Please Clarify

[Takamari]

Alright guys, I was reading in some of the threads and came across the "Wizards are win buttons" and "divine metamagic/persistant spell is broken" Can someone please tell me how?

I mean really, look at persistant spell and divine metamagic. Thats three feats right there because extend spell is required for persistant spell. Don't give me that "you can take the planning domain" garbage because not all gods offer the planning domain. Clerics get 3 turns plus their charisma modifier. Lets say that our cleric has a good 16 Charisma, so he has 6 turns.

Now Persistant Spell usues up a slot 6 levels higher and Divine metamagic costs one turn attempt plus one for each level increased by the metamagic feat. A first level spell costs 7 turn attempts. Well, our cleric only has 6. So he buys a cloak of charisma +6 to give him three more turns per day, he is up to 9. Now he has to take extra turning at least twice to persistant more than one good spell. That gives him 17 turn attempts and can persistant two spells. Divine favor and Divine power are good choices, but there are plenty of others. So what? You have now had to use 5 feats to accomplish this. If you are a human cleric, you can have all your feats at 9th level. By then other classes have equivalent abilities and could have spent their feats in better ways.

I just don't understand. Why is it sooo BROKEN. Guess what, any other spell caster has the counter, its called dispel magic. Goodbye persistant spells and goodbye to any chance of turning my undead minions.

Wizards, I'll admit are powerful, but dispel magic does the same thing for them. A wizard is doomed if he looses initative to a fighter, well, a smart fighter. Anything with good saves scares a wizard and heaven help it if there is another wizard who is prepared to face casters. The classes are designed to work together, not appart. The fighters and clerics destract and deliver melee damage, protecting and allowing the wizard to deal with other casters or find a spell to deal with the problem.

I have played the wizard in several high level games. I've not always been the "win button". I role played my wizard. He chose the spells that fit his personality and that were useful. I was reduced to the mode of transportation when we hit ninth level and then everyone blamed me if they couldn't figure out a problem that a spell might fix. I dont' know how many times I heard "I can't believe you don't know that spell!" Anyone who has a gripe against wizards because they were in a game with an uber wizard and had no fun needs to blame the wizards player and the game master, in my opinion. Thanks for listening to my rant. I'm looking for an educated discussion, not a typical thread.

[JaronK]

First off, Divine Metamagic takes three feats: Extend Spell, Persistant Spell, Divine Metamagic: Persistant Spell. You don't need cloaks of charisma or any other such nonsense, just buy Nightsticks (from Libris Mortis, they're cheap and give you +4 turning attempts, and you can have as many as you want). A human cleric can start doing this at 3rd level.

With a Bead of Kharma (by itself quite cheap) you can have +4 to your caster level to avoid those dispels. You can persist spells to give you full BAB, or to give your entire party Fast Healing 1, or a variety of other nasty little effects, and yes, it's quite strong. It's enough to make you as good as a fighter in melee... but you're still a full caster with all the power that entails.

As for wizards... first, remember that not every enemy has dispel magic or AMFs. And I'm sorry, but "I pick spell for my roleplay" doesn't cut it. If you were actually roleplaying, actually thinking like your character, then your first thought would be "oh god there's daemons trying to eat my soul. I better learn some useful spells to stop that!" not "I want to be an emo fire wizard, so I'll only take spells that are emo or shoot fire!"

JaronK

[Fax Celestis]

As for wizards... first, remember that not every enemy has dispel magic or AMFs. And I'm sorry, but "I pick spell for my roleplay" doesn't cut it. If you were actually roleplaying, actually thinking like your character, then your first thought would be "oh god there's daemons trying to eat my soul. I better learn some useful spells to stop that!" not "I want to be an emo fire wizard, so I'll only take spells that are emo or shoot fire!"

I applaud you, good sir, for you are the first person to give character optimization a valid, in-character, roleplay reason.

[Zherog]

[Alright guys, I was reading in some of the threads and came across the "Wizards are win buttons" and "divine metamagic/persistant spell is broken" Can someone please tell me how?

