fiends, they play secondary roles.

The setting is Eberron


sorry Max, but claiming that you ran everything by the DMG rules, then claiming 100k adjusted XP fights that were beaten, is plain bull****. And even if they somehow survived a 2xDeadly fight for level 20 characters (assuming a party of four), there's no way to jump 6 levels from a party award of 25k. Even if you meant a party of 4 getting 25k each, which means the 'adjusted XP' was a x1 multiplier since XP awarded is the total before adjustments, then they would have advanced 6 levels if they started at level 1.

If your party of 4 level one adventures is beating fights that are 2xDeadly for level 20 parties, then first you should reexamine your house rules. And second you should give them the six damn levels.

He's talking about AD&D, there were no Deadly fights or silly ideas like "balanced encounters" back then.

[BW022]

It breaks my suspension of disbelief that elven wizard/liches/dragons, basically any spell-caster with a lifespan approximating a thousand years, isn't ruling more or less everything. I've created a huge incentive to kill spell-casters in my world (their life essence is essential for crafting) to somehow make it more believable, but still...


Lots of reasons to explain this...

1. In many settings... high level NPCs do rule countries and have massive political, economic, and military power.

2. There are limits on the number of high level characters. Ultimately, they must adventure or face risk to gain levels and most won't make it to high levels. Most campaign settings have maybe 1 in 10 of a population have PC classes, 1 in 10 of those might be 5th+, 1 in 1,000 might be 10th+, and those 15th+ might only be a few hundred per country.

3. There are lots of things for high level NPCs to be doing. Running a wizard's guild, running a church (or group of churches), running a thieves guild, teaching classes at the bard college, etc. Many also have mundane pursuits (family, friends, retirement, travel, etc.).

4. Most countries (depending upon the setting) are ruled via feudal, religious, clan, or other systems. The population, other nobles, families, population, etc. don't necessarily care that you are personally powerful... unless you want to try to take over via a dictatorship.

5. Even high level casters in D&D can't push 'power' beyond a few hundred yards of themselves. There are no spells which compel thousands or hundreds of thousands to follow you. You'd still need to convince people to follow you in large numbers.

6. Nations have resources beyond what a single person or creature has. A 20th-level wizard can't flatten an army of 10,000 with one spell. Nations can simply pour troops at you until you run out of spells. And nations do have large numbers of mid and some number of high level NPCs at their disposal.

7. Nations also do have some number of ultra-high level NPCs. The head of a wizard's tower, four of five high level church leaders, the head of the thieves' guild, etc. could also easily be 15th+. Facing a dozen or more high level NPCs isn't likely to end well. Imagine all the high level NPCs, creatures, etc. coming out of retirement or off their normal duties and deciding that they don't wish to be ruled by this person.

8. A nation or its population can also just flee.

9. What is the person willing to do to take over a city or small province. Kill everyone who revolts? Destroy its army? Burn its castles down?

10. So what if you take over a small nation? Do you want to spent your days dealing with famines, tax disputes, judging petty crimes, dealing with corrupt civil servants, deal with smugglers, protect the country from other tyrants, trade disputes with other countries, marry someone to form a political alliance, etc., etc.? Imagine Game of Thrones.

11. Some characters have class, alignment, background, guild, family or other limitations on their actions. Good characters aren't likely to seize a country, province, or city... nor slaughter a band of good knights sent to stop them. Clergy or druids might have vows or orders. Wizards might have guild masters who forbid this. Such people could easily be ex-communicated, denied further access to their guild, or hunted down. They might also receive a letter from their mother saying, "Please stop slaughtering people."


If you are talking PCs trying this... sure... let them try. However, nations, cities, and provinces have significant resources which they'll use against the PCs and taking over even a small country via personal force (even if a high level caster) is nearly impossible. It takes political maneuvering, alliances, promises, convincing certain nobles, gaining support of the people, etc.

However... it would make a great campaign if planned out. Could people who get high enough in power gain political power. Sure. In 5E... backgrounds, the campaign setting, the DMs plots, etc. could all lead to this. You could 'reward' higher level characters with a barony, command a naval base, maybe a plot of land, etc. As a DM this can be a great way of challenging high level NPCs and forcing them to adventure -- as there can be no end of things they need to do to protect their barony, recruit people, build things, etc.

I've had a campaign where my character came back at higher level and took over the tribe he was forced to leave as a child -- and then have to deal with all the neighbouring tribes, political issues, assassination attempts, resource issues, etc. which came along with it. I've DM'd players who want to take over their own thieves' guild, and one where players were competing for a track of land (think Oregon land-give-away) with lots of high level NPCs all trying to out compete each other. If players are into that type of campaign... it does make a nice ending to the campaign... players settle in to a routine and can still be brought back if and when they wish to continue.



And perhaps even more importantly: what do you do when there's a level 13/15 wizard in the group? Why would he even bother doing quests with the other dudes? At this point various contingencies and immortality paths would probably top his list, no?


If players show an interest at high levels of playing a settlers or ruler-type campaign... go with it. Make sure everyone is onboard. Just consider the above. However... if a 15th-level wizard goes to a reasonable nation, does a lot of good things, maybe the ruler would gift him a barony. Maybe the wizard might be sent to take over a wizard tower or be assigned to replace the advisor of a ruler, etc. The campaigns turns from simple adventuring to lots of political maneuvering, convincing others, negotiations, and 'adventures' on behalf of your state/guild/city, etc.

[soldersbushwack]

The worlds of D&D are ruled by extremely powerful spellcasters. They're called the gods. Moreover, there are much more high level religious zealots than wizards. There are probably many, many kingdoms that were founded by high level paladins and clerics. But it's probably fluff and crunch segregation mostly.

[Sigreid]

I'm intrigued and entirely in the dark. E5, E6, E10?

My understanding is essentially D&D with level caps at the point where a table feels that the game starts to go wonky for various reasons.

[NewDM]

He's talking about AD&D, there were no Deadly fights or silly ideas like "balanced encounters" back then.

Yes, and while you got xp from combat your main xp was from finding treasure, so avoiding a fight and still getting the treasure was the optimal strategy. So you would end up with the Cleric casting stealth spells on the Rogue and the Wizard casting greater invisibility on them. The Rogue sneaking in and getting the treasure while the fighter distracted the mob by either talking to it, or kiting it around a room.

[R.Shackleford]

My understanding is essentially D&D with level caps at the point where a table feels that the game starts to go wonky for various reasons.

That's the start of it but there are other reason to go this route.


One big one is level bloat. You don't really need 20 levels to give a great representation of the Fighter. Why is that class 20 levels long? There is no need.

You can sum the Fighter up in 5 levels, why stretch it out to 20?

Same thing with a wizard. You can get a wizard in 5 levels, why stretch it out to 20?

Most people don't even play 10 levels much less 20.

It isn't for everyone but that's a big part of it for me.

[Tanarii]

He's talking about AD&D, there were no Deadly fights or silly ideas like "balanced encounters" back then.No. He wasn't. And a party of 1st level 1e characters couldn't reasonably hope to defeat a 100k battle any more than 5e ones can.

[SharkForce]

generally speaking, you don't improve your spellcasting power by being the ruler of a kingdom.

as a result, people who are powerful spellcasters are generally speaking people who didn't rule kingdoms before, and probably have no particular inclination to do so now. i mean, if they wanted to rule a kingdom, they could have stopped with whatever it is they were doing that improves their magical power at level 8 or 9, maybe level 11 at most, and conquered some place. bam, goal accomplished... and now they're too busy ruling a kingdom to improve much at being a spellcaster. heck, even at level 5 or so, they may very well have enough personal power to overthrow some small kingdoms (seriously, think of a level 5 wizard, for example.... that's 2 fireballs and 3 shatter spells. not a lot of armies are going to be super enthusiastic about attacking this guy... and that's just what the wizard can do in a brawl, never mind what they can do if they're deciding to be more subtle).

the ones that actually reach archmage levels of power are the ones that didn't have political aspirations. you can tell, because they didn't stop accumulating personal spellcasting power when they had enough to realistically take over a kingdom that doesn't have that kind of power.

and then, as noted above, if you *are* a level 18 spellcaster, you can probably force most kingdoms to do what you want anyways. if you decide it's worth the bother. and if you want superior ability to force people to do what you want, well, odds are good that becoming a better spellcaster (by focusing on the things that make you a better spellcaster; increasing your library of spells, accumulating or creating magic items that can supplement or enhance your spels, etc) will give you at least as much power as becoming an official ruler of some sort, perhaps even more so. i mean, suppose you're the ruler of a kingdom, and an archmage comes to you in a dream, orders you to do something, and then adds that if you don't do it, your dreams will be plagued by nightmares every night until you die from exhaustion. most likely, the ruler will cave... but if not, well, they'll probably die, and then you can start in on their replacement. assuming you're the sort of person willing to use your power forcefully to get what you want, that is.

(if you aren't that kind of person, well, you probably didn't conquer a kingdom with your arcane might, either).

[MaxWilson]

sorry Max, but claiming that you ran everything by the DMG rules, then claiming 100k adjusted XP fights that were beaten, is plain -------. And even if they somehow survived a 2xDeadly fight for level 20 characters (assuming a party of four), there's no way to jump 6 levels from a party award of 25k. Even if you meant a party of 4 getting 25k each, which means the 'adjusted XP' was a x1 multiplier since XP awarded is the total before adjustments, then they would have advanced 6 levels if they started at level 1.

If your party of 4 level one adventures is beating fights that are 2xDeadly for level 20 parties, then first you should reexamine your house rules. And second you should give them the six ---- levels.

I usually have three players, not four. And I did give them the levels, as I mentioned previously. The reason for the new house rules on XP is at least in part because one of my players found the pace of XP gain too quick. He wants orcs and goblins to be a big deal again.

Edit: Clarification: when I said I ran "everything by DMG rules" in our last campaign, I meant "all of the above [XP and advancement] by DMG rules." I have a number of house rules, the most important of which are: DMG spell points, a variant initiative system based on Speed Factor, and odd ability scores give you an extra +1 to ability checks.

[Tanarii]

Edit: Clarification: when I said I ran "everything by DMG rules" in our last campaign, I meant "all of the above [XP and advancement] by DMG rules."
I understood that. And I'm was saying there's no way the XP numbers you were claiming were possible for a party to beat. As well as way off in terms of impact on levels gained. So you either weren't recalling the numbers correctly, were engaged in hyperbole, or weren't using the DMG or PHB rules for XP. The first two are fair enough. I've done both before. I was just calling you on the numbers because they were so obviously wrong. :p

Also I agree that advancement from level one to five in 5e can seem lightning fast. Some players prefer to stay in the 'local adventurer' stage for longer instead of blowing through to the 6-10 kingdom adventurer scale, or even to the level 11+ continent spanning end game. And if so, you definitely have to multiply XP for those levels by about ten or so. Or house rule a E6 version of 5e.

It's certainly one way to handle the 'casters rule while Martians drool' dilemma. Which can be a dilemma, but mostly in High Adventure & Personal Power adventuring campaigns, where your level 15 party is basically doing small-scale adventure arc battle chaining with no real campaign impact. (What I call Final Fantasy adventuring.)

Edit: lol "Martials" sometimes drool too, not just Martians.

[R.Shackleford]

Also I agree that advancement from level one to five in 5e can seem lightning fast. Some players prefer to stay in the 'local adventurer' stage for longer instead of blowing through to the 6-10 kingdom adventurer scale, or even to the level 11+ continent spanning end game. And if so, you definitely have to multiply XP for those levels by about ten or so.

The issue is that first true level in 5e is really level 3 or 4. The game was made so that level 1, 2, and kinda level 3 we're for introductions to the game.

Really with the way 5e is set up you can run the local adventure all the way to 10 easily. I say 10 because that's the last time I ran the local adventure the players were at 10.

You can run tons of low CR creatures against high level players... Super fun.

[SamsDisciple]

While I have never actually done this I love the idea of including an "Insanity" rule. Essentially magic is warping the fabric of reality which really does a number on someone's mind. Each spell adds 1 to your insanity score, each long rest removes 1 from your insanity score. At the beginning of each day you roll d100 vs a chart with 1,000 possibilities. At the beginning (low level casters) the craziest that you might be is seeing glittery sparkles in the corner of your eyes but once you reach the 600's you are looking at possibilities of spontaneous combustion (which could admittedly be just an annoyance at this point) or 1,000 be summoning Cthulu to the Material Plane. With the increasing possible severity of these insanity rolls you have wizards either going on long breaks without casting any magic to reduce their insanity, forcing younger students to cast magic for them while doing experiments, or being eaten by the un-nameable horrors of the beyond before they can truly rule the world.

[Sigreid]

While I have never actually done this I love the idea of including an "Insanity" rule. Essentially magic is warping the fabric of reality which really does a number on someone's mind. Each spell adds 1 to your insanity score, each long rest removes 1 from your insanity score. At the beginning of each day you roll d100 vs a chart with 1,000 possibilities. At the beginning (low level casters) the craziest that you might be is seeing glittery sparkles in the corner of your eyes but once you reach the 600's you are looking at possibilities of spontaneous combustion (which could admittedly be just an annoyance at this point) or 1,000 be summoning Cthulu to the Material Plane. With the increasing possible severity of these insanity rolls you have wizards either going on long breaks without casting any magic to reduce their insanity, forcing younger students to cast magic for them while doing experiments, or being eaten by the un-nameable horrors of the beyond before they can truly rule the world.

So, punish wizards, sorcerers, clerics and druids for choosing to be wizards, sorcerers, clerics and druids. Glad I'm not in that campaign.

[Pex]

3. Casters need licenses.
Imagine Fullmetal Alchemist, except prolly more strict than that. Just like how any modern government in its right mind will ban normal civilians from holding guns, the government of a fantasy world will ban normal civilians from using magic. Even cantrips are deadly (a commoner has 4 HP, and Firebolt inflicts 5.5 damage average), and a world where everyone can learn magic is just... it wouldn't be even possible to create a properly functioning society.
If anyone without a proper license is found casting magic, he will be sentenced to a swift death penalty. This license requires being one of the following:
-A wizard or Eldritch Knight (with the acknowledging of an official family)
-A warlock (who has proved himself to not be of ill will - extremely rare case)
-A bard who belongs in an officially approved guild (read: college)
-A cleric or paladin (the gods' existence is not proved in this world - rather, clerics and paladins are elite warriors trained from young times to fight monsters and evil casters)
Apart from the above, druids exist in this world, but rarely appear in civilization, and they have no wish to aspire in power anyways - thus they are generally fine (one major reason the license is required is to not let anyone challenge the rule of the wizards, so). Rangers' magic is viewed as more of "natural instinct" or "honed senses" (I mean, not many of them have dazzling effects) so that's fine as well.
As for Arcane Tricksters, Sorcerers, and Warlocks... if they found out you were one of them, you wouldn't be very happy (Arcane Tricksters are… Tricksters. Sorcerers are a threat for the wizards’ rule, and the same with Warlocks. Sorcerers' bloodlines have been hunted down, and the knowledge of the rituals required to form pacts with otherworldly entities has been almost entirely libricided). But, it’s not really required to show people your license every single time you cast a spell (that’s really tedious). If you boldly cast spells in a town square, chances are all the civilians around you will just assume you’re a wizard. Unless you really kill someone or otherwise do other immoral acts, you wouldn’t be told to show your license.



Or a non-tyrannical government can allow for citizens to have certain rights, such as the ability to bear arms cast magic themselves. When anyone can wield magic then no one particular magic user becomes powerful enough to take over because there's always another spellcaster trying to do the same. Since magic users have their magical protections, they need those talented in non-magic expertise (infiltration, combat) etc. to get at enemy spellcasters bypassing the magic. Since others are doing the same, they need their own non-magic users defenders against enemy non-magic using attackers. Equilibrium is reached. A spellcaster may be able to control some particular area but so too does the non-magical warlord because the spellcaster is not powerful enough to stop him due to attacks from other spellcasters. It becomes not worth the trouble. Then, if any spellcaster decides it is worth the trouble, and funny how it's often those who becomes liches, there are these annoying pesky people known as "adventurers" who manage to destroy them.

[JoeJ]

Or a non-tyrannical government can allow for citizens to have certain rights, such as the ability to bear arms cast magic themselves. When anyone can wield magic then no one particular magic user becomes powerful enough to take over because there's always another spellcaster trying to do the same. Since magic users have their magical protections, they need those talented in non-magic expertise (infiltration, combat) etc. to get at enemy spellcasters bypassing the magic. Since others are doing the same, they need their own non-magic users defenders against enemy non-magic using attackers. Equilibrium is reached. A spellcaster may be able to control some particular area but so too does the non-magical warlord because the spellcaster is not powerful enough to stop him due to attacks from other spellcasters. It becomes not worth the trouble. Then, if any spellcaster decides it is worth the trouble, and funny how it's often those who becomes liches, there are these annoying pesky people known as "adventurers" who manage to destroy them.

OTOH, a tyrannical regime where magic is restricted to state spellcasters would make a great evil empire to threaten the PCs' homeland.

[MaxWilson]

I understood that. And I'm was saying there's no way the XP numbers you were claiming were possible for a party to beat. As well as way off in terms of impact on levels gained. So you either weren't recalling the numbers correctly, were engaged in hyperbole, or weren't using the DMG or PHB rules for XP. The first two are fair enough. I've done both before. I was just calling you on the numbers because they were so obviously wrong. :p

Also I agree that advancement from level one to five in 5e can seem lightning fast. Some players prefer to stay in the 'local adventurer' stage for longer instead of blowing through to the 6-10 kingdom adventurer scale, or even to the level 11+ continent spanning end game. And if so, you definitely have to multiply XP for those levels by about ten or so. Or house rule a E6 version of 5e.

It's certainly one way to handle the 'casters rule while Martians drool' dilemma. Which can be a dilemma, but mostly in High Adventure & Personal Power adventuring campaigns, where your level 15 party is basically doing small-scale adventure arc battle chaining with no real campaign impact. (What I call Final Fantasy adventuring.)

Edit: lol "Martials" sometimes drool too, not just Martians.

Levels gained was probably off, that's true. After all, I said up front that it *seemed* quick to me as a DM but might have taken longer from the players' perspectives--and I don't track players' XP totals anyway, that is their job. And yes, splitting 25K or even 40K experience (from the deathspider semi-random encounter) three or four ways means that no one PC will be jumping six or seven levels at a time. I don't remember everything that went on to get Renn the Ranger from 1st level to 8th level in what seemed like the blink of an eye, I just know that I kept being surprised how quickly the low-level PCs advanced to mid-levels. Maybe that was a really combat-heavy month, who knows? The point is that the player in question didn't like that speed and specifically requested a slower pace in the new campaign, hence the 10x XP requirements, and so far it seems to be scratching his itch.

[SharkForce]

Or a non-tyrannical government can allow for citizens to have certain rights, such as the ability to bear arms cast magic themselves. When anyone can wield magic then no one particular magic user becomes powerful enough to take over because there's always another spellcaster trying to do the same. Since magic users have their magical protections, they need those talented in non-magic expertise (infiltration, combat) etc. to get at enemy spellcasters bypassing the magic. Since others are doing the same, they need their own non-magic users defenders against enemy non-magic using attackers. Equilibrium is reached. A spellcaster may be able to control some particular area but so too does the non-magical warlord because the spellcaster is not powerful enough to stop him due to attacks from other spellcasters. It becomes not worth the trouble. Then, if any spellcaster decides it is worth the trouble, and funny how it's often those who becomes liches, there are these annoying pesky people known as "adventurers" who manage to destroy them.

never mind giving people the right to learn magic.

suppose a level 5 wizard (relatively small on the power scale) decides to take on an apprentice.

how do you stop said (comparatively weak) caster from doing that? i mean, *maybe* you'll get lucky and take him out, but if not, well, you just picked a fight with someone that can fly over your barracks and fireball it in the middle of the night (possibly shattering the roof to bits first). this is what i like to call "not a good idea". and it just gets exponentially worse the more levels we add to this theoretical wizard. make it a level 7 wizard and now you have to worry about wall of fire, dimension door, arcane eye, etc. level 9 and you have to consider the possibility of cloudkill, summoned elementals (like invisible stalkers), being the subject of a geas, and so on.

on the other hand, that wizard needs money to do the things he really wants (like researching more spells), which is probably why he took an apprentice in the first place - to handle the basic business. mending objects that are otherwise difficult to replace, locating lost property, maybe even identifying the occasional magic item for adventurers if you make them harder to identify than official rules, and so forth. which means that you can probably make that wizard favourably disposed towards you (and also make his apprentice happy) by hiring their services occasionally, and not picking a fight with them. who knows, that wizard may even be willing to help in the event of an attack on the kingdom (who knows if the next guy will be as reasonable). if you're really lucky, he may be willing to choose someone you would like to be his next apprentice (say, a member of your family who otherwise doesn't stand to inherit much, but could gain status by being a wizard). he may even be very proactive in dealing with the kind of wizard you don't want around (that is, if there is a wizard that does want to take over the kingdom, your friendly wizard may decide to step in and help defend against that evil wizard because he doesn't want the kingdom he's lived in for years or even decades, centuries, millenia, etc to be ruled by someone that has both the means and the motive to try and take everything the wizard has worked for).

and again, that wizard stands to gain very little by taking your job. sure, he'd get money (but money can be gotten through other means), but he would also have to spend 12+ hours a day managing the kingdom. at which point, what exactly is that wizard going to spend the money on? (that's a silly question of course... he'll probably spend it on managing the kingdom). and, from his perspective, he has the same concern of what happens if he kicks the hornet's nest (ie attempts a hostile takeover) and fails?

as soon as one person demonstrates they're willing to start a fight, the other has cause to fight back as hard as they can. but until that happens, both individuals have no reason to pick a fight with the other... neither one benefits greatly from removing the other, neither one can afford a failed attempt (an assassin might fail to kill the wizard, but might succeed also... the wizard might be able to kill the king, but might fail and have to run away from an angry army that is too large to deal with in one sitting, and there goes his tower, his laboratory, his library, his expensive spell components, his magic shop, basically everything except whatever he manages to carry as he flees).

honestly, i think it just makes the most sense to assume that high level casters generally don't rule the world because there's no benefit to it for them.

[Dimcair]

I like the Dragon Age: Origins concept:

The Mage Circle (Checking themselves and watching out for blood mages (mages that make pacts with demons and are easily dominated by them as a result (no, not sorcerers in this context), codes of conduct etc.).

The Chantry (Dominant religious force, could be a combined pantheon of cleric-gods) The observer, check and balances.

The Templars (originally the martial group of the Chantry, the templars are now serving/protecting the mages from outside harm and protecting the outside from harm by the mages. They are specialized in defeating rogue magic users which can be represented by certain feats/classes etc.) Hard to corrupt them since they are effectively paladins and clerics when it comes down to their convictions.


Should a mage corrupt, the circle of mages and/or the templars eliminate the threat.

[Skylivedk]

I think an Archmage is more like tenured professor and not like college student, so a least likely person to leave academia. If a wizard stops studying magic they should stop improving.

Yes, he could be... But trust me, the world would look quite a bit different if people who studied nano-physics also gained the ability to instantly summon nanobots. The power granted by knowledge has already been wildly abused in our world by trained academics (check the massive abuse by early anthropologists, the entire field of phrenology, physics and bombs, etc.) and that is without our science being world-breaking in the sense that spells are. MOST wizards are probably intellectually curious and mostly harmless. Issue is: you only need one power hungry SOB, leveling on the low (other planes?), scheming for a decade or two (easy! especially if you are non-human) for things to get seriously out of whack.


(1) Remember how Harry dealt with Voldemort in HPMoR? Yeah, it still works in D&D. There are worse things than death.
(2) Magic Jar is unreliable. Clone is good insurance, but it takes you out of commission until a new clone grows, unless you're willing to operate without a clone safety net. Neither is as powerful as Voldemort's horcrux network or a lich's phylactery.

[SNIP]

(1) Yes, I remember. And yes, there's a reason why my players are more or less constantly scared. My caveat is that the world starts to become unbelievable if every second villain is specifically countering my PC-Diviner's attempt at immortality (yes, he wants immortality).
(2) Agreed :) The horcruxes also come with a significantly higher alternative cost. Magic Jar can be used in combat. About Clone: I'm a bit on the fence. On one hand I find the idea of a massive amount of clones (Worm-style) interesting, on the other hand.. Ouch for my players once they pick a fight with the guy who did it the first time. And that's my main point: If the players can do this and it is a known spell, odds are, someone else has done it. Odds are also that someone highly intelligent, devious, subtle and selfish has done it. Aaaaand, I'm straight back at Wizards running the show ;)


The way I see it, magic gives phenomenal personal power, but that power is bounded by its inherent mechanical constraints (spells per day, etc.). Politics, on the other hand, provides (relatively) unbounded power. While nothing stops the magic-user from also amassing political power (and their magic makes it easier to do so), that's not an efficient allocation of resources (e.g. time) from the perspective of the society: it's better to have everyone specialize in the areas where they have a relative advantage over others. This means that a society where magic-users focus on magic and political specialists focus on politics is (all else equal) potentially stronger than one where the same person has both the magical and the political power. Ergo, not all societies will be ruled by magic-users.

As for the high-level wizard in the group, he's there for the same reason everyone else is: because he can accomplish his objectives more easily with allies than without. In the case of a wizard, his personal power gives him more options than non-magic-users, and therefore it might be somewhat rarer for wizards to choose objectives where allies are beneficial. But just because a wizard chosen at random may not have any interest in adventuring with a party doesn't mean that one can't design a PC Wizard for whom adventuring with a party is advantageous. It is beholden upon the player to design a character that wants to adventure with the group, and it's a self-correcting problem if the player fails to do so.

I like your way of thinking. It's altruistic and bigger picture oriented. I just feel you quickly glance over a significant point: why would the magic-users care about what is beneficial for society? I agree that the wizard should be party-oriented in the beginning. The issue I see, is from level 11 and up. An INT 20 Wizard would (I presume - INT 20 is AFAIK outside of the realm of possibility of my own grey goo) quite often not see the point in doing normal adventuring more. Playing to his strengths of long-term planning, AI-like deductional powers and reality-changing utterings, he'd, most often, be an idiot for going into dungeons designed to kill intruders.

My current solution is making urgency global once we approach level 11. Going from one world-ending scenario to the next also seems very... odd, though.


Lots of reasons to explain this...

1. In many settings... high level NPCs do rule countries and have massive political, economic, and military power.

2. There are limits on the number of high level characters. Ultimately, they must adventure or face risk to gain levels and most won't make it to high levels. Most campaign settings have maybe 1 in 10 of a population have PC classes, 1 in 10 of those might be 5th+, 1 in 1,000 might be 10th+, and those 15th+ might only be a few hundred per country.

Agreed. I've also told my players, that the elven societies are in general known to be "not be f***** with" due to their higher amount of high-level characters. Elves are less threatened by the lesser races, and more so by drows, rakshasa's, in-fighting, beings from other planes, etc.



3. There are lots of things for high level NPCs to be doing. Running a wizard's guild, running a church (or group of churches), running a thieves guild, teaching classes at the bard college, etc. Many also have mundane pursuits (family, friends, retirement, travel, etc.).

4. Most countries (depending upon the setting) are ruled via feudal, religious, clan, or other systems. The population, other nobles, families, population, etc. don't necessarily care that you are personally powerful... unless you want to try to take over via a dictatorship.

5. Even high level casters in D&D can't push 'power' beyond a few hundred yards of themselves. There are no spells which compel thousands or hundreds of thousands to follow you. You'd still need to convince people to follow you in large numbers.

High-level casters, wizards in particular, just do a lot of these things better than most others. Quite often through puppets - so you quite often don't need to be the official face to own a country (which I think will be the case very, very often in my campaign). And you don't need to compel hundreds of thousands. You just need to compel the few who lead.



6. Nations have resources beyond what a single person or creature has. A 20th-level wizard can't flatten an army of 10,000 with one spell. Nations can simply pour troops at you until you run out of spells. And nations do have large numbers of mid and some number of high level NPCs at their disposal.

7. Nations also do have some number of ultra-high level NPCs. The head of a wizard's tower, four of five high level church leaders, the head of the thieves' guild, etc. could also easily be 15th+. Facing a dozen or more high level NPCs isn't likely to end well. Imagine all the high level NPCs, creatures, etc. coming out of retirement or off their normal duties and deciding that they don't wish to be ruled by this person.

8. A nation or its population can also just flee.

RE 6: He doesn't have to. He never has to face an army of 10.000 at once. He can teleport, clone, magic jar, wish, etc. How would an army even know where to find him, face him or even more to the point, know that it is him who is attacking?

RE 7: The power-balance is a good point. We are, however, circling back to the point of high-level casters reaching a completely different kind of power once we look at level 11+. At those levels their combat abilities might match a fighter's (I somehow doubt that though.. If played well, it really, really shouldn't), but more to the point: the high-level casters can choose if there is going to be a fight that day, week, month, year and in which setting. The non-wizards, and in particular, the non-casters progress with some kind of linear power progression. So does a lot of the combat spells of the casters. My concern is related to all the shenanigans the casters do outside of combat that makes the fighters/barbarians little more than side-story characters. Your Barbarian might be a bit like the Hulk - but honestly what good is the Hulk against Doctor Strange and Jean Grey?

RE 8: Yes, aaaaand, we're back to the casters having changed an entire country just by the threat of their existence. Hello martial classes, are you happy over in the corner?



9. What is the person willing to do to take over a city or small province. Kill everyone who revolts? Destroy its army? Burn its castles down?

10. So what if you take over a small nation? Do you want to spent your days dealing with famines, tax disputes, judging petty crimes, dealing with corrupt civil servants, deal with smugglers, protect the country from other tyrants, trade disputes with other countries, marry someone to form a political alliance, etc., etc.? Imagine Game of Thrones.

11. Some characters have class, alignment, background, guild, family or other limitations on their actions. Good characters aren't likely to seize a country, province, or city... nor slaughter a band of good knights sent to stop them. Clergy or druids might have vows or orders. Wizards might have guild masters who forbid this. Such people could easily be ex-communicated, denied further access to their guild, or hunted down. They might also receive a letter from their mother saying, "Please stop slaughtering people."

RE 9: Depends on the person in question. Imagine Pol Pot with magic. He'd do all of the above. Even have people resurrected so he could kill them again.

RE 10: No need. Install a puppet. Reap the country of all benefits. Again, I'm trying to address the fact that this is the level of power we're discussing. The martial classes are still smashing things.

RE 11: Yes, SOME do. You just need very few who don't before the entire thing goes very sideways.



If you are talking PCs trying this... sure... let them try. However, nations, cities, and provinces have significant resources which they'll use against the PCs and taking over even a small country via personal force (even if a high level caster) is nearly impossible. It takes political maneuvering, alliances, promises, convincing certain nobles, gaining support of the people, etc.

However... it would make a great campaign if planned out. Could people who get high enough in power gain political power. Sure. In 5E... backgrounds, the campaign setting, the DMs plots, etc. could all lead to this. You could 'reward' higher level characters with a barony, command a naval base, maybe a plot of land, etc. As a DM this can be a great way of challenging high level NPCs and forcing them to adventure -- as there can be no end of things they need to do to protect their barony, recruit people, build things, etc.

I've had a campaign where my character came back at higher level and took over the tribe he was forced to leave as a child -- and then have to deal with all the neighbouring tribes, political issues, assassination attempts, resource issues, etc. which came along with it. I've DM'd players who want to take over their own thieves' guild, and one where players were competing for a track of land (think Oregon land-give-away) with lots of high level NPCs all trying to out compete each other. If players are into that type of campaign... it does make a nice ending to the campaign... players settle in to a routine and can still be brought back if and when they wish to continue.

And I might just do that later. I just keep running into the same wall here, which is basically: what the hell are you doing Mr. Hammer?



If players show an interest at high levels of playing a settlers or ruler-type campaign... go with it. Make sure everyone is onboard. Just consider the above. However... if a 15th-level wizard goes to a reasonable nation, does a lot of good things, maybe the ruler would gift him a barony. Maybe the wizard might be sent to take over a wizard tower or be assigned to replace the advisor of a ruler, etc. The campaigns turns from simple adventuring to lots of political maneuvering, convincing others, negotiations, and 'adventures' on behalf of your state/guild/city, etc.

We talked about this, in my last campaign as a player playing a wizard (Arcane Trickster actually... kind of a self-imposed nerf in Pathfinder), because by level 7/8, my character had taken over a thieves' guild, killed a king (and his entire town... negotiations went... well), off'ed a dragon, not died (as the only player), started 3-way war and was plotting to reclaim his kingdom. A lot of this was possible because my DM had chosen to cap max levels on NPCs (or at least make them rather low) to avoid a lot of the issues discussed earlier.

We only reached level 8, but already at that point the combination of high INT and massive amounts of utility more or less meant that his machinations were determining the flow of the story. In that campaign, we decided that if he succeeded in reclaiming his kingdom, he'd become a quest-giver and I'd re-roll a new character.


never mind giving people the right to learn magic.

suppose a level 5 wizard (relatively small on the power scale) decides to take on an apprentice.

how do you stop said (comparatively weak) caster from doing that? i mean, *maybe* you'll get lucky and take him out, but if not, well, you just picked a fight with someone that can fly over your barracks and fireball it in the middle of the night (possibly shattering the roof to bits first). this is what i like to call "not a good idea". and it just gets exponentially worse the more levels we add to this theoretical wizard. make it a level 7 wizard and now you have to worry about wall of fire, dimension door, arcane eye, etc. level 9 and you have to consider the possibility of cloudkill, summoned elementals (like invisible stalkers), being the subject of a geas, and so on.
Where the geas, arcane eye and dimension door are the kind of threats that are way more threatening to a society than a cloud-kill. Which is what my concern is... If the wizard plays smartly, he hardly plays with the party.



[SNIP]
honestly, i think it just makes the most sense to assume that high level casters generally don't rule the world because there's no benefit to it for them.

I revert to my example of Genghis Khan: you and I, we are probably not interested in ruling the world. I most certainly am not. I find the problems of most people tedious, and having everybody constantly relying on me sounds like having 6 billion needy girlfriends. No, thank you. Most people can understand the desire to have a high amount of resources (aka "F*** me" money). We can understand Bismarck, Carnegie, etc.

