The Reasons Magic is Overpowered in 3.5E

[bloodtide]

Every week at least, you see a post about this topic. Magic, specific magic spellcasters, are over powered. This always struck me as odd. I like magic and have always run a very, very high magic level game. So I've never seen the 'problem' myself. But I hear about it often and I've watched other peoples games to see what they do. And based on all that, I've noticed a few reasons magic is so powerful.

1.Challenge Ratting, Encounter Levels, and the whole system:I would say that a good half of the DMs out there don't read this section much. While the system itself can be a bit fuzzy, there is a bit of helpful wisdom in the paragraphs. In short it says ''feel free to adjust the level of your game''. In other words, should you have an encounter where a wizard zaps a whole bunch of foes...then the next encounter should be of a bit higher level and challange. A great many DMs stay stuck 'by the book', however. They just sit back with their hands tied(''It's a balanced encounter for their level...it's not my fault the wizard is awesome'').

2.Optimization:Needless to say, the whole encounter/challenge system does not take into account optimization. The Core system is built around the idea of 'average adventures', not optimized super hero adventures. If you compare an 'average' wizard and an 'optimized' wizard, it's not even a contest that the optimized wizard is far, far more powerful. And this leads to the same problem as Number One: the DM does not adjust the rest of the game world for optimized player characters. An optimized character will go through the 'average' monsters in the monster manual like a hot knife through butter. Though the solution is easy, just optimize the monsters.

3.Laid-Back DMingSome Dms just don't have the energy, will or time to do much for the game. They simply use things right out of the book. And against powerful characters, the by-the-book monsters are just fodder. Even simple things, such as giving monsters magic items, templates or even just good feats can really change an encounter. And magic in general is hard to abdicate. It is possible to make a magically secure tower, but knowing all the ins and outs of the rules takes skill, experence and time. And it's not just magic that can counter magic, tons of mundane things can also counter magic. But it does take effort.

4.Passive DMingSome DMs are just not aggressive. In short, they don't go all out to try to kill the characters. I'm sure lots of people will say that ''it's not the DM's job to simply kill the characters''. And that is true, in general.....but it is the DM's job to play the NPCs and monster characters as if they want to kill the characters. This type of DM is very careful, as they don't want to hurt, harm or kill a character. They just want the players to have fun and not be sad or mad at them. So the DM has the monsters pull their punches in encounters and lets the characters beat the monsters easily. The perfect example 1: The group fights a dragon, who simply walks over to the group and attacks with it's claws and bite. The dragon lets it self be surrounded and just sits there and lets the characters pound on it. The dragon uses no tactics, no special attacks, spells, does not move or fly and never even uses it's breath weapon(not even once). After a couple of rounds, the characters kill the dragon.The perfect example 2A beholder attacks the party, and zaps away with it's charm, fear, and cause injury eyes....yet for the whole encounter it 'forgets' to use it's petrification, death and distengerate eyes.


5.The 15 Minuet DayThis is just crazy. The idea that some DMs let the players rest after every 'nova' fight, so that the characters can always be at 100% for nearly every encounter is just crazy. I've seen games where the characters enter a dungeon and get into just three fights and then immediately make camp and rest. And the DM just nods and says 'ok, 8 hours pass, let me know when your ready to go into room number 4'.

6.The loss of Exotic MagicIn classic D&D, all sorts of weird, strange and unknown magic effects happened. The whole game world was full of them. A classic adventure would say things like ''the Doom Portal scrambles all teleportation magic in the temple'' or ''the castle is surrounded by fog that eats magical energy'' or ''the graveyard is under a curse so the souls trapped their interfere with magic''. All of this was exotic magic, and none of it was explained. There was no page anywhere that said ''souls trapped in stone walls make that will immune to transmutation effects'', the DM would just say that it happened. 3x started the whole idea that everything had to be spelled out in the rules. So if a DM said ''the magic lava automatically absorbs all fire type magic'' he had better have a page number ready so the players can read and check and make sure that the lava is rules legal. As 3X does not contain such rules, almost all DMs have simply dropped exotic magic from their games.

7.The Player Centric GameD&D is a very centric game for the players(and player characters). All most everything in the game is goodies for the characters. The rules are full of feats and spells and such. With a couple of minutes, a player can make quite a powerful character. But how much help is there for the DM? Sure the DMG is full of advice, but it's lacking in mechanics. Specifically, it's lacking in mechanics to counter the things a player can do. If you just flip through the PH you will find at least two dozen spells a single wizard can use to take over a world, and yet, there is no counter balance. No where in the rules are there any mechanics or spells or items to prevent this from occurring. The rules just leave the DM high and dry. So an individual DM has to figure out things for himself. And you see thousands of DMs taken advantage of over and over again, when they can't think of something. The Perfect Example 1: rouge type characters are the only ones that can hide/spot concealed weapons. The gate guards are fighter types and have no chance of finding anything. Yet, this makes no sense....why would not a gate guard have some rouge skills, for this very reason? After all, a guard is not a 'fighter', they don't kill stuff all day...they check for dangerous weapons all day. Yet the (core) rules offer you no help here. Perfect Example 2The wizard walks into the back and dominates the banker and asks for all the money. The poor Dm flips through book after book, but there is nothing he can find that will let the poor 2nd level expert banker resist such a powerful spell. So the Dm just shrugs ans says ''Ok you walk out of the bank with all the gold''.

