Pathfinder--why the gap between casters and mundanes?

[Raineh Daze]

Show me a mortal in the adventures of Hercules that can craft magic weapons.

Show me that divine = +1.

Also explain to me why 'cannot be harmed by mortal weapons at all and impervious to the elements' equals... DR 10 in the first place. With that parentage. And a shapeshifting (lion to human woman to back again) lion of completely normal size, with that sort of skin, does not equate to 'dire lion' to me.

... and we're also talking about the guy that redirected a river strangling it to death, so that's not exactly low damage.

It's also explicitly the weakest of the challenges he faced. Fun.

Gandalf beat the Balrog.

Elves with swords beat Balrogs. Gandalf, probably using that sword he keeps using more than he remembers to use magic, beat a Balrog. I'm not entirely sure why this equals 'omnipotent magic user'. Especially given that it took days and it was a mutual kill, he just got brought back.

Also, magic in Shakespeare's plays? What. That is not the same genre, at all. @_@

[Merellis]

Wasn't Gandalf a spirit in service to the Valar since the First Age. The same sort of spirit that Sauron and Saruman were? The same sort of spirit that became the Balrogs when they were corrupted?

Forgive me if I'm a bit off, been forever since I had to thing about this.

Because, if he were, wouldn't that make him more than a mere mortal right from the damn starting line?

[Raineh Daze]

Wasn't Gandalf a spirit in service to the Valar since the First Age. The same sort of spirit that Sauron and Saruman were? The same sort of spirit that became the Balrogs when they were corrupted?

Forgive me if I'm a bit off, been forever since I had to thing about this.

Because, if he were, wouldn't that make him more than a mere mortal right from the damn starting line?

Yeah, they're all basically angels.

I can see why fiction might lead to uberwizards... but the fact that no consideration was taken to temper that, since they're not all so crazily powerful, is a bit depressing.

And the Nemean Lion is definitely not 'just' a dire lion, any more than the hydra with, a level of killableness (and more effectiveness) than the Tarrasque, is the same thing as in the MM.

[Flickerdart]

Show me that divine = +1.

Irrelevant. If the lion cannot be injured by mortal swords, and no mortal swords are magic, then the lion can have DR/magic and meet the condition (cannot be harmed by mortal swords) without having to mention the gods at all.

[Raineh Daze]

Irrelevant. If the lion cannot be injured by mortal swords, and no mortal swords are magic, then the lion can have DR/magic and meet the condition (cannot be harmed by mortal swords) without having to mention the gods at all.

But the condition as stated is 'only divine weapons can harm the Nemean Lion', by which mortal swords and magic swords are excluded. Well, and its own claws, but as came up earlier, it is divine. So it isn't DR X/Magic.

Hell, one of the wordings evidenced is just 'invulnerable'.

[Clistenes]

Elves with swords beat Balrogs. Gandalf, probably using that sword he keeps using more than he remembers to use magic, beat a Balrog. I'm not entirely sure why this equals 'omnipotent magic user'. Especially given that it took days and it was a mutual kill, he just got brought back.

Also, magic in Shakespeare's plays? What. That is not the same genre, at all. @_@

Elves that were virtually demigods and magical being themselves, beated the Balrogs and died doing that. I can recall two elves killing Balrongs in one-to one duels. Echtelion and Glorfindel, and both died. Feanor, who was the most powerful elf ever born was killed by a Balrog and he didn't even manage to kill it.

Gandalf clearly countered the Balrog's magic with his own at the Bridge (but magic in LotR is subtle, and the characters saw only the play of shadows and light), which would have roasted the whole group (that same Balrog burned a mountainside when dying) and blowed it. Also, Gandalf survived a fall of miles while being mauled by the Balrog, and was still in good enough shape to fight it make it run, chase it until reaching the surface, fighting it again and killing it. A normal human body wouldn't have survived the fall (a D&D fighter, yes, could have survived that, but the humans in LotR aren't D&D humans, they are more like real humans in that a single stab or arrow or hit can kill them no matter how strong they are).