Few of us can truly understand why you'd want complete domination though - few of us can understand why you'd go for Genghis Khan-style of domination. His quality of life didn't really change after his harem had already reached a few hundred. Yet, he still continued. And that's my point. One Genghis with magic and the world looks very, very different.

Thank you all for the fruitful feedback!!!

A lot of you have come with some great ideas for how to make compelling stories with high level-casters. I wasn't really in doubt that they could exist. I'm still searching for a way to keep the non-wizards/casters as relevant to the story as the casters. I like Sigreid's suggestion of somehow including ruler abilities in higher level martial classes. It won't change combat, but it'd give them something at the 11+ abilities.

About the insanity points: I've thought about it, and decided against. Hi-jacking my player's character isn't an appealing solution to me. On the other hand, I'm all for having extra-dimensional beings mess with the world (the Cult of the Ancient One is the current main antagonist of the PCs, so yeah... things are looking bleak).

My core concern remains unanswered though: most solutions here point to a lot of fun challenges for the casters. All these fun solutions are, indirectly, just pointing out how little the other classes matter after a certain point. It seems very much inevitable that the casters can look the non-casters in the eyes, smirk, and quote Ruy Blas: "You are nothing but the gloves, for which I am the hands"

[JoeJ]

never mind giving people the right to learn magic.

suppose a level 5 wizard (relatively small on the power scale) decides to take on an apprentice.

how do you stop said (comparatively weak) caster from doing that? i mean, *maybe* you'll get lucky and take him out, but if not, well, you just picked a fight with someone that can fly over your barracks and fireball it in the middle of the night (possibly shattering the roof to bits first).

Flying wizards are quite vulnerable to Dispel Magic, to say nothing of Lightning Bolt. Just because the state bans magic use by private individuals doesn't mean they won't use it themselves.

[Skylivedk]

I like the Dragon Age: Origins concept:

The Mage Circle (Checking themselves and watching out for blood mages (mages that make pacts with demons and are easily dominated by them as a result (no, not sorcerers in this context), codes of conduct etc.).

The Chantry (Dominant religious force, could be a combined pantheon of cleric-gods) The observer, check and balances.

The Templars (originally the martial group of the Chantry, the templars are now serving/protecting the mages from outside harm and protecting the outside from harm by the mages. They are specialized in defeating rogue magic users which can be represented by certain feats/classes etc.) Hard to corrupt them since they are effectively paladins and clerics when it comes down to their convictions.


Should a mage corrupt, the circle of mages and/or the templars eliminate the threat.

Checks and balances are fun. Dragon Age also has the advantage of mages getting a lot of explosive spells, but very few of the world-breaking ones (no wish, magic jar, clone, etc.). Also the mages do not seem all that intelligent in Dragon Age. I.e. they are not ruling the world.

[Tanarii]

on the other hand, that wizard needs money to do the things he really wants (like researching more spells), which is probably why he took an apprentice in the first place - to handle the basic business. mending objects that are otherwise difficult to replace, locating lost property, maybe even identifying the occasional magic item for adventurers if you make them harder to identify than official rules, and so forth. which means that you can probably make that wizard favourably disposed towards you (and also make his apprentice happy) by hiring their services occasionally, and not picking a fight with them. who knows, that wizard may even be willing to help in the event of an attack on the kingdom (who knows if the next guy will be as reasonable). if you're really lucky, he may be willing to choose someone you would like to be his next apprentice (say, a member of your family who otherwise doesn't stand to inherit much, but could gain status by being a wizard). he may even be very proactive in dealing with the kind of wizard you don't want around (that is, if there is a wizard that does want to take over the kingdom, your friendly wizard may decide to step in and help defend against that evil wizard because he doesn't want the kingdom he's lived in for years or even decades, centuries, millenia, etc to be ruled by someone that has both the means and the motive to try and take everything the wizard has worked for).

and again, that wizard stands to gain very little by taking your job. sure, he'd get money (but money can be gotten through other means), but he would also have to spend 12+ hours a day managing the kingdom. at which point, what exactly is that wizard going to spend the money on? (that's a silly question of course... he'll probably spend it on managing the kingdom). and, from his perspective, he has the same concern of what happens if he kicks the hornet's nest (ie attempts a hostile takeover) and fails?

<snip>

honestly, i think it just makes the most sense to assume that high level casters generally don't rule the world because there's no benefit to it for them.What you're describing is basically BECMI assumptions for level 9+. Each class has 2 paths it can pick, landed or traveling (ie non-landed). And landed Magic-users can either swear fealty and become Magi (ie court wizard) or go isolationist and build a tower.

The basic assumption is Landed Fighters are the rulers, landed Clerics are busy representing their faith (either in service to Fighters, or as military orders), Landed Magic Users are busy researching further power (either cozied up to a ruler, or hidden off away from people that will cause them trouble), and Landed Thieves will be running a Guild.

5e makes it more complicated, because characters are Archetype + Background, not just Archetype. And also it's become more in vogue for players, especially internet denizens, to assume it's totally cool to ditch "fluff", otherwise known as Archetype Roleplaying (ie in character decision making that stems from your Archetype), and make up whatever you want. That allows you to make your special snowflake PC just fine, but it screws up some assumptions that used to exist about default D&D campaigns and how they worked.

Edit: A lot of those assumptions are still there, if you read the PHB descriptions of classes, and the DMG sections on things to do in downtime and how to build campaigns. They're just not so straight-jacket versions any more. I consider that a good thing. BECMI was too straight jacket in its archetypes.

[Myrddin0001]

the answer I tend to use is balled into 5e "bounded accuracy" mindset. Out of say 10 people that can use some minor form of magic, basic acolytes and such, there would be 1 who can actual control the forces of magic, that is, the "adept" NPC of old. Out of maybe 10 "adepts" there would be 1 who could have the potential power to become a "wizard" and that is IF he receives some kind of training and guidance. Most of those would make it to level 2 (in game terms), and maybe 1 in 10 of THOSE would make it to levels 3-6. And again 1 in 10 would make it beyond that to above 13th level. So, the way I see it, there really should only be 1 in every 1000(ish?) that has that kind of power. And if such a person were to rise to tyranny odds are that the rest of the world would take them out. I kinda combine the philosophies of Bounded Accuracy and the E6 Principal to create a world where the average person is, well, average and those who are exceptional are truly exceptional. High level heroes are very very rare and legendary.

[Tanarii]

So, the way I see it, there really should only be 1 in every 1000(ish?) that has that kind of power.

When I'm making a stock D&D sandbox dungeon crawl, I alway assume adventurers are about 1 in 1000 in civilized area, and maybe 1 in 200 in dangerous borderlands, and 1 in 20 in true wilderness small towns/forts. Then I assume about 1 in 5 of the next level. that breaks down in major cities, because high level characters from the entire population of nations probably concentrate there, if they aren't out adventuring or ruling their own areas of the world. (In other words, if the totall population of a kingdom is 1 million, even if the capitol city is 25000 people, they'll still have a 7th-8th level in the Capitol, not just a 3rd level.)

That assumption is a bit low for 5e, where adventures survive more and rapidly advance to level 5. A rate of 1/2 the next level through 5, 1/5 to 10th, then 1/10th after is probably better.

That'd place the top hero in the average wilderness fort or borderlands town at about 5th level. And the hero of a kingdom of 1 million at 9th level, and of a continent of 1 billion at 13-14th level.

[R.Shackleford]

Recently I've been thinking of PCs like the Light Warriors/Main characters in a Final Fantasy game.

There are others that can kinda do what they do (swing a sword or cast a spell) but no one else really can do what they do.

So no NPC or monster or whatever will be able to have subclass abilities and most class features.

A necromancer NPC boss won't have the necromancer tradition. They will only have necromancy spells.

A soldier in an army won't ever be able to get action surge or become an Eldritch Knight.

So I want a captain of the guard that is higher level than a normal soldier and is a fighter with a bit of magic?

Character level = 8
Class Level = Fighter 1

1 ASI
2 Feats (Magic Initaite) (Ritual Caster)

HP, Saves, and Prof based on an 85th level character.

I can add in special features as I see fit such as the Hobgoblin tactic feature or whatever.

I'm still working to get the kinks out but this type of world set up works well for me and my friends (PC levels are also split up).

[Pex]

It could also be that anyone can become high level but alignment interferes. There are these Good Guys who just don't want to take over the world themselves and stop others from trying to do it. There could be this team consisting of a paladin, wizard, cleric, barbarian, ranger, and rogue who avenge those who were harmed against the evil doers.

:smallbiggrin:

[mgshamster]

When I'm making a stock D&D sandbox dungeon crawl, I alway assume adventurers are about 1 in 1000 in civilized area, and maybe 1 in 200 in dangerous borderlands, and 1 in 20 in true wilderness small towns/forts. Then I assume about 1 in 5 of the next level. that breaks down in major cities, because high level characters from the entire population of nations probably concentrate there, if they aren't out adventuring or ruling their own areas of the world. (In other words, if the totall population of a kingdom is 1 million, even if the capitol city is 25000 people, they'll still have a 7th-8th level in the Capitol, not just a 3rd level.)

That assumption is a bit low for 5e, where adventures survive more and rapidly advance to level 5. A rate of 1/2 the next level through 5, 1/5 to 10th, then 1/10th after is probably better.

That'd place the top hero in the average wilderness fort or borderlands town at about 5th level. And the hero of a kingdom of 1 million at 9th level, and of a continent of 1 billion at 13-14th level.

Not long ago I saw an explanation for why there aren't that many high level characters in a given world:

How do you go up in level? By gaining experience. How do you gain experience? By defeating threats that are a challenge to you. This means that your life has to be in danger. Too low of a threat and you don't gain experience; too much of a threat and you get killed. The threat level has to be just right for you to have your life threatened, but also so that you can overcome the challenge to gain the necessary experience.

With this idea in mind, what kind of person is going to constantly be facing threats that are just right for a majority of their career? Someone who is either kind of insane or someone who has a very odd mixture of being unlucky enough to be always dealing with a threat and lucky enough to survive it. :)

Kind of fits in to your own numbers - with the explanation of "the few numbers are explained by there just being that few of people with the right amount of insanity and/or the right mixture of luck."

[JoeJ]

It could also be that anyone can become high level but alignment interferes. There are these Good Guys who just don't want to take over the world themselves and stop others from trying to do it. There could be this team consisting of a paladin, wizard, cleric, barbarian, ranger, and rogue who avenge those who were harmed against the evil doers.

:smallbiggrin:

Or maybe the team consists of a ranger, a cavalier, a thief, an acrobat, a wizard, a barbarian, and a baby unicorn? :smalltongue:

[MBControl]

So the way I look at it, there are enough opposing powerful beings that it creates a sort of "cold war". No one high level caster wants to make too many waves, for fear of getting the attention of the other powerful casters, who would move against them in order to prevent their own loss of influence. So the Big guys all follow a sort of unwritten pact, to rule your own little area, but don't overreach or you'll be destroyed. Every now and then one of them succeeds and then your heroes have to balance the power.

[Pex]

Or maybe the team consists of a ranger, a cavalier, a thief, an acrobat, a wizard, a barbarian, and a baby unicorn? :smalltongue:

True, but come to think of it, my wizard is probably really a warlock. He sure does blast a lot.

[Asmotherion]

As J.K. Rowling puts it in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, “The trouble is, the other side can do magic too, Prime Minister."
So, yes, if there was just one wizard/sorcerer/warlock or at least just one faction of them with all others being just mortals, it would be logical to asume that would control the world. However there are multiple mages in every D&D setting whose interests usually contrast one an other, so the factions go into an endless game of chess that affects politics, nobility... Even religion and history. Etc

[RickAllison]

In the game of Coup, this pops up a lot. You can end up with three people with limited resources. No one wants to finish off another person, because that then allows the third to finish off the attacker. You know, except with more players.

[R.Shackleford]

As J.K. Rowling puts it in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, “The trouble is, the other side can do magic too, Prime Minister."
So, yes, if there was just one wizard/sorcerer/warlock or at least just one faction of them with all others being just mortals, it would be logical to asume that would control the world. However there are multiple mages in every D&D setting whose interests usually contrast one an other, so the factions go into an endless game of chess that affects politics, nobility... Even religion and history. Etc

If course I'm her world magic is actually restrained on a basic level. It follows, esentially, the same basic mechanical rules as everything else.

She even admitted that a muggle with a gun can take out a wizard because a muffle doesn't have to say words and do fancy gestures.

In D&D those fancy gestures and words take just as long as swinging a sword, sometimes faster.

So using Harry Potter is a bad example.

Put that setting in the U.S and someone would have just shot V in his noseless face.

(in not advocating gun use, just the access to guns is quite ridiculous sometimes...)

[Dimcair]

Checks and balances are fun. Dragon Age also has the advantage of mages getting a lot of explosive spells, but very few of the world-breaking ones (no wish, magic jar, clone, etc.). Also the mages do not seem all that intelligent in Dragon Age. I.e. they are not ruling the world.

With a bit of creativity one could extend the implications of such a setup. PLUS the bloodmages with their demons change the world quite drastically if they are let loose wouldn't you say? PLUS Flemeth employs at least one of these spells after a kind, so they do exist.

Add a pinch of the harry potter argument: There are multiple magic circles, making it even harder for one rogue gone circle to throw the world into chaos.

[JeffreyGator]

Or maybe the team consists of a ranger, a cavalier, a thief, an acrobat, a wizard, a barbarian, and a baby unicorn? :smalltongue:

Does the cavalier use his shield a lot (possibly not even having a sword).

this seems to remind me of a Saturday morning cartoon.

(This also solves the first level party with magic items getting 100k xp as they chase Tiamat off on episode 1)

[JeffreyGator]

(snip)
Most people can understand the desire to have a high amount of resources (aka "F*** me" money). We can understand Bismarck, Carnegie, etc.



I know some people with considerable amounts of Frack You money and they still work, when they could be living off their laurels playing RPGs in their castles.

Why? Because they like what they do.

Trauma surgeons for example could retire conceivably 10-15 years after medical school but they don't because they like putting people back together.

Lots of folk in the tech industry got rich fast and are still working because they like what they do.

I think of the high - level wizards (and other spellcasters to a lesser extent) as like that.

What they don't have as much patience with is working for/with jerks. If you don't need more money, you can't be incented for just a paycheck any more.

Very few of them are interested in political personal ambition.

[Asmotherion]

If course I'm her world magic is actually restrained on a basic level. It follows, esentially, the same basic mechanical rules as everything else.

She even admitted that a muggle with a gun can take out a wizard because a muffle doesn't have to say words and do fancy gestures.

In D&D those fancy gestures and words take just as long as swinging a sword, sometimes faster.

So using Harry Potter is a bad example.

Put that setting in the U.S and someone would have just shot V in his noseless face.

(in not advocating gun use, just the access to guns is quite ridiculous sometimes...)

I have to dissagree. Using verbal/somatic components is at least slower than the vs components in Harry Potter. A round represennds 6 seconds passin in which, in DnD you are able to cast only 1 spell... 2 if it's cast as a bonus action. In Harry Potter universe we see wizards spamming spells all the time wich can be as much as 1 spell per second. The true potential with magic is not the ability to blast your foes rapidly with spells rather than the ability to produce spell effects to control the world and bend physics that theoretically gives you unlimited potential. You can raise armies, become immortal, fly above the reach of weapons wile blasting from above. What makes Mages so dangerous in DnD is the fact that they have unlimited potential (esspecially with access to wish). However the only true limit is the fact that there are other mages with unlimited potential, and there is a mutual understanding that if one was to gain too much power there would be those of opposed dispossition (such as alignment or wanting what the other gained) and equal power to oppose them.

[Spacehamster]

Too me quite simple explanation, say this insane level 20 elf wizard wants to take over the world. Well he is most clearly looked upon as evil and there is bound to be other level 20 wizards that does not want him to achieve said goal so they stop him. :)

[Blacky the Blackball]

My current character in 5e is a third level conjurer wizard.

He lives in the lap of luxury. A combination of Prestidigitation and Unseen Servant mean he never has to do any physical work and he doesn't even need to pay actual servants to do it for him. His food always tastes great (thanks, Prestidigitation). His Unseen Servant does all the housework, and he uses Minor Conjuration to provide it with whatever tools it needs. If anything breaks he just uses Mending rather than needing to replace it.

He doesn't even need to work for a living because going on adventures (which he does in order to learn and get better at magic) pays so well that he has thousands of gold which he is not spending because his needs are met by magic.

And he's only third level. When he gets to higher levels he'll be able to summon elementals and fey to do things for him, sleep in a Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion each night, and so forth. Magic will be able to provide him with almost anything he needs.

So explain again why he should have any interest in spending all the time and effort needed to rule a kingdom? What will it give him that he doesn't already have, other than enemies?

[kaoskonfety]

So explain again why he should have any interest in spending all the time and effort needed to rule a kingdom? What will it give him that he doesn't already have, other than enemies?

I donno... enemies are worth EXP...

Building empires to gain more powerful enemies to get more magical might seems a bit meta though..

[Spiritchaser]

Its been a long time since I've been a DM, but back then I made magic and magical effects highly unstable around a couple of relatively mundane materials.

For my campaign I chose rowan wood and iron, although if I had it to do again, I might pick something a little less common.

There was a pretty basic sliding scale about what would work and what wouldnt, and a fireball could still be relied upon to damage someone wearing a rowan broach or wearing an iron breastplate, though perhaps a bit less. It didn't take too much magic resistance before magic got a whole lot less out of whack.

[kaoskonfety]

Its been a long time since I've been a DM, but back then I made magic and magical effects highly unstable around a couple of relatively mundane materials.

For my campaign I chose rowan wood and iron, although if I had it to do again, I might pick something a little less common.

There was a pretty basic sliding scale about what would work and what wouldnt, and a fireball could still be relied upon to damage someone wearing a rowan broach or wearing an iron breastplate, though perhaps a bit less. It didn't take too much magic resistance before magic got a whole lot less out of whack.

We found lead worked for this in one campaign and is already in place to block low level divination, the mechanic was that they absorbed the magic and got quite hot while doing so. This drove the price of lead up quite a bit and in a couple of the more anti-wizard communities it was adopted in place of the silver piece.

There was some rough math that had a 1st level spell countered or nullified with contact with an ounce or so (that then became red hot - near molten) and upwards with high level magic taking several hundred pounds of the stuff to effectivly counter without cooking off. But it was there as a soft counter to 3rd edition wizard supremacy.

The fact that exposure to lead caused brain damage, especially in the nobles who most desired and could afford protection form wizard powers, was just icing on the Medieval Fantasy cake.

[Spiritchaser]

That sounds a little more sophisticated than what I did. I did make iron become cold to the touch when it was dissrupting magic, but that was purely for flavor.

Still it really did work. It'd be cool to formalize something like that as an optional rule.

It sounds like you used a material as ablaitive protection where I went with %damage reduction/%chance effect failure as appropriate.

Now I'm not sure which I like better.

Ah well. I'll not be DMing any time soon so I don't need to worry... and my DM has no issues with casters yet...

[eastmabl]

Here's how I view high-level casters - they're a lot like lawyers.

At lower levels, they're junior associates who bust their humps at a firm in order to gain experience and make partner.

Along the way, some casters will burn out from the intense workload and the strain of murderhoboism. If they don't leave casting altogether, they could wind up in one of the following fields:

*
The caster may decide to transition into academia, as a professor of wizardry/divinity/environmental science and forestry. Here, the only adventuring that the caster does is related to "publish or perish" requirements.
The caster could also transition into the non-profit sector, where she works for a church or some other charitable organization. The caster receives much reduced pay, but there is greater job satisfaction.
The caster could also begin work as in-house counsel. For example, he could begin working as the court mage for a noble who he has done a lot of work for, or he could begin work for a profit-seeking organization bent on dominating the world with hamburgers (lich-path).


If the caster doesn't burn out on the life of murderhoboism (or die in a tragic TPK), he may make partner with his firm. This is your high level adventurer - but I view them as very few and far between.

Then again, I view high level adventurers as very strange. They've secured enough wealth and prestige for their grandchildren to live comfortable. Unless there's something that only they can kill, they probably don't go out and adventure.

Then, if there's only thing that they can kill, they seem crazy - because no humanoid has a reason to believe that they could kill it.

[kaoskonfety]

That sounds a little more sophisticated than what I did. I did make iron become cold to the touch when it was dissrupting magic, but that was purely for flavor.

Still it really did work. It'd be cool to formalize something like that as an optional rule.

It sounds like you used a material as ablaitive protection where I went with %damage reduction/%chance effect failure as appropriate.

Now I'm not sure which I like better.

Ah well. I'll not be DMing any time soon so I don't need to worry... and my DM has no issues with casters yet...

There was some hilarious fallout in the vaguely Renaissance areas that had crappy firearms. All the low level protections like shield does is DRASTICALLY heat bullets.

[Democratus]

Using the AD&D 1st edition demographic rules, a moderate size kingdom might have 1 or 2 wizards capable of casting Fireball.

Adventuring is dangerous. Past a certain point, most wizards (or clerics, druids, etc.) have little motivation to keep risking their necks. Only the very rare individual presses on and moves past level 5. Those individuals are the PCs.

In a world where "long ago" there was a high magic civilization, you also have room for some very powerful liches or other miscellaneous powerful casters. They are seldom motivated to even care about the current world as they don't even relate to it. Instead they are attending their own agenda of accumulating knowledge, power, or perhaps wandering the far planes.

Unless you make it very easy to reach high levels, the problem of hyper-saturation of archmages shouldn't exist.

[Estrillian]

D&D seems to make the general assumption that high level wizards will indeed rule the world.

The cannon Forgotten Realms is basically stuffed to the gills with high level magic users (e.g. Elminster) who spend all their times messing with politics and everyone else. A few rule kingdoms formally, the rest have organisations like the Zhentarim or the Harpers to exert their will for them. The ones who actually spend their times studying and not interfering are few and far between. In the Forgotten Realms I don't really see any check on this. Casters are plentiful and they will aspire to Archmage status. The only real barrier is coming into conflict with the existing kingpins, which you can avoid with diplomacy.

Dark Sun takes the opposite approach. A few utterly powerful wizards have already seized all the power and ruthlessly control access to magic except on their terms. Most Dark Sun casters are Templars (taking their power directly from the Wizard Kings) or lower level defilers. Higher level defilers are either absorbed into the Templar hierarchy or ruthlessly destroyed before they can become a threat to the incumbent.

Dragonlance ... everyone in charge is either a Wizard, a high level Cleric, a Paladin, or a Dragon pretending to be one of the above.

Eberron ... magic is so omnipresent that of course every ruler is a caster (or has casters on their ruling councils).

Mystara ... whole nations ruled by magic. Indeed the idea of non-magical nations is so odd in Mystara that they are usually demi-humans, or need some sort of catastrophe to explain why the wizards aren't in charge.

In short, high level spellcasters running everything *is* the D&D default; in published settings. I get the feeling, though, that far fewer home settings (or indeed real groups) are so keen on the caster dominance. Partly this is because they think through the logic and get a world that is far removed from what they want to play in - or simply don't like the idea that only some PCs ever stand a chance of being in charge.

My personal take is that the big problem with high level D&D magic is that it deviates too far from its own source fiction, and it does that by taking rare and unusual powers and making them codified and commonplace. No one minds that there are such things as Wishes, Clones, Simulacrums ... but the idea that these are spells that you can reliably use, day in and day out, that is what makes no sense (Ars Magica, which was mentioned above, has the same issue. It might take a decade of research to make your wish spell, but once you have it you can just keep on casting it) and which leads to all the wizard dominance issues. If a high level wizard could cast wish *once*, or if making a clone was something you might be willing to attempt once a year, then things would be a lot more in line with the source fiction.

Basically if you don't like the wizard-world, make any spell above level 6 or 7 a ritual. Attach huge casting times, rare components, serious drawbacks. Make Wish a once-a-lifetime spell. Make Simulacrum have a 1 year cooldown (or 1 decade), etc.

[Temperjoke]

So, punish wizards, sorcerers, clerics and druids for choosing to be wizards, sorcerers, clerics and druids. Glad I'm not in that campaign.

Well, people have risked insanity for sillier things than power.

[rhouck]

I think it's interesting that this question has actually become more of a believability issue now. Th reason (to me) is that the game has become a lot "easier": it's a lot easier/faster to level, a lot harder to die, and a LOT harder to actually stay dead.

On top of that, old rules had limitations like you needed to have an Int 18 to even cast 9th level spells -- and PCs with attributes that high were rare, and improving attributes was very rare/difficult. So to reach the pinnacle of power, a wizard had to have both the natural ability AND drive to succeed (not to mention not dying along the way to getting their 3 million xp needed for 18th level...).

And they had to do it within their lifetimes! The long-lived race issue was solved with level limits -- elves could never be higher than 15th level mages, and half-elf 12th (and gnomes could be 15th level Illusionists). So demihumans could never cast 8th or 9th level spells, regardless of how long they lived.

Thus only humans were wielding truly world-altering magic, and they didn't live for very long (plus the Wish spell aged him 5 years, even further reducing his time left). Wizards in that respect were kind of like professional athletes: only the rarified few have the natural ability to make it to the top, and it takes decades of training.... but even then, their time at the top is usually only a few years.

IMO the biggest immersion-breaking piece about 5e is how difficult it is to die and stay dead. In old editions, it was easy to die and the chances of being brought back were small (and were limited and got worse the more times you died). In 5e, there is no penalty for dying, and a lot of parties that hit 5th level (which is hit really fast) will have access to Revivify. There are really only a handful of effects that require really high level magic (e.g., Wish) to bring you back, so there is no real disincentive to keep adventuring, as long as you make sure you have people who can cast Revivify/Raise Dead/etc. on you should things go badly.

But that immersion issue is a tradeoff for what most players want: quicker advancement, ability to play races other than humans, and reduced chance of their player being dead-dead. Personally I think it's better to just not think about it, as all of those changes were made for a reason.

[Pex]

IMO the biggest immersion-breaking piece about 5e is how difficult it is to die and stay dead. In old editions, it was easy to die and the chances of being brought back were small (and were limited and got worse the more times you died). In 5e, there is no penalty for dying, and a lot of parties that hit 5th level (which is hit really fast) will have access to Revivify. There are really only a handful of effects that require really high level magic (e.g., Wish) to bring you back, so there is no real disincentive to keep adventuring, as long as you make sure you have people who can cast Revivify/Raise Dead/etc. on you should things go badly.

But that immersion issue is a tradeoff for what most players want: quicker advancement, ability to play races other than humans, and reduced chance of their player being dead-dead. Personally I think it's better to just not think about it, as all of those changes were made for a reason.

Point understood. My take on it is the desire for realism or even just verisimilitude can only go so far before it interferes with the fun of playing the game. I can certainly understand some players really do have fun by being realistic as possible. A player in my Pathfinder group is like that, and in fact vehemently adherent to the idea that warriors should be limited to real world possibilities of doing stuff yet it's ok for magic to do whatever, but that's a different topic. For me, sometimes logic needs to keep quiet and just let the game play.

[eastmabl]

The cannon Forgotten Realms is basically stuffed to the gills with high level magic users (e.g. Elminster) who spend all their times messing with politics and everyone else. /snip

The high-magic nature of the Realms is usually the biggest knock against Forgotten Realms.


Dark Sun takes the opposite approach. A few utterly powerful wizards have already seized all the power and ruthlessly control access to magic except on their terms. Most Dark Sun casters are Templars (taking their power directly from the Wizard Kings) or lower level defilers. Higher level defilers are either absorbed into the Templar hierarchy or ruthlessly destroyed before they can become a threat to the incumbent.

This is more of a trope from sword and sorcery books.


Dragonlance ... everyone in charge is either a Wizard, a high level Cleric, a Paladin, or a Dragon pretending to be one of the above.

This ignores the fact that divine magic was absent from Krynn for large swaths of its history. You're not going to have high level clerics in charge unless they're also charlatans who claim to be clerics.

Also, arcane magic is also missing for a not-insignificant amount of time. Furthermore, most casters hang out at a tower in the middle of the woods once they reach fifth level - if they don't die in the test or are hunted down for practicing unsanctioned magic.

Lastly, most "paladins" in Krynn are actually fighters with an oath - the Purple Dragon Knight is a more appropriate analogue for 5e.


Eberron ... magic is so omnipresent that of course every ruler is a caster (or has casters on their ruling councils).

A court mage is a trope from most works of fantasy traced back to Merlin. Also, most of the omnipresence of casters is due to dragonmarks, which could effectively be treated as a universal subrace with the Magic Initiate feat.


Mystara ... whole nations ruled by magic. Indeed the idea of non-magical nations is so odd in Mystara that they are usually demi-humans, or need some sort of catastrophe to explain why the wizards aren't in charge.

I don't know enough about Mystara to respond about the prevalence of mages/casters in this setting to say anything, so I won't say anything at all.

[Sigreid]

Well, people have risked insanity for sillier things than power.

The thing is that that setup requires the caster's to either be a burden who doesn't cast or become a danger to their friends.

[Temperjoke]

The thing is that that setup requires the caster's to either be a burden who doesn't cast or become a danger to their friends.

Well, we've all had players on our side that we weren't sure if they were going to shank us or the enemy first. In any case, it also depends on how closely it's enforced, or for that matter, the particular form it takes. In the 5e DMG the examples of madness given are pretty tame and not likely to actually cause problems in a group.

[KorvinStarmast]

Then again, I view high level adventurers as very strange. They've secured enough wealth and prestige for their grandchildren to live comfortable. Unless there's something that only they can kill, they probably don't go out and adventure.

Then, if there's only thing that they can kill, they seem crazy - because no humanoid has a reason to believe that they could kill it.
If you want to understand adventurers, think about adrenaline junkies. I know a few personally who did something unusual. Navy Fighter Pilots. For quite a few, one tour of landing on carriers in an F-14 or an A-7 was enough, and the didn't stay in that field. For others, they could not get enough. They kept going back for more. (And no few of them paid a price for that ...)

There are helicopter pilots who work logging. That is dangerous work, if you lok at the numbers: one day the odds are going to catch up with you. I have two friends who do that, still, in their fifties. Yes, it's dangerous, but they are good at it and they love their work.

I have two personal friends who began working for a company like Blackwater back in the late 90's. One made some money in Iraq in 2003/2004 and then hung up his cleats.
The other kept at it for six years. As he called it, "working without a net" but he finally pulled the plug circa 2008/9. As he put it over a few beers, the career of a mercenary is in a lot of ways self limiting.

Like me, he's now in his mid 50's, so he was doing this stuff until he was about 50. Nuts?

I suppose so, but a very good analogue for "the adventurer" in terms of rarity, and also the fascination with a particular line of work.

For a very different look at the addictive nature of danger, read a book by Chris Hedges called "War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning."

Part of his exposition in that book is that he was basically addicted to the rush, because as a war correspondent for various newspapers for about 18 years, he was all over the world mostly covering little wars in the third world and it was insanely dangerous.

He eventually left that field and is now publishing a variety of anti war articles, so I'll stop there as that's politics. But that book is very good in terms of his candor on what's under the hood for someone addicted to danger.

D&D adventurers: addicted to danger. Why else would you do all that crazy stuff?

The other limiting factor in high level mages being rare:

Creatures form other planes now and again consume them. As mages get higher in level, there opens up to them a whole new environment called interpalanar travel. The denizens of other planes are dangerous in the extreme.

One little slip and you're done.

[Ace Jackson]

Mystara ... whole nations ruled by magic. Indeed the idea of non-magical nations is so odd in Mystara that they are usually demi-humans, or need some sort of catastrophe to explain why the wizards aren't in charge.




I don't know enough about Mystara to respond about the prevalence of mages/casters in this setting to say anything, so I won't say anything at all.

The two big names for arcane magic are Glantri and Alphatia, both are magocracies. Depending on how you define it though, all magic could include The Emirates of Ylaruam as they have an emphasis on clerics, though the political office holder need not be one like in Glantri. After that Thyatis, Karameikos, and Darokin all come to mind as human dominant, non magocracies. Mystisim plays at varying levels of importance in the Atruaghin Clans, the Golden Khan of the Ethengars, and the three northern kingdoms, Vestland, Ostland, and Soderfjord. Then the oceanic countries, Minrothad and Ierendi, also have certian magic styles, but magic doesn't control their lives.

Glantri also has political disputes that prevent them from taking over the world, Alphatia is in a bit of a crisis of succession at 1000 AC, default playtime, IIRC, not unlike some suggestions upthread. IMO, the prominence of magic users in Mystara is overstated. They have influence, but that they aren't rulers is not an exceptionally unusual thing.

Grant you that anyone powerful enough to take over the world on their own is more likely to become one of the settings gods, or at least pursue that avenue for themselves.

[Sigreid]

Elminster is basically why I hate the FR setting. It became pretty clear that he was really the only person that mattered and wherever the party went the would see "Elminster was here".

[KorvinStarmast]

Elminster is basically why I hate the FR setting. It became pretty clear that he was really the only person that mattered and wherever the party went the would see "Elminster was here". Do you mean El Marisu? There's cheese in that enchilada, loads of it! :smallbiggrin:

[R.Shackleford]

Elminster is basically why I hate the FR setting. It became pretty clear that he was really the only person that mattered and wherever the party went the would see "Elminster was here".

Between him and all the organizations... There really isn't much an adventurer can do without having the "Simpson's did it" problem within that setting.

Step out of line and he or someone else will slap you down, hard.

I have players who like to try and build their surroundings, introduce new things, or even infiltrate a kingdom and turn it into a shadow government.

FR and many other settings takes the fun out of it because it has already been done.

I like PCs being PCs not some super wizard fighter dude.

[Estrillian]

Yeah, and the current insistence on having a representative of every faction in every starting town really strains things for me. It sparks of an instruction coming off the back of the Adventurer's League - make sure that every faction is accessible to new players.

I've been running a campaign based on Lost Mines and Princes of the Apocalypse and I've cut back on the factions heavily. The Lord's Alliance and the Zhentarim have played a part, but I left all of the contacts out of Red Larch and have treated the factions very much as quest initiators and not constant presences. Elminster is *never* going to appear. In fact I am happy if the PC wizard is the highest level caster that ever appears who isn't a big bad.

