I don't think anyone is disputing that in older editions the gap between 'stick beater' and 'wizard' was somewhat less egregious.  The economy of action, the fact that you didn't need massive damage outputs to kill any given monster and more all allowed fighters to feel relevant even at high levels.

An argument pointing out that a +5 sword is a 'fighter-prize' ignores the fact that a wizard... doesn't care.  The fighter, arguably, needs the +5 sword to have a hope of remaining competetive, while the wizard could care less as the sword does not add too, nor subtract from, his ability to wizard.

Staves are nice as a comparison object, but again: A wizard doesn't need a staff to be a competetive wizard. It can add, certainly, but its not as necessary.

Quote from: Spike;507721I don't think anyone is disputing that in older editions the gap between 'stick beater' and 'wizard' was somewhat less egregious.  The economy of action, the fact that you didn't need massive damage outputs to kill any given monster and more all allowed fighters to feel relevant even at high levels.

There's another reason while the problem was not nearly as bad in TSR editions of D&D: advancement was much slower. A year of weekly play with anything like the intended amount of XP and treasure (which is generally less than that handed out in published TSR adventures, especially if they were based on tournament adventures), might see the average party level as somewhere around 5th to 7th level. Two years of such play might have characters at 11-13th level. Advancement might even be slower if XP for treasure wasn't being used in the campaign. This mean most campaign-style play took place at levels where wizards not only did not dominate play but were often one of the weaker classes.

WOTC not only removed many of the things that helped balance spell casters (any damage disrupts spell being cast, spell components, spells hard to get, no easy/fast way to make magic items, etc.) but they sped up the rate of advancement so characters sped through the levels where spell casters were weak and so more time could be spent where spell casters were more powerful.

Quote from: RandallS;507727There's another reason while the problem was not nearly as bad in TSR editions of D&D: advancement was much slower. A year of weekly play with anything like the intended amount of XP and treasure (which is generally less than that handed out in published TSR adventures, especially if they were based on tournament adventures), might see the average party level as somewhere around 5th to 7th level. Two years of such play might have characters at 11-13th level. Advancement might even be slower if XP for treasure wasn't being used in the campaign. This mean most campaign-style play took place at levels where wizards not only did not dominate play but were often one of the weaker classes.

WOTC not only removed many of the things that helped balance spell casters (any damage disrupts spell being cast, spell components, spells hard to get, no easy/fast way to make magic items, etc.) but they sped up the rate of advancement so characters sped through the levels where spell casters were weak and so more time could be spent where spell casters were more powerful.

I am not sure that stacks up entirely. In 1e you get through the low levels pretty quickly (if you survive) and remember you need to get as much xp to go from 8th to 9th level as you needed to go from 1st to 8th in the first place. So I think campaign play tends to occur mostly in the 5th - 8th range now I think that is the sweet spot where the classes are the most balanced so that is a +ve

In any case the fact that a 1st level wizard is slightly less useful than a stick with a balloon on the end is hardly an advert for a well designed balanced game.
And of course the fact that the cleric can cast spells and wear armour and is nearly as good a warrior as the fighter and has a much easier time with spell components and restoring their spells as well as being able to turn undead often gets overlooked.

Like I said up-post I often used a spell point system that both gives low level wizards more casting options and curtails high level excesses.
In addition my hit point system (where HP cure quickly but with an underlying wound system) applies all spell damage to HP and only hits wounds when all HP are used up whereas physical damage can go direct to wounds after so much damage. This means a fireball might deal 10d6 but it all comes off HP where as a smack in the head with a sword might do d8 +5 and anything over 12 causes a wound. Now this doesn't make spells any weaker from a standard game after all spells usually deal all their damage to HP, but physical damage is way scarier.
Of course by this point you might be arguing that I am not playing D&D at all

I play Pathfinder, and I've found my players and myself looking wistfully at the 3.5 modification we did to fighter.

We used the d20 Modern style to make it so a player could tweak their PC using "Style Tree" AKA "talent trees" that they could use. Then we adjusted the combat stuff.

First thing fighters could do: Move their entire move and still get a full attack. That made them far more mobile.

Second: We added in "Super-Heavy" armors. ONLY fighters and paladins could wear them.

Third: Weapons and Armor Focus & Specialization came for free.

The talent trees let you build the light fast fighter, the bow fighter, the heavy armor fighter, and the sheer weapons fighter.

It worked real well. The gap between mage and fighter vanished between my fighter tweaks and Arcane Burn.

I too was inspired by the Modern (and SAGA) skill trees, but I generally found the execution to be somewhat horrid.  The preposterous fixed bonus talents that were either absolutely mandatory (due to bonus stacking to keep up) or pointless at or beyond the level they could be reasonably taken at meant that most talents were little more than book-keeping exercises combined with trap options.

Quote from: Spike;508919I too was inspired by the Modern (and SAGA) skill trees, but I generally found the execution to be somewhat horrid.  The preposterous fixed bonus talents that were either absolutely mandatory (due to bonus stacking to keep up) or pointless at or beyond the level they could be reasonably taken at meant that most talents were little more than book-keeping exercises combined with trap options.

d20 Modern is an abomination.  SAGA edition less so, though it remains abominable.

I agree with that assessment.  Modern sucked ass, SAGA sucks(ed?) much ass.

That doesn't mean that they can't be mined for ideas, and it beats trying to reference Arcaneum to explain ideas an inspiration...


What I'm saying is: the problems with Modern and SAGA were primarily sins of execution.  There are plenty of good, even great ideas present in both games that can be taken and improved.