A Dream of a Summer Night is a major inspiration for all fantasy literature, the same as The Tempest.

[Flickerdart]

But the condition as stated is 'only divine weapons can harm the Nemean Lion', by which mortal swords and magic swords are excluded. Well, and its own claws, but as came up earlier, it is divine. So it isn't DR X/Magic.

Again, does not follow. If mortals have no magic weapons, then the DR can very well be /magic and only godly weapons would be able to harm it, regardless of whether or not they are +1 or +100. Unless you want to argue that god weapons wouldn't be magic, which I wouldn't be too shocked at.

[Raineh Daze]

Elves that were themselves virtually demigods and magical being themselves, beated the Balrogs and died doing that. I can recall two elves killing Balrongs in one-to one duels. Echtelion and Glorfindel, and both died. Feanor, who was the most powerful elf ever born was killed by a Balrog and he didn't even manage to kill it.

Gandalf clearly countered the Balrog's magic with his own at the Bridge (but magic in LotR is subtle, and the characters saw only the play of shadows and light), which would have roasted the whole group (that same Balrog burned a mountainside when dying) and blowed it. Also, Gandalf survived a fall of miles while being mauled by the Balrog, and was still in good enough shape to fight it make it run, chase it until reaching the surface, fighting it again and killing it. A normal human body wouldn't have survived it (a D&D fighter, yes, could have survived that, but the humans in LotR aren't D&D humans, they are more like real humans in that a single stab or arrow or hit can kill them no matter how strong they are).

This is not because Gandalf is a wizard. This is because Gandalf is one of the Maiar, same as the Balrog. So basically, good aligned vs evil aligned outsider.

... really, using Gandalf as inspiration for D&D wizards was silly.

A Dream of a Summer Night is a major inspiration for all fantasy literature, the same as The Tempest.

First I've ever heard of it.

Again, does not follow. If mortals have no magic weapons, then the DR can very well be /magic and only godly weapons would be able to harm it, regardless of whether or not they are +1 or +100.

By this logic, a weapon worse than mortal weapons can harm it. Though this is starting to get somewhat silly, because it's to do with my summing up a sentence the wrong way: it can't be killed by mortal weapons, because it's invulnerable. Divine weapons can, because the gods cheat at these things.

[eggynack]

Yes, but I said "at that level all the warrior probably have already multiclassed into obtimized builds". What I mean is that, at that point, everybody probably has some caster levels. I think I have never seen any people go all the way up to level 20 without taking some spellcasting levels by the way, unless it was a game that started at high level.

I, for example, love paladins and rangers, but always take a level in a spellcasting class (usually divine) and a spellcasting PrC before/when hitting middle level. The character usually ends being still basically a ranger or paladin, but with much, much better spellcasting. And yes, the character isn't so good as a wizard with nines, but is isn't useless, either.

I heard what you said. Melee characters with wizard levels will be as high up in the tier list as the amount of wizard levels they have at any given level. If you build a wizard 19/fighter 1, that's probably still tier 1, and if you build a fighter 19/ wizard 1, that's probably still tier 5. There's probably no melee build that goes above tier 3, which is two lower than casters. I put a probably in there, because tippy will probably come up with something ridiculous if I say always. Basically, if you have a caster build that just so happens to have some fighter levels, I'm really not counting that as a melee build.

But the druid can't win alone at low levels, if the encouters are level-appropiate for the party. A low level a druid needs the rest of the team to survive. The problem with tiers is that low-tier classes feel useless, but that isn't a problem at low level, when every hit point is precious and a kobold with a crossbow (or several of them) can kill you.

This is not really true. The riding dog, particularly a riding dog with barding, is one of the most powerful CR 1 monsters in the game. The druid, without a riding dog at all, is one of the most powerful characters in the game. A druid could probably take down most level appropriate challenges single handed, at least in 3.5.

Well, it's up to the DM to avoid the wizard ending encounters with low-level spells. And anyway, I don't like Magic Walmarts, so I think that wizards shouldn't have every spell that helps them solve every problem since low levels.