[R.Shackleford]

Yeah, and the current insistence on having a representative of every faction in every starting town really strains things for me. It sparks of an instruction coming off the back of the Adventurer's League - make sure that every faction is accessible to new players.

I've been running a campaign based on Lost Mines and Princes of the Apocalypse and I've cut back on the factions heavily. The Lord's Alliance and the Zhentarim have played a part, but I left all of the contacts out of Red Larch and have treated the factions very much as quest initiators and not constant presences. Elminster is *never* going to appear. In fact I am happy if the PC wizard is the highest level caster that ever appears who isn't a big bad.

If I use factions then I make it where the PC is the representative for their faction. They come to this new region, not just new city, to scope things out and essentially be an adventurer.

There may be other casters and martials in my world but they will be a level 1 and never higher in the class... Though their effective level can be higher.

No other fighter will have action surge or even extra attack. No other cleric will have channel divinity.

Higher level spells are still around in a form of a ritual but no one can just cast it with an action.

[Theodoxus]

I use different corrective measures. [Most of my games take place in Pathfinder's Golarion.] For instance, I've used Signifiers from Cheliax as high end magic enforcers. I've had a cabal of Aboleths who created artifacts; captains coats that the used to keep track of their minions. My current game is using a dragon...

I also enjoy using divine actions as enforcement. The gods are just my playthings, and they are capricious! They'll show up at the drop of a hat; though usually disguised.

In fact, I'm trying to ween myself from these 'Marysue' type plot devices. At some point the current campaign will be swept away to Athas... Sure the Sorcerer-Kings are pretty Marysue, but they're also extremely aloof. It'll be interesting to see how the arcanists deal with defiling magic and the devout deal with being severed from their gods. (Don't fret, I have plans to let them restore their power.)

[Nicodiemus]

There used to be a pretty effective double speedbump to character leveling. One- no matter how much xp was earned in the previous adventure, a character could crest no more than one level and would lose any xp over the amount that would leave him 1xp below the next level. Two- each level required to character to train 1 week per the level gained before any benefits could be gained. I'm not even sure what edition I remember those from, but they always made sense to me.

[Skylivedk]

When I'm making a stock D&D sandbox dungeon crawl, I alway assume adventurers are about 1 in 1000 in civilized area, and maybe 1 in 200 in dangerous borderlands, and 1 in 20 in true wilderness small towns/forts. Then I assume about 1 in 5 of the next level. that breaks down in major cities, because high level characters from the entire population of nations probably concentrate there, if they aren't out adventuring or ruling their own areas of the world. (In other words, if the totall population of a kingdom is 1 million, even if the capitol city is 25000 people, they'll still have a 7th-8th level in the Capitol, not just a 3rd level.)

That assumption is a bit low for 5e, where adventures survive more and rapidly advance to level 5. A rate of 1/2 the next level through 5, 1/5 to 10th, then 1/10th after is probably better.

That'd place the top hero in the average wilderness fort or borderlands town at about 5th level. And the hero of a kingdom of 1 million at 9th level, and of a continent of 1 billion at 13-14th level.

I like this way of thinking. The only part that makes it hard is that I'd guess that a high INT character who can turn himself invisible and teleport is way more likely to make it to the higher levels. In other words, big pointy stick dudes die off. Smart elves survive.


It could also be that anyone can become high level but alignment interferes. There are these Good Guys who just don't want to take over the world themselves and stop others from trying to do it. There could be this team consisting of a paladin, wizard, cleric, barbarian, ranger, and rogue who avenge those who were harmed against the evil doers.

:smallbiggrin:

But how would they know that the evil dude is evil? Assuming INT 18+, (s)he's not about to broadcast intentions. Probably the good guys will wake up dead before they stop anything.


Not long ago I saw an explanation for why there aren't that many high level characters in a given world:

How do you go up in level? By gaining experience. How do you gain experience? By defeating threats that are a challenge to you. This means that your life has to be in danger. [SNIP]

Kind of fits in to your own numbers - with the explanation of "the few numbers are explained by there just being that few of people with the right amount of insanity and/or the right mixture of luck."

Two points:
1. You can easily gain experience without being in mortal danger.
2. We are still talking a numbers game where some would end up immensely powerful. Most of the level 6+ spells don't seem to take into account what a real person with an above Einstein intelligence would do with those abilities.


So the way I look at it, there are enough opposing powerful beings that it creates a sort of "cold war". No one high level caster wants to make too many waves, for fear of getting the attention of the other powerful casters, who would move against them in order to prevent their own loss of influence. So the Big guys all follow a sort of unwritten pact, to rule your own little area, but don't overreach or you'll be destroyed. Every now and then one of them succeeds and then your heroes have to balance the power.

The Cold War was based on the threat of mutual destruction. The treat was very real, because nuclear bombs were/are not very sneaky. The logistics of building, aiming and launching a nuclear bomb are quite daunting.

This doesn't apply to a single wizard with centuries to plan.


As J.K. Rowling puts it in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, “The trouble is, the other side can do magic too, Prime Minister."
So, yes, if there was just one wizard/sorcerer/warlock or at least just one faction of them with all others being just mortals, it would be logical to asume that would control the world. However there are multiple mages in every D&D setting whose interests usually contrast one an other, so the factions go into an endless game of chess that affects politics, nobility... Even religion and history. Etc

Wizards will inevitably play a huge role in my campaigns. Just like scientists have in our history (but way more so). Harry Potter's fallacies are tongue-in-cheek exposed nicely by the fan-fic Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (HPMOR) A major point in Harry Potter though is that Voldemort probably wouldn't be more than a level 11/13 caster. And if you're talking the original and not HPMOR then the entire universe of wizards are playing idiot-ball as often as I drink coffee (basics: snipers, C4, etc. are not used - nor do any of them know enough martial arts to disarm each other).


In the game of Coup, this pops up a lot. You can end up with three people with limited resources. No one wants to finish off another person, because that then allows the third to finish off the attacker. You know, except with more players.

But in a game of Coup, you KNOW how many players exist. You KNOW that your move will be seen and your resources accounted for. That is very much not the case with a megalomaniac wizard who can clone himself, dominate others, etc.


I know some people with considerable amounts of Frack You money and they still work, when they could be living off their laurels playing RPGs in their castles.

Why? Because they like what they do.

Trauma surgeons for example could retire conceivably 10-15 years after medical school but they don't because they like putting people back together.

Lots of folk in the tech industry got rich fast and are still working because they like what they do.

I think of the high - level wizards (and other spellcasters to a lesser extent) as like that.

What they don't have as much patience with is working for/with jerks. If you don't need more money, you can't be incented for just a paycheck any more.

Very few of them are interested in political personal ambition.

Agreed - very few of them. I've met a few of these people as well. I like them a lot and have tremendous respect for their drive and passion. None of the ones, I've met, have been Genghis Khan-ruthless. Nor could any of them bend reality to their wills. So let's try imagining what ocul happen if they were just a tad more evil, some of our techies. Imagine that IBM or Google went evil. Not dumb evil, smart evil. We're talking a complete breakdown of democracy, entire states facing draught, free speech quelled, massive propaganda, etc.

A huge part of that not being such a big threat is that despite all their money, they still need other people to accept money and carry out orders. An evil intelligent wizard doesn't need that. He can summon/dominate whichever minions he needs. Heck, build golems...


My current character in 5e is a third level conjurer wizard.

[SNIP]

So explain again why he should have any interest in spending all the time and effort needed to rule a kingdom? What will it give him that he doesn't already have, other than enemies?


We found lead worked for this in one campaign and is already in place to block low level divination, the mechanic was that they absorbed the magic and got quite hot while doing so. This drove the price of lead up quite a bit and in a couple of the more anti-wizard communities it was adopted in place of the silver piece.

[SNIP]

The fact that exposure to lead caused brain damage, especially in the nobles who most desired and could afford protection form wizard powers, was just icing on the Medieval Fantasy cake.

Cool idea, I might use it. It still wouldn't do much to a smart level 13+ caster though. He doesn't need to interact with the lead at all - he can just circumvent it.


If you want to understand adventurers, think about adrenaline junkies. I know a few personally who did something unusual. [SNIP]

Creatures form other planes now and again consume them. As mages get higher in level, there opens up to them a whole new environment called interpalanar travel. The denizens of other planes are dangerous in the extreme.

One little slip and you're done.

The interplanar part is a very, very strong point (especially in my setting where you can kill casters and harvest their magic essence). It might just be enough. It would also make the world even more scary... Which I always like :D

The adrenaline junkie part just seems to underline that given a few thousand years, we'd have wizards who'd become high level.

[quinron]

I've gotten around the entire high-level caster problem by keeping the form and function of magic a mystery to the inhabitants of my world. The 60 or so elven archmages at the major universities are constantly experimenting to find new implementations of magic; the gnome scholars live in secluded cities and are studying the composition and functionality of magic; the clerics of the Greater Gods are trying to break through the boundary that keeps their patrons from being able to actively get involved in the world; and there are very few clerics (as opposed to priests) of the Lesser Gods, since they tend to be more active in the world and don't need as much help from mortals to spread their message or fulfill their agendas.

Most of the high-level casters are small-n neutral, keeping to their own incredibly complex and slow-developing business while leaving others to theirs. If a powerful caster goes rogue, though, they're willing to step in and shut them down so that their studies and experiments aren't interrupted.

[mgshamster]

Two points:
1. You can easily gain experience without being in mortal danger.
2. We are still talking a numbers game where some would end up immensely powerful. Most of the level 6+ spells don't seem to take into account what a real person with an above Einstein intelligence would do with those abilities.

1) In the game where I saw that explanation, you could not gain experience unless your life was in danger. The challenges had to be a viable threat and if it was judged too easy, you did not gain experience (because you did not learn). Back when I played 2e wth a solid group for about 10 years, that was also a standing house rule - if it wasn't deemed to be challenging for you, you did not gain XP. Maybe it's a hold over from 1e? I don't know.

2) Fair. I wasn't really commenting on whether it was or was not a problem, just an interesting anecdote I once read about.

If there are issues with it for your worlds, simply have some of those spells go away for your world. Not all spells in the book have to be discovered/invented on every world, in every setting, in every country, in every game. Maybe make it so that to get past a certain level, you have to escape the bounds of your home planet and travel elsewhere (like the inner or outer planes) - and no one who has gone has ever come back (until now... dun dun duuuunnn).

The point of the rules is to allow you to build the world and the game that you want to play - the rules are not there to say "every rule in this book must be true for every game." The same holds true for spells. Heck, I once played a campaign where the GM decided what spells you got each level (and you would rarely get any additional spells beyond that); made for an interesting game, as I had to figure out how to solve problems with the tools I was given. Coincidentally, it also solved quite a bit of the issues between martials and casters. In another game, cleric spells would only work if that deity decided it worked right then and there - if the spell you were casting wasn't furthering the deity's goals (and that included spells which saved your life in battle), then it just flat out didn't work.

[Tanarii]

I like this way of thinking. The only part that makes it hard is that I'd guess that a high INT character who can turn himself invisible and teleport is way more likely to make it to the higher levels. In other words, big pointy stick dudes die off. Smart elves survive.



But how would they know that the evil dude is evil? Assuming INT 18+, (s)he's not about to broadcast intentions. Probably the good guys will wake up dead before they stop anything.Youre overvaluing Int. Thats not surprising, nor uncommon among D&D players, who tend to be intelligent. But even in modern real life, Intelligence is useful, but not a determining factor in achieving great success and power. In a world where every other attribute gives plenty of power, that'd be even more true.

And in D&D you're especially overvaluing it ... a high Int character gains only the mechanical benefits of the stat. Anything else you add is pure RP and doesn't have to match the stat. In 5e, it means you have higher deductive, mental acuity and memory recall capabilities. Not superior tactical planning. Not superior decision making, especially in regard to decisions that would be result in something a wise or common sense person would do. (For example, BBEG high Int wizards might easily get caught out monologuing :smallamused: )

And the only completely non-magical classes are Barbarian, Fighter (2 subtypes) and Rogue (2 subtypes). They've got plenty of decent class features in the low levels. And since I'm talking about a whole continent potentially having less than 10 people at levels 11-14, we're not talking high levels. Which was my entire point.

[Telok]

It's only 4 adventuring days to reach 5th level by the DMG guidelines, and as others have pointed out elsewhere "encounter" does not mean "combat" only "challenge". It's easy to get to high level in 5e.

http://i375.photobucket.com/albums/oo198/jcc_telok/xpPerDay_zps35gxj9ck.jpg (http://s375.photobucket.com/user/jcc_telok/media/xpPerDay_zps35gxj9ck.jpg.html)

So do really shy people get xp for getting up in front of a crowd and talking?

[Tanarii]

It's only 4 adventuring days to reach 5th level by the DMG guidelines, and as others have pointed out elsewhere "encounter" does not mean "combat" only "challenge". It's easy to get to high level in 5e.That assumes you only fight solo encounters, and of course level appropriate encounter. Never significantly under or over leveled. Even if you assume the latter, it's probably safe to multiple the number of adventuring days by 1.5-2 to account for the difference between adjusted XP and awarded XP.

Still really really fast. :)

Edit: and of course, it assumes NPCs play by the same XP leveling scheme as PCs.

[rhouck]

1) In the game where I saw that explanation, you could not gain experience unless your life was in danger. The challenges had to be a viable threat and if it was judged too easy, you did not gain experience (because you did not learn). Back when I played 2e wth a solid group for about 10 years, that was also a standing house rule - if it wasn't deemed to be challenging for you, you did not gain XP. Maybe it's a hold over from 1e? I don't know.

That's an actual rule from the 2e DMG :) It requires that PCs be exposed to "significant risk" (or at least the threat of it) so no experience where "the PCs have an overwhelming advantage over their foes".

[Vogonjeltz]

How do you go about it? What is your in-game rationale for this not happening (and in particular, not having already happened?)

Well. Wizards in particular have hit point variance on the order of: 25-220. The default average would be ~122.

That's low enough that basically any given non-wizard could kill them in 6-12 seconds (1-2 rounds) with little to no effort.

Wizards have some pretty powerful magicks, yes, but they're incredibly fragile vis other adventurers.

Really, any Wizard who irks someone who is genuinely powerful (i.e. Fantastically wealthy) is going to get a squad of assassins (or a cohort of knights) kicking their door down, and killing them on the spot.

Sure, they might manage to take some people with them (or maybe not depending on how it plays out) but it's far more likely that the motived opponent with substantially more resources will simply overwhelm the Wizard.

Now, there's no reason a Wizard couldn't try accruing political power, but they're fragile enough that it's unlikely they could survive repeated assassination attempts by political adversaries.

Just think of all those evil wizards the party has taken down because they ticked off the wrong people and got a bounty on their heads. Adventuring parties are what happens when a Wizard tries to dominate the world, or annoys powerful people.

[Ikitavi]

I like a lot of the ideas here.

In my campaign, I went with the answer that wizards USED to run the world. Then the wizard rulers started experimenting with lichdom and other methods of becoming immortal.

So there were over the course of a generation or so, a lot of rulers that were very powerful, but increasingly out of touch with their people. Rulers who sometimes felt that it was more "efficient" to deal with the issue of workers who protested their conditions by killing and reanimating them. The necromantic business model may have had some things going for it, but PR was not one of them.

So there were a bunch of civil wars that resulted in the necromancers losing. They were just too outnumbered. But they were powerful enough so that they could set terms for their loss. The majority of the lichkings agreed to step down and persist in secret in exchange for having agents who would buy and sell stuff for them. The retired lichkings agreed not to have kingdoms in exchange for maintaining some of the perks.

So why did the really powerful lichkings lose? Mostly from people walking away from the job. And by walking away from the job, that includes action movie walking away from the job, as the portable hole is dropped into the bag of holding, the bookworms are released in the library, and the assorted other nasties that can happen if the help is ill-disposed to the Master and indifferent to their chances of personal survival.

See consequences of Necromancer Management Style.

At the current stage of the campaign, a lot of spellcasters maintain anonymity with masks when dealing with members outside of their communities in their offices of community spellcaster. This makes them harder to ambush and assassinate by outsiders to the community. But the flip side is that their communities DO know where they live, and where they get their food. And while there are very strong taboos against poisoning a guest, there ARE exceptions. And an out of touch wizard who doesn't keep up their Sense Motive skill is quite vulnerable if their community turns against them.

But I agree that the natural tendency in a world with so many useful and powerful spells is that those who control them would end up ruling. So either the rulers are themselves casters, or they command the service of casters. And therefore the GM should consider at what stage in the process the campaign is in. Are the spells that can seriously affect economies just now spreading? Have they been around a while, and wizardry is slowly taking over, like a decade ago it was undead oxen pulling trade caravans, and now it is Tenser's Floating Disc, and a decade hence it will be teleport circles. Are courts starting to get permanent Zone of Truth spells set up to quickly process the bulk of cases?

In a world of expanding jobs for wizards, how do you prevent those jobs from having a much higher payout than adventuring?

[Telok]

That assumes you only fight solo encounters, and of course level appropriate encounter. Never significantly under or over leveled. Even if you assume the latter, it's probably safe to multiple the number of adventuring days by 1.5-2 to account for the difference between adjusted XP and awarded XP.
No. This is straight from the DMG, 300 xp per person per adventuring day at first level and increasing from there. It is set for a party of four characters.


Still really really fast. :)

Edit: and of course, it assumes NPCs play by the same XP leveling scheme as PCs.

Every edition since the AD&Ds has increased the speed at which characters gain levels. I fully expect 6e, if it is still produced by WotC, to have a leveling time of 100 days or less to level 20.

The only assumption there is that NPCs play by the rules. It is perfectly possible for everything that is not combat, a defined spell, and PC creation to be handled with "Because the DM says so." That simply means that there is no consistent baseline or default to base assumptions off of.

[Tanarii]

No. This is straight from the DMG, 300 xp per person per adventuring day at first level and increasing from there. It is set for a party of four characters.That adventuring day XP table is based on Adjusted XP for encounters. In other words, it includes the X1 to x4 multiplier for number of monsters that is used to determine encounter difficult.

Awarded XP is just the straight XP of defeated or overcome monsters, not the adjusted amount. So the expected XP gained (ie awarded, as opposed to adjusted) in an adventuring day is anywhere from the table's value to the value/4. Personally I would use somewhere between value/1.5 and value/2 to estimate the amount typically awarded as the result of the listed adventuring day's adjusted XP. I expect most encounters to be with 2 (X1.5 modified) to 3-6 (x2 modifier) towards adjusted XP.



And yes, there isn't necessarily a consistent baseline for assuming NPC advancemeant. There's no assumption that NPCs have to play by the rules. There's no assumption they are even fully statted in a PC class, let alone be assumed to use the PC XP tables. Anything we use to estimate it (such as my system unthread) is basically us throwing out our own "DM" interpretations or suggested methods.

[Telok]

So the expected XP gained (ie awarded, as opposed to adjusted) in an adventuring day is anywhere from the table's value to the value/4. Personally I would use somewhere between value/1.5 and value/2 to estimate the amount typically awarded as the result of the listed adventuring day's adjusted XP. I expect most encounters to be with 2 (X1.5 modified) to 3-6 (x2 modifier) towards adjusted XP.

I think you're making assumptions that I'm not making, or perhaps the other way around. I built the table based on adherence to the DMG recommended number of encounters that result in the DMG recommended amount of XP, not using it as some starting point and giving more or less xp based on how many critters got used. It sounds like you're either using fewer monsters of fewer encounters if the PCs are getting reduced xp awards. The body count column is pretty much just a minimum number.

It doesn't really matter much, just details. Gaining levels increases in speed every edition since AD&D, spells get easier to use, saves get worse. So casters stay on top and the solution is apparetnly to make as many PCs as possible into casters. It's a shame because the combat is good and the backgrounds finally got enough ink to get people to use them for more than a random +1 to something.

[Tanarii]

I think you're making assumptions that I'm not making, or perhaps the other way around. I built the table based on adherence to the DMG recommended number of encounters that result in the DMG recommended amount of XP, not using it as some starting point and giving more or less xp based on how many critters got used. Right.

But then you're making the mistake of awarding the full adjusted XP, which is only used to determine encounter difficulty and number of encounters in an adventuring day. The amount of XP that gets awarded to characters for an encounter is the unadjusted XP for the encounter, before the modifier for number of creatures.

So if you have 300 XP of encounters at level one at level one, that can be:
3x deadly (100 adjusted XP) solo encounters = 100 XP awarded for each encounter
3x deadly (100 adjusted XP) 2-monster encounters = 67 XP awarded for each encounter
3x deadly (100XP adjusted XP) 3-6 monster encounters = 50 XP awarded for each encounter

Or some mix of encounters obviously. But all of those add up to 300 adjusted XP for the adventuring day. I'm demonstrating how the adventuring day table can't be used to determine number of adventuring days to gain a level, since it doesn't show awarded XP, but rather adjusted encounter XP used for determining difficulty.

Net result is the characters, for the one 300 XP adventuring day at level 1, might earn anywhere from 75 to 300 XP. Although IMX about 150 would be normal. So gaining level two could take from 1-4 adventuring days, averaging around 2 adventuring days.

[SharkForce]

or, to put it another way, the devs were smart enough to factor encounter difficulty into exp budgets for encounters and adventuring days... but not smart enough to figure out that if tougher fights should be worth more exp in difficulty, they should also just be worth more exp, period.

so a fight may have 1,000 exp worth of difficulty, but be worth drastically lower amounts to win that fight.

[JoeJ]

or, to put it another way, the devs were smart enough to factor encounter difficulty into exp budgets for encounters and adventuring days... but not smart enough to figure out that if tougher fights should be worth more exp in difficulty, they should also just be worth more exp, period.

so a fight may have 1,000 exp worth of difficulty, but be worth drastically lower amounts to win that fight.

I think that was done deliberately, so as not to penalize players who play smart and try to divide their enemies up into more manageable groups instead of tackling them all at once.

[Telok]

Every time I've played at level one it's been blown through in a single day. Either way it's pretty much just a detail of how your game uses xp. The leveling is still the fastest without factoring in campaign dependent downtime.

It gets back to the lack of any guidance on NPCs. If you assume that they use a measure for advancement even 1/10th that of PCs then they should get to twenty hit dice or levels in less than ten years. It makes it hard to do sandbox and hex crawl games or games with other adventurers in the world. A story or plot based game doesn't worry about this, thee DM just sets everone to plot appropriate levels.

I dunno, I just find everything outside of combat to be underdeveloped this edition. I find myself going back to my AD&D DMG for everything from areial combat to hirelings to basic world and adventure building. Of course I still have to adjust it to the "everyone has near unlimited magic" and saves going down instead of up as levels increase.

[Skylivedk]

Well. Wizards in particular have hit point variance on the order of: 25-220. The default average would be ~122.

That's low enough that basically any given non-wizard could kill them in 6-12 seconds (1-2 rounds) with little to no effort.

Wizards have some pretty powerful magicks, yes, but they're incredibly fragile vis other adventurers.

Really, any Wizard who irks someone who is genuinely powerful (i.e. Fantastically wealthy) is going to get a squad of assassins (or a cohort of knights) kicking their door down, and killing them on the spot.

[Snip]

Just think of all those evil wizards the party has taken down because they ticked off the wrong people and got a bounty on their heads. Adventuring parties are what happens when a Wizard tries to dominate the world, or annoys powerful people.

1. My entire point is built around wizards not being too smart to engage in dumb encounters. They'd sleep in a parallel dimension/in a cave you can only teleport to, have clones etc., so no getting killed by knights and assassins.

2. Over five campaigns, or more, not a single evil wizard has been killed by my players. Plenty of other casters have been unalived, but the paranoid evil wizards have remained too elusive. The wizards have lost and fled a couple of times, yes, but that hasn't really made the PC's sleep any easier at night.


I like a lot of the ideas here.

In my campaign, I went with the answer that wizards USED to run the world. Then the wizard rulers started experimenting with lichdom and other methods of becoming immortal.

So there were over the course of a generation or so, a lot of rulers that were very powerful, but increasingly out of touch with their people. Rulers who sometimes felt that it was more "efficient" to deal with the issue of workers who protested their conditions by killing and reanimating them. The necromantic business model may have had some things going for it, but PR was not one of them.

So there were a bunch of civil wars that resulted in the necromancers losing. They were just too outnumbered. But they were powerful enough so that they could set terms for their loss.

But I agree that the natural tendency in a world with so many useful and powerful spells is that those who control them would end up ruling. So either the rulers are themselves casters, or they command the service of casters. And therefore the GM should consider at what stage in the process the campaign is in. Are the spells that can seriously affect economies just now spreading? Have they been around a while, and wizardry is slowly taking over, like a decade ago it was undead oxen pulling trade caravans, and now it is Tenser's Floating Disc, and a decade hence it will be teleport circles. Are courts starting to get permanent Zone of Truth spells set up to quickly process the bulk of cases?

In a world of expanding jobs for wizards, how do you prevent those jobs from having a much higher payout than adventuring?

Fun take with the post lich war world! I've made permanency quite expensive in terms of life essence to keep down the amount of magic items, but I like how you've gone about it - especially setting the terms of their own loss :)

[djreynolds]

Wizards and casters die in early play... fact.

Being a wizard is tough early on. You will lean on your friends early on, and later reward them for their friendship. Every powerful wizard has a trusted body guard, a rogue to do things so he doesn't waste spells.

My wizard for the longest time, leaned heavily on his team members. I got powerful because of them.

[Ikitavi]

1. My entire point is built around wizards not being too smart to engage in dumb encounters. They'd sleep in a parallel dimension/in a cave you can only teleport to, have clones etc., so no getting killed by knights and assassins.

2. Over five campaigns, or more, not a single evil wizard has been killed by my players. Plenty of other casters have been unalived, but the paranoid evil wizards have remained too elusive. The wizards have lost and fled a couple of times, yes, but that hasn't really made the PC's sleep any easier at night.



Fun take with the post lich war world! I've made permanency quite expensive in terms of life essence to keep down the amount of magic items, but I like how you've gone about it - especially setting the terms of their own loss :)

Its a fun gimmick. As the campaign develops, the players will learn more about the great lich kings, and the magical pact that resulting in the winding down of the great civil wars. Among the important terms were that they agreed not to teach necromancy and to not rule. One of the quirks of the pact is that it is forbidden to resurrect or raise dead on rulers, and a few other effects as well. It isn't forbidden to heroes or other non-rulers. One of the prices of ruling is mortality.

But some of the retired lich kings are not satisfied with their little pocket realms, and though abiding by their magical oath, they are meddling. They are probing about the edges of what they can and can not do under their oath. Of course, if the players find out, and figure out who to contact, those meddlers may find certain other signatories to that oath would be UnHappy with them.

See, SOME of the liches were quite happy with the Pact, because they realized that their primary threat would be the machinations of the other ambitious wizards they went to school with. One of common features of these wizards is they went to the same school, and have all had a thousand years to develop close to the same perfect penmanship.

And no, they are not all actual liches, I use "lich" as the generic reference for intelligent, free willed, spellcasting undead. People who encounter them or references to them generally do not know the differences. And the various undead wizard types tend to try to disguise what they are in any case.

[mgshamster]

Wizards and casters die in early play... fact.

Being a wizard is tough early on. You will lean on your friends early on, and later reward them for their friendship. Every powerful wizard has a trusted body guard, a rogue to do things so he doesn't waste spells.

My wizard for the longest time, leaned heavily on his team members. I got powerful because of them.

I'm not so sure that's true anymore. 5e wizards can hold their own fairly well at low level - much better than they could in 3.X, and my own play testing of four Pathfinder wizards going through a Paizo Adventure Path (Rise of the Runelords, book 1) showed they could do just fine at low levels.*

The 5e wizard is stronger than the PF wizard at low levels, and even though the PF wizard is stronger at higher levels, the 5e high level wizard is still at the top of the game.

*Note: General community consensus was that the point where the wizard no longer needed the fighter's help to survive was at level 5, so I did a play test of the first four levels. Level 1 was shaky - but that's true for all classes; after that it was a breeze.

[Nu]

In the somewhat obscure strategy game Dominions, there's an idea of a cycle: every time a pretender god becomes a true god, it rules for a while, then some unseen force calls it away and it leaves the world and mortal concerns behind, never to be seen again.

I'm thinking the same thing could apply to powerful spell casters. Epic level casters should already be pretty rare, and maybe they rule for a decade or a few of them. But eventually, there's something out there, something not of this world, that calls them away, and they leave behind everything and are never seen again.

Pretty simple concept and it works with just about any high-fantasy setting where that kind of spell caster fits.

[Vogonjeltz]

1. My entire point is built around wizards not being too smart to engage in dumb encounters. They'd sleep in a parallel dimension/in a cave you can only teleport to, have clones etc., so no getting killed by knights and assassins.

2. Over five campaigns, or more, not a single evil wizard has been killed by my players. Plenty of other casters have been unalived, but the paranoid evil wizards have remained too elusive. The wizards have lost and fled a couple of times, yes, but that hasn't really made the PC's sleep any easier at night.

How are they ruling anything at all if they're constantly in hiding for fear of their lives? Evil Wizards aren't the only ones with magic, and an adventuring party with sufficient motivation (a sufficiently high bounty on the wizard) will find a way into that other plane or cave. Also, how did the Wizard find this cave that is inaccessible except via teleportation in the first place? I mean, what's the rational explanation behind it, because this really sounds more like plot armor than a plausible set up.

Eh, your milage may vary, for the current campaign we've killed maybe 5 evil wizards at varying levels of power. Some went very quick (they didn't even get to their turn, greatsword to the face) others were trickier.

[mgshamster]

Also, how did the Wizard find this cave that is inaccessible except via teleportation in the first place? I mean, what's the rational explanation behind it, because this really sounds more like plot armor than a plausible set up.

Well.. It happened by accident. The wizard cast a teleport spell and got a mishap; which sent him about 200 miles away at a 1.2% downward slope. He got lucky and found himself in a pocket of air underneath the earth, with no entrances or exits. After exploring the place for a bit, he decided it was a good place to put a teleportation circle that only he knows the runes for, and now it's his hideout. He's even spruced it up a bit.

That teleportation spell can be hazardous, but sometimes you just get lucky.

(If I used this in my game, I'd have the secret to his teleportation circle be an adventure in itself. Either that, or the PCs can set up an ambush at every known location to get out of that little hideout of his. Most often the downfall of people like this is complacency).

[Skylivedk]

How are they ruling anything at all if they're constantly in hiding for fear of their lives? Evil Wizards aren't the only ones with magic, and an adventuring party with sufficient motivation (a sufficiently high bounty on the wizard) will find a way into that other plane or cave. Also, how did the Wizard find this cave that is inaccessible except via teleportation in the first place? I mean, what's the rational explanation behind it, because this really sounds more like plot armor than a plausible set up.

Eh, your milage may vary, for the current campaign we've killed maybe 5 evil wizards at varying levels of power. Some went very quick (they didn't even get to their turn, greatsword to the face) others were trickier.

He didn't find it. He made it.

In campaigns I've played, I've also killed my fair share of wizards - quite often with the players I'm DM'ing for now. 20/18 int is higher than what I can presume any of us to have, so I let NPCs with those scores have weeks of my brain time to scheme.

Unless they've extremely low wisdom, my high int characters don't do stupid evil stuff either. So no evil overlord lists etc. The wizards who fled haven't gone for immediate direct encounters etc.

I try to imagine Sun Tzu's bastard child with Moriarty and Genghis when I plan for high INT characters.

[mgshamster]

20/18 int is higher than what I can presume any of us to have, so I let NPCs with those scores have weeks of my brain time to scheme.

I think that's a fair assumption. We should also consider that the high mental stat wizard also has weeks/months/years to plan, whereas us let intellegent people are only creating their plans in a matter of weeks or days. At best we're underplaying their mental scores.

Another thing I do is let a group of people brainstorm to represent the high mental scores. If a PC has a high mental stat, I encourage the other players to share ideas with that one player, and discourage sharing ideas for PCs that have lower mental stats. This is especially true if that particular PC happens to be separated from the group for whatever reasons.

[Tanarii]

Another thing I do is let a group of people brainstorm to represent the high mental scores. If a PC has a high mental stat, I encourage the other players to share ideas with that one player, and discourage sharing ideas for PCs that have lower mental stats.Why?

You're adding more to Int than it's mechanical function. Do you allow high Cha character to have the player make 2 or 3 attempts at telling you what they're saying, and pick the best one? Do you allow high Str characters to have the players take turn lifting weights, high Dex characters to have the players walk a balance beam? Do you make low stat people try the same thing first while bundled up in thick clothing to make it harder?

Int already has a specific mechanical function. It adds to Int ability checks, and is used as the Caster stat for Wizards, EKs and ATs.

Just because you personally associate certain non-mechanical RP behavior with high intelligence, doesn't mean you should shoe-horn them in outside the mechanics provided. If something is dependent on high or low Int and there is a chance of failure, that's what an Int check is for. As it is, you're making the same extrapolation error an earlier poster did by assuming high Int = master schemer, strategist, and planner all rolled into one. Far beyond what it provides mechanically.

[smcmike]

Why?

You're adding more to Int than it's mechanical function. Do you allow high Cha character to have the player make 2 or 3 attempts at telling you what they're saying, and pick the best one? Do you allow high Str characters to have the players take turn lifting weights, high Dex characters to have the players walk a balance beam? Do you make low stat people try the same thing first while bundled up in thick clothing to make it harder?

Int already has a specific mechanical function. It adds to Int ability checks, and is used as the Caster stat for Wizards, EKs and ATs.

Just because you personally associate certain non-mechanical RP behavior with high intelligence, doesn't mean you should shoe-horn them in outside the mechanics provided. If something is dependent on high or low Int and there is a chance of failure, that's what an Int check is for. As it is, you're making the same extrapolation error an earlier poster did by assuming high Int = master schemer, strategist, and planner all rolled into one. Far beyond what it provides mechanically.

I get what you're saying, but it seems pretty harmless to have a player with a 20 intelligence attempt to play a genius, and a player with an 8 attempt to play someone of subaverage reasoning.

[mgshamster]

Why?

Because I don't like it when ability scores are strictly limited to their mechanics with zero Roleplay consideration.