8.The Missing Game WorldThis is where the whole game world is just a sandbox for the characters to play in and have fun. There are no consequences or repercussions. The wizard bank robber from above will always get away clean and free. Nothing in the game will every go against the players. At the extreme, the characters can even kill NPCs and not have it matter(DM-''Ok, you killed tavern owner number 1...ummm, tavern owner number two walks over and asks if you'd like a drink''). This comes up when the players start to do powerful magical effects(''we go to the town of Splat and kill everyone and animate them for my undead army'') or {''we just kill the king and live in his castle and make it our flying castle'').

9.The Ton O' Books D&D 3X has a lot of books and other stuff. In the end there is a huge amount of rules, classes, feats, spells and options. And this can make trouble for a DM that is not ready for them. All of the above problems are exacerbated with all the stuff beyond core. The core rules alone don't have anything to help with the core spellcasters, let alone all the 'new' ones. And this problem goes right to crazy as there are so many poorly worded feats, spells, abilities. And not to mention all the stuff that no sane person can see how putting that into a book was a good idea.

10.The Low Magic World I saved this one for last, as it's the one I have the biggest problem with. To put it simply 3X D&D is not a game designed for a low magic type of game. 3X D&D is a quite high magic type game, with a huge emphasis on magical fantasy. At like 15th, characters should not be fighting orcs in wooden tree forts...they should be fighting rakshasa in a pocket plane of doom. Yet tons and tons of DMs are in love with a low magic world. Maybe they are just big fans of LotR, maybe they are just the laid-back type of DM that thinks magic is too hard, maybe they want a more 'realistic' fantasy game and maybe they just like to see the players struggle to do things the 'hard way' with out magic. The problem that most of these DMs make, is they simply remove magic from the game world, but not the players. So that when the player character is a wizard, there is no magic in the world to oppose them. In the low magic world, the wizard can just walk up to the king and cast charm person on him, and worse. Even low level magic can take over a low magic world. And once the characters get past 10th level, and have normal access to everything, then their magic is all powerful. A lot of DMs are low magic types without even realizing it. They simply think it's 'normal' for there to not be too much magic around. It's not that a low level D&D game can't work, it's that you have to change the whole game....mostly the way spellcasters get spells, plus spell availability and power and such.



Well, that is my list. Anyone of them can imbalance a game, and make magic powerful. But add two or three or more of them together, and magic becomes an awesomely powerful force in the game.

[MeeposFire]

You missed the biggest reason of all

Magic in 3e and to a lesser extent in pre 3e D&D magic allows characters to break the rules of the world or change the world to their whims. Any time when you have characters that can do that and others cannot the classes will never be truly balanced so long as they (magic users) can use the powers given to them to their potential. That is a big misconception for some 4e players. Some think it was giving fighters and the like daily powers but in reality the balance was achieved by removing the ability to truly change the world from spell casters. For some it is a popular change for others it is a most heinous crime (I happen to like it limitless cosmic power gets boring after a while).

Many of your listed problems are no longer problems if this one issue is addressed. Whether you like the result of wizard nerfing is a whole another issue.

[Serenity]

Every week at least, you see a post about this topic. Magic, specific magic spellcasters, are over powered. This always struck me as odd. I like magic and have always run a very, very high magic level game. So I've never seen the 'problem' myself. But I hear about it often and I've watched other peoples games to see what they do. And based on all that, I've noticed a few reasons magic is so powerful.

1.Challenge Ratting, Encounter Levels, and the whole system:I would say that a good half of the DMs out there don't read this section much. While the system itself can be a bit fuzzy, there is a bit of helpful wisdom in the paragraphs. In short it says ''feel free to adjust the level of your game''. In other words, should you have an encounter where a wizard zaps a whole bunch of foes...then the next encounter should be of a bit higher level and challange. A great many DMs stay stuck 'by the book', however. They just sit back with their hands tied(''It's a balanced encounter for their level...it's not my fault the wizard is awesome'').

Oh, sure, the DM can throw higher and higher Challenge Rating monsters at the party in an attempt to account for the caster's power. But this just makes the non-casters less and less able to contribute to those battles.

2.Optimization:Needless to say, the whole encounter/challenge system does not take into account optimization. The Core system is built around the idea of 'average adventures', not optimized super hero adventures. If you compare an 'average' wizard and an 'optimized' wizard, it's not even a contest that the optimized wizard is far, far more powerful. And this leads to the same problem as Number One: the DM does not adjust the rest of the game world for optimized player characters. An optimized character will go through the 'average' monsters in the monster manual like a hot knife through butter. Though the solution is easy, just optimize the monsters.

To be more specific, Core was tested on the presumption that Clerics healed and Wizards blasted, so the 'average' caster they had in mind scarcely begins to encompass the potential power of such characters. Or so the story goes, anyway.