First off, as was mentioned, melee guys are hit way worse by the lack of magic-marts. There are several wizard builds that get really versatile spell casting without ever touching a mart of any kind. Moreover, druids don't even really need items. They get all of their spells on their list for free, and at level 6, most core items become pointless. The lack of a magic mart barely hurts them at all.

You are right in that the wizard is always better prepared than the fighter, but if the game isn't about the party crossing hostile territory and facing encounter after encounter, they can be facing more varied and creative challenges, that can't be punched through with brute power, and they could have to take several tasks at the same time.

Also, if the characters are well inserted in their world, every one of them will have challenges and troubles in their world. The knight has to clean his father's honour and win the tourney on his own, the ranger has to get as many Circunstance bonuses as posible in order to beat the Diplomacy check and make amends with his king, and a Charm spell won't do, the rogue has to seduce that rich girl whose dad is a spellcaster who regularly checks for mind control.

If the game stops being about combat, then the fighter goes from really bad to utterly pointless. If we're not using mechanics at all, then sure, fighters can throw a big party. However, spells can solve out of combat situations too. I have no idea why a charm spell wouldn't work on a king. That's what wizards do. You just kinda say it, and expect it to be true, but that's a trick that the fighter has no access to. I really can't think of an out of combat situation where the wizard doesn't shine, and it's really damn difficult to come up with an out of combat situation where the fighter does.

And the Vancian system is the friend of the DM. If a middle-level wizard prepares a spell for every contingency he can imagine (foes with good Fort save, foes with good Ref save, foes with good Will save, foes with SR, mind-controlling spells, anti-mind-control spells, illusions, anti-illusions, divinations, anti-divinations, transport, dispelling, communication, defences agains every type of energy...etc.) he can't prepare many spells for every specific challenge.

I really don't think that the wizard has to stretch that far to deal with any situation, and a druid definitely doesn't. There is a whole pile of spells that offer no saves and don't touch SR, so those handle a lot of the initial situations you mentioned. The fact that silent image makes an extremely efficient illusion in a slot you barely use is great too. I just think you're underestimating just how prepared a wizard can be, especially at high levels. For the druid case, you can definitely prepare situational spells, because spontaneously summoned animals work against just about everything. If you can come up with something that it doesn't help with, that's where you prepare a spell.

Make foes go after the wizard, or at least always save some monsters in every encounter for him, keep him occupied with his own survival. And, if the wizard still wins the day on his own, send more monsters.

Of course the wizard is still more powerful and versatile, but, as I said at the beginning of the previous post, I think magic users were always intended to be more powerful by design. You can still make an entertaining game at low and middle levels with characters of different power levels.

If your game is all about beating problems with raw power, just don't play a fighter or even a warrior class at all.

I don't see why I shouldn't be allowed to play a fighter in a game with a wizard, when all we're doing is dungeon crawling. That's just ridiculously limiting. Sometimes, someone wants to play a fighter, and the system shouldn't passively stop people from doing that. The fact of the matter is, if you tailor your encounters for the wizard, the fighter is going to be left behind. If you send all of your monsters at the wizard, then the fighter doesn't have many things to stop you from doing that. He just becomes irrelevant. I'd also far rather play a game in which I didn't constantly have to tailor every encounter around the fact that the wizard is just better than everyone else.

[Clistenes]

*snip*

At high levels, when the wizard is more likely to be prepared for anything, but at middle levels he can still run out of useful spells. How many times will he prepare Invisibility, Illusion, Fly, Dominate? If his Whatever Illusion or Fly is dispelled and he hasn't prepared more, the party will have to find another way. What if he has already used his Dispel Magic and Glitterdust spells, hasn't prepared See Invisibility and the party is suddenly attacked by foes with Improved Invisibility?

While the wizard is fighting a monster, the fighter is fighting another monster. Or saving the wizard's ass. He's not sitting with his hands in his pockets.