You're adding more to Int than it's mechanical function. Do you allow high Cha character to have the player make 2 or 3 attempts at telling you what they're saying, and pick the best one?

That's a great idea!


Do you allow high Str characters to have the players take turn lifting weights, high Dex characters to have the players walk a balance beam? Do you make low stat people try the same thing first while bundled up in thick clothing to make it harder?

No, because the game doesn't take into consideration our physical stats. But it does take into consideration our mental stats, because we as players have to make decisions for our characters, and the decisions we make are almost entirely dependent on our own mental abilities.

If I set up my game so they just decide left/right/move a/button b, and the rest of the time in just dictating the story to them, it becomes a very boring game. We may as well play a video game; at least I won't lose my voice.


Int already has a specific mechanical function. It adds to Int ability checks, and is used as the Caster stat for Wizards, EKs and ATs.

Just because you personally associate certain non-mechanical RP behavior with high intelligence, doesn't mean you should shoe-horn them in outside the mechanics provided. If something is dependent on high or low Int and there is a chance of failure, that's what an Int check is for. As it is, you're making the same extrapolation error an earlier poster did by assuming high Int = master schemer, strategist, and planner all rolled into one. Far beyond what it provides mechanically.

There are zero mechanics in the game for coming up with novel ideas. Any ideas that happen in the game literally come from the intellect of the people playing it. If I don't allow them to use their imagination for the game, then there really isn't any point in playing.

[JoeJ]

You're adding more to Int than it's mechanical function. Do you allow high Cha character to have the player make 2 or 3 attempts at telling you what they're saying, and pick the best one? Do you allow high Str characters to have the players take turn lifting weights, high Dex characters to have the players walk a balance beam? Do you make low stat people try the same thing first while bundled up in thick clothing to make it harder?

Do you stop characters with high Wisdom from trying something foolish that the player wants to do?

[mgshamster]

Let me try it this way:

You're traveling through a dungeon, and you come upon a door with magic writing above it. On the door is an elaborate carving of an eye, slightly glowing. Someone casts Read Magic (or something equivalent) and the passage reads, "Draw your weapon and show it to me."

Situation A: The players pause and brain storm about how to solve the riddle. Player 1 decides to draw his sword and hold it up to the eye. A beam comes out from the eye and disintegrates the weapon. "Holy hell!" The player yells, and says his character jumps back in surprise. Player 2 comes up with an idea, pulls out a piece of paper and literally draws his weapon on the paper and shows it to the eye. The door unlocks.

Situation B: Player 2 says, "My character is smart and wants to solve the riddle." I say, "Roll an intelligence check." *rolls an 18* "Your character solves the riddle and the door opens."

I find situation A much more enjoyable, and by making my players actually use their imagination and creativity in the game (and allowing that creativity to be represented in the mental scores of their characters), it enhances my game. I want my players to be engaged and immersed in the story. I do not want them to just a die to overcome challenges and solve problems. By letting my players brainstorm to assist characters with high mental stats, I'm much more likely to see situation A. When I don't encorporate that style of play, I tend to see more of situation B.

When I have my players view thier character stats as just a number with no meaning - as just a modifier to adjust attack rolls and skill checks and damage, they tend to view the game as, well, a game. They stop seeing it as an immersive interactive roleplay experience from which we build a story together.

My goal as the GM is to try to increase their immersion and enhance their experience. My goal is to allow us to tell a story together and give them wonderful memories of good times at the game. This is one of the techniques I've developed to do that - and I've found that it works.

Removing it risks breaking immersion, because we go back to making the mechanics more important than the story and the experience. The mechanics are there to support the story; not the other way around. So I give meaning to the ability scores beyond just their mechanical implications.

[Skylivedk]

Do you stop characters with high Wisdom from trying something foolish that the player wants to do?

Almost, yes. I've said to one of my friends who sometimes is quite the bull in a China house:
"Your character can sense that this joke/behaviour would be very ill-received at present"

As a DM, I can't describe all micro movements in peoples' faces, etc., so I give high wisdom characters extra clues in social settings. They also get more time in combat to make decisions to represent they're better at handling stress.

Charismatic players will have better initial reactions. I had a cha 6 player in 3.5. He'd often get accused of crimes he didn't commit.

Likewise with int 18+: they're getting table help with deductions and long-term planning. I can't expect my prayer to be an Einstein level intelligence.

[Tanarii]

Do you stop characters with high Wisdom from trying something foolish that the player wants to do?no. Because Wis also has a specific mechanical function. It doesn't dictate wise or fooling decision making. It dictates awareness, being in tune with the world, and mental fortitude.

[Tanarii]

Because I don't like it when ability scores are strictly limited to their mechanics with zero Roleplay consideration.
But you're not talking about a RP function. You're talking about what's effectively a mechanical advantage. Just one that doesn't use the established mechanics.


That's a great idea!Right on. Try it out and let me know how it works. Glad something positive came out of my being a negative nelly. :)


No, because the game doesn't take into consideration our physical stats. But it does take into consideration our mental stats, because we as players have to make decisions for our characters, and the decisions we make are almost entirely dependent on our own mental abilities. but it takes into account mental stats in a specific way that doesn't depend on our ability to be rational, or foolish, or a good talker. It's designed to let the player make decisions he wants, and provide relevant information that will enhance that.

Of course, so does your method. My objection is more on the order of powering up an already (theoreticalky) balanced stat. Not that I think you're detracting from player ICD. You're actually enhancing ICD. I just think you're enhancing it an awful lot. In doing so, you're changing what Intelligence does, and how important it is to a characters success.

I think part of my objection just comes because I honestly think intelligent people, which is almost certainly most of the posters on this forum, over value intelligence and its effect on success IRL. ;)

[JoeJ]

I try to imagine Sun Tzu's bastard child with Moriarty and Genghis when I plan for high INT characters.

Why are all your high Intelligence characters specialized in tactics? Aren't there any genius scientists, philosophers, doctors, lawyers, or theologians?

[Vogonjeltz]

Almost, yes. I've said to one of my friends who sometimes is quite the bull in a China house:
"Your character can sense that this joke/behaviour would be very ill-received at present"

As a DM, I can't describe all micro movements in peoples' faces, etc., so I give high wisdom characters extra clues in social settings. They also get more time in combat to make decisions to represent they're better at handling stress.

Charismatic players will have better initial reactions. I had a cha 6 player in 3.5. He'd often get accused of crimes he didn't commit.

Likewise with int 18+: they're getting table help with deductions and long-term planning. I can't expect my prayer to be an Einstein level intelligence.

The problem being that being intelligent has no correlation with being good at planning or scheming.

[Xetheral]

The problem being that being intelligent has no correlation with being good at planning or scheming.

While I would agree that an intelligent character isn't necessarily a good planner or schemer, alleging there is no correlation at all seems a bit extreme.

[Vogonjeltz]

While I would agree that an intelligent character isn't necessarily a good planner or schemer, alleging there is no correlation at all seems a bit extreme.

people can be very good at niche things, it doesn't make them good at everything. I think there's a certain romanticization of specialists that wants to extrapolate capability in one field to capability in many unrelated fields. I've met enough intelligent people who are terrible planners or don't think through the consequences (that sounds more like high wisdom than high intelligence).

[Xetheral]

people can be very good at niche things, it doesn't make them good at everything. I think there's a certain romanticization of specialists that wants to extrapolate capability in one field to capability in many unrelated fields. I've met enough intelligent people who are terrible planners or don't think through the consequences (that sounds more like high wisdom than high intelligence).

Good point. I guess I feel that good schemers and planners are likely to have high intelligence and high wisdom (which would be enough to create a correlation) even if scheming and planning skills are rare even amongst those with high intelligence and/or wisdom.

[JoeJ]

Good point. I guess I feel that good schemers and planners are likely to have high intelligence and high wisdom (which would be enough to create a correlation) even if scheming and planning skills are rare even amongst those with high intelligence and/or wisdom.

Think of it this way: if you were planning a military conquest, would you rather get advice from Stephen Hawking or George Patton?

[Skylivedk]

Why are all your high Intelligence characters specialized in tactics? Aren't there any genius scientists, philosophers, doctors, lawyers, or theologians?

Yes, there is, but for a thread about how high int characters with reality bending powers could run the world, I felt it more useful to point to the highly intelligent strategists and tacticians. Also I've pointed to Einstein several times. He was not famous for his years as a tactician.

Intelligence is to me, amongst other things, learning and deduction. Pg. 12 in the PHB explicitly mentions analytical skill as being part of the intelligence score. These skills are highly useful in scheming.

Good scheming involves being good at guessing different outcomes, which might be wisdom-based, especially if said outcomes are personality dependent, and then assigning probabilities to the most likely outcomes whereafter you foresee how you can turn those outcomes in your favour.

Of course Patton would probably be better at military strategy than Einstein due to Patton's training in the field. You might even say that he is proficient in military strategy whereas Einstein was proficient in physics (and finance, math and a bunch of other things).

I'm pretty sure that Einstein would be better at planning a military campaign than the average Joe. Just like he'd probably be better at chess (or just like the people I knew in army intelligence, where deductional skills were much more important for entry, did way better at tactics classes that those training to be sergeants).

[Skylivedk]

But you're not talking about a RP function. You're talking about what's effectively a mechanical advantage. Just one that doesn't use the established mechanics.

Right on. Try it out and let me know how it works. Glad something positive came out of my being a negative nelly. :)

but it takes into account mental stats in a specific way that doesn't depend on our ability to be rational, or foolish, or a good talker. It's designed to let the player make decisions he wants, and provide relevant information that will enhance that.

Pardon me. I'm not going to say you have BadWrongFun, but the stats are very much described to affect your characters ability to be foolish, a good talker or rational.



Of course, so does your method. My objection is more on the order of powering up an already (theoreticalky) balanced stat. Not that I think you're detracting from player ICD. You're actually enhancing ICD. I just think you're enhancing it an awful lot. In doing so, you're changing what Intelligence does, and how important it is to a characters success.

I think part of my objection just comes because I honestly think intelligent people, which is almost certainly most of the posters on this forum, over value intelligence and its effect on success IRL. ;)

Without the RP-element, intelligence is super weak!

Intelligence is not a guarantee for success. Drive and ambition are way more important. They're kind of, awkwardly, wrapped up in charisma.

[JoeJ]

Yes, there is, but for a thread about how high int characters with reality bending powers could run the world, I felt it more useful to point to the highly intelligent strategists and tacticians. Also I've pointed to Einstein several times. He was not famous for his years as a tactician.

Intelligence is to me, amongst other things, learning and deduction. Pg. 12 in the PHB explicitly mentions analytical skill as being part of the intelligence score. These skills are highly useful in scheming.

Good scheming involves being good at guessing different outcomes, which might be wisdom-based, especially if said outcomes are personality dependent, and then assigning probabilities to the most likely outcomes whereafter you foresee how you can turn those outcomes in your favour.

Of course Patton would probably be better at military strategy than Einstein due to Patton's training in the field. You might even say that he is proficient in military strategy whereas Einstein was proficient in physics (and finance, math and a bunch of other things).

I'm pretty sure that Einstein would be better at planning a military canpaiy than the average Joe. Just like he'd probably be better at chess (or just like the people I knew in army intelligence did way better at tactics classes that those training to be sergeants).

I think it's very unlikely Einstein would have been any better at military planning than some other random person. That wasn't the way his mind worked.

I don't buy the basic premise that wizards would have some special ability to plan the takeover of the world. A high Intelligence score doesn't necessarily imply any special ability at strategy, tactics, or subterfuge.

If anything, a high Wisdom score would be a better indicator of a character's tactical ability, since it combines awareness, intuition, and insight. And Charisma would measure their ability to command.

[Skylivedk]

I think it's very unlikely Einstein would have been any better at military planning than some other random person. That wasn't the way his mind worked.

I don't buy the basic premise that wizards would have some special ability to plan the takeover of the world. A high Intelligence score doesn't necessarily imply any special ability at strategy, tactics, or subterfuge.

If anything, a high Wisdom score would be a better indicator of a character's tactical ability, since it combines awareness, intuition, and insight. And Charisma would measure their ability to command.

1. As is abundantly clear, I disagree with you. We can agree to a high intelligence not NECESSARILY implying a tactical mind, but we seem to disagree to whether or not it would help at all. I believe it would help tremendously. Zhukov, or whoever made his plans, would be a very high int character in my campaigns, and have a decent wisdom. Intelligence is a hard quality to define. The old way of seeing intelligence, deductions, etc. seem to corelate strongly with a tactical understanding. For easy reference, check the IQ of top chess players.

2. A wizard doesn't really need tactics. Subterfuge, or rather just laying low, is very beneficial.

3. Even if we say wisdom is important to do what is necessary, random rolling would give a wizard high wisdom and high int. You add Clone, Simulacrum, etc. and it is bye bye world where martial classes matter.

The issue at hand is still the same: DND gives high level casters powers that alter the universe in ways so fundamental that they brake the power scale at the higher spell levels. Check the fan-fiction Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality for a very well done story about what would happen if spell-casters were smart. Harry P, arguably, doesn't have the powers of a 17th level wizard. He could still do some serious world domination.

[mgshamster]

I think part of my objection just comes because I honestly think intelligent people, which is almost certainly most of the posters on this forum, over value intelligence and its effect on success IRL. ;)

You may be on to something there. :)

I think my desire to do a lot of this is a throw back to the early editions, where the inteligence scores were actually named. "Average," "Below Average," "Genius," things like that.

On the same token, though, i let characters with high physical stats just be able to perform great physical feats without rolling. Like a high str character can just lift that heavy portcullis. Or the high dex character can easily step on a wall to use as leverage and leap over their opponent as they flip through the air. Or whatever else a player can think of that seems cool and not completey unreasonable.

As a side note, check out the Dunning-Kruger Effect - it relates to your notion of high int overvaluation.

[mgshamster]

Intelligence is not a guarantee for success. Drive and ambition are way more important. They're kind of, awkwardly, wrapped up in charisma.

Combined with a good dose of luck. You first have to be lucky enough to be in a position for opportunity. Then you have to have the intellect (or whatever mental stat is needed) to recognize the opportunity. And then you have to have the drive/ambition to take advantage of it. :)

I learned this lesson in war - being good isn't enough to survive, you also have to be lucky. Without luck, you'll get pegged by a stray bullet. Or you'll get electrocuted by a random surge of electricity coming through the water pipes while you're taking a shower (happened to a friend of mine while we were in Iraq). Or a tank will randomly discharge when you turn the ignition on (happened to another friend that same year - the round hit a concrete barrier right next to him, showering him with concrete shrapnel; fortunately, he lived, but he was heavily injured). On the other end of the spectrum, good luck can override competency, and you can survive a war just by always being in the right place at the right time.

Similarly, you can be successful mostly by luck with minimal competency - the most obvious cases are those born into wealth and success, and even their own incompetence isn't enough to take it away.

[Tanarii]

Pardon me. I'm not going to say you have BadWrongFun, but the stats are very much described to affect your characters ability to be foolish, a good talker or rational.

Right for Charisma. Wisdom explicitly doesn't cover being foolish or wise in 5e. And Int covers the ability to reason, not the ability to be rational.

You missed my point. The stats are represented mechanically in a way that doesn't depend on the player's ability to be a foolish, or a good thinker or a good talker. They cover those roles already mechanically, so that the player is left free to make In-character decisions based on his own capabilities.


Without the RP-element, intelligence is super weak!If you mean the Int stat, I disagree. It's consistently underrated by optimizers. It's powerful stat, IMX used just as often as all the others except Str. Especially in dungeon crawling, where Investigation, Arcana, History and (depending on the nature of the dungeon) Religion checks are regularly required.


Intelligence is not a guarantee for success. Drive and ambition are way more important. They're kind of, awkwardly, wrapped up in charisma.Yep. Totally agreement on this. :)

[Skylivedk]

Right for Charisma. Wisdom explicitly doesn't cover being foolish or wise in 5e. And Int covers the ability to reason, not the ability to be rational.

You missed my point. The stats are represented mechanically in a way that doesn't depend on the player's ability to be a foolish, or a good thinker or a good talker. They cover those roles already mechanically, so that the player is left free to make In-character decisions based on his own capabilities.

There seems to be a deviation here :) to each their own. My table has agreed that it's more fun when mental stats affect the entire personality. It has led to some very memorable characters (the almost illiterate paladin, the bard who panicked under pressure and couldn't read people's intention, etc.)



If you mean the Int stat, I disagree. It's consistently underrated by optimizers. It's powerful stat, IMX used just as often as all the others except Str. Especially in dungeon crawling, where Investigation, Arcana, History and (depending on the nature of the dungeon) Religion checks are regularly required. dex and wisdom have been far more used IMX

we're still not resolving that a smart caster can do some down right world breaking things

[Tanarii]

we're still not resolving that a smart caster can do some down right world breaking things
Yes but that's mostly a function of the highest level spells intentionally being world breaking. Because they're for the world-breaking tiers of play. Also known as level 11+. At 17+ it starts to approach multiverse-breaking level of play.

[Xetheral]

And Int covers the ability to reason, not the ability to be rational.

What distinction do you see here? In most cases these seem synonymous to me.

[JoeJ]

1. As is abundantly clear, I disagree with you. We can agree to a high intelligence not NECESSARILY implying a tactical mind, but we seem to disagree to whether or not it would help at all. I believe it would help tremendously. Zhukov, or whoever made his plans, would be a very high int character in my campaigns, and have a decent wisdom. Intelligence is a hard quality to define. The old way of seeing intelligence, deductions, etc. seem to corelate strongly with a tactical understanding. For easy reference, check the IQ of top chess players.

I have seen no evidence that scientific aptitude correlates in any way with military skill. Nor, for that matter, that skill at chess does.


2. A wizard doesn't really need tactics. Subterfuge, or rather just laying low, is very beneficial.

Subterfuge is much more closely related to Charisma in D&D terms than Intelligence, and being a superpowered hermit =/= ruling the world.


3. Even if we say wisdom is important to do what is necessary, random rolling would give a wizard high wisdom and high int. You add Clone, Simulacrum, etc. and it is bye bye world where martial classes matter.

Except that it's not D&D that makes wizards supreme, it's the DM. You could just as easily, and just as much within RAW, say that most wizards (like most people in general) have neither the tactical skill nor the leadership ability to be a successful ruler. Higher level wizards would, in general, be less capable in those areas, because they have focused so much of their attention on studying magic to the exclusion of other interests. They might make good advisors on magical matters, but would not be able to take over.

I think it's interesting that you assume "martial" characters (whatever that means) can't have clones and simulacra, when there's nothing in the rules stopping them. Neither of those spells is self only.

[Tanarii]

What distinction do you see here? In most cases these seem synonymous to me. Reason is a process of thinking your way through a specific problem. Rational, like logical or common sense, really just means 'justification for my personal preference'. :smalltongue:

[SharkForce]

fighters can have clones (if a wizard provides one). but they can't have a simulacrum. the spellcaster is the master. if you didn't cast the spell, you don't get to have your own simulacrum.

[Skylivedk]

I have seen no evidence that scientific aptitude correlates in any way with military skill. Nor, for that matter, that skill at chess does.

A) doesn't matter. My entire point is that wizards don't need armies to destroy worlds. My original point was to planning and scheming. Somehow you don't think those capacities should be represented by Int, but argue that it should be wisdom. I disagree. It makes little difference. The first capable schemer to get high level spells would still break worlds/kingdoms with ease.

B) I'm on my phone (and a couple of countries away from my computer) so it is a bit cumbersome to search through scientific databases for articles that point out correlations between deductional abilities and strategy/tactics(and other game theory-related areas). I hate to use anecdotal evidence so I'll refrain from doing it (again).



Subterfuge is much more closely related to Charisma in D&D terms than Intelligence, and being a superpowered hermit =/= ruling the world.
The subterfuge needed is very limited. Basically don't tell that you plan to use to your arcane powers to your benefit and to the detriment of others.

BTW, I completely concur that charisma is the stat that would enable you to make other people accept, tacitly or actively, your authority.

In my understanding, int would still be the stat that would allow a character to break down the complexities involved in the decision making needed to navigate geopolitics (I.e: Mussolini was charismatic enough to get power, but he was far from the best we've seen at using it)



Except that it's not D&D that makes wizards supreme, it's the DM. You could just as easily, and just as much within RAW, say that most wizards (like most people in general) have neither the tactical skill nor the leadership ability to be a successful ruler. Higher level wizards would, in general, be less capable in those areas, because they have focused so much of their attention on studying magic to the exclusion of other interests. They might make good advisors on magical matters, but would not be able to take over.

A) I disagree. With my understanding of intelligence, wizards would, with their high int, perform way better deductions than most others. Hence, if they want and put their brains to it, they make for terribly tricky foes, always several steps ahead of their opponents. Also, nothing tells me that studying magic leaves no time for anything else.

B) they don't need to rule to break the world. They've plenty of spells that can bring down castles in minutes. They've quite a few that can compel a daughter to kill her father. They can become neigh immortal, teleport from danger in the blink of an eye, stop time, shape mountains, create whatever resource that want, etc. They don't need to do day to day ruling to keep populations hostage. You still don't address the basic issues:

A fighter becomes better at killing things. He gets very, very good at killing things.

A wizard, somewhere between level 11 and 18, gets the power to change reality. In the latter stages his power scaling goes from being somewhat linear to being exponential. Most normal dangers become trivial and his potential impact becomes world defining.



I think it's interesting that you assume "martial" characters (whatever that means) can't have clones and simulacra, when there's nothing in the rules stopping them. Neither of those spells is self only.

Strawman argument. I never said they couldn't. I just don't care if they do. Please, stay a good sport and refrain from cheap rhetorics.

I don't bring up that fighters could have Simulacrum or a clone (if they persuade a wizard), because it's way less frightening. If a fighter gets too power hungry, even if he has a Simulacrum (or multiple) and a clone (or multiple), he is still a pointy stick.

It's a bit like the difference between an Abraham tank and a nuke(that can teleport and requires no logistics).

Yes, the tank is scary. Ten tanks are also scary. Teeth tanks that come back once they're blown up are of course more scary.

A nuke changes geopolitics. A teleporting nuke could have any president/country leader by the balls.

Besides disagreeing with you on what intelligence means (which is a secondary point), I still don't think you address the main point: high-level casters, wizards especially, stop progressing alongside other classes, and, if they have the mental make-up for it, become threats that alter how civilised societies would run.

The threat of mutual destruction in the cold war, stopped the use of nukes, largely because nukes are very, very hard to build and launch without getting nukes launched at you. Wizards become one man teleporting, time-defying, reality-altering mini-nukes with the ability to read and change minds and take strolls in parallel dimensions before they posses people for giggles.

I fail to understand why WotC have made them this way after a certain point. As a DM, you (almost) have to either break immersion, or have your entire story flow around these individuals.

[JoeJ]

fighters can have clones (if a wizard provides one). but they can't have a simulacrum. the spellcaster is the master. if you didn't cast the spell, you don't get to have your own simulacrum.

Unless the fighter hires the wizard. The simulacrum obeys verbal orders from the caster and, "obey King Royalblood as you would me," is a verbal order.

[Skylivedk]

Unless the fighter hires the wizard. The simulacrum obeys verbal orders from the caster and, "obey King Royalblood as you would me," is a verbal order.

It makes little difference. We're talking bending reality versus hitting things with a pointy stick.

[JoeJ]

A) I disagree. With my understanding of intelligence, wizards would, with their high int, perform way better deductions than most others. Hence, if they want and put their brains to it, they make for terribly tricky foes, always several steps ahead of their opponents. Also, nothing tells me that studying magic leaves no time for anything else.

Granted for your understanding of intelligence. That's not the game definition of the Intelligence ability, however. By RAW, there's no reason to think that wizards have a high degree of what you're calling intelligence.


B) they don't need to rule to break the world. They've plenty of spells that can bring down castles in minutes. They've quite a few that can compel a daughter to kill her father. They can become neigh immortal, teleport from danger in the blink of an eye, stop time, shape mountains, create whatever resource that want, etc. They don't need to do day to day ruling to keep populations hostage.

And if they do that, the Powers That BeTM will hunt them down and kill them. That scenario doesn't work unless there's nobody else with access to high level magic.


You still don't address the basic issues:

A fighter becomes better at killing things. He gets very, very good at killing things.

Very good at killing things, indeed. Including killing rogue spellcasters. Especially as part of a combined-arms adventuring party with magic of its own. So your NotDarkseid evil wizard is faced with the NotJLA player characters. That sounds pretty epic to me.


I don't bring up that fighters could have Simulacrum or a clone (if they persuade a wizard), because it's way less frightening. If a fighter gets too power hungry, even if he has a Simulacrum (or multiple) and a clone (or multiple), he is still a pointy stick.

Unless he commands an army. Then, because of bounded accuracy, he's a world changer, even if he has the game stats of a commoner.


Besides disagreeing with you on what intelligence means (which is a secondary point), I still don't think you address the main point: high-level casters, wizards especially, stop progressing alongside other classes, and, if they have the mental make-up for it, become threats that alter how civilised societies would run.

Alter it yes, but not necessarily in the way you're suggesting. There are many other possible worlds that a DM could create without changing the rules. So much depends on how common magic is, and what wizards can do besides casting spells. If magic is fairly common, then most governments will have it. If it's extremely rare, you can have a superhero vs. supervillain fantasy world. The game is a lot less constrained by high level magic than you're claiming.


The threat of mutual destruction in the cold war, stopped the use of nukes, largely because nukes are very, very hard to build and launch without getting nukes launched at you. Wizards become one man teleporting, time-defying, reality-altering mini-nukes with the ability to read and change minds and take strolls in parallel dimensions before they posses people for giggles.

I fail to understand why WotC have made them this way after a certain point. As a DM, you (almost) have to either break immersion, or have your entire story flow around these individuals.

Because, in a world where magic works, they expect you to mostly tell stories about magic?

[SharkForce]

Unless the fighter hires the wizard. The simulacrum obeys verbal orders from the caster and, "obey King Royalblood as you would me," is a verbal order.

that still isn't the fighter's simulacrum. at any time, the caster can take it back. if their next order is "stab the fighter in the back", the simulacrum will obey without hesitation.

[JoeJ]

that still isn't the fighter's simulacrum. at any time, the caster can take it back. if their next order is "stab the fighter in the back", the simulacrum will obey without hesitation.

So? Any employee can stab their employer in the back.

[SharkForce]

So? Any employee can stab their employer in the back.

when we're talking about a simulacrum (or for that matter a variety of other magically created or conjured minions), no they can't.

[EscherEnigma]

Re: High intelligence and reasoning, rationality, and so-on
Dr. Ben Carson.

Re: Wizards being compared to teleporting logistics-free nukes.
The nuclear bomb at Hiroshima insta-killed some 70,000 people across 4.4 square miles and injured another 70,000. The largest area 9th level spell that does direct damage, Weird has an area of 0.00162 square miles. And if every five-foot square has a person in it will hit 1808.6 people.

Damaging, yes, but it's orders of magnitude less effective then a nuke. And that's just the nukes we used 70 years ago. The nukes we have today are much much more destructive.

[smcmike]

Wizards become one man teleporting, time-defying, reality-altering mini-nukes with the ability to read and change minds and take strolls in parallel dimensions before they posses people for giggles.

I fail to understand why WotC have made them this way after a certain point. As a DM, you (almost) have to either break immersion, or have your entire story flow around these individuals.

This really depends on your ability to suspend disbelief. You really don't need to read the rules and then create a world based upon logical extrapolation from them.

[SharkForce]

Re: Wizards being compared to teleporting logistics-free nukes.
The nuclear bomb at Hiroshima insta-killed some 70,000 people across 4.4 square miles and injured another 70,000. The largest area 9th level spell that does direct damage, Weird has an area of 0.00162 square miles. And if every five-foot square has a person in it will hit 1808.6 people.

Damaging, yes, but it's orders of magnitude less effective then a nuke. And that's just the nukes we used 70 years ago. The nukes we have today are much much more destructive.

I think you have the wrong impression as to why nukes are so scary.

it isn't their destructive power. the most destructive bombing the allies did was with incendiaries. they killed more people and destroyed more property in a single night of bombing than they did with the nukes.

it's the fact that you can't defend against it, practically speaking. one gets through, and everything is gone. we spent decades where the only defense against nukes was the threat of launching the exact same weapon back since they couldn't defend against it either. *that* is what made nukes so terrifying. the fact that if someone shot a nuke at you, you couldn't realistically hope to do a danged thing about it. you couldn't evacuate in time, you couldn't shoot it down, you were just screwed.

wizards may not be able to cover as much area. but that wasn't the scary part anyways. it's the part where you can't fight back. where the wizard can just spam dream every 8 hours waiting for you to sleep so that they can nightmare you to death by either damage or exhaustion. where they can launch a meteor swarm from a mile away. where they can summon or create a creature that is immune to nonmagical weapons and unleash it on you. and they can do these things from miles away, perhaps you don't even know where they are at all, and you can't reliably stop them from doing it.

[Xetheral]

The way I see it, magic gives phenomenal personal power, but that power is bounded by its inherent mechanical constraints (spells per day, etc.). Politics, on the other hand, provides (relatively) unbounded power. While nothing stops the magic-user from also amassing political power (and their magic makes it easier to do so), that's not an efficient allocation of resources (e.g. time) from the perspective of the society: it's better to have everyone specialize in the areas where they have a relative advantage over others. This means that a society where magic-users focus on magic and political specialists focus on politics is (all else equal) potentially stronger than one where the same person has both the magical and the political power. Ergo, not all societies will be ruled by magic-users.

As for the high-level wizard in the group, he's there for the same reason everyone else is: because he can accomplish his objectives more easily with allies than without. In the case of a wizard, his personal power gives him more options than non-magic-users, and therefore it might be somewhat rarer for wizards to choose objectives where allies are beneficial. But just because a wizard chosen at random may not have any interest in adventuring with a party doesn't mean that one can't design a PC Wizard for whom adventuring with a party is advantageous. It is beholden upon the player to design a character that wants to adventure with the group, and it's a self-correcting problem if the player fails to do so.I like your way of thinking. It's altruistic and bigger picture oriented. I just feel you quickly glance over a significant point: why would the magic-users care about what is beneficial for society? I agree that the wizard should be party-oriented in the beginning. The issue I see, is from level 11 and up. An INT 20 Wizard would (I presume - INT 20 is AFAIK outside of the realm of possibility of my own grey goo) quite often not see the point in doing normal adventuring more. Playing to his strengths of long-term planning, AI-like deductional powers and reality-changing utterings, he'd, most often, be an idiot for going into dungeons designed to kill intruders.

My current solution is making urgency global once we approach level 11. Going from one world-ending scenario to the next also seems very... odd, though.

Sorry for the belated reply.

I didn't mean to imply that the magic-users would choose what is beneficial for society. Rather, I had a much more Darwinian process in mind, where those societies that got a competitive advantage from the more-optimal distribution of resources would supplant/crush/outcompete societies where magic users tried to monopolize both the political and the personal power. Over time, one would expect fewer and fewer societies ruled by magic-users. (It's also possible that the magic-users with an interest in ruling directly would be smart enough to realize that they'd be at a disadvantage compared to competing societies with more efficient distributions of power.)

As for the party wizard "growing out" of an interest in adventuring, I really think it comes back to the responsibility of the player to design a character for whom that won't happen. If they nevertheless design one who eventually doesn't want to adventure any more, they can either put up with the dissonance and keep the character, or have the character retire to whatever else it wants to do and make a new character that better fits with the party. The bottom line is that even if statistically-speaking wizards as a group may not want to adventure beyond a certain level, the characters in a party in a D&D game are never selected randomly, and therefore don't need to be a representative sample. If you feel strongly enough about it, just change the "trope" for your campaign world to have high-level wizards be uncommon in NPC adventuring parties--all it does is make the PCs a little more unusual.

[Saeviomage]

My view is that intelligent people with the power to get anything they want without the need for conflict will either live the rest of their extremely long lives happily, or have some greater cause they are striving for. If they do take control of a kingdom, it's unlikely to be for raw power, because they already have that.

So wizards taking over kingdoms are either mad (megalomaniacs), have an agenda that directly affects the kingdom (revenge, benevolence), or have some agenda that requires the resources of the kingdom(war against some greater threat? Ludicrously expensive research?). The third category probably don't want to run things directly. So we're down to megalomania, revenge or benevolence.

[EscherEnigma]

wizards may not be able to cover as much area. but that wasn't the scary part anyways. it's the part where you can't fight back. where the wizard can just spam dream every 8 hours waiting for you to sleep so that they can nightmare you to death by either damage or exhaustion. where they can launch a meteor swarm from a mile away. where they can summon or create a creature that is immune to nonmagical weapons and unleash it on you. and they can do these things from miles away, perhaps you don't even know where they are at all, and you can't reliably stop them from doing it.
Gee, it's almost like there's a reason the FAA is paranoid about drones.

In case that isn't clear: the concerns you cite aren't new or unique. They are, in fact, modern problems.

[JoeJ]

wizards may not be able to cover as much area. but that wasn't the scary part anyways. it's the part where you can't fight back. where the wizard can just spam dream every 8 hours waiting for you to sleep so that they can nightmare you to death by either damage or exhaustion. where they can launch a meteor swarm from a mile away. where they can summon or create a creature that is immune to nonmagical weapons and unleash it on you. and they can do these things from miles away, perhaps you don't even know where they are at all, and you can't reliably stop them from doing it.

Dream only affects one person, and it can be resisted with a saving throw or simply avoided by changing your sleep schedule or leaving the plane. Meteor swarm only targets spots the wizard can see, which means they can also be attacked. I don't know what monster you're thinking of that's immune to nonmagical weapons, but if there is one, you just kill it with magic weapons, or spells, or fire, or throwing it off a cliff, or holding it underwater until it drowns, or in any number of other ways.

Sure, the only wizard in the world could be pretty terrifying if they want to be. But in most D&D worlds, there's more than one.

[SharkForce]

Gee, it's almost like there's a reason the FAA is paranoid about drones.

In case that isn't clear: the concerns you cite aren't new or unique. They are, in fact, modern problems.

drones are probably not as hard to defend against as you think. for one thing, they need to be broadcasting a fairly strong radio signal. you can encrypt those so nobody can read them, but you can't readily hide them. alternately, we do in fact have radar that can detect really small objects as far away as space.