I mean really, look at persistant spell and divine metamagic. Thats three feats right there because extend spell is required for persistant spell. Don't give me that "you can take the planning domain" garbage because not all gods offer the planning domain. Clerics get 3 turns plus their charisma modifier. Lets say that our cleric has a good 16 Charisma, so he has 6 turns.

<<Snippy McSnip Was Here!>>

Everything you typed was correct. However...

Now look at things from the point of view of somebody looking to abuse those rules. If your DM allows it, you build your character around a deity who does offer the Planning domain. If your DM doesn't allow it, you take the three feats.

You then optimize your Charisma as best as you can, while not hurting your Wisdom. Cloak of Charisma is your second-best friend (right after periapt of Wisdom). Even if you can't get a cloak right away, you can buff yourself with an eagle's splendor to temporarily gain more turning attempts just before you cast your daily set of persistent buffs. You might even want to take the usually sucky Extra Turning feat.

Then... you open up your copy of Libris Mortis and flip open to the magic item chapter. There you see that there's something called a night stick; it's extremely cheap, doesn't take up a slot, and grants you more turning attempts. Then you begin to weep man tears of joy.

edit: must... learn... to... type.... faster... or, at the very least, tell my darn co-workers to stop interrupting me!

[excrtd]

I believe that running the cleric that worships an ideal or something like that allows for relatively free domain choice. Many touch spells do not allow saves i.e. Irresistible Dance. Also the clarity series sort of supersedes initiative

[TempusCCK]

Seems to me that things really start getting broken when you move outside of Core.

[NotCC]

I agree with you Takamari. I've been reading these boards for about 2 weeks and all I ever see is high level/epic characters represented. Not to mention that people make characters using any and every splat book/expansion released. I don't know about everyone else but I have never had a GM that didnt place restrictions on races playable/books I can use. Reading this board you'd think that every GM starts a game by saying "Ok make a ECL20 character using anything in print and don't forget to use all those optional rules like gestalt characters and custom magic item creation."

Does anyone just play low-mid level games where characters dont start with 32 (superhero) point buy characters?

[JaronK]

Seems to me that things really start getting broken when you move outside of Core.

Not even close. The strongest base classes in the game right now, from all books, are the following:

Wizard, Archivist, Artificer, Cleric, Druid

The weakest are the following:

Monk, Fighter, Hexblade, Swashbuckler, Samurai, Ninja

Now, there might be a few more hiding around somewhere, but as you can see, despite the huge number of classes that have come out, three of the top five are core classes, and two of the bottom five are core as well. That's not balanced at all. Sure, a Cleric gets a lot stronger with Divine Metamagic, but Clerics were already up there. Wizards are brutal in core, and Druids are pretty much full strength too. Meanwhile, core only Monks, Fighters, and Rogues are just sitting there twiddling their thumbs feeling greatful that at least they're not a Samurai.

JaronK

[excrtd]

Both the massively open for abuse gate and shapechange are core.

[Zherog]

Seems to me that things really start getting broken when you move outside of Core.

Yep. And, I'll even go so far as to say you can go core and one book, and usually be OK. For example, I don't personally find Divine Metamagic bad on its own. On the flip side, Persistant Spell isn't a terribly broken feat, either. And night sticks from Libris Mortis[/i] are a nice, flavorful item that fit the theme of that book nicely. Each of those on their own is fine.

But take Divine Metamagic and combine it with Persistant Spell, and you start getting wonky. Add night sticks and you get fermented cheese.

And, really, that fits exactly with the WotC design theory. Most of the time, WotC only assumes you have the particular book you're looking at (Complete Divine, for example) and core. As far as they're concerned, neither Complete Arcane nor Libris Mortis exist. In lots of cases, that's a good design philosophy for the consumer - you don't need eight other books just to understand what's in this book. That's a good thing. However, we can clearly see the downside in this sort of example as well.

[JaronK]

Seriously though, core, balanced? Core? Home of the Druid, Wizard, and Cleric? Shapechange? Gate? Candle of Invocation? Greater Planar Binding? I've just rattled off pretty much everything you need to completely break a campaign.