If you have middle or high level wizards, you have to taylor the encouters for them, so the monster don't fall too fast. That doesn't mean that the fighter won't enjoy it, since he will get more chances to fight.

About making the fighter the equal to the wizard, the problem is, is you give him powers to fly, teleport, get invisible, animate the dead...etc., he's no longer a fighter, he's another kind of wizard, powered by kung-fu. If you want to play a wizard with armor and a sword, there are builds for that.

You could give the fighter martial art moves that distract his enemies allowing to flank them, that knockdown them, or make them stunned, blind them, make them lose constitution, bypass magical defences...etc., sort of like the ToB's manouvers, but I think those shouldn't feel too "magical". And they would only partially solve the fighter problem, since they wouldn't be very useful outside combat.

By the way, you can't use Charm on the king because he has spellcasters of his own and you will be discovered and beheaded if you try.

[eggynack]

At high levels, when the wizard is more likely to be prepared for anything, but at middle levels he can still run out of useful spells. How many times will he prepare Invisibility, Illusion, Fly, Dominate? If his Whatever Illusion or Fly is dispelled and he hasn't prepared more, the party will have to find another way. What if he has already used his Dispel Magic and Glitterdust spells, hasn't prepared See Invisibility and the party is suddenly attacked by foes with Improved Invisibility?

While the wizard is fighting a monster, the fighter is fighting another monster. Or saving the wizard's ass. He's not sitting with his hands in his pockets.

If you have middle or high level wizards, you have to taylor the encouters for them, so the monster don't fall to fast. That doesn't mean that the fighter won't enjoy it, since he will get more chances to fight.

About making the fighter the equal to the wizard, the problem is, is you give him powers to fly, teleport, get invisible, animate the dead...etc., he's no longer a fighter, he's another kind of wizard, powered by kung-fu. If you want to play a wizard with armor and a sword, there are builds for that.

You could give the fighter martial art moves that distract his enemies allowing to flank them, that knockdown them, or make them stunned, blind them, make them lose constitution, bypass magical defences...etc., sort of like the ToB's manouvers, but I think those shouldn't feel too "magical". And they would only partially solve the fighter problem, since they wouldn't be very useful outside combat.

He doesn't really need to prepare nearly as much as you think he does. He just needs an overland flight spell, and maybe a ring of counterspelling tuned to dispel magic, or greater dispel magic. Additionally, here's my question to you. Let's say that the wizard has already used up all of his spells that can see invisible, or remove invisibility, and an invisible enemy shows up. What, if anything, is the fighter going to do about that? I think the answer is generally going to be nothing.

On the issue of giving fighters maneuvers similar to ToB's maneuvers, why not just give them ToB maneuvers? The warblade ones aren't really magical, and the other two classes are based on classes that originally had magic anyway. It seems like a pretty simple solution.

[Clistenes]

He doesn't really need to prepare nearly as much as you think he does. He just needs an overland flight spell, and maybe a ring of counterspelling tuned to dispel magic, or greater dispel magic. Additionally, here's my question to you. Let's say that the wizard has already used up all of his spells that can see invisible, or remove invisibility, and an invisible enemy shows up. What, if anything, is the fighter going to do about that? I think the answer is generally going to be nothing.

On the issue of giving fighters maneuvers similar to ToB's maneuvers, why not just give them ToB maneuvers? The warblade ones aren't really magical, and the other two classes are based on classes that originally had magic anyway. It seems like a pretty simple solution.

What if the wizard is still 8th level and he can't prepare Overland Flight? What if he hasn't still found a scroll of Overland Flight to copy? What if the enemy cast Dispel Magic twice? What if he is saving his money to buy a Headband of Intellect and didn't buy the Ring of Counterspelling? What if he doesn't find a Ring of Counterspelling to buy and hasn't taken the Forge Ring feat?

If the enemies are invisible, the fighter still has a 50% chance to hit them once they attack and he figures where they are, and unlike the wizard, he can hit again and again and again.