Dream only affects one person, and it can be resisted with a saving throw or simply avoided by changing your sleep schedule or leaving the plane. Meteor swarm only targets spots the wizard can see, which means they can also be attacked. I don't know what monster you're thinking of that's immune to nonmagical weapons, but if there is one, you just kill it with magic weapons, or spells, or fire, or throwing it off a cliff, or holding it underwater until it drowns, or in any number of other ways.

Sure, the only wizard in the world could be pretty terrifying if they want to be. But in most D&D worlds, there's more than one.

"just move to another plane" is not typically an option, and you only need to target one person if it's the right person (say, the king of a country that you want to force into doing something for you, or the wealthy merchant prince, or the leader of a thieve's guild, etc). the saving throw is going to be nigh impossible for someone who isn't high CR (especially if they got that special material component). meteor swarm works from a mile away. most people don't see a person standing someplace a mile away, and if they do, they have no way of attacking someone that far away.

as far as what monster you could send, well, you've got quite a few options, really. anything less than CR 9 is child's play for a wizard with true polymorph (rock ==> demon that is immune to fire and can fly, for example). since magic weapons aren't exactly all over the place, that monster can do a lot of damage to regular troops. *if* there even is such a thing as an elite guard all armed with magic weapons (which seems unlikely; even in settings where magic items are relatively common, they're still a heck of a lot more expensive than regular weapons), the wizard just has to send the creature someplace else; a group of 20 or 30 guys with magical swords can deal with a lot of things, but not an invading army, and if you destroy the king's army (or target villagers and destroy their ability to produce food and other goods) you can, once again, apply a lot of pressure onto someone as far as getting them to do what you want.

it is just not particularly plausible to defend against a lot of the things a high level wizard (or other spellcaster) could do. certainly not across a large area.

even then, unless high level wizards are both common and have some reason to be more likely to serve the person the evil wizard wants to target than, say, spending their time researching new magics or creating magic items or whatever their pet hobby is, chances are the evil wizard can get away with quite a bit. particularly since even other wizards and high level spellcasters won't generally have an easy time assaulting that wizard in their lair.

and, truth be told, if the only reason you can stay alive as a ruler is because you have the assistance of high level wizards (or clerics, or whatever) on your side, well... the world in that case is still under control of powerful high level spellcasters, just perhaps not as visibly. all they have to do to get what they want at that point is threaten to withdraw their protection, and then you either cave or you get reminded that rulers don't stay rulers long unless they have a powerful spellcaster for a friend.

[JoeJ]

"just move to another plane" is not typically an option, and you only need to target one person if it's the right person (say, the king of a country that you want to force into doing something for you, or the wealthy merchant prince, or the leader of a thieve's guild, etc). the saving throw is going to be nigh impossible for someone who isn't high CR (especially if they got that special material component).

Then they can change their sleep pattern long enough to track down and kill the wizard.


meteor swarm works from a mile away. most people don't see a person standing someplace a mile away, and if they do, they have no way of attacking someone that far away.

Sauce for the goose. Most wizards can't select targets much smaller than a castle from a mile away either. So while you're blasting wildly, the heroes of the story are teleporting out to put an end to your evil ways.


as far as what monster you could send, well, you've got quite a few options, really. anything less than CR 9 is child's play for a wizard with true polymorph (rock ==> demon that is immune to fire and can fly, for example). since magic weapons aren't exactly all over the place, that monster can do a lot of damage to regular troops. *if* there even is such a thing as an elite guard all armed with magic weapons (which seems unlikely; even in settings where magic items are relatively common, they're still a heck of a lot more expensive than regular weapons), the wizard just has to send the creature someplace else; a group of 20 or 30 guys with magical swords can deal with a lot of things, but not an invading army, and if you destroy the king's army (or target villagers and destroy their ability to produce food and other goods) you can, once again, apply a lot of pressure onto someone as far as getting them to do what you want.

Immune to fire =/= immune to weapons. And if you send the creature someplace else, then it's neither killing the king nor defending you against the elite team coming to take you out.


it is just not particularly plausible to defend against a lot of the things a high level wizard (or other spellcaster) could do. certainly not across a large area.

Offense is the best defense. You don't sit around wondering where the wizard will attack next, you go after him.


even then, unless high level wizards are both common and have some reason to be more likely to serve the person the evil wizard wants to target than, say, spending their time researching new magics or creating magic items or whatever their pet hobby is, chances are the evil wizard can get away with quite a bit. particularly since even other wizards and high level spellcasters won't generally have an easy time assaulting that wizard in their lair.

In every D&D game I've ever played there have been adventurers who specialize in eliminating powerful threats to peace and happiness. Sometimes they're even player characters.


and, truth be told, if the only reason you can stay alive as a ruler is because you have the assistance of high level wizards (or clerics, or whatever) on your side, well... the world in that case is still under control of powerful high level spellcasters, just perhaps not as visibly. all they have to do to get what they want at that point is threaten to withdraw their protection, and then you either cave or you get reminded that rulers don't stay rulers long unless they have a powerful spellcaster for a friend.

Yeah, sort of like the real world. The only reason you can stay alive as a president, king, prime minister, or whatever, is because the army obeys your orders. Every country in the world is therefore a military dictatorship, right? Oh, wait, no it isn't. Advisors, aides, generals, special agents, ministers, etc. can all exist without taking over. In a fantasy world, so can superheroes.

If you want to create a world that's under the control of one, or just a few, powerful wizards, you can certainly do so. That kind of world works just fine in D&D. But it's by no means the only kind of world that's possible.

[SharkForce]

- all it takes is 3 dream spells and no amount of changing sleep patterns will help.

- the wizard doesn't need to select small targets, if the objective is to just inflict damage to something like an army, a stronghold, etc. there are plenty of large things that can serve as targets for a wizard's wrath. just pick something (the barracks, the food stockpiles, etc) and watch the rocks fall from the sky. i'm curious where these heroes are teleporting from or too as well... as i've already pointed out, you probably have no idea where the wizard is. you've got a 1 mile radius dome that you're going to need to search the entire surface area of instantly to even have a chance to try and teleport in and do something (that is, presuming your extremely valuable resources are willing to risk being teleported into the ground by teleporting blindly to an area that may or may not even have a target they can attack. and also, even if they can attack that target, there's a fair chance the target can get away before they can stop said target. wizards are slippery).

- hmmm... well, looks like a lot more immunity to magic weapons got downgraded in this edition than i thought. there are a few things immune to nonmagic weapons without the resistance to fire though. couatl would be one option (you're probably not going to want to concentrate past the hour where it obeys your commands though). and since torches don't exactly inflict a ton of fire damage, it's gonna take an awful lot of soldiers getting killed before you can deal with it. so you can't have immunity to fire damage and nonmagic weapons and being thrown off a convenient cliff, but you *can* get two out of the three. also, even if you do kill that one, well, there's always tomorrow. how many new recruits do you think you're going to get when people hear that they're almost definitely going to be attacked by something immune to their weapons at some point? alternately, another good option for generating a compelling threat could simply involve several strafing runs from a young shadow dragon of some sort. which, i must repeat, the wizard can create once per day.

- attack him where? he can attack you from 1,000 miles away without revealing his identity. who are you attacking? just start a war with every random wizard you've ever heard of? that isn't gonna end well.

- if there are level 20 characters all over the place solving all the problems, your worlds must be really boring. i'm not sure what adventures you think there are to be had when the world has an overpopulation of mary sues.

- in the real world, no one individual has the power of an entire army. a level 20 wizard not only has the power of an army (quite possibly literally, if they so desire), they have the power to destroy multiple armies (given some time, not all in a single day... but then, i haven't heard of too many nations that are happy to hear that it's going to take at least a month before their military is basically wiped out), and also rewrite reality in a variety of ways to fit their desires. even then, military coups and military dictatorships are not exactly uncommon things in many parts of the world. most likely we'd need to add a number of additional places where the military leadership, if they're not exactly the head of state, can at least heavily influence any decision the head of state makes.

basically, at some point, if an evil wizard decides to flex their muscles, there's a fair chance they can get away with it. practically speaking, not many rulers are going to say "no" for too long when faced with the kind of force a powerful spellcaster with few morals can apply.

[Skylivedk]

Granted for your understanding of intelligence. That's not the game definition of the Intelligence ability, however. By RAW, there's no reason to think that wizards have a high degree of what you're calling intelligence.

Page 12, analytical skill is Int by RAW. Still, doesn't matter. Moriarty from Sherlock Holmes in DND, Aramis of the three musketeers, and other long term planners would very likely choose the path of wizardry - regardless of how you would make their stat sheets.




And if they do that, the Powers That BeTM will hunt them down and kill them. That scenario doesn't work unless there's nobody else with access to high level magic.


How would they:
A) live long enough once there has been one single evil wizard to become powerful enough to hunt the evil wizard? Remember the evil wizard has time. Loads of time. If the first wizard to reach high levels good guy, he'd still probably take risks to save people from dragons, beholders and what have you, because he is, you know, good. Evil wizard can wait and kill good wizard when good wizard is drained and then start exterminating threats to his power.
B) know there is a wizard to hunt?
C) know where to hunt the evil wizard in the multiverse? And actually do it



Very good at killing things, indeed. Including killing rogue spellcasters. Especially as part of a combined-arms adventuring party with magic of its own. So your NotDarkseid evil wizard is faced with the NotJLA player characters. That sounds pretty epic to me.

Aaaaand, we're back at the casters dominating the game and story and the martial classes being the hulk/green arrow/Hawkeye (not so strong in DC references: always disliked Super Man)



Unless he commands an army. Then, because of bounded accuracy, he's a world changer, even if he has the game stats of a commoner.

Armies are a non-problem for casters. Even at much lower levels. Two campaigns ago, as a player, my group and I killed hundreds of troops guerrilla warfare style with our level 7 druid. He reshaped the plant growth with a mile's radius and call-lightninged, while the bard invis'd the extend fireball throwing sorcerer. The troops weren't a problem. The dragon was (mostly because his scent ability was out of whack: worked 200 metres above ground, while flying a mile away).




Alter it yes, but not necessarily in the way you're suggesting. There are many other possible worlds that a DM could create without changing the rules. So much depends on how common magic is, and what wizards can do besides casting spells. If magic is fairly common, then most governments will have it. If it's extremely rare, you can have a superhero vs. supervillain fantasy world. The game is a lot less constrained by high level magic than you're claiming.

My claim is that the power jumps from spell level six and upwards put casters in a different echelon. Frankly you haven't done anything to change that. Comparing a high level caster to DarkSeid is, I.e., just emphasising my point.

So I'm confused:
A)
Are we loudly agreeing?

Or

B)
Do you think full-casters don't make power jumps that take their level of impact far beyond the impact other classes can have?


I would guess a) but with the caveats that it doesn't bother you the way it bothers me

[JoeJ]

- all it takes is 3 dream spells and no amount of changing sleep patterns will help.

In which case the wizard isn't long resting, so they don't recover spells. That won't last very long.


- the wizard doesn't need to select small targets, if the objective is to just inflict damage to something like an army, a stronghold, etc. there are plenty of large things that can serve as targets for a wizard's wrath. just pick something (the barracks, the food stockpiles, etc) and watch the rocks fall from the sky. i'm curious where these heroes are teleporting from or too as well... as i've already pointed out, you probably have no idea where the wizard is. you've got a 1 mile radius dome that you're going to need to search the entire surface area of instantly to even have a chance to try and teleport in and do something (that is, presuming your extremely valuable resources are willing to risk being teleported into the ground by teleporting blindly to an area that may or may not even have a target they can attack. and also, even if they can attack that target, there's a fair chance the target can get away before they can stop said target. wizards are slippery).

What are you talking about? They know exactly where the wizard is because they can see him. He's not just at some random spot within a mile, he's a spot with a clear line of sight to the target.


- hmmm... well, looks like a lot more immunity to magic weapons got downgraded in this edition than i thought. there are a few things immune to nonmagic weapons without the resistance to fire though. couatl would be one option (you're probably not going to want to concentrate past the hour where it obeys your commands though). and since torches don't exactly inflict a ton of fire damage, it's gonna take an awful lot of soldiers getting killed before you can deal with it. so you can't have immunity to fire damage and nonmagic weapons and being thrown off a convenient cliff, but you *can* get two out of the three. also, even if you do kill that one, well, there's always tomorrow. how many new recruits do you think you're going to get when people hear that they're almost definitely going to be attacked by something immune to their weapons at some point? alternately, another good option for generating a compelling threat could simply involve several strafing runs from a young shadow dragon of some sort. which, i must repeat, the wizard can create once per day.

Once per day until he gets killed. An archmage, which is an 18th level caster, is only a medium encounter for a party of four 11th level PCs. But since in this case he's already used up his 9th level slot for the day, the actual challenge will be less.


- attack him where? he can attack you from 1,000 miles away without revealing his identity. who are you attacking? just start a war with every random wizard you've ever heard of? that isn't gonna end well.

Divination is a thing. And when somebody is making terrorist attacks against a kingdom it's usually for a reason, so the list of suspects isn't likely to be very long.


- if there are level 20 characters all over the place solving all the problems, your worlds must be really boring. i'm not sure what adventures you think there are to be had when the world has an overpopulation of mary sues.

Straw man is very strawy.


- in the real world, no one individual has the power of an entire army.

Unless, of course, they command an entire army. Then they do.


a level 20 wizard not only has the power of an army (quite possibly literally, if they so desire), they have the power to destroy multiple armies (given some time, not all in a single day... but then, i haven't heard of too many nations that are happy to hear that it's going to take at least a month before their military is basically wiped out), and also rewrite reality in a variety of ways to fit their desires. even then, military coups and military dictatorships are not exactly uncommon things in many parts of the world. most likely we'd need to add a number of additional places where the military leadership, if they're not exactly the head of state, can at least heavily influence any decision the head of state makes.

basically, at some point, if an evil wizard decides to flex their muscles, there's a fair chance they can get away with it. practically speaking, not many rulers are going to say "no" for too long when faced with the kind of force a powerful spellcaster with few morals can apply.

If that's the kind of world you want to create, go for it. That doesn't sound very fun to me, but to each their own. It's not at all implied by the rules, but it doesn't violate them either.

[Carlobrand]

This has all been fascinating, the more so because a lot of it sounds like the kind of stuff the bad guys did in fantasy novels to try and seize power. They generally lose in the long run, though, and for the same reason they'd lose in this setting: there's someone a lot more powerful than them. First off, the various deities: they generally balance each other out and avoid getting too involved lest something escalate into a world-devastating God war, but that doesn't mean they won't do a bit of meddling Greek-god style by discretely aiding favored heroes (and villains, of course). But, most important, the author.

During the American Civil War, before the Battle of Antietam, General Lee's orders to the various generals beneath him for the movement of their respective commands was lost by one of those generals and fell into Union hands. Blind luck altered the course of the battle. In the fantasy world, the DM controls blind luck.

In the context of the setting itself, there is typically a balance of power maintaining the equilibrium: pretty much anything the evil guy can do, the good guy can do too, given adequate information. With the deities meddling, villains and heroes get discretely maneuvered to where they can counter each other. A fragile peace is maintained - or perhaps better to call it a low-intensity proxy war, with adventuring villains and heroes as the pawns - until some evil person of sufficient power decides to gamble big, and then both sides are pretty much using the same tools and tactics in a broad and very deadly open conflict. Not a healthy setting for a common soldier, but then really powerful wizards are a very rare thing - as would be expected given that, to begin with, they come from a rather elite group in society (educated people) and then must spend considerable time and face many deadly threats along the way to gaining enough experience to become so powerful. That powerful wizard is not going to be everywhere facing every battalion - he's going to place himself where he thinks he will do the most good, which is just where the opposing wizard will be. And life will be hard for the units in the near vicinity of those two, but the rest elsewhere will be doing things pretty much the old-fashioned way, with perhaps a mid-level wizard or two providing artillery support.

And then occurs the little random author-driven event that tips the balance. It is a running trope in fantasy for great and powerful evil to be tripped up by some small seemingly random event that gives the needed edge to our heroes. Some slave overhears plans and manages to escape and bring news to the other side. The advancing army pauses its advance as a key unit recovers from an outbreak of ergot poisoning caused by rye seized from the stores of a local farmer. A group of adventurers finds and recovers an ancient artifact that proves key to defeating the opposing wizard. Such is the way of life in a fantasy setting.

[Skylivedk]

What are you talking about? They know exactly where the wizard is because they can see him. He's not just at some random spot within a mile, he's a spot with a clear line of sight to the target.

It takes six seconds to cast the spell and misty step away. After that, teleporting/plane shifting is easy.




Once per day until he gets killed. An archmage, which is an 18th level caster, is only a medium encounter for a party of four 11th level PCs. But since in this case he's already used up his 9th level slot for the day, the actual challenge will be less.

Didn't know the casters were this underrated by official rules. Again: if the wizard takes a trope-filled battle then maybe yes. But for the love of gods, fiends and d20s, why would he?




Divination is a thing. And when somebody is making terrorist attacks against a kingdom it's usually for a reason, so the list of suspects isn't likely to be very long.
So is non-detection.




Unless, of course, they command an entire army. Then they do.
But they still need, you know, an actual army. And they still can't transfer their consciousness to clones/unwilling enemies.

Half the things you say seem to emphasise NY point of full casters turning other classes into supporting cast. Much of the other half, I plainly don't get.

So, can I please get an answer to the main questions:

A) do you find that full casters break the, mostly, linear power progression of other classes?

B) have you found ways where casters, believably, don't dominate/majorly impact stories after level 11?


This thread has so far given me the following solutions:

A) accept that casters are what makes the world go round

B) have other casters/creatures from other planes thin out the herd of casters as they gain power

C) have an, artificially, low amount of clever casters

D) [seen in other threads] remove/limit access to higher level spells and/or turn many of them into rituals that demand a lot of resources and time

E) play your NPC casters by villain tropes and silently agree with your player that he will play by the hero tropes

I think I'll go by a, b and d.

[ShikomeKidoMi]

Agreed; they're rare. In Forgotten Realms, they don't seem all that rare though. It's not so much the destructive spells, I feel are breaking the world to me; it's the many options of becoming immortal that makes it hard for me. With Magic Jar/Clone your 20 INT wizard is essentially Voldemort from Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality on steroids.

Wait, you're running a Faerun campaign? High level casters already run most of that planet in canon.

Take a look: Thay's a magocracy. The Harpers and the Zhentarim are powerful secretive organizations with pull across multiple countries and practically all their leaders are high level spellcasters . Probably the most influential race in the Underdark are the Drow, who are ruled by high level priests. The country of Rasheman is ruled by high level female casters called witches. Even the countries that aren't ruled directly by high level spellcasters almost always have ones appointed to influential government positions (which gets them wealth and influence without the hassle of actually running things directly in return for their support of the government).

So your answer to 'why haven't high-level spellcasters conquered the world' is that they did a long time ago.

[Tanarii]

This thread is starting to exhibit shroedinger's BBEG Wizards.

As JoelJ pointed out, an Archmage, or 18th level caster, is CR 12 if alone. They're dangerous, but not so dangerous that a party 2/3 of their caster level can't handle them.


In every D&D game I've ever played there have been adventurers who specialize in eliminating powerful threats to peace and happiness. Sometimes they're even player characters.
LOL you come up with the most quotable quotes. :smallsmile:

[Skylivedk]

Wait, you're running a Faerun campaign? High level casters already run most of that planet in canon.

Take a look: Thay's a magocracy. The Harpers and the Zhentarim are powerful secretive organizations with pull across multiple countries and practically all their leaders are high level spellcasters . Probably the most influential race in the Underdark are the Drow, who are ruled by high level priests. The country of Rasheman is ruled by high level female casters called witches. Even the countries that aren't ruled directly by high level spellcasters almost always have ones appointed to influential government positions (which gets them wealth and influence without the hassle of actually running things directly in return for their support of the government).

So your answer to 'why haven't high-level spellcasters conquered the world' is that they did a long time ago.

I use the maps of Faerun. I've heavily modded organisations, crafting, NPCs, etc. While doing so, I couldn't make high level casters make much sense.

Especially why the evil casters would let potential threats live long enough to become actual threats.

@Tanarii
A level 18 wizard being CR 12 is also incomprehensible to me. I understand how he can be so if he fights a straight fight (stands in a dungeon room and awaits our dear heroes).

These kind of fights (trope fights, I often call them), I try to avoid. Unless he's killed sleeping/caught unaware, odds are he is not sticking around to fight. He'd probably port out and then kill the heroes and/or their allies at a more convenient moment.

[Tanarii]

@Tanarii
A level 18 wizard being CR 12 is also incomprehensible to me. I understand how he can be so if he fights a straight fight (stands in a dungeon room and awaits our dear heroes).

Level 18 wizards are PCs and important story-driven NPCs that the DM creates using the PC rules. (Edit: PC rules NPCs could also be henchmen of course.)

Level 18 caster archmages are run of the mill level 18 caster NPCs, and they are CR 12.

Not all, or even most, NPCs are assumed to be PC classed in default 5e rules.

[JoeJ]

I don't have time to address all your points right now, but I'll say at least this.


B) have you found ways where casters, believably, don't dominate/majorly impact stories after level 11?

You misspelled "player characters and powerful monsters." And why would I even try to find ways to keep them from majorly impacting stories? That's what's supposed to happen when you get to the Masters of the Realm tier. Per the DMG, adventurers at this tier affect the destinies of kingdoms, and sometimes of the entire world.

[mgshamster]

And why would I even try to find ways to keep them from majorly impacting stories? That's what's supposed to happen when you get to the Masters of the Realm tier. Per the DMG, adventurers at this tier affect the destinies of kingdoms, and sometimes of the entire world.

I've always thought of it like this:

Levels 1-4, the PCs actions affect the fate of the homestead or the village.

Levels 5-10, the PCs actions affect the fate of cities.

Levels 11-15, the PCs actions affect the fate of kingdoms or even entire continents.

Levels 16-20, the PCs actions affect the fate of planets.

Levels 21+, the PCs actions affect the fate of entire planes of existence.

[Skylivedk]

I don't have time to address all your points right now, but I'll say at least this.



You misspelled "player characters and powerful monsters." And why would I even try to find ways to keep them from majorly impacting stories? That's what's supposed to happen when you get to the Masters of the Realm tier. Per the DMG, adventurers at this tier affect the destinies of kingdoms, and sometimes of the entire world.

The characters who aren't full casters just don't do this.

One becomes Dr. Strange or Phoenix, the other the Wolverine. Short and stabby can be a real pain, but let's face it: if his comics didn't sell that well, Dr. Doom would have teleported him to a different dimension long ago and be done with it.

[Vogonjeltz]

It takes six seconds to cast the spell and misty step away. After that, teleporting/plane shifting is easy.




Didn't know the casters were this underrated by official rules. Again: if the wizard takes a trope-filled battle then maybe yes. But for the love of gods, fiends and d20s, why would he?



So is non-detection.



But they still need, you know, an actual army. And they still can't transfer their consciousness to clones/unwilling enemies.

Half the things you say seem to emphasise NY point of full casters turning other classes into supporting cast. Much of the other half, I plainly don't get.

So, can I please get an answer to the main questions:

A) do you find that full casters break the, mostly, linear power progression of other classes?

B) have you found ways where casters, believably, don't dominate/majorly impact stories after level 11?


This thread has so far given me the following solutions:

A) accept that casters are what makes the world go round

B) have other casters/creatures from other planes thin out the herd of casters as they gain power

C) have an, artificially, low amount of clever casters

D) [seen in other threads] remove/limit access to higher level spells and/or turn many of them into rituals that demand a lot of resources and time

E) play your NPC casters by villain tropes and silently agree with your player that he will play by the hero tropes

I think I'll go by a, b and d.

You've only given some potential ways a high level Wizard could terrorize a kingdom, but not in which they could actually commandeer it. In order to rule the Wizard would be forced to place themselves out there, to become a well known entity (if they weren't already). At that point any fighter or rogue with a grudge could take them down easily. If the wizard wants to rule, they have to be present and a target of opportunity.

[Carlobrand]

You know what's fun? Run through the thread and substitute "billionaire" for "wizard". Doesn't always work, but sometimes the results are quite informative.

[Skylivedk]

You've only given some potential ways a high level Wizard could terrorize a kingdom, but not in which they could actually commandeer it. In order to rule the Wizard would be forced to place themselves out there, to become a well known entity (if they weren't already). At that point any fighter or rogue with a grudge could take them down easily. If the wizard wants to rule, they have to be present and a target of opportunity.

You're right: I've used the terms rule, dominate and impact too loosely. Day-to-day ruling isn't very attractive. Reaping (surplus) production is much nicer. Eliminating threats in their infancy is also much nicer - and not something that's even close to feasible except for full casters.

Also, it's an idiot high level wizard who gets killed by a fighter.

A rogue has slightly better odds if he can somehow get past the whole dimensional travel, hiding in caves with no tunnels, having clones, knowing which wizard is the enemy, etc. part.

Acting smartly a high level wizard is not going to have normal encounters with most classes. Why would they? - besides it making for a fun quest, I mean. Full casters get the option of changing the rules of the game so why would they play if odds of success weren't overwhelming?

More to the point, you're still not addressing that the power of full casters jumps by order of magnitude, while rogues and fighters remain fairly linear. Fighters get an extra attack at level 11. Wahoo! Wizards can posses new bodies and permanently changed their physical stats.

A fighter causing trouble for a wizard can wake up having killed his own children. A wizard who's caused trouble for a, very deadly, fighter might have to spend a minute or two moving location, changing looks, every day. Perhaps change bodies. Start a civil war, boil some eggs. Whatever builds an appetite for lunch.

[Carlobrand]

This is very binary - a wizard verses a fighter. Rather reminds me of some of those military debates: which is better, the air force or the army? A wizard is wicked heavy artillery, but heavy artillery is for killing, not holding ground. Average 50 hp, tending to be mediocre in strength, this is not a guy who does well if he finds himself surprised and grappled. The list of useful spells go down rather badly if all he has to work with is his mouth - and he probably only has one shot before someone covers his mouth as well. As you point out, the smart wizard tries to make sure the encounter plays to his strengths: he needs his guards and his magic mouths and his whatever-favored-defensive-strategy-he-likes to keep opponents out where he can dispatch them with magic. He's going to make sure he's not grappled - but that does mean he's going to have to avoid certain situations where that might happen.

Meanwhile, the fighter pretty much has the same strengths and weaknesses as any infantry - he's wormfood if he's caught in the open, but this is the guy who can go into the village and subdue it without eradicating it. Grapple him, and he's probably got enough strength or dexterity to make it hard for you, and he's going to hurt you while you're trying to do it.

I get where you're trying to compare their progression, but that's a bit tricky given that they really serve very different roles.

[smcmike]

You're right: I've used the terms rule, dominate and impact too loosely. Day-to-day ruling isn't very attractive. Reaping (surplus) production is much nicer. Eliminating threats in their infancy is also much nicer - and not something that's even close to feasible except for full casters.


So what does this look like, exactly? Because it sounds to me like the wizards who rule your world spend most of their time hiding in caves... Which is a funny way to rule, and actually sounds pretty consistent with the powerful but distant and mostly irrelevant wizards in most fiction.



A fighter causing trouble for a wizard can wake up having killed his own children. A wizard who's caused trouble for a, very deadly, fighter might have to spend a minute or two moving location, changing looks, every day. Perhaps change bodies. Start a civil war, boil some eggs. Whatever builds an appetite for lunch.

Moving locations and looks every day is no way to live.

[Xetheral]

Average 50 hp, tending to be mediocre in strength, this is not a guy who does well if he finds himself surprised and grappled. The list of useful spells go down rather badly if all he has to work with is his mouth - and he probably only has one shot before someone covers his mouth as well. As you point out, the smart wizard tries to make sure the encounter plays to his strengths: he needs his guards and his magic mouths and his whatever-favored-defensive-strategy-he-likes to keep opponents out where he can dispatch them with magic. He's going to make sure he's not grappled - but that does mean he's going to have to avoid certain situations where that might happen.

While I agree with your overall point, grappling in 5e only restricts movement, and doesn't hamper spellcasting.

[Carlobrand]

While I agree with your overall point, grappling in 5e only restricts movement, and doesn't hamper spellcasting.

I would be hard pressed as a game master to rule that a mage could perform somatic components of a spell while being grappled. It's a simplified rules system. Some things still depend on a game-master's ruling, and legacy from 2E and 3.5 is quite clear on the subject. A player would have to show me how he intends to make somatic motions while someone is grappling with him. But, your gamemaster may have different ideas.

[Skylivedk]

So what does this look like, exactly? Because it sounds to me like the wizards who rule your world spend most of their time hiding in caves... Which is a funny way to rule, and actually sounds pretty consistent with the powerful but distant and mostly irrelevant wizards in most fiction.

Moving locations and looks every day is no way to live.

Strong points. Caves, in the case of a wizard, do not have to be barren and boring. He's got creation - he can make whatever he wants.

He doesn't have to do it every day - just long enough to figure out how to get rid of whoever is after him - which, in the case of a fighter, really should not take that long.

I agree with the artillery/infantry analogy until lvl 11/13. Once things like magic jar/clone come into play, the dynamic changes.

The wizard undergoes qualitative differences. His latter stages are not just improved version of his former abilities: they're a whole different can of reality-bending world.

It's not chain lightning that is the type of spell I'm talking about. I'm talking about those spells that majorly break the table constraints that we usually think define our humanity: time, space, death, body bound consciousness, etc.

[SharkForce]

I would be hard pressed as a game master to rule that a mage could perform somatic components of a spell while being grappled. It's a simplified rules system. Some things still depend on a game-master's ruling, and legacy from 2E and 3.5 is quite clear on the subject. A player would have to show me how he intends to make somatic motions while someone is grappling with him. But, your gamemaster may have different ideas.

D&D 5e grappling is not a submission hold. it doesn't even interfere with the other guy trying to stab you with a polearm or fire a longbow at your friend (being close interferes with the longbow, but a person with crossbow expert who is grappled would not find their ability to aim reduced in the slightest), why would it prevent someone from moving their hand around a bit?

[Skylivedk]

I would be hard pressed as a game master to rule that a mage could perform somatic components of a spell while being grappled. It's a simplified rules system. Some things still depend on a game-master's ruling, and legacy from 2E and 3.5 is quite clear on the subject. A player would have to show me how he intends to make somatic motions while someone is grappling with him. But, your gamemaster may have different ideas.

Dimension door/misty step/clone can all take care of this. It's off topic though

[JNAProductions]

Dimension door/misty step/clone can all take care of this. It's off topic though

Bolded the "what the heck?" part. How does Clone break a grapple?

[Carlobrand]

Dimension door/misty step/clone can all take care of this. It's off topic though

Goodness, you're right. DD/MS, both verbal, and MS is self-only. If I tried to argue someone in contact with him went with him, then the players would just use that to teleport the whole team at other times, which is clearly not the intent of the spell. Well, crap.

Clone is less of a problem. Presumably anyone attacking him would know better than to kill him. However, given that he can put 30' between himself and attackers with a 2nd level bonus-action spell, and then put another 500 feet between them on the next round, I fear the odds for success of our heroes are low. We'd have to put a team with at least one cleric close enough to surprise him with a grapple while simultaneously casting a Silence. Still possible, but the more complex the plan, the more ways it can go wrong. There's Hold Person, that might have worked if the game didn't have Counterspell. That's a rather nice addition to the wizardly arsenal.

Narcotic gas, maybe, but at that point I'm getting techy. I doubt a culture steeped in magic as its go-to solution has done much research on nonlethal chemical gas weapons. Crap, crap, and double crap.


D&D 5e grappling is not a submission hold. it doesn't even interfere with the other guy trying to stab you with a polearm or fire a longbow at your friend (being close interferes with the longbow, but a person with crossbow expert who is grappled would not find their ability to aim reduced in the slightest), why would it prevent someone from moving their hand around a bit?

Well, as I said:


I would be hard pressed as a game master to rule that a mage could perform somatic components of a spell while being grappled. It's a simplified rules system. Some things still depend on a game-master's ruling, and legacy from 2E and 3.5 is quite clear on the subject. A player would have to show me how he intends to make somatic motions while someone is grappling with him. But, your gamemaster may have different ideas.

I would apply the same logic to someone trying to stab with a polearm. That the rules have holes does not mean I'll let the players drive a truck through them. One of the consequences of a simplified game is more of the effort to maintain verisimilitude falls to the DM, and in this case I would draw on previous editions to flesh out the details. The visual example of grapple in Appendix A, for example, features some unlucky fellow with a tentacled beastie holding him by both arms and one leg - not a position from which I'd permit a mage to argue for somatic motions, and at best I'd put the feller at disadvantage if he tried to swing a weapon under such circumstances. In the real world, you really can't swing a weapon very accurately or very strongly while someone's clutching you - knife maybe, but certainly not a polearm.

Of course, one is always free to throw verisimilitude out the window, but it's not really roleplaying if one is not trying to play the role. Still, everyone has their own preferences.

All of which is mooted in this particular case by the wizard's ability to escape by uttering a few words. Sigh.

[JoeJ]

Goodness, you're right. DD/MS, both verbal, and MS is self-only. If I tried to argue someone in contact with him went with him, then the players would just use that to teleport the whole team at other times, which is clearly not the intent of the spell. Well, crap.

Clone is less of a problem. Presumably anyone attacking him would know better than to kill him. However, given that he can put 30' between himself and attackers with a 2nd level bonus-action spell, and then put another 500 feet between them on the next round, I fear the odds for success of our heroes are low. We'd have to put a team with at least one cleric close enough to surprise him with a grapple while simultaneously casting a Silence. Still possible, but the more complex the plan, the more ways it can go wrong. There's Hold Person, that might have worked if the game didn't have Counterspell. That's a rather nice addition to the wizardly arsenal.

Not a grapple. Whomever has the best Athletic bonus uses an improvised action to pin his arms. Somebody else on the team casts Silence.

Counterspell is not a deal breaker either, since a typical adventuring party has several spell casters and the evil wizard has only one reaction.

[Skylivedk]

Bolded the "what the heck?" part. How does Clone break a grapple?

