How many of you truly believe that only spell casters are worth playing?

[ryu]

You know those great Steven Burst Dragaera books? Taltos doesn't choose what he wants to engage with... situations happen and he has to deal with them.

You know pretty-much all great fiction, ever? Great & Terrible events sweep the characters up and the characters have to deal with it.

Good stories don't start with "there was a terrible evil rising in the East... but Joe Wizard was too busy trying to get tenure at the Mage College, so he and his friends never bothered to deal with it." Unless, of course, it's Parody.

When a Hero in a story hears about a problem, he goes out and tries to fix it. The character in the story more worried about their own self-interest and "agency"? That's the villain.

You know what else is common in those stories? A severe lack of omnipotent world controlling being who's really pushy about just how they do their ''jobs.'' Yes GM you get to give me a problem. No, you don't get to decide how I go about dealing with it.

[icefractal]

When a Hero in a story hears about a problem, he goes out and tries to fix it. The character in the story more worried about their own self-interest and "agency"? That's the villain.

You're mixing up player and character agency here, and it's making your argument unclear.

The character deciding to go solve the problem vs stay home and pursue their own agendas is character agency, and it has nothing to do with being a caster or not. A Fighter could just as easily decide to ignore the quest and do something else instead.

The player having tools to directly do things on a greater than tactical level, rather than achieving this by GM-mediated means, is player agency, and it has nothing to do with what the character's goals are.

Let's say a Cleric hears about a king with a wasting illness, which only the moon orchid from a far-away mountain can cure ... so then he vaporizes the king, brings him back to life in a brand new body, problem solved, time to hit the tavern. That's a problem if the GM who planned for the process to be a whole quest with a lot of events in it. But the problem isn't that the character isn't being heroic!

[Florian]

I´ve no real preference for casters over non-casters, or really for any kind of class at all.
Having said that and being a PF player, I feel that the 6/9, 3/4 BAB classes hit the sweet spot, as they encourage broader builds and give something to do in any situation.

[Esprit15]

With a few exceptions, any mage I make ties their hand behind their back and acts like a martial. Maybe they go archer, or unarmed fighter, but I never was too keen on the "Oh, everyone is practically dead, go mop them up everyone" gameplay. I've played pretty even between casters and non-casters, and each has their appeal.

[Yahzi]

I would really like to hear your opinions.

Everybody who plays Ars Magica, for starters.

Fighters are what the Leadership/Cohort rules are for. Every caster needs a small army of beatsticks. But come on, those guys have "Expendable" stamped on their foreheads.

A high-level fighter is like a Gargantuan Scorpion: dangerous to mortal things like people, armies, and buildings. But once you join the ranks of the Powers, they exist only as traps for the unwary and foolish.

[ryu]

Everybody who plays Ars Magica, for starters.

Fighters are what the Leadership/Cohort rules are for. Every caster needs a small army of beatsticks. But come on, those guys have "Expendable" stamped on their foreheads.

A high-level fighter is like a Gargantuan Scorpion: dangerous to mortal things like people, armies, and buildings. But once you join the ranks of the Powers, they exist only as traps for the unwary and foolish.

I mean do they really? At low levels their job can be easily accomplished by a small child with a heavy rock, or the wizard wielding a scythe, and at high levels you're either summoning things objectively better at anything they could do or simply don't care about what they do at all. This is assuming we're talking about the role fighters generally play in combat. If it's the carrying things bit I'll just buy mules (or later bags of holding) and cut out the much more expensive feat cost.

[Yahzi]

Most fantasy worlds are really crap-sack worlds that just seem wonderful because the players are already part of the elite. Or, at the very least, outside of most of the normal power structures.

Best comment in the thread.

[Yahzi]

I mean do they really? At low levels their job can be easily accomplished by a small child with a heavy rock, or the wizard wielding a scythe, and at high levels you're either summoning things objectively better at anything they could do or simply don't care about what they do at all. This is assuming we're talking about the role fighters generally play in combat. If it's the carrying things bit I'll just buy mules (or later bags of holding) and cut out the much more expensive feat cost.