You want balanced? Throw in Tome of Battle, and suddenly melees have a point again. Complete Adventurer can bring skill monkeys back. PHBII brought us some very nice classes like the Beguiler and the Knight.

Core only just means casters are insane. They get a power boost from non core sources, but the ones that really shine with non core material are the ones that were too weak before... the melees and the skill monkeys. And that's a good thing.

JaronK

[Takamari]

Ok, Jaronk, I understand what you say, but there are those people who play D&D who role play their characters. Yes, my wizards pick very useful spells but also chooses spells that fit the campaign style.

Second, the Night Stick is a great item, wonderful even. So great that it would be banned by any good game master. I do it...not out of spite, but I don't allow anything from the Libris Mortus.

Third, who cares if the cleric can cast spells and fight like a fighter. Does the cleric have the feats a fighter does? No. The cleric can have almost the same attack bonus of a fighter of equal level, but cannot compete with the damage output in melee alone. I love melee clerics and find them much more fun than a carbon coppy fighter. And yes, I've worked a cleric that can beat an equal level fighter hands down. But why? Again, who cares unless you are playing a fighter with a melee cleric in the group. It isn't a fault of the class, but the fault of the players and game master. TempusCCK has it right, things do get very powerful when you get out of core.

[Morgan_Scott82]

Its extremely rare that any one element will make a particular class overpowered or broken. However when elements are compounded, particualrly those from different supplements that weren't necessarily designed to work together you can create incedibly broken combinations.

A prime example is the combination of Persistant Spell, Divine Metamagic and Night Sticks. Or the end all be all of combining divergent elements from different supplements to arrive at an overpowered character...Pun Pun (though in that case there is a single element that makes that character broken, the utterly rediculous Sarrkuth.)

In the case of the wizard the number of broken combinations is larger than for most other classes because of the sheer volume of spells out there, with that many divergent effects at his proposal a clever wizard can create combinations that will overcome any challenge and render his companions useless.

[Zherog]

Again, who cares unless you are playing a fighter with a melee cleric in the group. It isn't a fault of the class, but the fault of the players and game master.

No, it's exactly the fault of the class. Having a class that gains 1/2 a feat every level as it's only class features sucks. Especially because there's going to come a point at high levels where you've take all the good feats, and you have to spend one of your craptastic bonus feats on Dodge. Or Toughness. Or whatever entry-level, bottom of the feat chain feat you want to toss out there. Meanwhile, while you're taking that entry level feat with your pitiful class feature, the wizard, cleric, and druid are all gaining access to new, more powerful spells. Either they gain the ability to cast more of their most powerful spells (on even levels), or they gain a new spell level (on odd levels).

In both cases, though, the fighter goes to the corner and sucks his thumb while rocking back and forth.

[JaronK]

Ok, Jaronk, I understand what you say, but there are those people who play D&D who role play their characters. Yes, my wizards pick very useful spells but also chooses spells that fit the campaign style.

Stormwind Fallacy. You're assuming that because my characters are effective at what they do, they're not being roleplayed. It's the idea that good roleplayers are the ones who play high charisma fighters and low int wizards... and it's false. I actually spent some time as an actor, and was quite good at it. I'm a fine roleplayer, as my groups can attest to. Decent GM too, though a little too distractable for that.

A wizard in a world where monsters were waiting to eat him, knowing he was about to do battle with those very same monsters, would do whatever he could to make sure he had the most effective available spells. It's the same as modern soldiers... our troups are buying extra body armour so they don't die on the battlefield. It's very rare that a modern soldier says "well, I'm from Texas, so I guess I'm cowboy themed. I think I'll use a six gun and wear a cowboy hat." Usually, he grabs the best assault rifle he can, because his life is on the line. Likewise, do you think a wizard in such a world would say "this campaign is a desert theme... so I'm only going to take desert themed spells?" Heck no, he's going to say "OMG Daemons!" and then learn Timestop, Shapechange, and Gate. Roleplay comes from character interaction, not from what you write down on your sheet, weather what you write down is powerful or weak.