It doesn't. It's more to say that, if the wizard for some reason has his identity revealed, if he gets tracked, if he ends up in a very epic and trope-filled battle, and if he proceeds to mess up so spectacularly as to be in melee range and if he, deservedly in this case, becomes pointy stick fodder, he can still just wake up in one of his backup bodies, take a nap and spend a few years planning how to make his enemies suffer in ways our brains can't comprehend.

Can a wizard work in a party? Yes. Can he be a fun encounter with long monologues revealing his own plans? Yes. Does it make much sense to me that any of that would happen? No. Look at what he can do at these levels.

Another way to look at the same issue. Look at the wizard at level 10 and the fighter level 10. They're presumably kind of equal. Then look at how their range of options develop from there on out.

In dragon age and most other CRPGs the wizard becomes very kabloey. In DND he starts to be able to change matter, break down dimensional barriers and immortality/agelessness is very much within reach.

When the fighter gains another attack, the wizard gets the ability to eject someone's soul from their own body. Never mind the combat application, think political and life implications.

[Zalabim]

It's only 4 adventuring days to reach 5th level by the DMG guidelines, and as others have pointed out elsewhere "encounter" does not mean "combat" only "challenge". It's easy to get to high level in 5e.

http://i375.photobucket.com/albums/oo198/jcc_telok/xpPerDay_zps35gxj9ck.jpg (http://s375.photobucket.com/user/jcc_telok/media/xpPerDay_zps35gxj9ck.jpg.html)

So do really shy people get xp for getting up in front of a crowd and talking?


No. This is straight from the DMG, 300 xp per person per adventuring day at first level and increasing from there. It is set for a party of four characters.

Every edition since the AD&Ds has increased the speed at which characters gain levels. I fully expect 6e, if it is still produced by WotC, to have a leveling time of 100 days or less to level 20.

That chart is way off. The XP needed to level is total XP, not additional XP. Here's a chart someone did a while ago. If you assume that quest and non-combat challenge XP rewards make up any difference between adjusted XP and monster XP awards, then just take this amount of adventuring day's and halve it. Even by combat XP alone, it takes 66.72 adventuring "days" to reach level 20 going by half an average day's adjusted XP as the actual rewards.http://imgur.com/gallery/2uPDx


2. A wizard doesn't really need tactics. Subterfuge, or rather just laying low, is very beneficial.
That's why they're usually hermits.


3. Even if we say wisdom is important to do what is necessary, random rolling would give a wizard high wisdom and high int. You add Clone, Simulacrum, etc. and it is bye bye world where martial classes matter.

The issue at hand is still the same: DND gives high level casters powers that alter the universe in ways so fundamental that they brake the power scale at the higher spell levels. Check the fan-fiction Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality for a very well done story about what would happen if spell-casters were smart. Harry P, arguably, doesn't have the powers of a 17th level wizard. He could still do some serious world domination.

Clone and simulacrum are not the tools to invalidate martial characters. If you fail to conquer the world, die, and come back in 120 days when your new clone is ready, you're just a recurring saturday morning cartoon villain. Not dying isn't the same as winning.


Armies are a non-problem for casters. Even at much lower levels. Two campaigns ago, as a player, my group and I killed hundreds of troops guerrilla warfare style with our level 7 druid. He reshaped the plant growth with a mile's radius and call-lightninged, while the bard invis'd the extend fireball throwing sorcerer. The troops weren't a problem. The dragon was (mostly because his scent ability was out of whack: worked 200 metres above ground, while flying a mile away).

Plant Growth doesn't do what you seem to be suggesting. The 1 mile radius version doesn't allow reshaping and doesn't cause any change in the terrain and takes 8 hours to cast. The 100' radius version is quite obstructive enough.


My claim is that the power jumps from spell level six and upwards put casters in a different echelon. Frankly you haven't done anything to change that. Comparing a high level caster to DarkSeid is, I.e., just emphasising my point.

I think the kind of power jumps high level wizards see is not the kind of power jumps you think they are. High level spells last longer, have more range, allow more targets, and have fewer limitations than lower leveled spells with similar purposes. This opens up a few new avenues of interaction, but it would be helpful to be clear about just what those are.


Strong points. Caves, in the case of a wizard, do not have to be barren and boring. He's got creation - he can make whatever he wants.

Creation isn't permanent. He'd have to cast it all the time.


I agree with the artillery/infantry analogy until lvl 11/13. Once things like magic jar/clone come into play, the dynamic changes.

The wizard undergoes qualitative differences. His latter stages are not just improved version of his former abilities: they're a whole different can of reality-bending world.

It's not chain lightning that is the type of spell I'm talking about. I'm talking about those spells that majorly break the table constraints that we usually think define our humanity: time, space, death, body bound consciousness, etc.

Magic Jar isn't really a new dynamic. The wizard has been telling people what to do with Suggestion since level 3. The difference is now the wizard can put his life on the line when he does it, or not risk his life once he gets clone. A surprisingly large amount of their new ways to bend reality are actually just their current ways to bend reality with better mechanics, better numbers.


Another way to look at the same issue. Look at the wizard at level 10 and the fighter level 10. They're presumably kind of equal. Then look at how their range of options develop from there on out.

In dragon age and most other CRPGs the wizard becomes very kabloey. In DND he starts to be able to change matter, break down dimensional barriers and immortality/agelessness is very much within reach.

When the fighter gains another attack, the wizard gets the ability to eject someone's soul from their own body. Never mind the combat application, think political and life implications.

The wizard already had ways to force someone to do something they wouldn't want to do. There's also already ways to frame someone quite convincingly. Magic Jar actually has very few additional implications in the world, mostly in the form of combat application. You need to go over the spell list for concrete examples of new world-changing abilities that wizards actually get at high levels. That'll be a lot better for discussion than this "wizards can do anything" that we've been working with.

By level 10, hell, by level 5, the wizard is already an amazing tool box for interacting with the world in strange ways. Just look at Carlobrand's reaction to Misty Step. Animate Dead can make permanent malevolent creatures. Suggestion can turn an assassin on a king.

[Vogonjeltz]

You're right: I've used the terms rule, dominate and impact too loosely. Day-to-day ruling isn't very attractive. Reaping (surplus) production is much nicer. Eliminating threats in their infancy is also much nicer - and not something that's even close to feasible except for full casters.

Also, it's an idiot high level wizard who gets killed by a fighter.

A rogue has slightly better odds if he can somehow get past the whole dimensional travel, hiding in caves with no tunnels, having clones, knowing which wizard is the enemy, etc. part.

Acting smartly a high level wizard is not going to have normal encounters with most classes. Why would they? - besides it making for a fun quest, I mean. Full casters get the option of changing the rules of the game so why would they play if odds of success weren't overwhelming?

More to the point, you're still not addressing that the power of full casters jumps by order of magnitude, while rogues and fighters remain fairly linear. Fighters get an extra attack at level 11. Wahoo! Wizards can posses new bodies and permanently changed their physical stats.

A fighter causing trouble for a wizard can wake up having killed his own children. A wizard who's caused trouble for a, very deadly, fighter might have to spend a minute or two moving location, changing looks, every day. Perhaps change bodies. Start a civil war, boil some eggs. Whatever builds an appetite for lunch.

Wizards have the lowest hit points per level of any class, making them easy targets when it comes to Assassins or (as I mentioned) a troop of knights having a bad day.

They have to have encounters with people to rule, that's non-optional. If they don't show up, how do they rule? Who is carrying out their orders? Why can't enemies target those people/things cutting the Wizard off from their supposed kingdom?

I fully agree that a Wizard can be a hypothetical nightmare for a kingdom, but I don't agree that they have a better than even chance of retaining a hold on that kingdom.

If the Wizard does as you suggest in the last paragraph...they aren't ruling anything at all, they're fleeing for their very life.

[Nerdynick]

Don't feel like reading through the whole thread to see if it's been posted already...

I was recently directed towards the Tales of Wyre campaign journal. In that setting the wizards all abided by something called the Grand Injuction. Essentially, there was an agreement amongst all arcanists that they could not use their magic to interfere with temporal political affairs (so, things like wars). The arcanists were all self-governing in this, with violators drawing down the wrath of the rest of the magical community. The Injunction had a lot of grey areas though (such as scrying, which isn't really an overt political action) and left room for mages to be their eccentric selves.

What it really reminded me of was the Council of Ricks from Rick and Morty.

[Carlobrand]

Wizards have the lowest hit points per level of any class, making them easy targets when it comes to Assassins or (as I mentioned) a troop of knights having a bad day.

They have to have encounters with people to rule, that's non-optional. If they don't show up, how do they rule? Who is carrying out their orders? Why can't enemies target those people/things cutting the Wizard off from their supposed kingdom?

I fully agree that a Wizard can be a hypothetical nightmare for a kingdom, but I don't agree that they have a better than even chance of retaining a hold on that kingdom.

If the Wizard does as you suggest in the last paragraph...they aren't ruling anything at all, they're fleeing for their very life.

On the issue of retaining a hold, I'll disagree. Achieving the hold, that's a question for considerable debate, but retaining hold ...

Let's begin with: a government structure is a government structure. Anything you can do to cut the roots could as easily be done to the hereditary boy-king, and even a foolish king would retain a wizard to provide those services only a wizard can provide. In fact, the boy-king's wizard retainer could make a clone for the boy-king; it's a touch spell. So, no real difference on that score.

Where a wizard has the advantage as ruler is the ability to cast self-only spells that might preserve him where the boy king would find himself pushing up daisies. And, of course, the wizard doesn't have to worry about finding himself separated from his wizard retainer. The ability to escape an attack - to place yourself suddenly elsewhere while your guard deals with the unexpected threat - would give the wizard a slight edge in maintaining power.

[ShikomeKidoMi]

I use the maps of Faerun. I've heavily modded organisations, crafting, NPCs, etc. While doing so, I couldn't make high level casters make much sense.
Why not? As I said, they already rule the world. Isn't that what you were arguing they should do? Every government is outrun run by powerful casters or employs them in high level positions where they can reap the benefits of being affiliated with a government without having to actually run things and use their powers to defend it from other high level casters. What part of that doesn't make sense?
Charismatic people can convince casters to support them and not every caster wants to be the King instead of just being paid lots of money by the King.


Especially why the evil casters would let potential threats live long enough to become actual threats.

Are you asking why evil casters don't exterminate all low-level casters? In a thread where you're arguing that casters are more powerful than other classes?

A nation with only one caster is not going to be able to compete with a nation that has a bunch of casters. No matter how powerful, a caster has only so many spell slots and can only be in so many places. Destroying all lesser casters in your country is going to lead to being taken over by another country. And stir up rebellion inside your country, turning potential threats into actual threats. Such a crusade fails because you can't extend your reach outside your borders (and if you can, then you conquer until you can't extend your reach any more).

[Carlobrand]

...A nation with only one caster is not going to be able to compete with a nation that has a bunch of casters. No matter how powerful, a caster has only so many spell slots and can only be in so many places. Destroying all lesser casters in your country is going to lead to being taken over by another country. And stir up rebellion inside your country, turning potential threats into actual threats. Such a crusade fails because you can't extend your reach outside your borders (and if you can, then you conquer until you can't extend your reach any more).

That summarizes the dilemma faced by true evil: walking that fine line between eliminating threats and maintaining enough competent help to keep from being eliminated by the good guys. Even Vecna screwed up on that one - missed that one true threat.

[JoeJ]

Are you asking why evil casters don't exterminate all low-level casters? In a thread where you're arguing that casters are more powerful than other classes?

A nation with only one caster is not going to be able to compete with a nation that has a bunch of casters. No matter how powerful, a caster has only so many spell slots and can only be in so many places. Destroying all lesser casters in your country is going to lead to being taken over by another country. And stir up rebellion inside your country, turning potential threats into actual threats. Such a crusade fails because you can't extend your reach outside your borders (and if you can, then you conquer until you can't extend your reach any more).

Also, there's basic psychological realism. People generally don't have a full career and then suddenly turn into serial killing sociopaths at the peak of their success. A spellcaster who is that kind of evil at high levels would have been murdering innocent people when they were low level too. And that kind of behavior makes it much less likely they will live long enough to become high level.

[Vogonjeltz]

On the issue of retaining a hold, I'll disagree. Achieving the hold, that's a question for considerable debate, but retaining hold ...

Let's begin with: a government structure is a government structure. Anything you can do to cut the roots could as easily be done to the hereditary boy-king, and even a foolish king would retain a wizard to provide those services only a wizard can provide. In fact, the boy-king's wizard retainer could make a clone for the boy-king; it's a touch spell. So, no real difference on that score.

Where a wizard has the advantage as ruler is the ability to cast self-only spells that might preserve him where the boy king would find himself pushing up daisies. And, of course, the wizard doesn't have to worry about finding himself separated from his wizard retainer. The ability to escape an attack - to place yourself suddenly elsewhere while your guard deals with the unexpected threat - would give the wizard a slight edge in maintaining power.

Well, if we were talking about hereditary power, the King would have the irreplacable advantage of actual loyalty. Sure, the Wizard can terrorize the kingdom by doing something to kill the king, but doing so only reaps vendetta down the way.

[Skylivedk]

This is very binary - a wizard verses a fighter. Rather reminds me of some of those military debates: which is better, the air force or the army? A wizard is wicked heavy artillery, but heavy artillery is for killing, not holding ground. Average 50 hp, tending to be mediocre in strength, this is not a guy who does well if he finds himself surprised and grappled. The list of useful spells go down rather badly if all he has to work with is his mouth - and he probably only has one shot before someone covers his mouth as well. As you point out, the smart wizard tries to make sure the encounter plays to his strengths: he needs his guards and his magic mouths and his whatever-favored-defensive-strategy-he-likes to keep opponents out where he can dispatch them with magic. He's going to make sure he's not grappled - but that does mean he's going to have to avoid certain situations where that might happen.

Meanwhile, the fighter pretty much has the same strengths and weaknesses as any infantry - he's wormfood if he's caught in the open, but this is the guy who can go into the village and subdue it without eradicating it. Grapple him, and he's probably got enough strength or dexterity to make it hard for you, and he's going to hurt you while you're trying to do it.

I get where you're trying to compare their progression, but that's a bit tricky given that they really serve very different roles.

I'm using the fighter as an example (and because he has the least things to do outside of combat).

The wizard keeps getting more options. The fighter, not so much. That is a big part of the wizard's power. And again, look at how the power progresses for each of the two post level 10.



Clone and simulacrum are not the tools to invalidate martial characters. If you fail to conquer the world, die, and come back in 120 days when your new clone is ready, you're just a recurring saturday morning cartoon villain. Not dying isn't the same as winning.

I'd place Simulacrum quite a bit higher than that. You instantly double your spell-casting? I can't even wrap my head around why they'd ever let that spell into the game.

A recurring Saturday morning cartoon villain that can:
a) come back to life
b) find you anywhere on the planet and spy on you
c) wait for a vulnerable moment
d) teleport, invisible, close to you
e) evict your soul from your body, do unspeakable things to your loved ones
f) kill you

And it all takes less than a few hours from waking up.

My Saturday cartoons were a bit different.




Plant Growth doesn't do what you seem to be suggesting. The 1 mile radius version doesn't allow reshaping and doesn't cause any change in the terrain and takes 8 hours to cast. The 100' radius version is quite obstructive enough.


Yes, I misremebered. Sorry for that. Our druid used multiple version of the 100' radius version a few days after the 1 mile version. My bad. It was still very unhealthy for the army.



I think the kind of power jumps high level wizards see is not the kind of power jumps you think they are. High level spells last longer, have more range, allow more targets, and have fewer limitations than lower leveled spells with similar purposes. This opens up a few new avenues of interaction, but it would be helpful to be clear about just what those are.

Creation isn't permanent. He'd have to cast it all the time.


Magic Jar isn't really a new dynamic. The wizard has been telling people what to do with Suggestion since level 3. The difference is now the wizard can put his life on the line when he does it, or not risk his life once he gets clone. A surprisingly large amount of their new ways to bend reality are actually just their current ways to bend reality with better mechanics, better numbers.

Partly agree with you here. The sheer amount of options, full-casters get (sorcerers, not so much), are a key to their power. Being a long-rest character matters less and less, as you get more and more options to bend reality to your whims. Also range/duration/number of targets, etc., are pretty substantial modificiations in some cases (i.e. Meteor Swarm's saving grace is 1 mile casting range.. turning your wizard into, almost, unparalleled artillery; and I consider that one of the weaker spells). Consider how strong Teleport is. The idea of being safe from a wizard stops making sense when he can instantly target you where you and your loved ones are weakest. As a fighter, you cannot defend yourself and everybody else against this.




The wizard already had ways to force someone to do something they wouldn't want to do. There's also already ways to frame someone quite convincingly. Magic Jar actually has very few additional implications in the world, mostly in the form of combat application. You need to go over the spell list for concrete examples of new world-changing abilities that wizards actually get at high levels. That'll be a lot better for discussion than this "wizards can do anything" that we've been working with.

Point taken - and a very productive way of moving the discussion forward.

Two counter points: a substantial amount of the gained power is that there's so many damn spells - they can combine in quite intricate ways and they mean the wizard has plain more tools to work around with.

I'd love to go into detail, but I know there's an entire thread about that somewhere, and I simply don't have the time to do it all now. Instead, I'll point out spells that can make it either easy to control the world, or allow for the wizard to pick encounters as he chooses to see fit.

Off topic, I hate the indexing in the PHB. How hard would it be to include page numbers in your various lists???

5th level
Creation (at least if he knows some kind of chemistry)
Geas
Dream
Scrying
Possibly more (Animate Objects, Rary's Telepathic Bond, Geas)

6th level
Contingency (strong way to increase survivability, and can be cast during downtime)
Create Undead (permanent buffing your powers)
Disintegrate (mostly for the removal of whichever material)
Drawmij’s Instant Summons (not as such super strong, but since it can be used during downtime it can further
Globe of Invulnerability
Guards and Wards
Magic Jar
Mass Suggestion
Move Earth
Programmed Illusion
True Seeing


7th level
Etherealness (renders rogues rather redundant quite often)
Forcecage (no saving throw unless you try to teleport or change planes)
Mirage Arcane (radius of a mile, lasts 10 days..)
Project Image
Reverse Gravity (only has a saving throw if there's a fixed object - huge radius)
Sequester (see Drawji's)
Simulacrum (one of the most broken spells/features in the game. If this was a fighter capstone, people would still think it is wicked strong. We can't discuss this one though - Forum Rules)
Symbol (another permanent)
Teleport (strongest mobility feature in the game?)

8th level
Antimagic Field (considering how strong magic is.. this is pretty damn strong)
Antipathy/Sympathy (no saving throw UNTIL the target is within 60 ft. Lasts 10 days)
Clone (hello immortality)
Control Weather (8 hours concentration, can more or less exterminate entire areas, slow armies, etc. - depending on how dispel would work on it, strong or extremely strong)
Demiplane (for those things you can't kill)
Telepathy (you give language to those without it, requires no concentration, perfect scouting and coordination, etc.)

9th level
Astral Projection
Foresight (renders several key class features completely obsolete.. no concentration)
Gate (fiends in your enemies basement)
Imprisonment (bye)
Meteor Swarm (one of the weaker level 9 spells, but a 1 mile casting range is crazy in a world where longbows are the tools of the sniper)
Shapechange
Time Stop
True Polymorph
Wish (We can't discuss this one though - Forum Rules)

A lot of these spells are perhaps not brokenly powerful on their own, but:
a) they are way, way better than what non full-casters get at comparable levels
b) the sheer fact that wizard gets sooooooo many options is powerful - as I've pointed out, this is simply not the case for a lot of the other spells



By level 10, hell, by level 5, the wizard is already an amazing tool box for interacting with the world in strange ways. Just look at Carlobrand's reaction to Misty Step. Animate Dead can make permanent malevolent creatures. Suggestion can turn an assassin on a king.

Animate Dead is also crazy strong and mostly reduced in power by social reactions. The fact that wizard is already pretty damn strong at level 10, doesn't mean that adding an increasing level of more powerful tools to his toolbox is breaking linear power progression less. I've included a few level 5 spells to emphasise the point.


Wizards have the lowest hit points per level of any class, making them easy targets when it comes to Assassins or (as I mentioned) a troop of knights having a bad day.

They have to have encounters with people to rule, that's non-optional. If they don't show up, how do they rule? Who is carrying out their orders? Why can't enemies target those people/things cutting the Wizard off from their supposed kingdom?

I fully agree that a Wizard can be a hypothetical nightmare for a kingdom, but I don't agree that they have a better than even chance of retaining a hold on that kingdom.

If the Wizard does as you suggest in the last paragraph...they aren't ruling anything at all, they're fleeing for their very life.

Telepathy (!), Geas, Magic Jar, Scrying, Plane Shift, Demi Plane, Mordenkainen's Mansion, Teleport.

As mentioned earlier: I wasn't thinking much of the day-to-day ruling (even though that can be done as well), but more reaping the benefits of everybody else and turning other characters into sideshows.


Why not? As I said, they already rule the world. Isn't that what you were arguing they should do? Every government is outrun run by powerful casters or employs them in high level positions where they can reap the benefits of being affiliated with a government without having to actually run things and use their powers to defend it from other high level casters. What part of that doesn't make sense?
Charismatic people can convince casters to support them and not every caster wants to be the King instead of just being paid lots of money by the King.

Agreed - my main point is still that I do not understand why WotC have chosen that one line of classes would have such a massive impact later on, while the other classes can be onlookers. That's why I called the OP the Legacy Curse. I think it is because wizards used to suck at early levels and that was justified by their near-divinity later on. Now, they are less suck in the beginning and slightly less god-like later.




Are you asking why evil casters don't exterminate all low-level casters? In a thread where you're arguing that casters are more powerful than other classes?

A nation with only one caster is not going to be able to compete with a nation that has a bunch of casters. No matter how powerful, a caster has only so many spell slots and can only be in so many places. Destroying all lesser casters in your country is going to lead to being taken over by another country. And stir up rebellion inside your country, turning potential threats into actual threats. Such a crusade fails because you can't extend your reach outside your borders (and if you can, then you conquer until you can't extend your reach any more).

Any threat. Not lesser casters, but you know... Level 7 groups.. Unless we are using speed-leveling charts, a high-level, paranoid, wizard, would probably keep an ear open to people rising in renown and kill them after their first dragon encounter/other BBEG.


Also, there's basic psychological realism. People generally don't have a full career and then suddenly turn into serial killing sociopaths at the peak of their success. A spellcaster who is that kind of evil at high levels would have been murdering innocent people when they were low level too. And that kind of behavior makes it much less likely they will live long enough to become high level.

Most dictators weren't serial killers before they were rulers.


Well, if we were talking about hereditary power, the King would have the irreplacable advantage of actual loyalty. Sure, the Wizard can terrorize the kingdom by doing something to kill the king, but doing so only reaps vendetta down the way.

IF it is known that he did it. And then he's probably an idiot.

Everybody - thank you for your continued contributions. Pardon my delayed replies. As much as I take pleasure in nerd-gasming over DND, I've had to prioritise work, etc., lately.



By the way - I love wizards and casters. I just think they are very, very strong - story-/game-breakingly so.

[JoeJ]

I'd place Simulacrum quite a bit higher than that. You instantly double your spell-casting? I can't even wrap my head around why they'd ever let that spell into the game.

Because just using it to add another NPC to the party is a waste of 1500 gp and 12 hours. If you're smart, most of the time you won't be using this spell to copy party members. That's one of the least useful things you can do with Simulacrum.


As mentioned earlier: I wasn't thinking much of the day-to-day ruling (even though that can be done as well), but more reaping the benefits of everybody else and turning other characters into sideshows.

By the way - I love wizards and casters. I just think they are very, very strong - story-/game-breakingly so.

In theory they're really impressive. In actual play, it doesn't work that way. Wizards don't overshadow other characters unless the DM coddles them.

[Skylivedk]

Because just using it to add another NPC to the party is a waste of 1500 gp and 12 hours. If you're smart, most of the time you won't be using this spell to copy party members. That's one of the least useful things you can do with Simulacrum.

Unfortunately, we can't go into this, but please PM me about how having a copy of a 13th+ level caster is a waste of 1500 gp.



In theory they're really impressive. In actual play, it doesn't work that way. Wizards don't overshadow other characters unless the DM coddles them.

I guess our actual play varies a lot. My impression is the opposite. Either the DM invents a ton of reasons why the casters aren't crazy good, the caster decides (or doesn't know how) to use their spells creatively, or the wizard is super super strong. If the players play it like a game, then perhaps. Most of my tables, my players play characters with dreams, ambitions, fear of death, etc., where it hasn't been the case: not saying you don't, pardon, if it seems like a strawman argument - as you can clearly gather by me posting any of this, I fail to fathom how the classes are supposed to be on the same power/impact trajectory.

Can you please get back to me on how a wizard/ful-caster and a fighter's/non-caster's power levels remain consistent after level 10? Cause currently, I'm not seeing it. The full casters get more and more, and stronger and stronger resources, while the fighters/etc. seem to be getting more of what they had, and not even much more of that either.

I.e. Indomitable (2 uses) for the fighter at level 13. The Barbarian gets brutal critical (2 dice). The wizard gets level 7 spells. That level 7 slot is so much more versatile in its application - and that is the case for most of the gains after level 10 (and a lot of them before).

[SharkForce]

perhaps i've missed an announcement, but where is the notice that wish and simulacrum totally off limits for discussion?

(on the flip side, i can certainly understand "i don't want to get into a discussion about those spells because they always get massively side-tracked", and just deliberately self-censoring to avoid starting those again... not like we need another thread or ten exclusively about that).

[Skylivedk]

perhaps i've missed an announcement, but where is the notice that wish and simulacrum totally off limits for discussion?

(on the flip side, i can certainly understand "i don't want to get into a discussion about those spells because they always get massively side-tracked", and just deliberately self-censoring to avoid starting those again... not like we need another thread or ten exclusively about that).

The thread about Wish and Simulacrum got closed. By Forum Rules you are not allowed to start another thread on the subject, hence no more of that discussion here ;) - and yes, also to avoid side-tracking the main thread :)

[RickAllison]

The thread about Wish and Simulacrum got closed. By Forum Rules you are not allowed to start another thread on the subject, hence no more of that discussion here ;) - and yes, also to avoid side-tracking the main thread :)

The thread was closed? I could have sworn we had like three threads in quick succession that all got closed when they got on the subject :smallbiggrin:

[WereRabbitz]

I never understood this to be a problem in a campaign i've run.

If you read the manual a level 1 player is a a EXCEPTIONAL person... that means your above average.

So being a Class is exceptional and above average, and then to make it as high as level 4 or 5 is RARE... I mean you talking about deep studies that cost time, money, and rare materials.

Adventures are lucky to be born above average enough to be considered a class, and luckier still to be free of ties that let them dungeon hunt their way advancing their skills.

Even when someone gets strong and rises up be it player or NPC there is always other players or npc's that will challenge them.

Ever think your level 20 Sorcerer is able to rule the world? What will you do when a Army 100,000 Strong knocks on your front door tired of your tyranny?

Balance is always there.

[Temperjoke]

I never understood this to be a problem in a campaign i've run.

If you read the manual a level 1 player is a a EXCEPTIONAL person... that means your above average.

So being a Class is exceptional and above average, and then to make it as high as level 4 or 5 is RARE... I mean you talking about deep studies that cost time, money, and rare materials.

Adventures are lucky to be born above average enough to be considered a class, and luckier still to be free of ties that let them dungeon hunt their way advancing their skills.

Even when someone gets strong and rises up be it player or NPC there is always other players or npc's that will challenge them.

Ever think your level 20 Sorcerer is able to rule the world? What will you do when a Army 100,000 Strong knocks on your front door tired of your tyranny?

Balance is always there.

Well, according to several people, the wizard would have had it planned out and did that thing that we really should avoid talking about to have his/her own army of 100,000 copies who are almost as powerful as he is.

Not that I disagree with the general idea that you don't see high-leveled magic-users controlling the world because they're rare. Personally, I'd say that it's more likely that they'd be behind the scenes, instead of openly grabbing power. One thing I've noticed though, how often is it a single magic-user controlling things by himself? More often it's a circle of them or an organization. I mean, sure, there's usually one person in the head position, but it's usually not 100% secure, he/she has to deal with internal intrigues and conspiracies.

[Tanarii]

Agreed - my main point is still that I do not understand why WotC have chosen that one line of classes would have such a massive impact later on, while the other classes can be onlookers. That's why I called the OP the Legacy Curse. I think it is because wizards used to suck at early levels and that was justified by their near-divinity later on. Now, they are less suck in the beginning and slightly less god-like later. This is actually a fair point.

In both AD&D 1e and BECMI, which I played quite a lot, merely suriving and leveling was HARD. Unless you played it in easy mode, using alternate rolling for higher stats (including the UA methods), didn't roll 1st level hit points, started at higher than 1st level, etc. Not just for wizards, but for everyone. You expected your characters to die. And characters were effectively at retirement point by level 10-14 ... they were the campaign's rulers. Even mages, in their own ways, although by the archetypes Fighters were the ones that got the built in class advantages as rules (strongholds, followers, etc). And they passed the torch to their henchmen, or the next generation, often literally their PC's children.

Even in AD&D 2e it wasn't that easy to survive the lowest levels. But by 3e it was a cakewalk. And the speed of leveling in the lowest levels is high now. Basically, the west-coast gamer philosophy won out over the gary gygax style of playing.

Really, given the speed of level advancement, granting what used to be the "epic end-game" spell levels of 6+ at a level as low as 11 doesn't really fit any more. So far I haven't seen any problems in my campaign, but I run it as a high-lethality CaW game. But I'm not sure what'll happen if characters start regularly making it into the 11+ level range and aren't ready to retire, and pass the torch to the next generation.

[Skylivedk]

I never understood this to be a problem in a campaign i've run.

If you read the manual a level 1 player is a a EXCEPTIONAL person... that means your above average.

So being a Class is exceptional and above average, and then to make it as high as level 4 or 5 is RARE... I mean you talking about deep studies that cost time, money, and rare materials.

Adventures are lucky to be born above average enough to be considered a class, and luckier still to be free of ties that let them dungeon hunt their way advancing their skills.

Even when someone gets strong and rises up be it player or NPC there is always other players or npc's that will challenge them.

Ever think your level 20 Sorcerer is able to rule the world? What will you do when a Army 100,000 Strong knocks on your front door tired of your tyranny?

Balance is always there.

I mean no offence to you as a person, but I feel obliged to counter your statements from a purely rhetorical point of view, since I don't understand how they're currently heightening the discussion.

You make claims, but have seemingly no qualifiers, nor solid evidence (as per good argumentation according to the Toulmin model)

1. "Balance is always there"

Why do you say this?

Have you looked at the Frenzy Barbarian and compared him to a Polearm/GWM Barbarian in a game with feats?

The DPR-charts for dual-wielding compared to dueling?

- no need to answer these points(it's not the main thread), but you seem to have a lot more faith in WotC than I have.

If you are to argue "Balance is always there" then at least back up your statement. Blanket statements with no qualifier - I'll get back to the 100000 man strong point later, or evidence are quite uninteresting and do nothing to heighten the level of discussion.

2. Two of your points don't match either: one side, you argue that adventurers are super rare, on the other that there will always be other high-level characters. The two statements seem to contradict each other.

3. Regarding the 100.000 man strong army, I'd recommend the sorcerer to Meteor Swarm/Gate the army, then teleport to the undefended lands of the army, cause havoc and go away with one of the other transport options. Or teleport first, release a pit fiend in their capitol and then disappear. Or just teleport away, change appearance and forget about the whole ordeal. Armies are not nearly as mobile as casters.

The lvl 20 fighter on the other hand... He seems to be in a bit of a pickle. Also if you have to use a 100.000 man against a single caster, we are pretty much back to full-casters having made other classes a laughing matter.


Well, according to several people, the wizard would have had it planned out and did that thing that we really should avoid talking about to have his/her own army of 100,000 copies who are almost as powerful as he is.

Not that I disagree with the general idea that you don't see high-leveled magic-users controlling the world because they're rare. Personally, I'd say that it's more likely that they'd be behind the scenes, instead of openly grabbing power. One thing I've noticed though, how often is it a single magic-user controlling things by himself? More often it's a circle of them or an organization. I mean, sure, there's usually one person in the head position, but it's usually not 100% secure, he/she has to deal with internal intrigues and conspiracies.

There's plenty of other ways that the caster is a problem.. I.e: Having a 1 mile radius control of weather where you can turn a sunny day into a city wreaking storm in a matter of minutes. A radius of a mile is enough to take out most of what is the city core of most European cities (what used to be their old town area).

A circle of casters is of course even more scary. That allows for constant scrying, protective fields, pocket dimensions, multiple clones, permanent undead armies, etc.


This is actually a fair point.

In both AD&D 1e and BECMI, which I played quite a lot, merely suriving and leveling was HARD. Unless you played it in easy mode, using alternate rolling for higher stats (including the UA methods), didn't roll 1st level hit points, started at higher than 1st level, etc. Not just for wizards, but for everyone. You expected your characters to die. And characters were effectively at retirement point by level 10-14 ... they were the campaign's rulers. Even mages, in their own ways, although by the archetypes Fighters were the ones that got the built in class advantages as rules (strongholds, followers, etc). And they passed the torch to their henchmen, or the next generation, often literally their PC's children.

Even in AD&D 2e it wasn't that easy to survive the lowest levels. But by 3e it was a cakewalk. And the speed of leveling in the lowest levels is high now. Basically, the west-coast gamer philosophy won out over the gary gygax style of playing.

Really, given the speed of level advancement, granting what used to be the "epic end-game" spell levels of 6+ at a level as low as 11 doesn't really fit any more. So far I haven't seen any problems in my campaign, but I run it as a high-lethality CaW game. But I'm not sure what'll happen if characters start regularly making it into the 11+ level range and aren't ready to retire, and pass the torch to the next generation.

Thank you!

I've also found a lot of minor solutions.. Especially the whole "hunting spell-casters is good $$$" will help a lot - but that is still a rather drastic measure to introduce.