Small children with heavy rocks count as 1/2 CR cohorts. But they're not really the best followers because they keep crying at night and they can be bribed with lollipops. And mules are no good for trap-finding.

A good army feeds itself and provides you with a steady stream of zero-spell slot castings of Summon Monster 1/2.

[Illven]

I tend to prefer spellcasters because then I feel I have more options then. I have alot of armor, and swing the heaviest weapon I can find.

With a caster it's. Do I go divine and full faith, divine and minimum faith, wizard, sorcerer. If they are a wizard who taught them, etc.

[Tiri]

Small children with heavy rocks count as 1/2 CR cohorts. But they're not really the best followers because they keep crying at night and they can be bribed with lollipops. And mules are no good for trap-finding.

I don't see how lollipop-bribability is a point against using small children in the capacity of minions, though.

The mules don't need to be used for trap-finding if you don't want to. You have children. It gets rid of the 'crying at night' problem, too.

[ryu]

I don't see how lollipop-bribability is a point against using small children in the capacity of minions, though.

The mules don't need to be used for trap-finding if you don't want to. You have children. It gets rid of the 'crying at night' problem, too.

And BESIDES the mule is likely significantly easier to replace if it accidentally doesn't get healed enough checking for traps. As a bonus you can even use the meat to feed the children assuming it wasn't a poison trap! Waste not want not.

[NichG]

I don't believe that only spell casters are playable, but I do think that spell casters are where D&D-as-a-game has the richest and most interesting structure. It would be perfectly fine to play a Noble 1 in a game of high intrigue at the emperor's court, or a Commoner 1 negotiating the emergence of a new economy in the face of mass-produced magic by wheeling and dealing rather than by making those enchanted items themselves, or a Rogue amidst a bunch of fellow Rogues in a game of mundane espionage. That's because those premises give you a lot to do outside of engaging with the game mechanics. The richness of what you can do is a consequence of your creativity and cleverness, so it doesn't really matter what you're playing.

But if the game is going to involve bringing out the dice and the minis and killing things, things get much more mechanics-driven. Things that don't have direct listed mechanical consequences tend to get marginalized, because even in the best case scenario the system asks the DM to turn whatever clever plan you came up with or move you tried into a number which records it and then forgets the details. The place where this is least constraining is in spellcasting, because that retains the greatest degree of mechanical depth in the system.

So if there's going to be a lot of combat and skill checks and 'solve things with character abilities' and so on, then I want to be playing a caster. But if the rules of D&D are mostly just there to have something concrete to grab onto, but most of the gameplay doesn't actually have to do with the mechanics per se, then anything's fine.

[Tiri]

And BESIDES the mule is likely significantly easier to replace if it accidentally doesn't get healed enough checking for traps. As a bonus you can even use the meat to feed the children assuming it wasn't a poison trap! Waste not want not.

Well, which is easier to replace is a highly circumstantial thing. I know that where I live small children are far more plentiful than mules.

A mule is a whole lot more useful than a small child, too. I know which one I'd send into the trap first.

[logic_error]

There are two levels at which the question works:

1. At the combat level, I tend to abstract the problem this way: the DM can threaten any reasonable non-spellcaster in a multitude of ways in a fair, non-underhanded manner. Any trick the non-spellcaster type can pull the DM can create a monster/situation that the PC can not solve even with good preparation. Importantly, non-spellcasters rely heavily on magic items to actually prepare (potions, rings, amulets etc). Which also severely restricts their modes of locomotion and thus escape when confronted with the ultimate threat of HP damage. Thus, they are comparatively easy to handle.

In D&D the spellcaster has only two DM-handy weaknesses, that of being caught off guard and running out of resources (which can be also thought of being caught off guard in one sense). Spellcasters can deal with HP damage by either escaping and/or healing themselves. That makes a "mage-slayer" kind of character quite difficult to build properly. If the spellcasters go first, then due to the way the system works, an optimised spellcaster becomes the dominating factor in the field. Thus as a PC, you can range your playstyle from game breaking to game-saving. Of course, the majority of players are ineffectual as spellcasters because they are not initiated into the art of optimisation, but when they learn they are a terror.