About the manouvers, using the Warblade's would be fine. You could remove the fighter's limitations when using manouvers (so they can use them more than once per encounter), and give them a full intitiator level instead of half their level as fighters. Or just play a Warblade and call it Fighter. But there would still be people angry because the wizard can teleport to another country, travel to another dimension and pass through walls or enslave his foes and the fighter can't.

[eggynack]

There are ways to get far more than two spells each level. I'm not intimately familiar with the build, but I could find it if you care. Also, the wizard can craft stuff, which is pretty generally nifty. Moreover, the druid doesn't suffer from these problems at all. At 8th level, they can literally fly 24 hours a day. It's just that easy. I'm really far more familiar with druid optimization than I am with wizard optimization, which is why I tend to bring them up a lot in power gap threads. I tend to go with enhanced wildshape for hours/level 120 foot blindsense, but scent from your animal companion is a pretty good way to get around invisibility if that's dispelled. They're significantly better at fightering than a fighter, and they can also do other stuff. It's a difference in power level that really can't be mitigated.

Also, generally the trick to the warblade thing is to use that to push fighters to tier 3, but also use other fixes to push wizards down to tier 3. Beguilers are a great tier 3 caster, and there are probably some good ways to pull that off for schools of magic other than illusion, enchantment, necromancy, and evocation. It'd be tricky to fit in conjuration or transmutation, but I'm sure there's a way.

[navar100]

And yet I get to play in groups where the fighter travels with the wizard and everyone is happy and having fun. The so called power gap is not a universal problem.

Last game session with one of my groups, we were attacked by two cold drakes. I playing an oracle had cast Air Walk on the paladin so he could smite it to oblivion. True, had I not, the paladin would have had difficulty. He would have to wait until a drake closed to the ground or landed to attack. What should I have done differently, cast Air Walk on myself? While my oracle can handle himself alright in combat, I knew the paladin was more equipped to fight this monster. I therefore spent a spellslot on a lower tier class. You know what? I did not resent it. The paladin player was appreciative, not ashamed. He walked up to the drake and smote. The fighter, meanwhile, was still on the ground. He had a composite long bow and finished off the last few hit points the drake had after the smite. The rest of the party took care of the other drake.

It was teamwork that brought down the drakes. Everyone contributed. No one resented the spells that were cast. No one dismissed the efforts made. Except for me, no player in the group reads internet gaming forums. They know nothing of Tiers. They are having a grand time. Colloquial your problems with Pathfinder are not everyone's and not axioms of the game.

[olentu]

And yet I get to play in groups where the fighter travels with the wizard and everyone is happy and having fun. The so called power gap is not a universal problem.

Last game session with one of my groups, we were attacked by two cold drakes. I playing an oracle had cast Air Walk on the paladin so he could smite it to oblivion. True, had I not, the paladin would have had difficulty. He would have to wait until a drake closed to the ground or landed to attack. What should I have done differently, cast Air Walk on myself? While my oracle can handle himself alright in combat, I knew the paladin was more equipped to fight this monster. I therefore spent a spellslot on a lower tier class. You know what? I did not resent it. The paladin player was appreciative, not ashamed. He walked up to the drake and smote. The fighter, meanwhile, was still on the ground. He had a composite long bow and finished off the last few hit points the drake had after the smite. The rest of the party took care of the other drake.

It was teamwork that brought down the drakes. Everyone contributed. No one resented the spells that were cast. No one dismissed the efforts made. Except for me, no player in the group reads internet gaming forums. They know nothing of Tiers. They are having a grand time. Colloquial your problems with Pathfinder are not everyone's and not axioms of the game.

Eh, I could have fun playing freeform so let's just scrap the concept of rules entirely.

[eggynack]

And yet I get to play in groups where the fighter travels with the wizard and everyone is happy and having fun. The so called power gap is not a universal problem.