4.Passive DMingSome DMs are just not aggressive. In short, they don't go all out to try to kill the characters. I'm sure lots of people will say that ''it's not the DM's job to simply kill the characters''. And that is true, in general.....but it is the DM's job to play the NPCs and monster characters as if they want to kill the characters. This type of DM is very careful, as they don't want to hurt, harm or kill a character. They just want the players to have fun and not be sad or mad at them. So the DM has the monsters pull their punches in encounters and lets the characters beat the monsters easily. The perfect example 1: The group fights a dragon, who simply walks over to the group and attacks with it's claws and bite. The dragon lets it self be surrounded and just sits there and lets the characters pound on it. The dragon uses no tactics, no special attacks, spells, does not move or fly and never even uses it's breath weapon(not even once). After a couple of rounds, the characters kill the dragon.The perfect example 2A beholder attacks the party, and zaps away with it's charm, fear, and cause injury eyes....yet for the whole encounter it 'forgets' to use it's petrification, death and distengerate eyes.

Keep in mind, this cuts both ways; playing monsters to their full intelligence and capability tends to underline the problems of the fighter types--the fighter is supposed to keep people from landing hits on the wizard, but there is no reason for most monsters to bother engaging the fighter.

5.The 15 Minuet DayThis is just crazy. The idea that some DMs let the players rest after every 'nova' fight, so that the characters can always be at 100% for nearly every encounter is just crazy. I've seen games where the characters enter a dungeon and get into just three fights and then immediately make camp and rest. And the DM just nods and says 'ok, 8 hours pass, let me know when your ready to go into room number 4'.

Crazy? Certainly, you'll get no argument from me there. But the players have a strong system incentive to it thanks to most abilities, melee and magic alike, being available limited times per day. And unless the DM puts the party under time constraints, it's hard to stop. A single spell, Rope Trick, allows a party to rest with near-impunity more or less anywhere.

[Doc Roc]

Some day I will get to play Commodore Guff.
His day is 40 hours long, or so.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

I understand that the 15 minute work day is crazy, but you have to remember that combats and traps take barely any time at all in character. In my campaign, my party is under significant time constraints, so we dungeon crawl so hard that my wizard gets enough XP to level between every single rest* - thank goodness for Fiery Burst and healing belts - but all of the fighting, trap avoiding and decision making takes less than two hours every time. We're literally going through double digit number of encounters between rests, and still most of those two hours are spent walking, planning, searching and analyzing.

*My DM lets me get the basic HD bumps and spell slots, but the automatic spells come later... Yay metamagic?

[Gnoman]

6.The loss of Exotic MagicIn classic D&D, all sorts of weird, strange and unknown magic effects happened. The whole game world was full of them. A classic adventure would say things like ''the Doom Portal scrambles all teleportation magic in the temple'' or ''the castle is surrounded by fog that eats magical energy'' or ''the graveyard is under a curse so the souls trapped their interfere with magic''. All of this was exotic magic, and none of it was explained. There was no page anywhere that said ''souls trapped in stone walls make that will immune to transmutation effects'', the DM would just say that it happened. 3x started the whole idea that everything had to be spelled out in the rules. So if a DM said ''the magic lava automatically absorbs all fire type magic'' he had better have a page number ready so the players can read and check and make sure that the lava is rules legal. As 3X does not contain such rules, almost all DMs have simply dropped exotic magic from their games.


8.The Missing Game WorldThis is where the whole game world is just a sandbox for the characters to play in and have fun. There are no consequences or repercussions. The wizard bank robber from above will always get away clean and free. Nothing in the game will every go against the players. At the extreme, the characters can even kill NPCs and not have it matter(DM-''Ok, you killed tavern owner number 1...ummm, tavern owner number two walks over and asks if you'd like a drink''). This comes up when the players start to do powerful magical effects(''we go to the town of Splat and kill everyone and animate them for my undead army'') or {''we just kill the king and live in his castle and make it our flying castle'').

Both of these are specifically discouraged in the ruleset. Rule 0 is an actual rule of the game, and teh DM is free to declare that "this stone over here cannot be worked by magic because it is inhabited by the souls of the dead" without any printed rules giving him the ability to do so. It is reasonable, however, to expect this to be internally consistent. If casting a necromantic spell in a particular graveyard at midnight on the winter solstice makes the spell more powerful, then either this should be true for all graveyards, or the DM should be able to come up with a reason that graveyard is special. No different from any older version of the game. Now, it may be true that this sort of thing is used less nowadays, BUT it is unlikely to be for the reason that "3.x players won't tolerate anything that isn't RAW."

The latter is even more pointedly condemmned in the DMG, which suggests numerous ways to thwart overconfident PCs.

[jseah]

I have a different theory actually.
While, most of the points I agree with, particularly 10, 8 and 4; I would disagree about the exotic magic.

My explanation for magic in 3.5 being overpowered is precisely because magic is exotic. The player's magic is exotic.

Sure there are rules for it. But how does it work? No reason, it's magic, it just happens.
That's exotic magic right there.

Let me quote a very interesting observation on writing fantasy I read elsewhere:

Sanderson's First Law of Magics: An author's ability to solve conflict with magic is DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL to how well the reader understands said magic.

Essentially, if you do not understand how magic works, it will remain a black box that does things.
Gandalf was a wizard, but you don't see him using magic to solve problems.

You CAN model gandalf as a level 10 D&D wizard nearly perfectly as long as he doesn't use his spells.
Why? Because if a level 10 D&D wizard used his spells, it would look like a bad story. Mr OP wizard solves everything with magic!

Hmm, that is exactly what happens in D&D. Mr OP wizard solves everything with magic!

That is because magic is never explained, thus cannot be limited via the "magical lava absorbs fire magic" route without appearing to be complete fiat.


