The class balance thread (let's try to keep this one trolling free)

[jibbajibba]

Most of the things you mention though are background deals. While I do think that it is common sense that people would apply technology (in this case magic) to comfort and that the existence of that magic would have an undeniable effect on the world at large these are not the things you concentrate on when you're playing the game. I am willing to bet that most of your games are more of the adventurous sort and you wouldn't spend too much time concentrating on how the wizard puts his slippers on at home or how exactly his tea gets made. The kind of spells you describe may be interesting for the setting but they often times don't interact much with the adventure.

Sleep, charm, fly, invisibility, and fireball may be direct and unsophisticated uses of arcane power but they are also relevant and effective to the adventure you're likely to be on. If I have somebody who wants a background spell of very limited relative use like "Unseen Servant" I would loathe to have them exchange adventure effectiveness for it. This is why I like the idea of Catrips. Cantrips barely cost anything to have and are typically spells that don't get a lot of real traction on an adventure. In Pathfinder Cantrips are not limited to per day use and I think that is a good thing.

Ah but this is where we differ because I will quite happily play a Wizard with absolutely no offensive, defensive or exploration spells.
Our games often involve nothing you would recognise as an adventure. We can have an in game dinner party that lasts for 2 hours of the session where the aim is to embarass the host because those Iridian tupips are so last year....
We had a series of sessions where the aim was to breed the most sucessful fighting Aardvark for a tourney.
When we play high level wizard games which we have very much enjoyed doing we basically take everything from Dying Earth. A typical dying earth plot will be the adventurers try to pursuade a rich heiress to give them her magic parot. Each are after the parot so each counters the other plans whist of course remaining entirely freindly and polite to each other face to face.
If you aren't familiar with Dying Earth perhaps it will make no sense.

This bleeds into other games so often the wizard will be an expert in Butterfly collecting or architecture and will devote a slew of spells to that topic.
One of the Challenges of course is finding a way to eliminate the ancient red dragon using only comprehend languages, rope trick, nystuls magic aura and feign death.....

Looking at 1e spell lists from 1-3rd level that is 78 spells I would say maybe just over a dozen are on your terms 'useless'. They are obviously most of my favourite spells. But the best spells in 1e come from the Greyhawk hardback. You can't argue about the potency of Bigby's Bookworm Bane or Morkenkainen's Protection from Avians (should be renamed to Morkenainen's Avian Antithesis "protection from" is so .... non-Vancian). I do think there need to be more spells for creating food though..... I might have to publish a spell book called Mandor's Miraculous Menu .....

Oh and as an aside if you prepare the reverse of comprehend languages it makes an excellent way to transfer an unbreakable code between 2 wizards... just saying

[LordVreeg]

Its more than that though.
The spells in 1e are there for in game reasons. An invisible bulter than can fetch your slippers make tea, iron your newspaper is just the sort of thing a wizard ought to have.

So the spells are not plot spells because of the games organic growth. What you have is a pot of spells that have evolved because the game evolved and was not formed whole cloth.
This is the reason for stuff like Tenser's floating disc, and its hte reason why 4e for example removed the 'piontless stuff'.

If you go back to the inspiration for the spells, Dying Earth, you will find numerous spells that make the Wizard's life easier. They are translated into the game because the game tries to create a world.

So the spell comprehend languages exists because its a spell that a wizard would create and use a lot not becuase it fulfils a useful gap ion a wizards arsenal.  Yes in play its going to be useless because a plot is never designed such that if you don't find the scroll in room 3 or you are not able to read it then you have no idea what to do or where to go next. That is possibly 'realistic' but its also poor design. You can eliviate the poorness of it or play in a sandbox with lots of similar hooks that can be followed or not.