Unfortunately, the rules in the book are not all that well thought out regarding feats and spells that casters have access to. While non-spellcasters get feats like Power attack which does HP damage doing literally nothing to the abilities of monsters (this is a bit exaggerated; there are feats that can stun/do STR damage but that are mostly ineffective in real game situations), spellcasters get feats like DMM or Arcane thesis, that can completely change how the game works.

With this and the idea that spellcasters can simply do more things due to each spell being a temporary feat, we have spellcasters as versatile, powerful and thus intrinsically more nuanced characters out there.

2. From a storytelling perspective, they have also can do more stuff, like divination, summoning, teleportation, enchantment that helps them advance plots and achieve more in terms of Roleplay. The fighter is forced to either try his one RP skill or fight. This is NOT okay, of course, and in many situations, the DM fiat then is the only agency that can help a non-caster achieve his story goals successfully. This breeds a certain kind of aloofness I think. It is important to acknowledge this issue so that it can be fixed in future iterations of D&D.

[CasualViking]

Oh god, I am only on page two, and people who don't even understand the concept of Comparative Advantage want to discuss economics and are shifting the goalposts from mending to high-level make whole and all the way into non-magical nanotechnology of the most handwavy kind and there are three more pages to go

[logic_error]

Oh god, I am only on page two, and people who don't even understand the concept of Comparative Advantage want to discuss economics and are shifting the goalposts from mending to high-level make whole and all the way into non-magical nanotechnology of the most handwavy kind and there are three more pages to go

Make whole is level 2, and a least dragon mark can do it once per day, just saying.

[Cosi]

You know those great Steven Burst Dragaera books? Taltos doesn't choose what he wants to engage with... situations happen and he has to deal with them.

First, books are different from games.

Second, many of those books involve Taltos choosing whether or not to take some job. If Vlad opts not to take the Demon up on his offer, the entire plot of Jhereg doesn't happen. Or at least happens to someone else. Sometimes he doesn't even take up the offer (e.g. killing the Eastern revolutionary gut in Teckla). Sure, we only see the cases where something interesting happens, but that doesn't mean he jumps on every plot hook.

[eggynack]

Oh god, I am only on page two, and people who don't even understand the concept of Comparative Advantage want to discuss economics and are shifting the goalposts from mending to high-level make whole and all the way into non-magical nanotechnology of the most handwavy kind and there are three more pages to go

There's the phrase I should have been using all this time. Comparative advantage. Totally accurate use of the term. Casters have an absolute advantage over commoners at mending and repairing stuff, but commoners have a ridiculous comparative advantage in this area, meaning the repair economy operates just fine by way of service oriented trade. No equilibrium is going to feature wizards taking on anything close to the brunt of the repair jobs, just because it makes no sense for them to take those jobs. It's great to not be beating around the comparative advantage bush any more.

[AvatarVecna]

There's the phrase I should have been using all this time. Comparative advantage. Totally accurate use of the term. Casters have an absolute advantage over commoners at mending and repairing stuff, but commoners have a ridiculous comparative advantage in this area, meaning the repair economy operates just fine by way of service oriented trade. No equilibrium is going to feature wizards taking on anything close to the brunt of the repair jobs, just because it makes no sense for them to take those jobs. It's great to not be beating around the comparative advantage bush any more.

As much as I hate to fan the flames, wouldn't things like at-will spell-replicating magic items - be they custom slotted magic items or resetting traps - allow casters to compete with mundane craftsman/professionals in the long-term? I mean, obviously such things wouldn't be common in your average fantasy world, but in worlds where magic items and the people who can make them are a bit more common, I imagine even a near-epic Expert blacksmith would be able to work as fast as the wizard's "Arms And Armor Repair-O-Tron 3000" resetting trap, and if the wizard can charge a lot less for it...