Second, the Night Stick is a great item, wonderful even. So great that it would be banned by any good game master. I do it...not out of spite, but I don't allow anything from the Libris Mortus.

Ah I see. "Clerics are totally balanced. I don't see why they're unbalancecd. Also, I ban things that make them unbalanced." No no no. You're now modifying them by limiting available gear. You also seem to be keeping them away from the Planing Domain, which any non-diety cleric can have. Undeath Domain, by the way, gives Extra Turning, so a cleric with Undeath and Planning, who is human, can actually have Divine Persistant Metamagic and the seven turn attempts to power it with a charisma of about 16. Not too hard to do, honestly.

Sure, if the DM bans certain items and domains and feats clerics become more balanced (though DMM:Persistant isn't the only thing strong about them). But by RAW, they're very strong.

Third, who cares if the cleric can cast spells and fight like a fighter. Does the cleric have the feats a fighter does? No. The cleric can have almost the same attack bonus of a fighter of equal level, but cannot compete with the damage output in melee alone. I love melee clerics and find them much more fun than a carbon coppy fighter. And yes, I've worked a cleric that can beat an equal level fighter hands down. But why? Again, who cares unless you are playing a fighter with a melee cleric in the group. It isn't a fault of the class, but the fault of the players and game master. TempusCCK has it right, things do get very powerful when you get out of core.

Here's the thing. Sure, that cleric doesn't have the bonus feats... but he can cast Righteous Might, Divine Favor, etc, and then do better anyway. And sure, clerics are the big example of a strong class that gets stronger outside of core, but the other big guys, the Wizard and the Druid, are perfectly strong within core. A core only Druid can absolutely smack down a fighter in melee, and he doesn't even need feats to do it. Just turn into a Dire Ape, pick up a stick (quarterstaff... it's free!), cast Shillelegh on it, and go to town. With your large size, strength, and reach, you're a better tripper than the fighter who got Improved Trip... and tripping is all a core only fighter can do.

JaronK

[Zherog]

<stuff>

JaronK

*sniff* I love you man! That was beautiful! *sniff*

*ahem*

Anyway... on druids. They absolutely kick ass in core. And just about every book that comes out makes them kick even more ass. The book either has new animals (take a peek at some of the dinosaurs availble in the MM2 and MM3 - yikes!), or the book offers wild shape alternatives such as Exalted Wild Shape in Book of Exalted Deeds, or whatever the aberration wild shape one from Lords of Madness is called.

It's not just clerics and wizards that get better as more books come along. The druid keeps gathering power, too - both with new and amazing wild shapes as well as new spells that make your fighter cry like a school girl who had her ice cream stolen by the class bully.

[excrtd]

Also there is The Planar Shepard.

[Arbitrarity]

You didn't say that.


The persisted cleric *wins* melee. All day, large size, +10 str, DR 9/evil, +2 con, +3 to hit, +3 damage, (not counting str boost), FULL BAB!

If his Str is 8 lower than the fighter, base, and the fighter has magic items to boost, the cleric still has better to hit, better damage, as well as DR and the same effective HP. He also retains full casting powers.

[PirateMonk]

Monk, Fighter, Hexblade, Swashbuckler, Samurai, Ninja

two of the bottom five are core as well

Two are in the PHB. Three are core, as swashbuckler is in the DMG.

[JaronK]

*sniff* I love you man! That was beautiful! *sniff*

I win!

Anyway... on druids. They absolutely kick ass in core. And just about every book that comes out makes them kick even more ass. The book either has new animals (take a peek at some of the dinosaurs availble in the MM2 and MM3 - yikes!), or the book offers wild shape alternatives such as Exalted Wild Shape in Book of Exalted Deeds, or whatever the aberration wild shape one from Lords of Madness is called.

It's not just clerics and wizards that get better as more books come along. The druid keeps gathering power, too - both with new and amazing wild shapes as well as new spells that make your fighter cry like a school girl who had her ice cream stolen by the class bully.