A question that pops up later if you continue down this line of thinking is that magic is able to do things that require an incredible amount of information. But that gets a bit too nerdy to be useful.

[umbrapolaris]

to put it simply 3X D&D is not a game designed for a low magic type of game. 3X D&D is a quite high magic type game, with a huge emphasis on magical fantasy. At like 15th, characters should not be fighting orcs in wooden tree forts...they should be fighting rakshasa in a pocket plane of doom.

at last someone who share my POV, i agree with all the OP post. specially this one.

[faceroll]

Oh, sure, the DM can throw higher and higher Challenge Rating monsters at the party in an attempt to account for the caster's power. But this just makes the non-casters less and less able to contribute to those battles.

Not entirely true. In combat, a caster's power often comes in the form of action advantage, especially control. If you simply put too many things in combat to debuff or control, then the wizard will only be able to disable a handful of them, making the other party members necessary for dealing with the hill giants that weren't webbed or grappled.

[caden_varn]

Bloodtide, the arguments you put forward are for a caster vs gameworld imbalance. The issue with casters is actually caster vs the other PCs imbalance.
A lot of this is due to the ever-expanding tolbox of options a caster will pick up at higher levels.

Caster vs world inbalance can be overcome by changing the world, completely within the DMs grasp, I agree. However, doing so will generally just highlight the caster vs other PC issue even more. When the caster can consistently eclipse or usurp the role of the non-caster characters, if he chooses, you have a problem. A well-designed and played caster can get that capability at higher levels.

As you say, you can do some things to limit the caster, like blocking certain types of spell in certain areas, but you have to actively manage this, and as casters toolbox gets bigger this gets more difficult (depending on the skill of the player and of the DM). But the reason you have to do this is because the caster is innately more powerful than the fighter, for example. You rarely or never need to worry about setting up an adventure to limit the fighters ability in order to provide a decent challenge to the party.

[Mastikator]

8.The Missing Game WorldThis is where the whole game world is just a sandbox for the characters to play in and have fun. There are no consequences or repercussions. The wizard bank robber from above will always get away clean and free. Nothing in the game will every go against the players. At the extreme, the characters can even kill NPCs and not have it matter(DM-''Ok, you killed tavern owner number 1...ummm, tavern owner number two walks over and asks if you'd like a drink''). This comes up when the players start to do powerful magical effects(''we go to the town of Splat and kill everyone and animate them for my undead army'') or {''we just kill the king and live in his castle and make it our flying castle'').

If this is how people play sandbox then they're doing it wrong. If this is sandbox then I hate sandbox.

[dsmiles]

I don't grasp the whole 15 minute workday thing. Never have, probably never will. My players insist on conservation of resources so that their characters can adventure longer. Sometimes going for more then 24 in-game hours at a time. (Of course, if people are using a 15 minute work day, time-sensitive plots can solve that. ) EDIT: I, as a player, have gone long past the point of usefulness as an arcane caster many times. So what if I run out of higher-level spells, I can still do other stuff.

As far as passive DMing, I'm a little bit guilty of that. I try my best not to kill characters unless it'll add something exciting to the story. I'm more of a storyteller DM now than the ruthless, cold-hearted DM, whose only job was to kill the characters that I used to be. See, I play monsters to their full intelligence, using intelligent tactics to try to kill the characters, but I'll also fudge rolls every once in a while to keep the story going. Nobody would want to read a story where the main characters get killed off every other chapter, but a dramatic, important, well-timed death that advances the story, that's another thing entirely. So, no, Orc Mook #12 will probably never get the chance to kill a character, but that Ancient Wyrm Red Dragon probably will.

[The Glyphstone]

If this is how people play sandbox then they're doing it wrong. If this is sandbox then I hate sandbox.

That's more like a sandbox when you dump it upside down to get rid of all the sand and replace it with pudding.

[dsmiles]

That's more like a sandbox when you dump it upside down to get rid of all the sand and replace it with pudding.

Actually, I thought it was the sandbox that all the feral cats in the neighborhood used.

[Lans]

Playing any archtype wizard outside of blaster and oracle is going to bend or break the game.
Necromancer- Save or dies, debuffs from hell, undead army
Enchanter- You have a ton of *friends* to help you
Body Transmuter-Hulk Smash
Battle field transmuter- Solid fogs etc
Summoner- Evards, summon monster, gate, planar binding
Illusionist- Shadow spells, save or dies, invisibility,

[The Glyphstone]

A buff-transmuter can also make your party love you and your DM hate you. Sure, the Wizard benefits relatively more from being Polymorphed into a hydra than the fighter, but the Fighter does benefit objectively more by having a higher native BAB before equivalent buffs are added. And while you're at it, Polymorph the Rogue too, because getting 5-12 sneak attacks per turn when flanking with your hydra buddy is gravy. Oh, and the party can all fly, and they're invisible. You're a ridiculous force multiplier if you play your spell slots and metamagics right.

[SITB]

Someone in this forum mentioned it before in another thread. One of the major problems with D&D magic is archtypes. Rogues are the Gray Mouser, Barbarians are Conan, Monks are all those wuxia heroes. Wizards, by contrast, try to cram ALL the archtypes of magical prowess in one class; Merlin AND Gandalf AND Baba Yaga AND...