Also it doesn't change the fact that most classes do not get the range of options (for not to say power) that full-casters get at higher levels. I'll invent a bunch of things to keep them interesting, but already I can see that the rogue is kind of boring in combat (one attack... done). I'm giving him Batman options through trinkets etc., but without smoke sticks, tanglefoot etc., the rogue does seem to have more boring turns in combat (than quite a few of the other classes) and many of his functions can be duplicated/done without by casters later.

The Legacy Curse is pretty much that: from earlier editions, spell-casters were supposed to just suck it up until they'd dominate. I never played 4e, but I heard 4e got the balance way more right.

5e has done away with a lot of the "I'll buff myself to become a better fighter than the fighter"-problems (unless we start talking about True Polymorph/Shapechange where some of these problems seem to reoccur - I haven't checked their possibilities in depth yet though), but the entire aspect of the casters having an ever-increasing amount of ever-increasingly powerful tools still seem to be the case. - in particular permanent effects (the different create undead variations), omnipresence, the various immortality paths, the ability to strike with little to no risk, and spells hijacking class features still appear in 5e.

[Sigreid]

Am I the only one amused by a lot of the comments in this article basically being that high level wizards will immediately start engaging in exactly the same kind of behavior as the BBEGs they and their friends have been disposing of all this time? Are we to assume that it's not going to occur to them that there may be another hungry young group looking for a BBEG to dispose for fame, wealth and glory?

[mgshamster]

Am I the only one amused by a lot of the comments in this article basically being that high level wizards will immediately start engaging in exactly the same kind of behavior as the BBEGs they and their friends have been disposing of all this time? Are we to assume that it's not going to occur to them that there may be another hungry young group looking for a BBEG to dispose for fame, wealth and glory?

It's a viscious cycle.

[SharkForce]

Am I the only one amused by a lot of the comments in this article basically being that high level wizards will immediately start engaging in exactly the same kind of behavior as the BBEGs they and their friends have been disposing of all this time? Are we to assume that it's not going to occur to them that there may be another hungry young group looking for a BBEG to dispose for fame, wealth and glory?

it isn't so much that they will or must do it.

it is that they can do it, while, say, a level 17 non-spellcaster (pick your flavor, it doesn't really matter - fighter, barbarian, rogue, monk, even ranger and paladin as half-casters) generally speaking could not do it. unless they somehow manage to get the assistance of a high level spellcaster.

a level 20 wizard stands a good chance of being able to either directly conquer or indirectly control most kingdoms (unless that kingdom has an arbitrary loyal spellcaster of their own), while a level 20 fighter will probably have difficulties dealing with a dozen of the kingdom's knights.

[Tanarii]

The Legacy Curse is pretty much that: from earlier editions, spell-casters were supposed to just suck it up until they'd dominate.in BECMI and AD&D, even a first level mage casting Sleep was an encounter winner. Casting Charm Person often not only won the encounter, but sometimes multiple encounters, since it had a potentially very long duration. Spells are powerful.

The limitations on Magic-users were:
1) You didn't get many spells until the highest levels.
2) You were super fragile even at the higher levels.
3) If you got hit while casting, you lost the spell. The way initiative worked basically guaranteed that would happen in melee.
4) (In AD&D only) High level spells usually took a LOT of segments to cast.

#3 & #4 were why magic-users needed Fighters, even at high levels. Because if you were alone, you were very vulnerable to having your spells disrupted.

I can't remember how it worked in 2e, but by 3e individual initiative was a thing, it was harder to force concentration checks. Now the only realistic way to interrupt a spell being cast is a few specific reaction moves (Counterspell, the anti-mage Feat, kill the caster).


Am I the only one amused by a lot of the comments in this article basically being that high level wizards will immediately start engaging in exactly the same kind of behavior as the BBEGs they and their friends have been disposing of all this time? Are we to assume that it's not going to occur to them that there may be another hungry young group looking for a BBEG to dispose for fame, wealth and glory?
I have to say the few times I played AD&D or BECMI at high level, they mostly became seriously evil campaigns. Power corrupts. :smallamused:

[Vogonjeltz]

IF it is known that he did it. And then he's probably an idiot.

What do you mean by If? The stated goal was to take over the kingdom. You can't rule a kingdom if nobody knows you exist, ruling means actually making decisions and arbitrating disputes between inhabitants of the kingdom. It means interacting with neighboring kingdoms and engaging in diplomacy.

If the Wizard doesn't step forward to make themselves visible, they're not ruling at all!

Besides which, anyone who is royalty in d&d almost certainly has the best access to the resources needed for resurrection and following up to determine who killed them. If anything the lone wizard should very much fear antagonizing an entire kingdom.

[Skylivedk]

it isn't so much that they will or must do it.

it is that they can do it, while, say, a level 17 non-spellcaster (pick your flavor, it doesn't really matter - fighter, barbarian, rogue, monk, even ranger and paladin as half-casters) generally speaking could not do it. unless they somehow manage to get the assistance of a high level spellcaster.

a level 20 wizard stands a good chance of being able to either directly conquer or indirectly control most kingdoms (unless that kingdom has an arbitrary loyal spellcaster of their own), while a level 20 fighter will probably have difficulties dealing with a dozen of the kingdom's knights.

Exactly!! Thank you for pointing it out :)


What do you mean by If? The stated goal was to take over the kingdom. You can't rule a kingdom if nobody knows you exist, ruling means actually making decisions and arbitrating disputes between inhabitants of the kingdom. It means interacting with neighboring kingdoms and engaging in diplomacy.

If the Wizard doesn't step forward to make themselves visible, they're not ruling at all!

Besides which, anyone who is royalty in d&d almost certainly has the best access to the resources needed for resurrection and following up to determine who killed them. If anything the lone wizard should very much fear antagonizing an entire kingdom.

Dominate/reap the benefits of ruling, rather than rule - and that makes the amount of people who have to know about your existence very limited.

And it sounds like the resources you are mentioning are spell-casters. In which case we are back to my point - that non-spell-casters become secondary characters from a story/world balance point of view. I think I clarified my position earlier - pardon if I didn't.

SharkForce made the point very convincingly though. Wizards/full-casters can become very scary BBEGs while the other classes are much less of a massive threat if they can't get a spell-caster to join their cause.

[Ace Jackson]

Dominate/reap the benefits of ruling, rather than rule - and that makes the amount of people who have to know about your existence very limited.

Well, there does come a point where we have to question, do they rule? Or do they simply collect tax, or is it tribute from the king? Donations? Insurance against any other megalomaniac sociopathic full casters? At what point do they cease to be considered rulers as opposed to very highly paid contractors with vested interests?

[Sigreid]

it isn't so much that they will or must do it.

it is that they can do it, while, say, a level 17 non-spellcaster (pick your flavor, it doesn't really matter - fighter, barbarian, rogue, monk, even ranger and paladin as half-casters) generally speaking could not do it. unless they somehow manage to get the assistance of a high level spellcaster.

a level 20 wizard stands a good chance of being able to either directly conquer or indirectly control most kingdoms (unless that kingdom has an arbitrary loyal spellcaster of their own), while a level 20 fighter will probably have difficulties dealing with a dozen of the kingdom's knights.

Oh, I don't know. They would have to do it differently, but I would expect a level 20 fighter to be able to inspire followers who idolize him, or the rogue to be able to trick, blackmail and swindle his way into power.

[Skylivedk]

Well, there does come a point where we have to question, do they rule? Or do they simply collect tax, or is it tribute from the king? Donations? Insurance against any other megalomaniac sociopathic full casters? At what point do they cease to be considered rulers as opposed to very highly paid contractors with vested interests?

Why is that important to the point?

The spell-casters can present the kind of a threat were they can levy a tax on a king/kingdom, most other classes can't. We seem to agree to that, so whether or not we believe it is easier to actually rule as a wizard (which I do), is rather irrelevant. Unlike a caster, if a fighter tries this, he gets killed easily.

In other words: as a king, you are not really that afraid to hear that a fighter is out to get you. A rogue, slightly more so... A caster? Start buying pampers, 'cause you are going to spend your nights scared s**t less.

[Skylivedk]

Oh, I don't know. They would have to do it differently, but I would expect a level 20 fighter to be able to inspire followers who idolize him, or the rogue to be able to trick, blackmail and swindle his way into power.

Please back up your claim.

The fighter is still dependent on actually getting followers before he even starts to resemble a real threat. And once he has those followers, both he and his followers are manageable because they still have to move to get places; they still have to be within range of an arrow/trébuchet to cause you harm.

A rogue also has to either use other people or get close.

These threats are so much more manageable than the guy who can Freddy Krueger your mind to death across the planet.

[EvilAnagram]

Please back up your claim.

The fighter is still dependent on actually getting followers before he even starts to resemble a real threat. And once he has those followers, both he and his followers are manageable because they still have to move to get places; they still have to be within range of an arrow/trébuchet to cause you harm.

A rogue also has to either use other people or get close.

These threats are so much more manageable than the guy who can Freddy Krueger your mind to death across the planet.

The mathematical probability that a Wizard could actually use Dream to kill a high level Rogue or Fighter is negligible. 11 damage a day simply takes too long to kill someone with 144-166 HP; the target is bound to make a save one long rest, and once a Fighter or Rogue gets within attack distance of his target, he has a much better chance of winning.

[RickAllison]

The mathematical probability that a Wizard could actually use Dream to kill a high level Rogue or Fighter is negligible. 11 damage a day simply takes too long to kill someone with 144-166 HP; the target is bound to make a save one long rest, and once a Fighter or Rogue gets within attack distance of his target, he has a much better chance of winning.

A bigger thing would be exhaustion. Health can be healed rather easily, but the only option for exhaustion is Greater Restoration (I think). 100 gp of diamond dust every day if you already have a 9th level cleric or Druid (maybe Bard).

[Skylivedk]

The mathematical probability that a Wizard could actually use Dream to kill a high level Rogue or Fighter is negligible. 11 damage a day simply takes too long to kill someone with 144-166 HP; the target is bound to make a save one long rest, and once a Fighter or Rogue gets within attack distance of his target, he has a much better chance of winning.

Exhausting your target is the very dangerous part of Dream for high level characters. And he's targeting a king, who is not necessarily a rogue or a fighter. Those two are much more easily dealt with by a throng of other options. Dream is just one of many ways he can deal with someone - which is a part of the point - one of MANY ways.

Most rogues and fighters are only good at single target damage and are very limited by physics - the exception being the two with a bit of wizard in them. If they get the jump on the wizard, they would maybe kill him - given his contingency was down and he had no clone.

But please stick to the topic. This isn't a PvP thread - even though if it were, if we take all planes and the entire globe as the arena, I'd still put my money on the casters.

[Blacky the Blackball]

In both AD&D 1e and BECMI, which I played quite a lot, merely suriving and leveling was HARD. Unless you played it in easy mode, using alternate rolling for higher stats (including the UA methods), didn't roll 1st level hit points, started at higher than 1st level, etc. Not just for wizards, but for everyone. You expected your characters to die. And characters were effectively at retirement point by level 10-14 ... they were the campaign's rulers. Even mages, in their own ways, although by the archetypes Fighters were the ones that got the built in class advantages as rules (strongholds, followers, etc). And they passed the torch to their henchmen, or the next generation, often literally their PC's children.

Actually, BECMI is a very interesting example.

Level 14 is the top end of the "Expert" levels and the B and E boxed sets, but there's still the C, M and I sets ahead of you. Sure you were supposed to settle down, but that didn't mean retirement by any means. It just meant that the nature of the adventures changed. Characters in the "Companion" levels (15-25) were still expected to be actively adventuring, it's just that the adventures tended to come to them. The adventures (the published ones, at least) were all about uncovering ancient secrets buried in the land that you'd settled in or reacting to threats to that land. The "Master" levels (26-36) - again based on the published adventures - were about where you started getting involved in plane-hopping adventures and became the favoured tools (knowingly or unknowingly) of the Immortals. And then, of course, the "Immortal" levels (Mu) were when you left the mortal world behind and had a whole different kind of adventure, suddenly transitioning from being the biggest fish in the pond to being in an ocean full of sharks.

Consequently, the default setting for that game was one chock full of high level (i.e. level 25+) characters. It took the "when you get high level you become a noble" to its logical consequence and said "nobles are high level". This was a setting where you had a continent-spanning empire which was ruled by a council of a thousand 36th level spellcasters; where even the default "starting town" where first level characters were expected to be based had not one but two clerics of level 12+ (and this is in an edition where Raise Dead doesn't have any material component costs or permanent side-effects).

Basically, yes there are thousands of high level NPCs throughout the world, and a good chunk of them are spellcasters. Yes, most countries are ruled by extremely high level characters. But there's a whole layer above that - Immortals - and they explicitly serve balance (even the evil ones) and play high-stakes political and physical games with the world. While it's fine for a high level caster to take over a barony or even rise to become the ruler of a kingdom, they're not going to be able to take over the world without coming to the attention of the Immortals and getting slapped down.

After all, even the continent with a thousand 36th level spellcasters gets sunk in one of the published adventures due to a disagreement between Immortals turning into a war. Even a thousand casters can't fight that sort of power.

Of course, at low level you don't notice this sort of stuff going on, and while at high level you might get frustrated and complain that the Immortals seeking balance and preserving the status quo is some kind of bad DM's deus ex machina stopping you from taking over the world, you do get chance (eventually) to join the ranks of the Immortals as a PC and take part in their politics from their perspective. You end up being the very beings keeping balance and stopping other mortals from taking over or ravaging the world (as well as saving it from extradimensional threats and the like). It's a very different game once you reach that point, but it makes the high-powered and high-magic setting make so much more sense.

[Tanarii]

Actually, BECMI is a very interesting example.

Level 14 is the top end of the "Expert" levels and the B and E boxed sets, but there's still the C, M and I sets ahead of you. Sure you were supposed to settle down, but that didn't mean retirement by any means. It just meant that the nature of the adventures changed. Right. In BECMI and AD&D you effectively retired shortly after name level, which is Expert Level in BECMI. That's why companion rules were about dominions and mass battles. In AD&D it was expected you'd "retire" to ruling as well, and start playing miniatures wargaming with your armies and units. Because you were so high level you affected the entire world, you were one of the few and the rare at that point. A world leader.

Mentzer never really expected people to adventure much in Companion or Master level games, especially not on a solo or party basis, like traditional D&D. He said so several times. He definitely didn't expect Immortal level games to comes from having legitimately played all he way through BECM first. (There was even one guy who claimed on dragonsfoot to have legitimately played all the way through twice and made Old One.)


Consequently, the default setting for that game was one chock full of high level (i.e. level 25+) characters.All the rulers were for sure. But the known world is totally unrealistic anyway. It's very clearly designed to cram every possible cultural setting into one small area so players could experience them at expert levels, with further away areas later to provide post-expert reasons to play.

Edti: But great summation and analysis. :)

[Ace Jackson]

Why is that important to the point?

The spell-casters can present the kind of a threat were they can levy a tax on a king/kingdom, most other classes can't. We seem to agree to that, so whether or not we believe it is easier to actually rule as a wizard (which I do), is rather irrelevant. Unlike a caster, if a fighter tries this, he gets killed easily.

In other words: as a king, you are not really that afraid to hear that a fighter is out to get you. A rogue, slightly more so... A caster? Start buying pampers, 'cause you are going to spend your nights scared s**t less.

Sorry, I suppose that was a bit of a round about. What I meant to ask with that was when does it actually change the timbre of the campaign? Because so far, it seems to me that you can have a BBEG "sorcerer king" who is well known, indisputably ruling, and possibly hated, or someone who drops by the castle every once in while to pick up regents for magical research. They can be a benevolent king rocking it behind the scenes with a puppet ruler, as I doubt they want to take time away from research every year to tell the way it is to the new guy who took over in a coup, the wizardly advisor to the king in the matters magical, Merlin to Arthur and the knights of the round, or they keep well away from the controversy, as it feels like you advocate with the sanctums of solitude and face changing, and become a random hermit.

I suppose I ask, at what point does this fact of caster power interact with the game in practice? Of the possible archetypes above, the bards are only likely to sing of two out of the four, and only one of the four, possibly two if the PCs catch on and !evil-behind-the-scenes-guy is in effect, are likely to make themselves targets of the PCs ire, unless your running a military campaign with a war between kingdoms, in which case the opposing Merlin is also target, though I don't know of many people who play D&D to enlist in a fantasy king's army. Based on the general practice you seem to have advocated, the party would simply never encounter the hermit.

I suppose I question why the full caster feels the need to rule. When you have the likes of wish, or miracle as once was the case as well, what do you need kingdom for? If the army is so ineffectual against a high level caster, what do they help him accomplish against his foes? If he can break the economy of a large city in a day with fabricate and wish, what does he need that they can supply? The only possible explanations I've got are sociopathy and megalomania. Either the kingdom would do better, and must do better under me, or perhaps they, in spite of effectively being immortal, just don't want to deal with the 3 day bed rest of using wish to fabricate, AFB so bear with me if I'm off, 250,000 GP worth of materials. (I do believe I heard that replicating spells was automatic, listed exceptions gave bedrest, and anything not on the list triggered the 1/3 chance to not cast wish again check). These both suggest maladjusted people to me, the types that would be public and unpopular with at least some of the populace.

The only real answer I can offer as to when they do or do not inextricably control the game world is when the DM chooses they do or do not. Perhaps someone makes the BBEG of a whole campaign a sorcerer king, perhaps another simply says that people ascend from the plane at 12th level, perhaps the setting has simply never had a high level caster who wanted political power, having been sufficiently wooed by the arcane and divine, until the PC's enter the world anyway. Perhaps the monster of the week for a high level campaign is a sorcerer king on the war path because he literally consumed the whole of the last plane he was on over a few millennia of research, and wants more material. Realistic? No, not necessarily, but the reality in the game as determined by the DM need not necessarily be.

Edited for a typo

[Zalabim]

Exhausting your target is the very dangerous part of Dream for high level characters. And he's targeting a king, who is not necessarily a rogue or a fighter. Those two are much more easily dealt with by a throng of other options. Dream is just one of many ways he can deal with someone - which is a part of the point - one of MANY ways.

One of the side effects of the lack of rules for sleep deprivation means Dream doesn't cause exhaustion. If the king is plagued by nightmares every time he sleeps, he can stave off most of the ill effects with an expensive potion of healing habit, treatment by a skilled medical provider (Healer), or a visit from a priest (cure wounds), assuming he's not in the habit of adventuring. Most NPCs probably aren't taking HP damage and using Hit Dice in their day to day lives. Dream's nightmares are an inconvenience rather than a death sentence for someone with a king's resources. It's one of those spells I like to say starts a plot, rather than resolving one.

Wizards are definitely placed to be movers and shakers in the plot department, but many other casters are less capable than a wizard.

[Dimcair]

a level 20 wizard stands a good chance of being able to either directly conquer or indirectly control most kingdoms (unless that kingdom has an arbitrary loyal spellcaster of their own), while a level 20 fighter will probably have difficulties dealing with a dozen of the kingdom's knights.

its called lobbying. Big corporations are lvl 20 wizards! AWMYGAWD i knew it

[Nu]

I would be hard pressed as a game master to rule that a mage could perform somatic components of a spell while being grappled. It's a simplified rules system. Some things still depend on a game-master's ruling, and legacy from 2E and 3.5 is quite clear on the subject. A player would have to show me how he intends to make somatic motions while someone is grappling with him. But, your gamemaster may have different ideas.

Well, only referencing 2E/3.5 is cherry-picking. The 4th edition "Grab" mechanic is basically 5th edition's Grapple. There are some mechanical distinctions, but the gist is there: only movement is impaired.

And if the DM suddenly started changing the effects of spells and conditions from what is very clearly spelled out in the rulebook, then the players should rightly call them out on their trollcrap (unless the modifications to the rules were discussed prior to the game or among the players and the DM ahead of time). It's very difficult to make builds or invest in a character mechanically if the DM is going to metaphorically pull the rug out from under you.

[JoeJ]

Unfortunately, we can't go into this, but please PM me about how having a copy of a 13th+ level caster is a waste of 1500 gp.

I don't like PM, but very simply it's the opportunity cost. In a dungeon, a simulacrum will last a day at most. For the same amount of money per day you could have hired as many as 750 skilled minions. As minionmancy goes, Simulacrum is very much sub par. Where it comes into its own is as a DIY doppleganger to infiltrate an enemy's organization, or as a decoy for an assassin.


I guess our actual play varies a lot. My impression is the opposite. Either the DM invents a ton of reasons why the casters aren't crazy good, the caster decides (or doesn't know how) to use their spells creatively, or the wizard is super super strong. If the players play it like a game, then perhaps. Most of my tables, my players play characters with dreams, ambitions, fear of death, etc., where it hasn't been the case: not saying you don't, pardon, if it seems like a strawman argument - as you can clearly gather by me posting any of this, I fail to fathom how the classes are supposed to be on the same power/impact trajectory.

Can you please get back to me on how a wizard/ful-caster and a fighter's/non-caster's power levels remain consistent after level 10? Cause currently, I'm not seeing it. The full casters get more and more, and stronger and stronger resources, while the fighters/etc. seem to be getting more of what they had, and not even much more of that either.

If you're seeing full casters dominate, it's almost certainly due to one (or both) of two problems with the DM.

1) Allowing 15 minute adventuring days. A wizard has a limited number of spell slots, and most of those are low level. They can be very impressive when they nova, but they can't nova 6 or 7 or more times in a row.

2) Creating obstacles that only magic can deal with, rather than those that can be dealt with in a variety of ways (including magic). Things like cliffs that can't be climbed without magic, chasms that can't be bridged without magic, doors that can't be opened without magic, traps that can't be bypassed without magic, guards that can't be persuaded without magic. If the DM doesn't allow anyone except the full casters to have the spotlight, then they'll obviously dominate. But that's not the game, that's the DM.

This is all dealing with inter-party balance, which is a very different issue than which NPC rules, or is threatening to conquer, the game world.

[WereRabbitz]

I mean no offence to you as a person, but I feel obliged to counter your statements from a purely rhetorical point of view, since I don't understand how they're currently heightening the discussion.

...If you are to argue "Balance is always there" then at least back up your statement. Blanket statements with no qualifier - I'll get back to the 100000 man strong point later, or evidence are quite uninteresting and do nothing to heighten the level of discussion....

...2. Two of your points don't match either: one side, you argue that adventurers are super rare, on the other that there will always be other high-level characters. The two statements seem to contradict each other.

3. Regarding the 100.000 man strong army, I'd recommend the sorcerer to Meteor Swarm/Gate the army, then teleport to the undefended lands of the army, cause havoc and go away with one of the other transport options. Or teleport first, release a pit fiend in their capitol and then disappear. Or just teleport away, change appearance and forget about the whole ordeal. Armies are not nearly as mobile as casters....



Let me address these in the reverse to see if I can *heighten* the discussion. :smallsmile:

3. If some noble with 100,000 peasents showed up on your door step yeah I could see a mass murder happening. I think you undervalue NPC's as just another exp/loot box though.
If your a all powerful wizard for instance why would they send 100,000 peasents? Maybe their a distraction from the real threat? If someone could command 100,000 anyone wouldn't they have the resources for Clerics, Paladins, Wizards, ect... themselves?

There is also the rise to power to consider, as you become more powerful you start being picked up as a threat to be delt with and that can make it tough to make it to level 20.

What if after ruling the worlds kingdoms you wake up to find a dagger in you throat or poisoned foot in your gullet? Yes there is ways to counter this, but the point i'm trying to make is you can't counter every possible attempt to end your tyranny and you should eventually meet your downfall.

*see the important point below*

2. It could be that Wizards are all over the dang place and if you try to get too powerful a group of them will put your in your place... Maybe their hated and killed on sight so it's rare for anyone to make to level 10 and you path there is very dangerous, Even if they are rare it doesn't mean they don't exist, and history of the world teaches when people rise to power people rise up against them and no kingdom is forever.
*Also see Important point below*

1. Balance is always there... I stand by this statement because it seems like you take a numbers approach to the game, Players have stories, emotions, traits, ect.. for a reason. So do NPC's and when the world is threated amazing people come out of thhe woodwork. You touched on this with your first post...


Dear Playground...Why would he even bother doing quests with the other dudes? At this point various contingencies and immortality paths would probably top his list, no?

*IMPORTANT POINT FINALLY* :smallcool:

I think you are massively devaluing 2 important parts of D&D that set it far apart from say a Board Game or World of Warcraft, ect....
Heart and Imagination.

Seriously!!

Heart: Characters and NPC's are not just numbers and spell slots there are emotions, Goals, Background, pains and joys in both. Take these things into account when players decide if they even *WANT* to rule kingdoms and mass murder people, or maybe they do want too, but their clumsy or arrogant and this leaves a whole in their defense? The point being all characters/bosses/npc's have flaws and no one is perfect and even when were adventuring as we level up we exploit those flaws. Just like taking Silver on a werewolf hunt your exploiting a flaw.

Imagination: With all of that being said the other thing that puts a *fix* on it is you have a DM in front of you. Sure I can play WoW and get the best pvp gear and best raid gear and be the 'best' at everything until the next big patch in 6 or 8 months and a new challenge comes at me, but in D&D you have a DM in front of you changing the world constantly and working to keep you challenged be that coming up with low level task that villagers need to help you make you first couple levels or late in the game designing monsters or situations to exploit your characters weakness.

Paladins are extreme examples, but i do love them! My ancient paladin will not bid for world domination it violates his view on the world (it doens't have too though... RPing gives you options), but a DM can exploit me (and has), by knowing that my character is unable to pass up a innocent people in trouble and it has walked us into many traps, yeah i recognize them now and i'm more careful, but I still play true to my character and every character has exploits.

Thats why I said "Balance is always there" because playing your character you will have flaws, and your in a world shaped by the DM who can turn the tides against you quiet quickly so unlike a busted mechanic in a PC game D&D has a self correcting safe guard called the DM.

[Sigreid]

Please back up your claim.

The fighter is still dependent on actually getting followers before he even starts to resemble a real threat. And once he has those followers, both he and his followers are manageable because they still have to move to get places; they still have to be within range of an arrow/trébuchet to cause you harm.

A rogue also has to either use other people or get close.

These threats are so much more manageable than the guy who can Freddy Krueger your mind to death across the planet.

I would be surprised if a level 20 fighter doesn't already have a constant stream of admirers who want to learn from him. A level 20 fighter stands a very decent chance of destroying an army single handed, provided he's not stupid enough to just rock up in front of the archers (you know, uses tactics, chooses his ground, etc.). Wizards are very powerful, I'm not arguing that they aren't. But a wizard who is within weapon range of a fighter on the fighters turn is gonna have a bad time...

[mgshamster]

I would be surprised if a level 20 fighter doesn't already have a constant stream of admirers who want to learn from him. A level 20 fighter stands a very decent chance of destroying an army single handed, provided he's not stupid enough to just rock up in front of the archers (you know, uses tactics, chooses his ground, etc.). Wizards are very powerful, I'm not arguing that they aren't. But a wizard who is within weapon range of a fighter on the fighters turn is gonna have a bad time...

It's also the same idea of survivability to level 20; a wizard didn't get to level 20 by being foolish. Neither did a level 20 fighter.

And all that money a wizard is spending on spell research and building towers or underground lairs or research labs, the fighter is spending that same amount of money on keeps and castles and armies and personal magic equipment.

A level 20 wizard is powerful, but as the game designers like to remind us, they can't go all day every day. All you have to do is keep them awake and they can't prepare their spells the next day. Use tactics and diversions to make them waste their spells on non-critical targets. And keep up constant pressure. Sure, it's damn difficult, but it isn't impossible. The most challenging high level wizards are also the most paranoid - and the most paranoid are the least likely to associate with society. Which means they'll have minimal back up. Meanwhile, the most powerful fighters are typically fully engrossed in society and have armies at their backs.

A wizard who spends his time building secret lairs is a wizard who's not spending his time building political allies and maintaining powerful relationships with kings and countries. It's all about balance. You can't be the best at everything (and those who just may be are the most dangerous foes of all).

Of course, as soon as you get a wizard who also happens to have an army, things get a bit more difficult. :). Of course, that's generally a wizard who hasn't been spending their time building secret lairs.

[Vogonjeltz]

Dominate/reap the benefits of ruling, rather than rule - and that makes the amount of people who have to know about your existence very limited.

And it sounds like the resources you are mentioning are spell-casters. In which case we are back to my point - that non-spell-casters become secondary characters from a story/world balance point of view. I think I clarified my position earlier - pardon if I didn't.

SharkForce made the point very convincingly though. Wizards/full-casters can become very scary BBEGs while the other classes are much less of a massive threat if they can't get a spell-caster to join their cause.

They're Clerics, which is not Wizards. The broad term Caster is quite misleading when you really mean Wizard. And in terms of Narrative, the King would be the protagonist here, setting up their contingencies, ordering troops to seize that silly Wizard and execute him at once etc...

And the point was that a lone Wizard really isn't going to be overtly taking over the Kingdom because they are incapable of attriting against the resources that a kingdom can bring to bear (which is to say, all forms of magic to the Wizard's one). In a world where enchantment is a thing, rulers inevitably will have crowns that prevent charming/domination/mind influencing effects.

[Malifice]

a level 20 wizard stands a good chance of being able to either directly conquer or indirectly control most kingdoms (unless that kingdom has an arbitrary loyal spellcaster of their own), while a level 20 fighter will probably have difficulties dealing with a dozen of the kingdom's knights.

Maybe in your campaign. But not in mine. So youre wrong.

[Gort]

OTOH, a tyrannical regime where magic is restricted to state spellcasters would make a great evil empire to threaten the PCs' homeland.

Robert Jordan did this already.

[Gort]

Dear Playground,

To put it simply, I don't get the idea of the caster progression from 13 and onwards.

It breaks my suspension of disbelief that elven wizard/liches/dragons, basically any spell-caster with a lifespan approximating a thousand years, isn't ruling more or less everything. I've created a huge incentive to kill spell-casters in my world (their life essence is essential for crafting) to somehow make it more believable, but still...

Level 11 is Magic Jar (first step towards immortality), 13 is Simulacrum, 15 is Clone and 17 is Wish.

If I understand how intelligent you are supposed to with an INT score of 20, those three spells ought to have made utter domination of non-casters a laughing matter.

I really like the progression between level 3 and up till 9 (I guess up till 11, but haven't played it in 5e yet), but just wrapping my head around an in-world explanation of why wizards haven't conquered everything is head-ache inducing.

How do you go about it? What is your in-game rationale for this not happening (and in particular, not having already happened?)

I know a lot of people play with level caps for NPC, but why dear Giants, would an Elven Wizard at some point in time have reached for, and grabbed, true power?

[EDIT] And perhaps even more importantly: what do you do when there's a level 13/15 wizard in the group? Why would he even bother doing quests with the other dudes? At this point various contingencies and immortality paths would probably top his list, no?

I agree that Wizards and Bards can get really out of control at these levels

My response:

The established canon is only part of the game. The books don't cover every situation. There is enormous room for GM interpretation, extensions and outright changes. It is a big part of the D&D experience. No 2 GMs worlds are exactly the same. Large sections of the game are for the GM to create. This is a feature of role playing games.

a) The GM can simply add or subtract anything in the game to get the outcome he desires.

It is quite reasonable for the GM to say Magic Jar is only usable by evil casters , or to just ban spells outright for example Simulacrum, Wish etc on the grounds that they dominate the game if you let the players use them. Some GMs just don't want to have to deal with that complexity, or simply don't want their game world broken in that way. It's often the simplest answer. Don't have those spells show up till you are ready for them, and say no when the player asks for them. Give them some other shiny bauble as a distraction to keep them happy.
In previous editions I've often limited: ESP because it kills certain types of plots I'd like to run; restricted party Flight or Teleport because I want the party to travel overland and have encounters for a few more levels.

I've also often added items or rituals that limit Teleport. Teleport and nuke scenarios are only fun for a short while. I tend to give most mages guilds and temples protection against such things.

Feel free to add a deity/organisation/character class/race/artifact/spell that changes things so the world behaves how you want it.

b) Just because NonDetection works as it says, it doesn't mean that there are no divine entities, epic spells or artifacts that can penetrate its effects. Rules that apply to normal adventuring may be different for high level adventuring. You don't have to play by the same rules as the players. Just don't overdo it. As a player I'm not upset if the 18th level high priest of the god of knowledge can find my character despite my protections, I would be annoyed if every second level 3 NPC hedge wizard could.

c) Most rational people don't want to take over the world. At least in western culture most educated people accept that while it might be a cool idea to be a dictator, they and their loved ones are better off living in a modern liberal democracy. All they really need is enough money to do what they want, and it is a lot less risky that trying to take over the world.
Of course there will always be a percentage of people who think otherwise, but they will be opposed.

d) Playing support characters to the wizard in the party can still be fun. If is that where you want to go. Have the party wizard take over the world and mould it to his wishes. Or oppose the BBEG wizard who is trying to. I would recommend that you sprinkle in some magic items and abilities to give the mundane characters some options.

5e is balanced enough through the low and middle levels. I am happy that it is open at the top end. It should be.
Forced equality is boring, and dare I say it, unrealistic.

[SharkForce]

one thing to clear up: fighters and wizards (or really, most classes and wizards, even compared to other casters there's a disparity in this regard) don't have access to the same amount of resources at high levels. the wizard can take a few suits of chainmail from defeated enemies and fabricate some platemail in the space of a few seconds, for example. or build a castle using wall of stone, transmute rock, mold earth, disintegrate (for digging), etc.

now, granted, wizards do need money to scribe new spells, do spell research, or buy new spell knowledge... but they do also have a lot more ability to either make money, or get the things they want without spending money, when it comes to things like secret lairs, strongholds, etc.

other full casters also enjoy some advantages in those areas too, though often not to quite the same extent that the wizard spell list allows.

[Skylivedk]

[SNIP]
3) If you got hit while casting, you lost the spell. The way initiative worked basically guaranteed that would happen in melee.
4) (In AD&D only) High level spells usually took a LOT of segments to cast.

#3 & #4 were why magic-users needed Fighters, even at high levels. Because if you were alone, you were very vulnerable to having your spells disrupted.

I can't remember how it worked in 2e, but by 3e individual initiative was a thing, it was harder to force concentration checks. Now the only realistic way to interrupt a spell being cast is a few specific reaction moves (Counterspell, the anti-mage Feat, kill the caster).