It's certainly true that Clerics, Druids, and Wizards have increased in power from new books. For the most part, however, these have been minor increases... the full fury of Divine Metamagic takes three books, for example, and each little incremental boost to Wizards and Druids was small too, with perhaps one exception (*I can't see you Planar Shepard la la la*).

However, melees have gone up tremendously from various books. Shock Trooper? Huge. Leap Attack? Huge. Pretty much all of Tome of Battle? Big Freakin' Deal, and I'm not being sarcastic. The Beguiler put skill monkeys back on the map as decent well rounded characters. Magic Item Compendium finally let rogues sneak attack undead, and now rogues aren't worthless against massive numbers of foes.

The result is that for the most part things became more balanced as more books were introduced. The stronger classes got stronger... but only a little (*Planar Shepard doesn't exist I swear!*). The weaker classes got a lot stronger. The gap, as a result, lessened, and that's really what's important.

Plus, if you are going to do selective banning of items and such, you can leave core and it works. It doesn't in core... even a druid with no gear can beat a fully geared fighter in core, so removing little bits won't work. Druids would have to be totally overhauled to be balanced in core. But when all the books get included, you can remove Legendary Animals and the Planar Sheppard, and then let the melees play Warblades, and you're at least in the right ballpark.

JaronK

[JaronK]

Two are in the PHB. Three are core, as swashbuckler is in the DMG.

Nope, that's the duelist. Swashbuckler is from Complete Warrior.

JaronK

[Takamari]

JaronK, I'm not saying that you do not role play well. Please do not assume I am making any accusations.

It is the job of a game master to limit his characters. A fighter does get shafted in class features, but the way to fix that is by opening up the list of fighter bonus feats, or by replacing some of the bonus feats with abilities that are just a little better. My wizards don't get to learn any spell when they level up. Teleport is one of them. It is difficult magic in my world and must be learned from a scroll, and those scrolls are difficult to find. My clerics are not allowed to worship an ideal. There are gods for a reason! I agree that the classes are not as balanced as we may like them to be, but everyone wants to nerf the powerful characters, why not try to boost the non-powerful characters.

Another fallacy is to pit one character against another. If you do that, yes, they will look imballanced. The system is designed to work with a rogue, cleric, fighter, and wizard versus a monster or group of enemies. A wizard encounters an Iron Golem and he is toast without his companions. Everyone forgets that the system requires a group! Blame the classes all you want, but you will be incorrect, at least in my opinion. A good game master will balance the game. I have a player that cheats on his rolls. We have tried everything to get him to stop, even calling him a cheating cheater right to his face. He will for a while, but then he reverts. So I had to fix it. I either reduce all his rolls by 5, increase all the enemies rolls by 5, or put him in situations that his rolls don't make a difference one way or another. He has proven that he cheats, so I have to ensure that his cheating doen't over balance him. A game master needs to not allow items that will break a class or give others that balance a class. Yes casters are powerful, but I can easily make a rogue that will crush a caster. Guess what isn't a class skill for a wizard or cleric.

Please dont' missunderstand. I'm just not seeing how everyone is screaming foul when if managed properly everything works out. Players make the classes broken, not the other way around.

[Emperor Tippy]

Houserules have no place in a RAW debate (Which this is)

[Takamari]

Sorry for the double post, but I agree with the fact that the newer books have done exactly what I want, boost the noncasting classes a lot without adding to the power too much of the casters.

I played CoH for a long time and got sick of them nerfing the best characters instead of helping the weaker ones.

[Zherog]

JaronK, I'm not saying that you do not role play well. Please do not assume I am making any accusations.

It is the job of a game master to limit his characters. A fighter does get shafted in class features, but the way to fix that is by opening up the list of fighter bonus feats, or by replacing some of the bonus feats with abilities that are just a little better. My wizards don't get to learn any spell when they level up. Teleport is one of them. It is difficult magic in my world and must be learned from a scroll, and those scrolls are difficult to find. My clerics are not allowed to worship an ideal. There are gods for a reason! I agree that the classes are not as balanced as we may like them to be, but everyone wants to nerf the powerful characters, why not try to boost the non-powerful characters.