Last game session with one of my groups, we were attacked by two cold drakes. I playing an oracle had cast Air Walk on the paladin so he could smite it to oblivion. True, had I not, the paladin would have had difficulty. He would have to wait until a drake closed to the ground or landed to attack. What should I have done differently, cast Air Walk on myself? While my oracle can handle himself alright in combat, I knew the paladin was more equipped to fight this monster. I therefore spent a spellslot on a lower tier class. You know what? I did not resent it. The paladin player was appreciative, not ashamed. He walked up to the drake and smote. The fighter, meanwhile, was still on the ground. He had a composite long bow and finished off the last few hit points the drake had after the smite. The rest of the party took care of the other drake.

It was teamwork that brought down the drakes. Everyone contributed. No one resented the spells that were cast. No one dismissed the efforts made. Except for me, no player in the group reads internet gaming forums. They know nothing of Tiers. They are having a grand time. Colloquial your problems with Pathfinder are not everyone's and not axioms of the game.

None of that really means that the imbalance doesn't exist. It just means that you've found something of a solution by using buff spells to give the lower tiered classes options. God wizard type characters tend to subscribe to a similar philosophy. It's really great that you've found your own type of happiness in a flawed game, but the larger issue is still an issue. Moreover, even your game would probably operate better if the lower tiered party members had some versatility. They don't need to gain flight as part of their capabilities, but there should be something related to their melee capabilities that really makes up for that loss. The balance issue of pathfinder is an axiom of the game, it just doesn't effect everyone. Even if someone isn't living up to their class' full potential, that potential still exists. That potential is a big part of what the tier system measures.

[Grytorm]

That was not the point he was making. Even if there are problems doesn;t mean they are relevant most of the time. Most groups don't have somebody going all Emperor Tippy in them. A Wizard can overshadow mundanes if the player puts the effort in but a lot of Wizards won't. Sometimes they just blast thing.

And if you want to give Fighters noncombat utility, give them thematic noncombat utility. Rework the system somewhat, give Rangers the ability to press on their party at higher speeds and longer hours to chase hordes of orcs. Barbarians the bonus damage to object. Fighters a bardic lore for magic weapons. This won't solve Wizards having all the solutions but it is not hard to give everybody utility.

[olentu]

That was not the point he was making. Even if there are problems doesn;t mean they are relevant most of the time. Most groups don't have somebody going all Emperor Tippy in them. A Wizard can overshadow mundanes if the player puts the effort in but a lot of Wizards won't. Sometimes they just blast thing.

So he was saying nothing then. Seems like a rather harsh interpretation of his post.

[lord_khaine]

The DM can give the characters magical items in the form of treasure taken from powerful monsters or from dungeons and ruins.

I don't like the idea of Magic Walmarts because there is not a market for them. A +2 longsword costs about 8,015 gp, which is more than 160 pounds/72 kilograms of pure gold, the third-fourth part of the price of a small keep or castle, money enough to hire a hundred 10-level knights for forty days or a thousand light footmen for the same time. What's the point of having a shop filled with stuff that expensive? The only one able to afford it would be the count or duke, and even he would make just a few purchases during his whole life.

I like the idea that very few people knows how to make magic items, mostly because there are no buyers, so only powerful and already rich mages learn to make them for themselves. There are, however, old magic items passing from monster to monster as loot.

Then we are allready in the realm of DM fiat, if the objects the party find manage to perfectly fit the melee, while at the same time holding the wizard back, something thats also very likely to lead to unhappy players.

For that matter, while it doesnt make much sense for someone to have a ton of unused magical items lying around, then it also doesnt make much sense for the more powerfull spellcasters to fund their lifestyle by crafting magical gear for those who can afford it.

Elves that were themselves virtually demigods and magical being themselves, beated the Balrogs and died doing that. I can recall two elves killing Balrongs in one-to one duels. Echtelion and Glorfindel, and both died. Feanor, who was the most powerful elf ever born was killed by a Balrog and he didn't even manage to kill it.

I though the most powerfull elf ever born was Fingolfin, who managet to wound Morgoth 7 times before actualy dying.

[BWR]

What I think this proves is that we've been reading very different things.