So when I design a new spell I try to work out where and why it first developed and then try to find an interesting use for it. The Unseen servant for example happens to be a magical invisible creature who can follow quite complex instructions and carry 30lbs of weight. because he can not be damaged expect by magic he is perfect for removing mundane traps. He wasn't designed to be the ideal minesweeper but he is great at it.
So Alberlard my high level mage created Albelard's Maddening Massage. A spell that causes a number of disembodied hands to come into being that act as a distraction they basically poke, twist, nudge and annoy the target, they tie shoelaces together, empty pockets, pour out the contents of potion bottles and undo straps and remove clothing. Now in D&D terms this effect is devastating. It prevents spell casting, destroys or loses magic items, reduces amour class etc etc
Now it emerged from Albelard's Erotic Massage which was itself developed because Wizard academies are notoriously male dominated places ....

So spells in D&D were never diesigned to complement the system. They weren't designed to enabel play or to complement the Pillars of exploration, roleplay and Combat. They were simply things that felt like the sort of things that Wizards would have or create spells to be able to do.
Perhaps a lot of Wizards end up with Sleep, Charm, Fly, Invisibility, FireBall but these are really the boring spells.

Damnit, I could swear I wrote a reply to this earlier, and lost it.

Yes, I get this, since one of the reasons I ended up creating my own systems is because I like the spells to reflect what magic is and should feel like.

http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/14956571/True%20Weight%20of%20Silver
http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/14956398/Summon%20Restil
http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/14955498/Disrupt%20Moon%20Cycle%20spell
and so on.

[RandallS]

This isn't true for all spells though. Take Comprehend Languages. If your team doesn't have Comprehend languages at all you never miss it. Sure, you don't know what certain things say but you go on with your adventure anyway.

Comprehend Languages is one of the most useful low level spells in the game if you play according to old school rules and principles. The Comprehend Languages spell lets a party member talk to monsters when you get a neutral or positive reaction on encountering them. Sure, sign language can often get across something simple like "you leave us alone and we'll leave you alone" but nothing beats being able to talk when it comes to exchanging information about the area or trying to coordinate joint action again a mutual enemy two strong for either the monsters or the party alone. And it never fails that just when you really need to talk, no one in the party knows the language needed.

[MGuy]

Comprehend Languages is one of the most useful low level spells in the game if you play according to old school rules and principles. The Comprehend Languages spell lets a party member talk to monsters when you get a neutral or positive reaction on encountering them. Sure, sign language can often get across something simple like "you leave us alone and we'll leave you alone" but nothing beats being able to talk when it comes to exchanging information about the area or trying to coordinate joint action again a mutual enemy two strong for either the monsters or the party alone. And it never fails that just when you really need to talk, no one in the party knows the language needed.

Randall, I'm not saying Comprehend Languages isn't useful. I'm saying it is unnecessary, and that if you don't have it the adventure continues anyway. Old school or new school there is always a certain usefulness for knowing different languages but whether you do or don't the adventure will continue.

[MGuy]

Ah but this is where we differ because I will quite happily play a Wizard with absolutely no offensive, defensive or exploration spells.
Our games often involve nothing you would recognise as an adventure. We can have an in game dinner party that lasts for 2 hours of the session where the aim is to embarass the host because those Iridian tupips are so last year....
We had a series of sessions where the aim was to breed the most sucessful fighting Aardvark for a tourney.
When we play high level wizard games which we have very much enjoyed doing we basically take everything from Dying Earth. A typical dying earth plot will be the adventurers try to pursuade a rich heiress to give them her magic parot. Each are after the parot so each counters the other plans whist of course remaining entirely freindly and polite to each other face to face.
If you aren't familiar with Dying Earth perhaps it will make no sense.

This bleeds into other games so often the wizard will be an expert in Butterfly collecting or architecture and will devote a slew of spells to that topic.
One of the Challenges of course is finding a way to eliminate the ancient red dragon using only comprehend languages, rope trick, nystuls magic aura and feign death.....