So... because you have some houserules that boost a fighter and screw a wizard, everything is OK in the game?

[Morgan_Scott82]

A fighter does get shafted in class features, but the way to fix that is by opening up the list of fighter bonus feats, or by replacing some of the bonus feats with abilities that are just a little better. My wizards don't get to learn any spell when they level up. Teleport is one of them. It is difficult magic in my world and must be learned from a scroll, and those scrolls are difficult to find. My clerics are not allowed to worship an ideal. There are gods for a reason! I agree that the classes are not as balanced as we may like them to be, but everyone wants to nerf the powerful characters, why not try to boost the non-powerful characters.

And those are exactly the kinds of things people like to discuss when they bring up the "ZOMG Iwinzards are b0rken" kind of threads, though hopefully they articulated it better than I just did in that hastily written quip. If the rules are taken at face value combinations come to light that overshadow the options available to other characters and the internet has provided a tool for DMs to come together pool their collective brain power and devise creative useful workarounds.

Workaround for precisely the kinds of problems your initial post denied the existance of. After all, people who say D&D 3.5 is broken aren't trying to throw the whole system down the drain, but trying to be a DM who modifies the system to better suit the needs of his players, precisely the kind of action you discussed in the quote above.

As for whether it is a better approach to limit the power of the high end classes such as wizard, cleric and druid, or too increase the capabilities of low end classes like fighter and monk, my personal feeling is that there is merit in both approaches. I feel the Tome of Battle, was a good attempt at increasing the power of melee classes (I find the way they did it, making melee fighting more like magic through manuevers abhorant, but the intent was great), but I also feel that the Wildshape varient published in PHB2 was a good addition to my games. So there is value in solutions that move either end of the power curve closer to the mean and reduce the standard deviation.

[tsuyoshikentsu]

It is the job of a game master to limit his characters. A fighter does get shafted in class features, but the way to fix that is by opening up the list of fighter bonus feats, or by replacing some of the bonus feats with abilities that are just a little better. My wizards don't get to learn any spell when they level up. Teleport is one of them. It is difficult magic in my world and must be learned from a scroll, and those scrolls are difficult to find. My clerics are not allowed to worship an ideal. There are gods for a reason! I agree that the classes are not as balanced as we may like them to be, but everyone wants to nerf the powerful characters, why not try to boost the non-powerful characters.

Okay, the two reasons you just devalued your own argument are:

1. You just talked about how badly you nerf casters, then say you should power up weaker characters.
2. You're talking about why the powering-up of non-casters by power creep outside Core is bad, and suggesting powering up non-casters as an alternate.

[Jack Mann]

Clerics don't need nightsticks and divine metamagic to be overpowered. That just helps. The fact is, even in a core game, clerics and druids become much better than fighters after level five or so, at the fighter's specialty. The only thing a fighter can reliably be better at than a cleric is battlefield control. You want a good archer? High dex cleric. You want a good smasher? High strength cleric, with the war and strength domains. The druid's wildshape lets him deal far more damage than the fighter, and he gains other nifty abilities like pounce, rend, flight, and the like. At low levels, the fighter is better, but the cleric and druid are still effective enough that they can take his place. All this, and they can cast spells, too.

Then you have Mr. Wizard. Contingency, Timestop, Gate, the Polymorph line of spells... These are just the most powerful. He also has tons of utility and battlefield control spells to let him rush through most encounters. He's fragile early on, but makes up for it quickly. By level 13 or so, he begins to surpass the cleric and druid in power, becoming the most powerful class.

Do they get more powerful outside of core? Yeah, they've got more options. So does everyone else. The fighters gets more powerful outside core too, though not nearly enough to keep up with the casters. Core-only doesn't solve the problem. The problem didn't start with any splatbook. The problem was there in the first three books.

[JaronK]

JaronK, I'm not saying that you do not role play well. Please do not assume I am making any accusations.

Ah. Your earlier post indicated that ("but there are those people who play D&D who role play their characters."). But the internet is not always the best for clear communication. No worries.