I have to say the few times I played AD&D or BECMI at high level, they mostly became seriously evil campaigns. Power corrupts. :smallamused:

Making some of the powerful spells take a lot longer to cast/attract massive attention as they're being cast, could alleviate some of the issues..

SIDEBAR: I've noted the same in terms of the evil power creep... My current group started off as an evil party, so to prevent murder-hobo'ing I thought I'd make them the lesser evil. Enter Cult of the Old One. Comments like "seriously guys.. this is getting out of hands. If we survive this, I want to go hang out with faerie dragons" indicate to me that the plot is working as intended.



[SNIP]
I suppose I ask, at what point does this fact of caster power interact with the game in practice? Of the possible archetypes above, the bards are only likely to sing of two out of the four, and only one of the four, possibly two if the PCs catch on and !evil-behind-the-scenes-guy is in effect, are likely to make themselves targets of the PCs ire, unless your running a military campaign with a war between kingdoms, in which case the opposing Merlin is also target, though I don't know of many people who play D&D to enlist in a fantasy king's army. Based on the general practice you seem to have advocated, the party would simply never encounter the hermit.

I suppose I question why the full caster feels the need to rule. When you have the likes of wish, or miracle as once was the case as well, what do you need kingdom for? If the army is so ineffectual against a high level caster, what do they help him accomplish against his foes? If he can break the economy of a large city in a day with fabricate and wish, what does he need that they can supply? The only possible explanations I've got are sociopathy and megalomania.

!Evil-behind-the-scenes is only a problem insofar that !evil-behind-the-scenes ought to dispatch of threats before they become really threatening. The best way I've seen to get around this point is to let the players be unwilling and unknowing pawns in a greater scheme for quite a while. It also allows for some pretty nifty foreshadowing and a grand reveal at some point.

I used the Genghis Khan example earlier to point out that, given time, some megalomaniac will be born and raised. In a world where someone with Genghis Khan's mental make-up has access to magic... Well, I'm happy I spawned in this apparently magic-free version of reality ;) [/Quote]




The only real answer I can offer as to when they do or do not inextricably control the game world is when the DM chooses they do or do not. Perhaps someone makes the BBEG of a whole campaign a sorcerer king, perhaps another simply says that people ascend from the plane at 12th level, perhaps the setting has simply never had a high level caster who wanted political power, having been sufficiently wooed by the arcane and divine, until the PC's enter the world anyway. Perhaps the monster of the week for a high level campaign is a sorcerer king on the war path because he literally consumed the whole of the last plane he was on over a few millennia of research, and wants more material. Realistic? No, not necessarily, but the reality in the game as determined by the DM need not necessarily be.


A Kang The Conqueror type of person? Yes, please. Magic-wielding extra-dimensional planar invaders are somewhat less of a problem - especially since they can offer an explanation to why the native casters aren't dominating everything.


I don't like PM, but very simply it's the opportunity cost. In a dungeon, a simulacrum will last a day at most. For the same amount of money per day you could have hired as many as 750 skilled minions. As minionmancy goes, Simulacrum is very much sub par. Where it comes into its own is as a DIY doppleganger to infiltrate an enemy's organization, or as a decoy for an assassin.

The fact that the spell is that versatile doesn't make it any less broken in my opinion. I'd quite often pick having an extra high-level spell-caster with neigh perfect obedience to having 750 minions, but to each their own. Gold also seems to be a rather easy ressource to get a hold of at higher levels.




If you're seeing full casters dominate, it's almost certainly due to one (or both) of two problems with the DM.

1) Allowing 15 minute adventuring days. A wizard has a limited number of spell slots, and most of those are low level. They can be very impressive when they nova, but they can't nova 6 or 7 or more times in a row.

2) Creating obstacles that only magic can deal with, rather than those that can be dealt with in a variety of ways (including magic). Things like cliffs that can't be climbed without magic, chasms that can't be bridged without magic, doors that can't be opened without magic, traps that can't be bypassed without magic, guards that can't be persuaded without magic. If the DM doesn't allow anyone except the full casters to have the spotlight, then they'll obviously dominate. But that's not the game, that's the DM.

This is all dealing with inter-party balance, which is a very different issue than which NPC rules, or is threatening to conquer, the game world.

As a DM, the casters in the party of my campaign are not dominating. I understand that the game is designed with a certain rest and action-economy in place and I design my campaigns with that in mind. That having been said, this kind of logic is very much "in box", and translates poorly to what casters in the world would do if they were actually characters. The wizard in the party ought to plan for tailoring his days to maximize his own utility - and this goes double for NPCs. In other words: why would NPCs not choose to nova something once a day and then retreat?

It's not hard to build campaigns where I constantly stress the group in a sense where they can't rest properly. The rest of the world just feels a little contrived when built around this balance - plus, I think it still isn't balanced at later stages, due to the enormous amount of options full casters have compared to the rest of the classes.


Let me address these in the reverse to see if I can *heighten* the discussion. :smallsmile:

Thank you! I really like your points. I'll go through them, one by one.



3. If some noble with 100,000 peasents showed up on your door step yeah I could see a mass murder happening. I think you undervalue NPC's as just another exp/loot box though.
If your a all powerful wizard for instance why would they send 100,000 peasents? Maybe their a distraction from the real threat? If someone could command 100,000 anyone wouldn't they have the resources for Clerics, Paladins, Wizards, ect... themselves?


That might very well be. But if we are talking about engaging a 100.000 peasants plus a couple of class-level having NPCs, I still think we are at a level where we can safely say that casters have derailed the story to be about them :) Fighters just don't get this kind of attention.




There is also the rise to power to consider, as you become more powerful you start being picked up as a threat to be delt with and that can make it tough to make it to level 20.

What if after ruling the worlds kingdoms you wake up to find a dagger in you throat or poisoned foot in your gullet? Yes there is ways to counter this, but the point i'm trying to make is you can't counter every possible attempt to end your tyranny and you should eventually meet your downfall.


That is true - but again, less likely to be the end of someone who can summon minions, set up magical wards and have extra bodies to wake up in, when they happen to wake up dead some mornings ;)




2. It could be that Wizards are all over the dang place and if you try to get too powerful a group of them will put your in your place... Maybe their hated and killed on sight so it's rare for anyone to make to level 10 and you path there is very dangerous, Even if they are rare it doesn't mean they don't exist, and history of the world teaches when people rise to power people rise up against them and no kingdom is forever.

In my current campaign, casters can have their life-essence harvested for mana-shards - necessary for enchanting items and all permanent magic effects. Stronger items require the life-essence of higher-level casters (and the essence of the different types of casters can empower different types of enchantments), so I've made sure that quite a few people loooove killing casters. Casters can also (very slowly) harvest mana-shards themselves. The guild system, and politics in general, are deeply marked by the different alliances between casters and non-casters.



1. Balance is always there... I stand by this statement because it seems like you take a numbers approach to the game, Players have stories, emotions, traits, ect.. for a reason. So do NPC's and when the world is threated amazing people come out of thhe woodwork. You touched on this with your first post...

*IMPORTANT POINT FINALLY* :smallcool:

I think you are massively devaluing 2 important parts of D&D that set it far apart from say a Board Game or World of Warcraft, ect....
Heart and Imagination.

Seriously!!

Heart: Characters and NPC's are not just numbers and spell slots there are emotions, Goals, Background, pains and joys in both. Take these things into account when players decide if they even *WANT* to rule kingdoms and mass murder people, or maybe they do want too, but their clumsy or arrogant and this leaves a whole in their defense? The point being all characters/bosses/npc's have flaws and no one is perfect and even when were adventuring as we level up we exploit those flaws. Just like taking Silver on a werewolf hunt your exploiting a flaw.

Imagination: With all of that being said the other thing that puts a *fix* on it is you have a DM in front of you. Sure I can play WoW and get the best pvp gear and best raid gear and be the 'best' at everything until the next big patch in 6 or 8 months and a new challenge comes at me, but in D&D you have a DM in front of you changing the world constantly and working to keep you challenged be that coming up with low level task that villagers need to help you make you first couple levels or late in the game designing monsters or situations to exploit your characters weakness.

Being the DM, I try to remain fairly well aware of this. The NPCs they've met have had glaring strengths and weaknesses, and luckily all my players have designed characters with more flaws than smooth surfaces (their flaws run the gamut from addictions, to PTSD, cowardice, sexual arousal from knowledge, etc). It's exactly because of the Imagination part that I find casters so powerful. A little bit of imagination and some reality-altering powers can go a looooong way. See the Shape-Water thread for examples :)

A major point of mine is that more and more "world-correcting" activity on the part of the DM will be to ensure:
a) rest mechanics
b) that casters don't jump ship and say "screw it guys.. I'm sick and tired of being ambushed when I can use my magic woolah to be the guy ambushing and sleep safely at night"


I would be surprised if a level 20 fighter doesn't already have a constant stream of admirers who want to learn from him. A level 20 fighter stands a very decent chance of destroying an army single handed, provided he's not stupid enough to just rock up in front of the archers (you know, uses tactics, chooses his ground, etc.). Wizards are very powerful, I'm not arguing that they aren't. But a wizard who is within weapon range of a fighter on the fighters turn is gonna have a bad time...

With bounded accuracy, I doubt that you are right. The fighter needs to be in weapon range, and with bounded accuracy that is a problem. A wizard doesn't have to be in range, can reshape the battle-field to an enormous extent and can also dodge such a confrontation much more easily.

I completely agree that if a wizard somehow allows himself to be in range of a hostile fighter, without contingencies, clones, etc. at the ready, he is quickly done for. INT 20 characters are extremely unlikely to find themselves in such situations in my world.


It's also the same idea of survivability to level 20; a wizard didn't get to level 20 by being foolish. Neither did a level 20 fighter.

And all that money a wizard is spending on spell research and building towers or underground lairs or research labs, the fighter is spending that same amount of money on keeps and castles and armies and personal magic equipment.

Keeps, castles and armies are worth precious little in most of these instances. The magic equipment is AFAIK dependent on having high-level casters around (at least it used to be.. Nowadays WotC neatly skipped over the crafting system).




A level 20 wizard is powerful, but as the game designers like to remind us, they can't go all day every day. All you have to do is keep them awake and they can't prepare their spells the next day. Use tactics and diversions to make them waste their spells on non-critical targets. And keep up constant pressure. Sure, it's damn difficult, but it isn't impossible. The most challenging high level wizards are also the most paranoid - and the most paranoid are the least likely to associate with society. Which means they'll have minimal back up. Meanwhile, the most powerful fighters are typically fully engrossed in society and have armies at their backs.

I'm not saying it is impossible. Just that it takes a whole lot more planning, ressources and attention to deal with a hostile high-level full caster than any of the others. The amount of contingencies and counter-plans you need to have explodes once full-casters enter the picture. A high level fighter is much more easily dealt with: keep a distance of over 600 yards and you're probably fine as far as survival goes, and for offense, targeting his weak-saves will usually do the trick (forcecage also gets the job done neatly). In other words: the non-casters lack of options make them more predictable and hence easier to deal with at higher levels.



A wizard who spends his time building secret lairs is a wizard who's not spending his time building political allies and maintaining powerful relationships with kings and countries. It's all about balance. You can't be the best at everything (and those who just may be are the most dangerous foes of all).

Of course, as soon as you get a wizard who also happens to have an army, things get a bit more difficult. :). Of course, that's generally a wizard who hasn't been spending their time building secret lairs.

I agree... partially. A wizard/caster can do a lot of the mundane things a lot faster than non-casters. Look at how long crafting takes without magic, and how quickly a few waves with a wand can get the job done. Higher level casters don't need as much time building castles as non-casters do, and hence they actually end up with a net benefit in terms of time for partnerships. They don't need as much time for transport either, since they can teleport, meaning their network can be much, much larger (and hence more dangerous).


They're Clerics, which is not Wizards. The broad term Caster is quite misleading when you really mean Wizard. And in terms of Narrative, the King would be the protagonist here, setting up their contingencies, ordering troops to seize that silly Wizard and execute him at once etc...

And the point was that a lone Wizard really isn't going to be overtly taking over the Kingdom because they are incapable of attriting against the resources that a kingdom can bring to bear (which is to say, all forms of magic to the Wizard's one). In a world where enchantment is a thing, rulers inevitably will have crowns that prevent charming/domination/mind influencing effects.

I'm not meaning only wizards - I mostly use wizards as an example because they, due to the depth of their spell-list, are the most glaring example. High level druids and clerics have similar effects later on.


Maybe in your campaign. But not in mine. So youre wrong.

Care to elaborate? This comment doesn't add much - how are the non-casters staying as relevant to the development of the world as the casters?


I agree that Wizards and Bards can get really out of control at these levels

My response:

The established canon is only part of the game. The books don't cover every situation. There is enormous room for GM interpretation, extensions and outright changes. It is a big part of the D&D experience. No 2 GMs worlds are exactly the same. Large sections of the game are for the GM to create. This is a feature of role playing games.

I see, we have a similar outlook on the situation :) I've done quite a few things to make my world believable, scary (even for casters) and internally consistent.



a) The GM can simply add or subtract anything in the game to get the outcome he desires.

It is quite reasonable for the GM to say Magic Jar is only usable by evil casters , or to just ban spells outright for example Simulacrum, Wish etc on the grounds that they dominate the game if you let the players use them. Some GMs just don't want to have to deal with that complexity, or simply don't want their game world broken in that way. It's often the simplest answer. Don't have those spells show up till you are ready for them, and say no when the player asks for them. Give them some other shiny bauble as a distraction to keep them happy.
In previous editions I've often limited: ESP because it kills certain types of plots I'd like to run; restricted party Flight or Teleport because I want the party to travel overland and have encounters for a few more levels.

I've spoken with my players and they're cool with me limiting access to higher level spells and turning the opportunity to get those spells into quests.



I've also often added items or rituals that limit Teleport. Teleport and nuke scenarios are only fun for a short while. I tend to give most mages guilds and temples protection against such things.

Feel free to add a deity/organisation/character class/race/artifact/spell that changes things so the world behaves how you want it.
Done and done :) I've a couple of guilds dedicated to nothing but draining the corpses of freshly killed casters for their precious life-essence.



b) Just because NonDetection works as it says, it doesn't mean that there are no divine entities, epic spells or artifacts that can penetrate its effects. Rules that apply to normal adventuring may be different for high level adventuring. You don't have to play by the same rules as the players. Just don't overdo it. As a player I'm not upset if the 18th level high priest of the god of knowledge can find my character despite my protections, I would be annoyed if every second level 3 NPC hedge wizard could.
Agreed - and there's many other ways to track people than to scry them directly.



c) Most rational people don't want to take over the world. At least in western culture most educated people accept that while it might be a cool idea to be a dictator, they and their loved ones are better off living in a modern liberal democracy. All they really need is enough money to do what they want, and it is a lot less risky that trying to take over the world.
Of course there will always be a percentage of people who think otherwise, but they will be opposed.

Hence the Genghis example. Also the alternative is in a lot of the cases, not a modern liberal democracy, but the dictatorship of someone else.



d) Playing support characters to the wizard in the party can still be fun. If is that where you want to go. Have the party wizard take over the world and mould it to his wishes. Or oppose the BBEG wizard who is trying to. I would recommend that you sprinkle in some magic items and abilities to give the mundane characters some options.

5e is balanced enough through the low and middle levels. I am happy that it is open at the top end. It should be.
Forced equality is boring, and dare I say it, unrealistic.

I agree that it can still be fun for the other characters - in my current case, I've only one player who isn't a caster of some sort (a thief), and I'm reintroducing a lot of the utility items from previous editions to make his life a bit more fun.

I kind of disagree with your last statement... I like that it is open, I just wish, WotC had presented more things for non-casters to do at the higher levels. Their toolboxes just seem a lot more limited.


one thing to clear up: fighters and wizards (or really, most classes and wizards, even compared to other casters there's a disparity in this regard) don't have access to the same amount of resources at high levels. the wizard can take a few suits of chainmail from defeated enemies and fabricate some platemail in the space of a few seconds, for example. or build a castle using wall of stone, transmute rock, mold earth, disintegrate (for digging), etc.

now, granted, wizards do need money to scribe new spells, do spell research, or buy new spell knowledge... but they do also have a lot more ability to either make money, or get the things they want without spending money, when it comes to things like secret lairs, strongholds, etc.

other full casters also enjoy some advantages in those areas too, though often not to quite the same extent that the wizard spell list allows.

Fully agree with every single point.


@all: what are some fun, out of combat, abilities you've given non-casters to make them have more of an impact later in the game?

[JoeJ]

As a DM, the casters in the party of my campaign are not dominating. I understand that the game is designed with a certain rest and action-economy in place and I design my campaigns with that in mind. That having been said, this kind of logic is very much "in box", and translates poorly to what casters in the world would do if they were actually characters. The wizard in the party ought to plan for tailoring his days to maximize his own utility - and this goes double for NPCs. In other words: why would NPCs not choose to nova something once a day and then retreat?

Why wouldn't a fighter nova and then retreat? Why wouldn't anybody? The answer in every case is to ask what the rest of the world is doing while that character is off washing the dog, or whatever. You can stop, retreat, and rest anytime you want, but there's no Pause button.


It's not hard to build campaigns where I constantly stress the group in a sense where they can't rest properly. The rest of the world just feels a little contrived when built around this balance - plus, I think it still isn't balanced at later stages, due to the enormous amount of options full casters have compared to the rest of the classes.

Why are you taking away options from the other classes? If you limit the PCs to what's written on their character sheet, then casters have more options, but why would you do that?


@all: what are some fun, out of combat, abilities you've given non-casters to make them have more of an impact later in the game?

You don't have to give them extra abilities, just don't take options away. Every PC, simply by being a PC, has effectively infinitely many options if you don't limit them to what's written on their character sheet.

For example, if the party needs to get into a flying castle the wizard could cast Fly, or the bard could persuade a band of giant eagles to carry them, or the rogue could steal some trained hippogriffs, or the fighter could call in a favor from the captain of the king's royal griffon squadron, or... a gazillion other possibilities. Reward creativity by letting fantastic ideas succeed (not necessarily without some struggle) and you're not going to have a problem with players feeling like they don't have options.

[Tanarii]

I completely agree that if a wizard somehow allows himself to be in range of a hostile fighter, without contingencies, clones, etc. at the ready, he is quickly done for. INT 20 characters are extremely unlikely to find themselves in such situations in my world.
A large chunk of your position comes down to you giving Int more than its mechanical or real world value.

Yes, top level spells are very world bending. This has always been the case.

Yes, spell casting in recent editions comes with far less checks and balances. Different initiative rules, faster/on-your-action casting, harder to interrupt.

Yes, since 3e the way the game rules are written makes leveling faster, making higher level characters far more normal. And the level range being established as up to 20 gives the impression that characters of level 11-14 are still only 'mid' level characters, not crazily powerful world-shaking adventurers. (Unless you read what PHB and DMG actually tell you in the text, as opposed to just looking at class charts and features and feats.)

Yes, the way some published campaigns are written, especially Forgotten Realms, crazy high level NPCs are common as dirt.

But 20 Int doesn't mean you're a god-like strategist. It means you've got 25% better recall and deductive reasoning than normal people. You can figure out very hard mental problems, or recall very hard information to recall, with time, when other can only do Hard stuff. That's the mechanical abilities it gives. Giving it massive strategic advantages on top of that is your personal choice, not embedded in the game.

And it's definitely not embedded in the real world meaning of intelligence, or examples of intelligent characters. Fantastic strategists & leaders in the real world were probably smart, but usually they were heavily educated in tactics and experienced in battle. But they were first and foremost charismatic.

[mgshamster]

And it's definitely not embedded in the real world meaning of intelligence, or examples of intelligent characters. Fantastic strategists & leaders in the real world were probably smart, but usually they were heavily educated in tactics and experienced in battle. But they were first and foremost charismatic.

In other words, they have proficiency in tactics. :)

[Coffee_Dragon]

I'm pretty sure it's a bad idea in general to try to reverse-engineer how the world works from abstract mechanics that exist to facilitate tactical play. Nothing that isn't part of the small bubble of the world currently being simulated by the PC-centred mechanical abstraction should be held to the strictures of that abstraction. That just gets you a kind of OotS no-fourth-wall play-the-system world which is usually not what people are aiming for in role-playing.

Why don't casters rule the world? Who knows, but the rules won't tell us why or why not. Nobody in the world is a level X caster with exactly Y capabilities unless they're a PC or the PCs just walked into a room with the intention of bopping them on the head.

[Vogonjeltz]

Casters aren't monolithic, and they definitely do not all have access to the same spell options and as such are not even capable of excelling at the same situations as each other, nor do they all have the same weaknesses.

One simply can not make a blanket argument about "casters" and have it be accurate, pick a class to discuss.

[Tanarii]

I'm pretty sure it's a bad idea in general to try to reverse-engineer how the world works from abstract mechanics that exist to facilitate tactical play. Nothing that isn't part of the small bubble of the world currently being simulated by the PC-centred mechanical abstraction should be held to the strictures of that abstraction. That just gets you a kind of OotS no-fourth-wall play-the-system world which is usually not what people are aiming for in role-playing.

Why don't casters rule the world? Who knows, but the rules won't tell us why or why not. Nobody in the world is a level X caster with exactly Y capabilities unless they're a PC or the PCs just walked into a room with the intention of bopping them on the head.lol you'd be amazed at how many people can't handle abstraction of the rules. For many people, the rules are the (poorly defined) physics engine of the D&D world. For others, they are a best possible physics model simulating the D&D world.

[mgshamster]

lol you'd be amazed at how many people can't handle abstraction of the rules. For many people, the rules are the (poorly defined) physics engine of the D&D world. For others, they are a best possible physics model simulating the D&D world.

I'm fairly certain that this is what the RAW argument/obsession is all about - trying to force the entire world and the physics of it into the rules, regardless if the rules were designed to be an actual physics engine or if they're just meant to be simple abstraction.

[Skylivedk]

Why wouldn't a fighter nova and then retreat? Why wouldn't anybody? The answer in every case is to ask what the rest of the world is doing while that character is off washing the dog, or whatever. You can stop, retreat, and rest anytime you want, but there's no Pause button.

The fighter can't teleport half way across the world when he's done novaing. Or turn invisible and run, or...

The wizard not only benefits quite a lot from nova'ing, he also has the option of doing so at a very low cost at later levels.




Why are you taking away options from the other classes? If you limit the PCs to what's written on their character sheet, then casters have more options, but why would you do that?

I find it quite weird that you are claiming that I take away options from classes. How am I doing that? (- and how would you know? - I doubt you are one of my players).



You don't have to give them extra abilities, just don't take options away. Every PC, simply by being a PC, has effectively infinitely many options if you don't limit them to what's written on their character sheet.

For example, if the party needs to get into a flying castle the wizard could cast Fly, or the bard could persuade a band of giant eagles to carry them, or the rogue could steal some trained hippogriffs, or the fighter could call in a favor from the captain of the king's royal griffon squadron, or... a gazillion other possibilities. Reward creativity by letting fantastic ideas succeed (not necessarily without some struggle) and you're not going to have a problem with players feeling like they don't have options.

Cool examples! I reward creativity quite a lot, and I love when my players pull shenanigans. I'm not saying other characters CAN'T do anything, I'm just pointing out that they can way less than a wizard/most full casters (sorcerer and warlock being a bit off) - all of the examples shown can also be done by a wizard not using fly.


A large chunk of your position comes down to you giving Int more than its mechanical or real world value.

We can agree to disagree to this one. I've already pointed to the parts in the book that substantiated my claim.



Yes, top level spells are very world bending. This has always been the case.

Yes, spell casting in recent editions comes with far less checks and balances. Different initiative rules, faster/on-your-action casting, harder to interrupt.

Yes, since 3e the way the game rules are written makes leveling faster, making higher level characters far more normal. And the level range being established as up to 20 gives the impression that characters of level 11-14 are still only 'mid' level characters, not crazily powerful world-shaking adventurers. (Unless you read what PHB and DMG actually tell you in the text, as opposed to just looking at class charts and features and feats.)

Yes, the way some published campaigns are written, especially Forgotten Realms, crazy high level NPCs are common as dirt.

The fact that DND has always had a "god-tier" of spellcasters is in no way a legitimate reason to keeping that tier in my opinion. Especially not since they've bend the curve to make it easier to get to that tier in the current edition (and bounded accuracy is more dangerous to martial classes than to casters).



But 20 Int doesn't mean you're a god-like strategist. It means you've got 25% better recall and deductive reasoning than normal people. You can figure out very hard mental problems, or recall very hard information to recall, with time, when other can only do Hard stuff. That's the mechanical abilities it gives. Giving it massive strategic advantages on top of that is your personal choice, not embedded in the game.

And it's definitely not embedded in the real world meaning of intelligence, or examples of intelligent characters. Fantastic strategists & leaders in the real world were probably smart, but usually they were heavily educated in tactics and experienced in battle. But they were first and foremost charismatic.

Proficiency/Expertise in tactics, definitely. Is Strategy INT-based in my opinion? Definitely. Is Tactics INT-based? Most probably. Zhukov wasn't all that charismatic - but he was brilliant in strategy.

Furthermore, we've had this discussion before. It doesn't change much if it is INT or some other mental make-up that leads to high-level scheming. A highly intelligent/proficient schemer would probably take up spell-casting at some point or another ;)

Lastly, it doesn't change the fact that spell-casters get more and more qualitatively different options, whereas non-casters more or less get more of the same.



In other words, they have proficiency in tactics. :)

QFT


I'm pretty sure it's a bad idea in general to try to reverse-engineer how the world works from abstract mechanics that exist to facilitate tactical play. Nothing that isn't part of the small bubble of the world currently being simulated by the PC-centred mechanical abstraction should be held to the strictures of that abstraction. That just gets you a kind of OotS no-fourth-wall play-the-system world which is usually not what people are aiming for in role-playing.

Why don't casters rule the world? Who knows, but the rules won't tell us why or why not. Nobody in the world is a level X caster with exactly Y capabilities unless they're a PC or the PCs just walked into a room with the intention of bopping them on the head.

You have no NPCs in your world? I'm not sure I get this. I'm not counting on the rules to tell me why casters aren't ruling the world. I'm looking for you guys to hear which creative in-world-solutions, you've reached that you liked. I've seen a couple by now (extra-planar interference, lack of high-levels, power balance, certain materials neutralize spell-casting, etc.)

I'm trying to create a world where NPCs don't seem to be playing idiot ball - hence I'm looking for reasons why casters aren't dominating.


Casters aren't monolithic, and they definitely do not all have access to the same spell options and as such are not even capable of excelling at the same situations as each other, nor do they all have the same weaknesses.

One simply can not make a blanket argument about "casters" and have it be accurate, pick a class to discuss.

Your first part of the statement is true: they are not alike. The second part isn't entirely true though: casters (perhaps with the exception of warlocks and to a lesser degree sorcerers) share the characteristic that their abilities keep increasing in both number of uses (number of spells) and in qualitative usage (higher level spells can do very different things). This kind of power curve is not something non-casters have, and the semi-casters also only have it half-way.


lol you'd be amazed at how many people can't handle abstraction of the rules. For many people, the rules are the (poorly defined) physics engine of the D&D world. For others, they are a best possible physics model simulating the D&D world.

Yeah, I've also quelled quite a few attempts at having a physics-based argument in my magic-filled world. The two don't always mix that well ;) I also use skill-checks less often than most, I think - since I do want the rogue to be able to do his acrobatics, line-running, etc. without the swinginess of 5e making him fall on his face all the time.

[Tanarii]

We can agree to disagree to this one. I've already pointed to the parts in the book that substantiated my claim.I don't recall seeing anything that substantiated it, but I'll go back and look over the thread this evening when I've got more time. It's a long thread over many days, and it's easy for me to end up only have the last round of discussion in mind. :smallsmile:




The fact that DND has always had a "god-tier" of spellcasters is in no way a legitimate reason to keeping that tier in my opinion. Especially not since they've bend the curve to make it easier to get to that tier in the current edition (and bounded accuracy is more dangerous to martial classes than to casters).It sounds like we're in agreement on this point. God-tier spells (not spell casters) were intentional. But they came with a lot of limitations that no longer hold true. Some of which didn't hold true in many campaigns even back then. Namely, easy to interrupt spell-casting, and slow leveling / low-level PCs and NPCs.

Usually games and campaigns that ignored one or both of these assumptions had casters as the defacto rulers of large parts of the world. Certainly Forgotten Realms and Mystara count.


A highly intelligent/proficient schemer would probably take up spell-casting at some point or another ;)Hah! Very good point. :)

[JoeJ]

The fighter can't teleport half way across the world when he's done novaing. Or turn invisible and run, or...

So? Anybody can run away. But it still comes down to the same question: what is the rest of the world doing while the PC is off TCB somewhere else?


I find it quite weird that you are claiming that I take away options from classes. How am I doing that? (- and how would you know? - I doubt you are one of my players).

You said they don't have options. How is that possible unless you're taking them away?


Cool examples! I reward creativity quite a lot, and I love when my players pull shenanigans. I'm not saying other characters CAN'T do anything, I'm just pointing out that they can way less than a wizard/most full casters (sorcerer and warlock being a bit off) - all of the examples shown can also be done by a wizard not using fly.

Casters and non-casters have literally the same number of options. Infinity +100, or +1,000, or +1,000,000 still equals infinity.

And some wizard somewhere may be able to use each of those other options, but how is it that the specific wizard in your party is also the best at using thieves' tools, the best animal handler, the best at persuading NPCs to help, and the one with all the useful contacts? This is what I mean by not allowing other PCs to do things.

[Coffee_Dragon]

I'm not counting on the rules to tell me why casters aren't ruling the world. I'm looking for you guys to hear which creative in-world-solutions, you've reached that you liked.

Which implies the premise that they do rule the world in absence of such solutions. Which in turn, from what I've seen in the thread, hinges on the premise that all the goings-on in the world are ruled by the same action economy, spell progression and functionality etc. as the ridiculously abstracted rules framework governing PC abilities and activities. Which is something I really hope is not true for most people's world building.

[Xetheral]

The wizard in the party ought to plan for tailoring his days to maximize his own utility - and this goes double for NPCs. In other words: why would NPCs not choose to nova something once a day and then retreat?


Because while this might be the safest method, it's also highly inefficient. The spellcaster who novas obstacles into smithereens and then takes the rest of the day off bypasses far fewer obstacles per day than the spellcaster who uses merely sufficient force to bypass obstacles. Novaing is a good way to be left in the dust by your more-efficient peers.

Time is a valuable resource for all classes.


lol you'd be amazed at how many people can't handle abstraction of the rules. For many people, the rules are the (poorly defined) physics engine of the D&D world. For others, they are a best possible physics model simulating the D&D world.

Isn't that what you're doing when you try to extrapolate the meaning of a high intelligence from the limited benefit provided by the game mechanics?

[Skylivedk]

So? Anybody can run away. But it still comes down to the same question: what is the rest of the world doing while the PC is off TCB somewhere else?


No. Anybody can't run away. A fighter is limited by the speed of his feet or mount. A wizard can wink out of existence. I hope the difference is obvious.



You said they don't have options. How is that possible unless you're taking them away?

Pardon me: the non-casters have a lot fewer and a lot less impactful options. I'm not taking anything away - my players just don't attempt something suicidal/something with a low probability of success all that often.




Casters and non-casters have literally the same number of options. Infinity +100, or +1,000, or +1,000,000 still equals infinity.
By this path of reasoning one player shouldn't feel bad about playing a commoner while another is a high-level wizard. What are you trying to achieve with this absurd theoretical listing of the number of options?



And some wizard somewhere may be able to use each of those other options, but how is it that the specific wizard in your party is also the best at using thieves' tools, the best animal handler, the best at persuading NPCs to help, and the one with all the useful contacts? This is what I mean by not allowing other PCs to do things.
He doesn't have to have all those proficiencies. Most of the cases you stated could be solved by some sort of spell-induced mind control and/or sneaky spell and/or teleportation.

I don't get what you are trying to achieve. Is it to show me that there's plenty of ways that obstacles can be overcome and problems solved in a table-top RPG? I'm well aware of that.

Is it to point out that in certain situations, certain classes can contribute/bypass what a caster can do? I'm also aware of that.

Is it to prove that the classes are equally efficient and have an equal possibility of impacting the world around them? I'm not seeing it.

I look at what abilities, extra options, the classes get and to me it seems that full-casters get an ever-increasing amount of viable tools, whereas the other classes have a much more limited array of abilities. Do you disagree with my observation? Do you believe that all classes in this game have the same progression in things they can feasibly accomplish on their own?



Which implies the premise that they do rule the world in absence of such solutions. Which in turn, from what I've seen in the thread, hinges on the premise that all the goings-on in the world are ruled by the same action economy, spell progression and functionality etc. as the ridiculously abstracted rules framework governing PC abilities and activities. Which is something I really hope is not true for most people's world building.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean here... Of course I let the world, and the players break out of the framework provided, but equally so - I try to stick to the rules the players play by so it's not completely arbitrary what happens all of the time. I have played purely story-telling based RPGs as well - walk-and-talks. DnD just happens to come with a set of rules/guidelines where I'm currently pointing to what I see as a chasm between casters and non-casters: a chasm that just keeps widening as the game progresses.


Because while this might be the safest method, it's also highly inefficient. The spellcaster who novas obstacles into smithereens and then takes the rest of the day off bypasses far fewer obstacles per day than the spellcaster who uses merely sufficient force to bypass obstacles. Novaing is a good way to be left in the dust by your more-efficient peers.

Time is a valuable resource for all classes.

Exactly because time is valuable, nova is a viable option for the casters. Why would they want to spend several hours and short rests in a highly dangerous area?

The way a wizard/cleric/druid/sorcerer can nova allows him to take down some pretty serious obstacles with proper planning. After (s)he's done so, (s)he can go back to researching spells/communing with deity/nature.

The entire short rest mechanic is not very valuable to them if you look upon them from an in-character perspective. Why go through an entire dungeon when you can scry your way to the good stuff, teleport in, eliminate the few guards there, and teleport out? (perhaps after a quick visit to Leomund's tiny hut).