That's why Wizards are so verstaile, they try to do anything at once.

[dsmiles]

Someone in this forum mentioned it before in another thread. One of the major problems with D&D magic is archtypes. Rogues are the Gray Mouser, Barbarians are Conan, Monks are all those wuxia heroes. Wizards, by contrast, try to cram ALL the archtypes of magical prowess in one class; Merlin AND Gandalf AND Baba Yaga AND...

That's why Wizards are so verstaile, they try to do anything at once.

Huh. I guess I'm different. My rogues are Gord, my barbarians are Guts, and I don't generally use wizards (I prefer sorcerers who are snarky and more like a cross between Sheelba and Ningabaule).

[Thorcrest]

Well, A lot of these have been addressed already, but I will make a go at them as well, I will note that some are repetitive as they have been mentioned by others.

Every week at least, you see a post about this topic. Magic, specific magic spellcasters, are over powered. This always struck me as odd. I like magic and have always run a very, very high magic level game. So I've never seen the 'problem' myself. But I hear about it often and I've watched other peoples games to see what they do. And based on all that, I've noticed a few reasons magic is so powerful.

1.Challenge Ratting, Encounter Levels, and the whole system:I would say that a good half of the DMs out there don't read this section much. While the system itself can be a bit fuzzy, there is a bit of helpful wisdom in the paragraphs. In short it says ''feel free to adjust the level of your game''. In other words, should you have an encounter where a wizard zaps a whole bunch of foes...then the next encounter should be of a bit higher level and challange. A great many DMs stay stuck 'by the book', however. They just sit back with their hands tied(''It's a balanced encounter for their level...it's not my fault the wizard is awesome'').

This first point has very little to do with OMG MAGIC!!! It has more to do with a bad DM style. Personally, I find the Challenge Ratings and Encounter Levels to be far from close to truth. A GOOD DM, emphasis on GOOD, will be able to effectively measure his party's strengths and weaknesses to create challenges that are both fun and challenging. These can be creatures that he actually creates himself, or that he takes from a book, but they should be a good challenge, with normal encounters being fairly rough, but not usually life-threatening, sometimes players are just dumb, but I digress, and Bosses should be just on the edge of TPK, it's meant to be a hard fight and if you blow through it with ease, it wasn't worth it.

2.Optimization:Needless to say, the whole encounter/challenge system does not take into account optimization. The Core system is built around the idea of 'average adventures', not optimized super hero adventures. If you compare an 'average' wizard and an 'optimized' wizard, it's not even a contest that the optimized wizard is far, far more powerful. And this leads to the same problem as Number One: the DM does not adjust the rest of the game world for optimized player characters. An optimized character will go through the 'average' monsters in the monster manual like a hot knife through butter. Though the solution is easy, just optimize the monsters.

See my point for Number 1.

3.Laid-Back DMingSome Dms just don't have the energy, will or time to do much for the game. They simply use things right out of the book. And against powerful characters, the by-the-book monsters are just fodder. Even simple things, such as giving monsters magic items, templates or even just good feats can really change an encounter. And magic in general is hard to abdicate. It is possible to make a magically secure tower, but knowing all the ins and outs of the rules takes skill, experence and time. And it's not just magic that can counter magic, tons of mundane things can also counter magic. But it does take effort.

See my point for Number 1. In addition, if a DM does not have time or energy to game, I must ask: Why are THEY the DM.

4.Passive DMingSome DMs are just not aggressive. In short, they don't go all out to try to kill the characters. I'm sure lots of people will say that ''it's not the DM's job to simply kill the characters''. And that is true, in general.....but it is the DM's job to play the NPCs and monster characters as if they want to kill the characters. This type of DM is very careful, as they don't want to hurt, harm or kill a character. They just want the players to have fun and not be sad or mad at them. So the DM has the monsters pull their punches in encounters and lets the characters beat the monsters easily. The perfect example 1: The group fights a dragon, who simply walks over to the group and attacks with it's claws and bite. The dragon lets it self be surrounded and just sits there and lets the characters pound on it. The dragon uses no tactics, no special attacks, spells, does not move or fly and never even uses it's breath weapon(not even once). After a couple of rounds, the characters kill the dragon.The perfect example 2A beholder attacks the party, and zaps away with it's charm, fear, and cause injury eyes....yet for the whole encounter it 'forgets' to use it's petrification, death and distengerate eyes.

This depends mostly on the groups playstyle; it might fall under Number 1, but it could be that the players just DON'T want a challenge, which is silly, but some players just like to feel all powerful... like they do when they play HALO . Now your examples, the first is just BAD! No word other than BAD! It is so BAD that it makes me sick that people actually do this! The only reason for this is if you are teaching new players how combat works and you are using this as an example, i.e. so now it's the dragon's turn, he attacks, then it's your turn little Timmy, etc. It is still BAD though. The Second one can be attributed to three things:
1: Laid Back No-Risk Easy Play Style
2: Bad DMing
3: Beholder has a motive for not wanting to kill his captives, maybe it's Master wants to interrogate them? Good DMs should have a reason they haven't been using their best abilities.

5.The 15 Minuet DayThis is just crazy. The idea that some DMs let the players rest after every 'nova' fight, so that the characters can always be at 100% for nearly every encounter is just crazy. I've seen games where the characters enter a dungeon and get into just three fights and then immediately make camp and rest. And the DM just nods and says 'ok, 8 hours pass, let me know when your ready to go into room number 4'.