It is the job of a game master to limit his characters. A fighter does get shafted in class features, but the way to fix that is by opening up the list of fighter bonus feats, or by replacing some of the bonus feats with abilities that are just a little better. My wizards don't get to learn any spell when they level up. Teleport is one of them. It is difficult magic in my world and must be learned from a scroll, and those scrolls are difficult to find. My clerics are not allowed to worship an ideal. There are gods for a reason! I agree that the classes are not as balanced as we may like them to be, but everyone wants to nerf the powerful characters, why not try to boost the non-powerful characters.

Well sure, but now you're talking about how you're nerfing strong characters (removing spells) and boosting weak characters (giving fighters access to other feats). That right there is pretty much an admission that one group is weak and another is strong... since you have to fix them.

We're talking about game balance here, and the only thing we can really discuss is RAW. We all make modifications. Personally, when I DM I make casters use Charisma for their save DCs, Int for their max level of spells, and Wis for their bonus spells. It gives them a bit of MAD to balance things out. However, what you or I do to compensate for the flaws of the game is irrelevent to a discussion about how the game is supposed to be played as written.[/quote]

Another fallacy is to pit one character against another. If you do that, yes, they will look imballanced. The system is designed to work with a rogue, cleric, fighter, and wizard versus a monster or group of enemies. A wizard encounters an Iron Golem and he is toast without his companions. Everyone forgets that the system requires a group!

Ah, but we're not pitting characters against each other. The problems arise when characters eclipse each other, not when they try to stab each other. For example, the rogue is a skill monkey, and he's supposed to be able to deal with locked doors. However, the Arcane Lock spell completely defeats the Open Lock skill... but the Knock spell not only acts as an infinitely high Open Lock check, it also defeats Arcane Lock. Thus, a wizard with a wand of knock completely eclipses the rogue in his own catagory. That same wizard can then go on to trigger traps with summoned critters, use invisibility to stealth past enemies, charm his way through social interactions, and generally do almost everything the rogue does, only better. He can Planar Bind a daemon or angel to replace the fighter completely. He can just use invisibility to walk right past that Iron Golem, or disintigrate the ground under said golem, or disintigrate the support colemns around the golem and drop the roof on the thing, or fly out of reach and cast spells which don't allow SR (I'm looking at you, Sonic Orb!).

Thus, the Wizard can make the rogue and the fighter feel useless... and he really doesn't need either one of them. No matter what the situation (other than the very rare AMF), the Wizard has a spell for that. Heck, he can even animate dead some skeletal troopers to handle an AMF if he really needs. And there lies the problem. He's doing all the jobs that the other guys are supposed to need to do, and as such makes them irrelevent.

Blame the classes all you want, but you will be incorrect, at least in my opinion. A good game master will balance the game. I have a player that cheats on his rolls. We have tried everything to get him to stop, even calling him a cheating cheater right to his face. He will for a while, but then he reverts. So I had to fix it. I either reduce all his rolls by 5, increase all the enemies rolls by 5, or put him in situations that his rolls don't make a difference one way or another. He has proven that he cheats, so I have to ensure that his cheating doen't over balance him.

But if a game master has to fix the game, then the game is broken... that's the issue. As for your cheating player, kick him out. Problem solved.

A game master needs to not allow items that will break a class or give others that balance a class. Yes casters are powerful, but I can easily make a rogue that will crush a caster. Guess what isn't a class skill for a wizard or cleric.

Um... actually, depends on the cleric. A Cloistered Cleric with the Magic and Kobold domains has an awful lot of skills, including search (and the ability to find traps), and he can use Wizard magic items, so he doesn't need UMD. Spot and Listen are kind of irrelevent when there are spells that just automatically find people (so much for hiding). Trickery domain also can grant skills (hide and slight of hand, I think), and I know you can get survival elsewhere. What skill are you refering to that you don't think a spell can do better?

Please dont' missunderstand. I'm just not seeing how everyone is screaming foul when if managed properly everything works out. Players make the classes broken, not the other way around.

No, some DMs and players fix the broken classes. Some exploit them. If the classes weren't open to abuse, they wouldn't be abused... you never hear debates like this in chess. "Players make black broken!"