[eggynack]

As much as I hate to fan the flames, wouldn't things like at-will spell-replicating magic items - be they custom slotted magic items or resetting traps - allow casters to compete with mundane craftsman/professionals in the long-term? I mean, obviously such things wouldn't be common in your average fantasy world, but in worlds where magic items and the people who can make them are a bit more common, I imagine even a near-epic Expert blacksmith would be able to work as fast as the wizard's "Arms And Armor Repair-O-Tron 3000" resetting trap, and if the wizard can charge a lot less for it...

Sure. Resetting traps are indeed likely economy breaking because they don't require time investment in the same way that repeated casting does. Traps are essentially perfectly fixed cost, so as long as a given repeating trap is a good investment relative to other repeating traps, whatever that repeating trap does seems like it'd eventually conquer the industry in question. I don't think anyone doubts that 3.5's economy has some fundamental breaks to it. Wall of salt is right there, giving more gold per casting than is at all reasonable, and wish loops are available exceptionally early, allowing more or less infinite cash. It's just this thing specifically, casters running around fabricating objects in such a way that it obviates repairs and crafting otherwise, and not using said fabrication to simply make items more expensive and selling them at a big profit, that is illogical as a world breaker.

[AvatarVecna]

Sure. Resetting traps are indeed likely economy breaking because they doesn't require time investment in the same way that repeated casting does. Traps are essentially perfectly fixed cost, so as long as a given repeating trap is a good investment relative to other repeating traps, whatever that repeating trap does seems like it'd eventually be conquer the industry in question. I don't think anyone doubts that 3.5's economy has some fundamental breaks to it. Wall of salt is right there, giving more gold per casting than is at all reasonable, and wish loops are available exceptionally early, allowing more or less infinite cash. It's just this thing specifically, casters running around fabricating objects in such a way that it obviates repairs and crafting otherwise, and not using said fabrication to simply make items more expensive and selling them at a big profit, that is illogical as a world breaker.

Ah, I see. Fair enough.

[Psyren]

There's the phrase I should have been using all this time. Comparative advantage. Totally accurate use of the term. Casters have an absolute advantage over commoners at mending and repairing stuff, but commoners have a ridiculous comparative advantage in this area, meaning the repair economy operates just fine by way of service oriented trade. No equilibrium is going to feature wizards taking on anything close to the brunt of the repair jobs, just because it makes no sense for them to take those jobs. It's great to not be beating around the comparative advantage bush any more.

Indee I've brought up this concept in many historical caster disparity threads. And it doesn't just apply to the game macroeconomy, it applies to adventuring party relationships too. (At least, it does in Pathfinder - in 3.5, where there is next to no opportunity cost to spellcasters for doing other party roles, it does not.)

You know what else is common in those stories? A severe lack of omnipotent world controlling being who's really pushy about just how they do their ''jobs.'' Yes GM you get to give me a problem. No, you don't get to decide how I go about dealing with it.

They can however decide how you won't deal with it. Some things you could come up with won't work, or will make things worse.

[Zanos]

You know those great Steven Burst Dragaera books? Taltos doesn't choose what he wants to engage with... situations happen and he has to deal with them.

You know pretty-much all great fiction, ever? Great & Terrible events sweep the characters up and the characters have to deal with it.

Good stories don't start with "there was a terrible evil rising in the East... but Joe Wizard was too busy trying to get tenure at the Mage College, so he and his friends never bothered to deal with it." Unless, of course, it's Parody.

When a Hero in a story hears about a problem, he goes out and tries to fix it. The character in the story more worried about their own self-interest and "agency"? That's the villain.

D&D heroes are adventurers. They're in trouble because they went out and looked for it much of the time. They aren't reluctant heroes swept into the plots of those far greater than them by circumstances out of their control. I actually tell people at my table that your character better have a reason to be adventuring, because I am not going to spend 50% of my time as a DM trying to motivate Brood McJackass to play the game.

So how your plot actually starts is "A Great and terrible Evil is rising in the east, but the PCs are level 1, so they left it the hell alone because they weren't in the mood to be ground into dust by a great and terrible Evil."