Wait a Minute! What? DM's let players just rest? Freely? In the Dungeon? I've allowed players to take rests whenever they want, even after every encounter, but they damn well better have some defenses, a watch set, etc. Or else: I'm sorry Player 1, you don't wake up, the rest of you wake up to a beast ripping your friend apart!

You could also have time sensitive dungeons, and it's not like monsters won't wander around in the dungeon and make it harder for the players either!

6.The loss of Exotic MagicIn classic D&D, all sorts of weird, strange and unknown magic effects happened. The whole game world was full of them. A classic adventure would say things like ''the Doom Portal scrambles all teleportation magic in the temple'' or ''the castle is surrounded by fog that eats magical energy'' or ''the graveyard is under a curse so the souls trapped their interfere with magic''. All of this was exotic magic, and none of it was explained. There was no page anywhere that said ''souls trapped in stone walls make that will immune to transmutation effects'', the DM would just say that it happened. 3x started the whole idea that everything had to be spelled out in the rules. So if a DM said ''the magic lava automatically absorbs all fire type magic'' he had better have a page number ready so the players can read and check and make sure that the lava is rules legal. As 3X does not contain such rules, almost all DMs have simply dropped exotic magic from their games.

This is just bad DMing again! Why is all of this Bad Dming? Here, a DM can do whatever he wants! If they ask for the page and book, point them to the DMG where it says that he can do what he wants! He can change rules, arbitrate rulings, create his own spells (hell, players can do that! (with DM approval) But you won't find those in books!), create the entire game world... he can do ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING!

7.The Player Centric GameD&D is a very centric game for the players(and player characters). All most everything in the game is goodies for the characters. The rules are full of feats and spells and such. With a couple of minutes, a player can make quite a powerful character. But how much help is there for the DM? Sure the DMG is full of advice, but it's lacking in mechanics. Specifically, it's lacking in mechanics to counter the things a player can do. If you just flip through the PH you will find at least two dozen spells a single wizard can use to take over a world, and yet, there is no counter balance. No where in the rules are there any mechanics or spells or items to prevent this from occurring. The rules just leave the DM high and dry. So an individual DM has to figure out things for himself. And you see thousands of DMs taken advantage of over and over again, when they can't think of something. The Perfect Example 1: rouge type characters are the only ones that can hide/spot concealed weapons. The gate guards are fighter types and have no chance of finding anything. Yet, this makes no sense....why would not a gate guard have some rouge skills, for this very reason? After all, a guard is not a 'fighter', they don't kill stuff all day...they check for dangerous weapons all day. Yet the (core) rules offer you no help here. Perfect Example 2The wizard walks into the back and dominates the banker and asks for all the money. The poor Dm flips through book after book, but there is nothing he can find that will let the poor 2nd level expert banker resist such a powerful spell. So the Dm just shrugs ans says ''Ok you walk out of the bank with all the gold''.

Ok, the players are essentially the Main Characters in a Story, but everyone else is also a character! They have all the same abilities that a player does, potentially, and then some as the DM can just create his own abilities, feats, and classes, etc. whereas the players must seek DM approval to do the same. Example 1: Why are they all FIGHTERS? I even LIKE the fighter class, but I would never have my entire guard contingent consist of Carbon copies of eachother, throw in some Wizards, or some Rogues, or anything! HELL, make your own GUARD class with skills such as Spot and Listen, and give them full bad with 4xint modifier for skills per day. Guards are now "fighters" with more skills, less feats, and spot and listen or whatever you want, the DM can do anything! Example 2: Oh how I weep for the players with such Poor DMs! It doesn't make sense that the banker can resist it, so he doesn't, but do you really think nothing will come of this? Someone will notice, and soon enough everyone in that town, possibly the country, will be after the damn bastard that stole everyone's money! He will be wanted throughout the land! Also, carrying so much money can attract unwanted attention from any number of sources, pick pocets, politicians, roughians, gangs, guards, greedy shop keepers, etc.

8.The Missing Game WorldThis is where the whole game world is just a sandbox for the characters to play in and have fun. There are no consequences or repercussions. The wizard bank robber from above will always get away clean and free. Nothing in the game will every go against the players. At the extreme, the characters can even kill NPCs and not have it matter(DM-''Ok, you killed tavern owner number 1...ummm, tavern owner number two walks over and asks if you'd like a drink''). This comes up when the players start to do powerful magical effects(''we go to the town of Splat and kill everyone and animate them for my undead army'') or {''we just kill the king and live in his castle and make it our flying castle'').

What the... how the... what... why... who... I... BAD! BAD DM! BAD! What kind of game is this!

DM speech before Game: Alright everyone you are the most powerful people in the world, no consequences from anything you do since there is no form of communication in this world and everything is weaker than you, enjoy!

BAD! BAD DM! BAD!

9.The Ton O' Books D&D 3X has a lot of books and other stuff. In the end there is a huge amount of rules, classes, feats, spells and options. And this can make trouble for a DM that is not ready for them. All of the above problems are exacerbated with all the stuff beyond core. The core rules alone don't have anything to help with the core spellcasters, let alone all the 'new' ones. And this problem goes right to crazy as there are so many poorly worded feats, spells, abilities. And not to mention all the stuff that no sane person can see how putting that into a book was a good idea.