JaronK

[Draz74]

JaronK, I'm not saying that you do not role play well. Please do not assume I am making any accusations.

It is the job of a game master to limit his characters. A fighter does get shafted in class features, but the way to fix that is by opening up the list of fighter bonus feats, or by replacing some of the bonus feats with abilities that are just a little better. My wizards don't get to learn any spell when they level up. Teleport is one of them. It is difficult magic in my world and must be learned from a scroll, and those scrolls are difficult to find. My clerics are not allowed to worship an ideal. There are gods for a reason! I agree that the classes are not as balanced as we may like them to be, but everyone wants to nerf the powerful characters, why not try to boost the non-powerful characters.

You're operating under a different definition of "broken" or "unbalanced" than this Forum is. You're saying things aren't unbalanced because the DM can regulate them with houserules. However, most of us feel that admitting that the DM needs to regulate something with houserules is, by definition, admitting that there is an unbalance to be corrected.

Note that people who decry the unbalance of D&D aren't saying they hate playing it. They do regulate things, in most of their games, in they ways you are recommending. BWL, for example, is fond of playing Fighters or non-Batman wizards, even though he's so vocal about how underpowered Fighters are and how broken Batman-wizards are. These people aren't complaining that the inbalances are impossible to fix. They're simply pointing out that the imbalances exist, and sometimes complaining that the rules aren't written better so that the effort of houseruling these things could be spared.

Another fallacy is to pit one character against another. If you do that, yes, they will look imballanced. The system is designed to work with a rogue, cleric, fighter, and wizard versus a monster or group of enemies. A wizard encounters an Iron Golem and he is toast without his companions. Everyone forgets that the system requires a group!

No, they don't.
People actually say, fairly often on these Forums, that the point of the game (in terms of balance) really isn't one-on-one duels, but how well a whole party of 4 can handle CR-appropriate challenges.

Unfortunately, when this argument is made, there's usually someone (new) who comes along and claims he can prove the game is balanced by putting things in terms of a one-on-one duel. To completely destroy his argument, the people who understand game balance better humor him and turn the discussion into a discussion about one-on-one duels.
Props to you, even though you're arguing some of the same things that newcomers to the Forum say all the time, for not trying to turn things into a big one-on-one duel argument again ... and for generally being sensible in your arguments.

But, since we're not talking about one-on-one duels, let's look and see: yes, there is still a class-based problem when parties of 4 are facing CR-appropriate challenges. The Fighter can do very little of value at high levels. Even at middle levels, when the Fighter can still do something, he can't do it as well as another class could.

Even without cheese like Divine Metapersist or Polymorph madness: It is significant that the party that will most easily beat CR-appropriate challenges is NOT a Fighter / Cleric / Rogue / Wizard. In Core-only, it's a Druid / Cleric / Rogue / Wizard. If noncore is allowed, replace the Rogue with a Beguiler ... and argue about replacing someone with an Artificer, if Artificer doesn't count as cheese all by itself.

Blame the classes all you want, but you will be incorrect, at least in my opinion. A good game master will balance the game. I have a player that cheats on his rolls. We have tried everything to get him to stop, even calling him a cheating cheater right to his face. He will for a while, but then he reverts. So I had to fix it. I either reduce all his rolls by 5, increase all the enemies rolls by 5, or put him in situations that his rolls don't make a difference one way or another. He has proven that he cheats, so I have to ensure that his cheating doen't over balance him. A game master needs to not allow items that will break a class or give others that balance a class. Yes casters are powerful, but I can easily make a rogue that will crush a caster. Guess what isn't a class skill for a wizard or cleric.

This is really your same pro-house-rule-as-Balance argument as before.

Please dont' missunderstand. I'm just not seeing how everyone is screaming foul when if managed properly everything works out. Players make the classes broken, not the other way around.

Again, people just wish they didn't have to jump through the hoops of extreme houseruling in order to make the Fighter useful.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that a lone Wizard isn't really even all that scared of an Iron Golem ... but JaronK ninja'd me anyway.