But basically, all of this amounts to 'some fiction has all-powerful wizards, some doesn't, and D&D has decided to go with option #1, despite that being easily the worse option to put in a game'. Spellcasters being capable of making mundane characters look irrelevant 'because they rewrite reality' is a horrible argument. Saying anyone looking to play a mundane hero should be someone you can easily render irrelevant (unless plenty of effort goes into them) is just... wrong. One player shouldn't be able to make another feel like they're not contributing just because SOME fiction would allow it. :/

OK, you've made you point. You don't like wizards being more powerful than mundanes. Fine.
What you don't get to do is complain that a game system which was built on this conceit, from stories with this idea, is terrible and should not be this way. It's the entire point of the game. And when you ask for examples in fiction that support the idea of wizard>mundane, you do not get to pooh-pooh it by saying you don't read that stuff.
In these stories, in D&D, it has always been evil wizards or evil clerics that summon a horde of demons or an army of undead and threaten the world.
The mundanes just aren't as powerful.

You want a system where mundanes are exactly as powerful as casters? Fine, go find something else, like D&D 4E. Do not try to claim that one of the founding principles of the game is wrong because you don't like it and it doesn't mesh with what cherry-picked stories you pull out.

[eggynack]

OK, you've made you point. You don't like wizards being more powerful than mundanes. Fine.
What you don't get to do is complain that a game system which was built on this conceit, from stories with this idea, is terrible and should not be this way. It's the entire point of the game. And when you ask for examples in fiction that support the idea of wizard>mundane, you do not get to pooh-pooh it by saying you don't read that stuff.
In these stories, in D&D, it has always been evil wizards or evil clerics that summon a horde of demons or an army of undead and threaten the world.
The mundanes just aren't as powerful.

You want a system where mundanes are exactly as powerful as casters? Fine, go find something else, like D&D 4E. Do not try to claim that one of the founding principles of the game is wrong because you don't like it and it doesn't mesh with what cherry-picked stories you pull out.

I think you may be looking at the current state of things, and reading into that motivations that aren't there. I honestly don't think that wizards were originally intended to be any more powerful than fighters. Most of the actual data implies that Wizards overvalued things like BAB, while simultaneously believing the wizards should spend all of their time blasting. I'm pretty sure that they believed that they were creating a somewhat balanced game, at least on the class by class level. If you have any actual proof that the designers of 3.5 were planning to create a game that intrinsically favored casters, I'm going to need some proof that doesn't fall into the post hoc category.

[ArcturusV]

Well you can look at books they printed like Tome and Blood, which, when discussing wizards and magic schools put forth schools like Enchantment and Evocation as insanely powerful, and Divination as being so weak as to be not worth considering. So they obviously had the mindset that spells like Meteor Swarm was far more powerful than Foresight. Or that Delayed Blast Fireball was far better than Scry as far as the ability of a wizard to impact the game.

[Squirrel_Dude]

Squirrel_Dude, a question: JaronK once came up with a quick fix where players could basically only play Tier 3 and 4 classes:



I posit that this variant, while perhaps not completely closing the caster-mundane game, goes a very long way to keeping things more balanced.

If you were to play in such a game, would it "feel" like 4e to you? I'm not asking this in a snide way, I'm legitimately curious about your opinion on the matter--I've been frequently told that to balance 3.5 could only ever lead to something like 4e, and I'm trying to see if that's completely true.

In response to this question, and in response to the previous saying that I'm wrong, I'll better explain my point.

In many ways, the changes from the books Tome of Battle, and Magic of Incarnum can be seen as Wizards testing out ideas for 4th edition. Daily powers, at will powers, and in general making non-magical classes get more magical powers. I bring this up because ToB is often brought up as helping to "fix" the nonmagical classes, when in reality what it did was make them more magical in how they acted. They have their list of powers that they can use in combat in addition to their base stats, unlike fighters or barbarians which just got a big BAB or armor.