Tabletop games aren't books. If you want to read a book, read a book. D&D stories will seldom ever resemble a professionally written book by a good author because you typically have somewhere between 3-6 people all doing different stuff for different reasons that don't have complete and total control over the setting and everything in it.

They can however decide how you won't deal with it. Some things you could come up with won't work, or will make things worse.

Ryu's pointing out that the GM doesn't have the same control over the "plot" of a tabletop game in the same way the author of a book does. In most of my groups DMs who do act that way, since they do exist, are pretty much universally reviled.

[Psyren]

Ryu's pointing out that the GM doesn't have the same control over the "plot" of a tabletop game in the same way the author of a book does. In most of my groups DMs who do act that way, since they do exist, are pretty much universally reviled.

You're right, but having some rails/structure is not a bad thing. It's the reason that APs and modules sell - people like the three-act story structure, even in games. I'm not saying there's no market or desire for purely player-driven, sandboxy stories, but GMs who want to have agency in the worlds they run are not wrong either.

[ryu]

You're right, but having some rails/structure is not a bad thing. It's the reason that APs and modules sell - people like the three-act story structure, even in games. I'm not saying there's no market or desire for purely player-driven, sandboxy stories, but GMs who want to have agency in the worlds they run are not wrong either.

DM has the agency to control literally everyone and everything that isn't a PC or actively controlled by PCs. If they can't think of dozens of ways of having fun things to decide on without reaching into my territory to dictate my options to me I severely doubt their creativity.

[Psyren]

DM has the agency to control literally everyone and everything that isn't a PC or actively controlled by PCs. If they can't think of dozens of ways of having fun things to decide on without reaching into my territory to dictate my options to me I severely doubt their creativity.

Demanding unlimited creativity from one human being tasked with entertaining 3-5 others while also piloting everything else in the world - and presumably having their own life to live between sessions - seems a bit harsh to me. Your table might do fine with zero rails or structure, and that's great, but I don't think you can extrapolate that to everyone else's (or even most others.)

[Pleh]

DM has the agency to control literally everyone and everything that isn't a PC or actively controlled by PCs. If they can't think of dozens of ways of having fun things to decide on without reaching into my territory to dictate my options to me I severely doubt their creativity.

1. Even if they lack creativity, that shouldn't make them not worth playing with. Some people enjoy premade adventures more than creating new content. Imagine: some people like playing the game more than making it. Just because you value options so highly doesn't invalidate games or players that don't value it as highly as you.

2. Characters and the people they describe metaphorically, do not exist in a vacuum. The imaginary line where the character ends and the world begins is completely arbitrary. In reality, characters are inseperably part of the world they occupy.

3. There was recently a thread about feats like leadership and resourceful buyer to talk about PCs having options that infringe on DM playspace. The truth is that there is no "correct" separation of powers between players and DMs; there is only the possibility of reaching consensus. Hence your unwillingness to play with a DM that seeks to limit your character options is as much an inflexibility on your own part as it is on the DM's.

[Cosi]

Sure. Resetting traps are indeed likely economy breaking because they don't require time investment in the same way that repeated casting does. Traps are essentially perfectly fixed cost, so as long as a given repeating trap is a good investment relative to other repeating traps, whatever that repeating trap does seems like it'd eventually conquer the industry in question. I don't think anyone doubts that 3.5's economy has some fundamental breaks to it. Wall of salt is right there, giving more gold per casting than is at all reasonable, and wish loops are available exceptionally early, allowing more or less infinite cash. It's just this thing specifically, casters running around fabricating objects in such a way that it obviates repairs and crafting otherwise, and not using said fabrication to simply make items more expensive and selling them at a big profit, that is illogical as a world breaker.

Also, even if the world is breakable, that doesn't necessarily imply it's broken. I'm of the firm opinion that something like Tome's Wish Economy holds. People who can break the economy have no reason to interact with it. Instead, they go off and form economies where they trade in things that are scarce for them. In Tome, that's magic items, though Tome re-introduces the 3.0 limit on item creation with wish.

Essentially, if only you can create infinite diamonds, you break the economy. If everyone can create infinite diamonds, you live in The Diamond Age.