This can be a genuine concern, but it is not a REASON MAGIC IS OVERPOWERED; This is a problem encountered whenever players have more game knowledge than the DM. This can easily be managed however by simply having the Players clear anything they want to use by him first, simply have him read it and give it a yay/nay and then move on, also ensure that the player follows the DMs interpretation of any ambiguities right from the beginning.

10.The Low Magic World I saved this one for last, as it's the one I have the biggest problem with. To put it simply 3X D&D is not a game designed for a low magic type of game. 3X D&D is a quite high magic type game, with a huge emphasis on magical fantasy. At like 15th, characters should not be fighting orcs in wooden tree forts...they should be fighting rakshasa in a pocket plane of doom. Yet tons and tons of DMs are in love with a low magic world. Maybe they are just big fans of LotR, maybe they are just the laid-back type of DM that thinks magic is too hard, maybe they want a more 'realistic' fantasy game and maybe they just like to see the players struggle to do things the 'hard way' with out magic. The problem that most of these DMs make, is they simply remove magic from the game world, but not the players. So that when the player character is a wizard, there is no magic in the world to oppose them. In the low magic world, the wizard can just walk up to the king and cast charm person on him, and worse. Even low level magic can take over a low magic world. And once the characters get past 10th level, and have normal access to everything, then their magic is all powerful. A lot of DMs are low magic types without even realizing it. They simply think it's 'normal' for there to not be too much magic around. It's not that a low level D&D game can't work, it's that you have to change the whole game....mostly the way spellcasters get spells, plus spell availability and power and such.

This also comes down to the DM. If a DM wants to play "low magic" using DnD rules, he HAS to limit both the availability of magic items and spellcaster magic. This includes spells the players can obtain... maybe rid wizards of the "free spells" rules, but that would be just a start. Many spells would have to be removed from paly, creatures removed, the CR/EL system abandonned, not that that is a bad thing, and many other changes to make this work. Low Magic can be done in DnD, but the biggest thing is that the DM has to be willing to just say NO to his players in most things related to magic. You are correct though in saying that it is not how 3.5 was meant to be played.

Well, that is my list. Anyone of them can imbalance a game, and make magic powerful. But add two or three or more of them together, and magic becomes an awesomely powerful force in the game.

As I have shown, the vast majority of what you say is not that magic is overpowered, which in my opinion it is, but for different reasons that I don't feel like outlining as this is long enough already, but that you have played and observed games where the DMs did not properly play the opponents, and when that happens I can make a Fighter seem like a God!

[Aspenor]

I have an issue with your statements about exotic magic.

I have never had a situation where I made up something like that where the players asked for a rules quote from a book. Never. Not once. If I say something works some way, they accept that it just works that way and that's it. No explanation required.

If I had a group of players that insisted that I could only use material that's been published, I'd tell them to bugger off and go find another DM.

I don't think that insisting for rules quotes is as common as you make it out to be. Even my group, full of optimizers and power gamers, isn't like that.

[The Glyphstone]

Someone in this forum mentioned it before in another thread. One of the major problems with D&D magic is archtypes. Rogues are the Gray Mouser, Barbarians are Conan, Monks are all those wuxia heroes. Wizards, by contrast, try to cram ALL the archtypes of magical prowess in one class; Merlin AND Gandalf AND Baba Yaga AND...

That's why Wizards are so verstaile, they try to do anything at once.

Interestingly, that's also why Monks are so scatterbrained and thus weak - they try to cram all the sub-archtypes of 'wuxia hero' into one class. Because Wizards get to pick and choose which archtype they emulate every day, they manage to pull it off.

[Pechvarry]

Essentially, if you do not understand how magic works, it will remain a black box that does things.
Gandalf was a wizard, but you don't see him using magic to solve problems.

You CAN model gandalf as a level 10 D&D wizard nearly perfectly as long as he doesn't use his spells.
Why? Because if a level 10 D&D wizard used his spells, it would look like a bad story. Mr OP wizard solves everything with magic!

Hmm, that is exactly what happens in D&D. Mr OP wizard solves everything with magic!

That is because magic is never explained, thus cannot be limited via the "magical lava absorbs fire magic" route without appearing to be complete fiat.

<3 Brandon Sanderson.

This problem of magic solving encounters also occurs in a lot of superhero comics, where superman shows off yet another power he's apparently had all along. This sort of thing is why comic books, and to a lesser extent a lot of poor fantasy, have such a hard time being taken seriously from a literary perspective. It's no wonder I hate PCs to do it.

[shadow_archmagi]

FIFTEEN MINUETS IN ONE DAY?

Your players must have extremely muscular ankles!


Joke on bad spelling aside, running an extremely high power game for a group of wizards is fine. The problem arises when there are nonwizards who simply can't compete.

As for "Exotic magic," well, that always feels like a direct nerf to the player. To a player, few things say "Bad DMing" like "Suddenly half your abilities may or may not work at my discretion. hint: I'm going to always choose no."

As for your comment on DMs who are too sissified to make any real attempt at murdering players, the problem STILL arises that when laser comes to forcefield, barbarians don't actually have lasers or forcefields.

[The Big Dice]

See my point for Number 1. In addition, if a DM does not have time or energy to game, I must ask: Why are THEY the DM.