Looking at 1e spell lists from 1-3rd level that is 78 spells I would say maybe just over a dozen are on your terms 'useless'. They are obviously most of my favourite spells. But the best spells in 1e come from the Greyhawk hardback. You can't argue about the potency of Bigby's Bookworm Bane or Morkenkainen's Protection from Avians (should be renamed to Morkenainen's Avian Antithesis "protection from" is so .... non-Vancian). I do think there need to be more spells for creating food though..... I might have to publish a spell book called Mandor's Miraculous Menu .....

Oh and as an aside if you prepare the reverse of comprehend languages it makes an excellent way to transfer an unbreakable code between 2 wizards... just saying

My hat is off to you sir. I have never run or been a part of any game that focused so heavily on doing nothing but having an extended social encounter with a motive as subtle as embarassing another. While I have attempted to make characters that specifically avoid fights (on at least 8 different occassions) I have always had a GM practically necessitate it because the rest of the party is geared towards fighting. I have experienced this in every system I've played (except Vampire which has other issues I don't like).

[RandallS]

Randall, I'm not saying Comprehend Languages isn't useful. I'm saying it is unnecessary, and that if you don't have it the adventure continues anyway. Old school or new school there is always a certain usefulness for knowing different languages but whether you do or don't the adventure will continue.

IMHO, that's true of just about ANY spell or ability -- even combat abilities. After all, you can almost always avoid combat unless the GM is a dick or your characters have done something stupid and been ambushed. Even then you, you could surrender and try to escape later. The only time the adventure will not continue in some why is if you are on a badly designed railroad being ran by an unskilled GM who doesn't dare deviate from printed text.

[Sacrosanct]

Comprehend Languages is one of the most useful low level spells in the game if you play according to old school rules and principles. The Comprehend Languages spell lets a party member talk to monsters when you get a neutral or positive reaction on encountering them. Sure, sign language can often get across something simple like "you leave us alone and we'll leave you alone" but nothing beats being able to talk when it comes to exchanging information about the area or trying to coordinate joint action again a mutual enemy two strong for either the monsters or the party alone. And it never fails that just when you really need to talk, no one in the party knows the language needed.

I really don't think WoTC D&D uses reaction rolls, and that's why things like this get overlooked.  I mean, just look at my Let's Play B/X thread.  Very first encounter the PCs are deciding to parlay instead of fight the group of kobolds.  Favorable reaction result so they don't attack the PCs.  If the party didn't have a dwarf who happened to speak kobold, what then?  You're pretty much left to fight the kobolds, which very well could result in a TPK.  The adventure doesn't continue then, does it?

[LordVreeg]

My hat is off to you sir. I have never run or been a part of any game that focused so heavily on doing nothing but having an extended social encounter with a motive as subtle as embarassing another. While I have attempted to make characters that specifically avoid fights (on at least 8 different occassions) I have always had a GM practically necessitate it because the rest of the party is geared towards fighting. I have experienced this in every system I've played (except Vampire which has other issues I don't like).

Ah, matching game and system again...
http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/14956024/Ridicule
http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/14955397/Chance%20Meeting
http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/14955404/Chaotic%20Encounters

My players spend less than half of their time in the adventure, since we try to make the adventuring a means to an end...and the players enjoy these ends.  The social skills are used as much as any other types.

[LordVreeg]

I really don't think WoTC D&D uses reaction rolls, and that's why things like this get overlooked.  I mean, just look at my Let's Play B/X thread.  Very first encounter the PCs are deciding to parlay instead of fight the group of kobolds.  Favorable reaction result so they don't attack the PCs.  If the party didn't have a dwarf who happened to speak kobold, what then?  You're pretty much left to fight the kobolds, which very well could result in a TPK.  The adventure doesn't continue then, does it?

I agree, and I think that is a nice root example.  Every game I play has some version of a social CC or reaction roll.  Because the players are supposed to have other options.

It is also important to reward these, as I make sure their are exp rewards for using social skills well.

[RandallS]

I really don't think WoTC D&D uses reaction rolls, and that's why things like this get overlooked.

Yes, WOTC D&D seems to have lost reaction rolls and morale, two things that help prevent every monster encounter from becoming a fight to the death.