You should also notice that the 3rd and 4th tier characters are all specialists in some way or another, or have a very specific skill set that they can take advantage of. Dread Necromancers do, well, necromancy. Beguilers use illusion and enchantment spells almost exclusively. Bards buff the party. The Scout, Warlock, and Barbarian are all great at doing damage in their own way. Factotums are engineers, solving practical problems.

So in one sense, yes, a game with only tier 3 and 4 characters would feel like 4th edition. Everyone would have their own powers, and the game would be balanced between classes, and everyone would specialize and have a couple of other ways they could help. Assuming equal optimization of course.

It wouldn't be the same in an important sense. God damn does 3e/3.5/PF give you far more options in terms of how you can build your character. And god damn do those choices matter. The biggest complaint about 4th edition is that the game is balanced, but it's so balanced that pretty much no matter how you build your class, they're not going to be that much more or less effective because you're pigeonholed into a roll. Monk: You're a striker. Fighter: You're a tank. Wizard: You're a controller. Cleric: You're a gimp. Enjoy.

The biggest advantage and problem with 3rd edition is the wealth of options available when building a character, and that those options actually have meaning. If you pick A or B, A might make your stronger now, but B will make you stronger when combined with option C. That's my point about game balance and 3rd edition.

If you want your choices to matter, then you have to accept that not all choices are going to be equal, and that as the game expands the game designers are going to forget to remember about options B and C when they make option Z.


That still doesn't allow me to forgive paizo for the rogue, monk, or ****ing summoner.

[eggynack]

The biggest advantage and problem with 3rd edition is the dearth of options available when building a character, and that those options actually have meaning.

I think you mean wealth of options. Dearth is just about the opposite of your meaning.

[Psyren]

Prospero was like a god in his island, controlling weather, summoning and binding elementals, creating illusions, causing pain...etc. He was portrayed as omnipotent thanks to his magic.

Oberon and his folk did with mortals as they wished. They controlled them as if they were puppets.

Gandalf beat the Balrog.

Only magic users can defeat other magic users in the 1001 Nights.

The wizards of Dying Earth have god-like power.

Coriakin could change the shape of the bodies of a whole race with his spells.

The witches from the Golden Ass could permanently polymorph the bodies of anybody. Non-spellcasters on the other hand, were all regular folk.

Apollonius of Tyana made many miracles, that made people consider him a god-like figure.

Pretty much thi-

Elves with swords beat Balrogs. Gandalf, probably using that sword he keeps using more than he remembers to use magic, beat a Balrog. I'm not entirely sure why this equals 'omnipotent magic user'. Especially given that it took days and it was a mutual kill, he just got brought back.

Well, a contingent rez is generally considered pretty powerful magic. See also Aslan, and that other guy they were both based on whose name I forget.

Also, magic in Shakespeare's plays? What. That is not the same genre, at all. @_@

It's fantasy. How is it not the same genre? Are you implying that D&D writers didn't read Shakespeare?

Pointing out Prospero, Oberon/Titania and the Macbeth witches were the inspiration for powerful magic users is completely legitimate.

[Squirrel_Dude]

I think you mean wealth of options. Dearth is just about the opposite of your meaning.

Yeah. I guess that works. But it doesn't sound as cool.


*goes to edit*

[eggynack]

Yeah. I guess that works. But it doesn't sound as cool.


*goes to edit*

Yeah, dearth is a great word. It's been awhile since I last used it. Well, except for within this very post anyways.

[Snowbluff]

Yeah, it's such a good word. Doesn't see enough tournament play. Maybe it needs a buff.

[jindra34]

To those arguing magic is supposed to be better, remember WotC include the non-magic options because they saw use for them in their planned practice of the game. So can you name a series (or singular book) where magic is powerful, useable on the personal combat scale, and where mundanes (not specific characters but in general) are valued in efforts as something other than extra bodies?

[Amnestic]

So can you name a series (or singular book) where magic is powerful, useable on the personal combat scale, and where mundanes (not specific characters but in general) are valued in efforts as something other than extra bodies?

Off the top of my head...Dragon Age?