Demanding unlimited creativity from one human being tasked with entertaining 3-5 others while also piloting everything else in the world - and presumably having their own life to live between sessions - seems a bit harsh to me. Your table might do fine with zero rails or structure, and that's great, but I don't think you can extrapolate that to everyone else's (or even most others.)

In this model the DM isn't "tasked with entertaining 3-5 others". The whole point is that the game is a social activity in which multiple people interact to entertain one another. It's no more and no less the DM's job to entertain you than it is your job to entertain him.

1. Even if they lack creativity, that shouldn't make them not worth playing with. Some people enjoy premade adventures more than creating new content. Imagine: some people like playing the game more than making it. Just because you value options so highly doesn't invalidate games or players that don't value it as highly as you.

In principle, sure. You should play by the rules your group agrees on. Don't go off the rails if you're playing Rise of the Runelords. Don't railroad people if you're playing a sandbox game. Don't bring a Shadowrun character to an Exalted game. And so on and so forth. But there's been a strong opposition to the notion that "magic" is good for the game, and that's absurd.

2. Characters and the people they describe metaphorically, do not exist in a vacuum. The imaginary line where the character ends and the world begins is completely arbitrary. In reality, characters are inseperably part of the world they occupy.

The fact that it's arbitrary doesn't make it imaginary. The line between "things I own" and "things I don't own" is arbitrary in the real world, but that doesn't make it okay for me to take stuff that isn't mine. Similarly, while the line between "world" and "character" is arbitrary, it is not unclear.

3. There was recently a thread about feats like leadership and resourceful buyer to talk about PCs having options that infringe on DM playspace. The truth is that there is no "correct" separation of powers between players and DMs; there is only the possibility of reaching consensus. Hence your unwillingness to play with a DM that seeks to limit your character options is as much an inflexibility on your own part as it is on the DM's.

But of course the reverse must necessarily be true. If the DM insists on infringing your access to teleport to tell the story he wants, isn't he being "inflexible" in the same way you are if you insist on being allowed to go off rails during Savage Tide?

[ryu]

Demanding unlimited creativity from one human being tasked with entertaining 3-5 others while also piloting everything else in the world - and presumably having their own life to live between sessions - seems a bit harsh to me. Your table might do fine with zero rails or structure, and that's great, but I don't think you can extrapolate that to everyone else's (or even most others.)

It's not infinite at all. It's as much as they feel is necessary to entertain themselves without dictating my travel plans, daily routine, overall plan of attack, and all other things involving the debate of just how far they're allowed to shove their hand up my character when it's supposed to be my hand in there. You want to micromanage a group of people around our level range? Fine. Make a them an NPC enemy group and you can decide everything for them. Right down to when they inevitably attack and we're made to discover our favored solution of dealing with the problem. Could be combat. Could be running if we're outmatched or met on unfavorable terms. Could the second followed by information gathering and retaliation.

[Zanos]

Demanding unlimited creativity from one human being tasked with entertaining 3-5 others while also piloting everything else in the world - and presumably having their own life to live between sessions - seems a bit harsh to me. Your table might do fine with zero rails or structure, and that's great, but I don't think you can extrapolate that to everyone else's (or even most others.)

You just write the setting or use someone else's and play it as it would react.

Also, even if the world is breakable, that doesn't necessarily imply it's broken. I'm of the firm opinion that something like Tome's Wish Economy holds. People who can break the economy have no reason to interact with it. Instead, they go off and form economies where they trade in things that are scarce for them. In Tome, that's magic items, though Tome re-introduces the 3.0 limit on item creation with wish.

Essentially, if only you can create infinite diamonds, you break the economy. If everyone can create infinite diamonds, you live in The Diamond Age.

Well, some people can break the economy and some can't. They have a pretty huge incentive to not break the economy over their knees, since as long as their infinite goods have perceived value they have essentially unlimited wealth.

Perhaps there's some sort of secret society of people who are capable of and discovered how to obtain effectively infinite wealth, and they reign in anyone who doesn't want to play ball since they could ruin it for everyone?