Here's a fact. People have lives away from the gaming table. There are people who like to GM, but don't have time to write adventures and customise every aspect of the gaming experience. This isn't a crime and it's why there are things like pre written modules, as well as people who share their adventure ideas over the internet.

Sometimes everyone wants to play, but nobody really wants to GM. It happens.

But to get back on topic, what I've found in play is, casters might be theoretically powerful. But that doesn't always translate into actual power at the gaming table. For every anecdote of Ultimate Wizardly Power, there are several of wizards and sorcerors failing saves, of people preparing exactly the spells they didn't need and of NPCs making saves.

[tcrudisi]

The #1 reason why magic is overpowered in 3.5 is...

a wizard did it.

[bloodtide]

I have an issue with your statements about exotic magic.

I have never had a situation where I made up something like that where the players asked for a rules quote from a book. Never. Not once. If I say something works some way, they accept that it just works that way and that's it. No explanation required.

If I had a group of players that insisted that I could only use material that's been published, I'd tell them to bugger off and go find another DM.

I don't think that insisting for rules quotes is as common as you make it out to be. Even my group, full of optimizers and power gamers, isn't like that.

I mention it, as I do see it all the time. No with my home group, but with a lot of other groups I've seen. Plus it's very common in Cold Groups(where random people sit down with a random DM to play the game).


A Typical Example: DM: ''As you enter the cave a blue wave of magical light flows over you....''
Player 1: "What? I roll my skill check! I got a 40! I demand to know what kind of magic that was and what effect it had!"
DM: "The magic light enhances the connection of illusions with reality and in effect negates the spell true seeing...."
Player 1 "What? WHAT? You can't do that! There is not spell or effect in the rules that can do that! True seeing is sacrosanct! We demand that you only use the official core rules of D&D or we will not play!"
DM: .........


This often is seen with new DMs or one that have less experience. Or simply DMs who won't stand up to the players.

Most classic adventures are full of such exotic magic. As soon as you enter the adventure location, something like a curse effects all the characters. It is something that 3X has lost. Most modern adventures take place in just bland locations.

[Jornophelanthas]

I must agree with Thorcrest above, who has exhaustively shown that this argument is basically the same thing said over and over again.

I am reminded of this thread (by the same OP):
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=184294

Both posts apparently serve to denounce a certain style of DM-ing, which is presented in such an exaggerated way that it is basically a "straw man argument".
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man)

[Pechvarry]

Most classic adventures are full of such exotic magic. As soon as you enter the adventure location, something like a curse effects all the characters. It is something that 3X has lost. Most modern adventures take place in just bland locations.

That doesn't necessarily make it good storytelling. From a plot perspective, unexplained phenomena that directly affect the protagonists is... pretty bad.

[Toliudar]

Actually, I find that I find a lot more of "because I say so" from DM's who use it as a stopgap when players come up with something interesting that the DM isn't ready for. Of course, there are going to be effects that fall outside of pre-existing spells. Being able to articulate how effect of those changes for those characters who have committed resources to being able to analyze them (and a spellcraft check of 40 would indicate that). When I'm playing a caster, someone who has dedicated myself to understanding the way magic works, I'd at least like to have a chance of understanding why things are the way they are. Putting the counter-argument in the words of someone clearly behaving like an ass, as you do in your example, does not strengthen the argument itself.

However, I agree with most of the posters here: most of your list have less to do with a spellcasting/nonspellcasting balance than with badly behaved players and DM's. The 15-minute day may be an exception to that, but unless you're involved in a story with a strongly time-sensitive plot for the majority of the adventure.

[dsmiles]

I mention it, as I do see it all the time. No with my home group, but with a lot of other groups I've seen. Plus it's very common in Cold Groups(where random people sit down with a random DM to play the game).


A Typical Example: DM: ''As you enter the cave a blue wave of magical light flows over you....''
Player 1: "What? I roll my skill check! I got a 40! I demand to know what kind of magic that was and what effect it had!"
DM: "The magic light enhances the connection of illusions with reality and in effect negates the spell true seeing...."
Player 1 "What? WHAT? You can't do that! There is not spell or effect in the rules that can do that! True seeing is sacrosanct! We demand that you only use the official core rules of D&D or we will not play!"
DM: .........


This often is seen with new DMs or one that have less experience. Or simply DMs who won't stand up to the players.

Most classic adventures are full of such exotic magic. As soon as you enter the adventure location, something like a curse effects all the characters. It is something that 3X has lost. Most modern adventures take place in just bland locations.

I must have extraordinarily good luck, then. I've never once had a player say that the only things I can use are what's in The Book. (All hail The Book!) Those people would be promptly shut down by the people I game with, because the people I game with understand that the book isn't really The Book at all, it's just a bunch of guidelines. (But still, I've never seen/played in/DMed and adventure where the location was 'cursed' or whatever, and I've been playing for *COUGH!*27*COUGH!* years (and played 1e ToH, ToEE, most of the Gygaxian adventures, plus plenty of home-written ones). IMO, a DM should never throw anything at the players that they can't counter. There should be no unbeatable traps, or magic that they can't dispatch. Sure, they may not be able to do it right now, but given time and research/effort they should be able to overcome any obstacle (except encounters, but they can always run from those; running is a perfectly viable solution).