[MGuy]

IMHO, that's true of just about ANY spell or ability -- even combat abilities. After all, you can almost always avoid combat unless the GM is a dick or your characters have done something stupid and been ambushed. Even then you, you could surrender and try to escape later. The only time the adventure will not continue in some why is if you are on a badly designed railroad being ran by an unskilled GM who doesn't dare deviate from printed text.

You can't always avoid combat. Sometimes you piss off the wrong people and they are trying to kill you. Sometimes you're in a place where violent shit can/will attack you. My point is more that Jump, Comp Language, similar spells pale in comparison to more versatile and useful (for adventuring) spells like invisivbility, fly, etc.

As far as every fight being a fight to death that's generally not the way I run games where Intelligent enemies are involved. Even animals will run away before fighting to the death. Intelligent attackers will retreat when death is inevitable unless they are particularly inspired to not do so. I mean there's no reason they can't just come back later. I find that players are often geared toward the stand and never retreat style of play. I tend to run enemies as logically as I can.

[Sacrosanct]

It is also important to reward these, as I make sure their are exp rewards for using social skills well.

Oh, absolutely.  I have always tended on giving extra xp for creative ways to handle things.  Over the past 30 years, I have found that giving extra XP for stuff like this tends to attract players who create diverse characters, and that in turn creates a more fulfilling and rich role-playing experience other than "what's in the next room?  I attack"

You might have the player who min/maxed his character and is able to defeat enemies in straight up combat, and they might get the bulk of monster XP for that, but if you can find a creative way to beat the same challenge (like talking your way out of it, or drawing the creature out to chase something while the others sneak in and get the loot) usually gets a bit extra from me.

YMMV.

[LordVreeg]

Oh, absolutely.  I have always tended on giving extra xp for creative ways to handle things.  Over the past 30 years, I have found that giving extra XP for stuff like this tends to attract players who create diverse characters, and that in turn creates a more fulfilling and rich role-playing experience other than "what's in the next room?  I attack"

You might have the player who min/maxed his character and is able to defeat enemies in straight up combat, and they might get the bulk of monster XP for that, but if you can find a creative way to beat the same challenge (like talking your way out of it, or drawing the creature out to chase something while the others sneak in and get the loot) usually gets a bit extra from me.

YMMV.

Yes, lots of this.
And I went to a skill-based system years ago where about 30% of experience is gotten for defeating difficulties (traps, monsters, situations), 40% is from skill use (you defended 9 hits, that's 27 exp in protection skills; you cast 'Adept's Heal', take 3 exp per SP cast in that spell type, and distribute 5 more per HP healed among the same spell types, you used basic social or a sub of basic social to ascertain what guilds the magistrate's family is indebted to, take 85 exp in social skills used, or you took 10 points of damage, gain 100 exp in HP), 30% is roleplay bonus and quest/achievement bonus.

There is a lot behind this, but players 'become what they play',  and they can gain as much experience in avoiding combats and social encounters and achievements as they do in combat.

[Sacrosanct]

I think that's really the essence of old school D&D.  Sure, you had groups that did nothing but hack and slash, but I think you find that in every edition for every game.  But I'm pretty sure most of us played like what we just described.

The problem is that sometimes people who never played TSR D&D pick up a book and see "Oh, you get most xp for treasure?  So you killed all the monsters and took the treasure to level up?"  I think they make this assumption because there aren't any real rules for diplomacy, trickery, etc, so there's this assumption that you didn't do it in the game.  Just look at this thread.  They come right out and say that since the rulebook had rules on combat, then the game must have been mostly about combat.

It wasn't.  Not at all, really.  We just role-played the scenarios and made stuff up as we went.

[StormBringer]

My point is more that Jump, Comp Language, similar spells pale in comparison to more versatile and useful (for adventuring) spells like invisivbility, fly, etc.

Only for a very narrow style of play that assumes classes should be tuned for combat.