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

[Lord Mistborn]

Then give some damn examples of how you think that should work, if you think that's actually relevant (it's not). At least then people wouldn't have to guess what you're arguing for.

So examples of lateral advancement for fighters, how about the ability to
-pinpoint the location of an invisible creature with perception skills
-jump superhuman distances
-run up walls
-block spells and the like with a weapon and/or shield
-hit people very hard, hard enough to ignore DR/not hurt except by +X
-shrug off debilitating conditions with raw willpower

[Bedrockbrendan]

I woudl tend to agree with you I am a roleplayer that likes stories but ..

Does it though if they exist in a world of entitlement where the items are statistically guarenteed?

Why not allow a choice or a random roll off a table each level?

Personally I think it changes the game a lot to do this. I  have no problem with them including these options, but the more the game goes down the road of this being default, the quicker it loses my interest as a player and GM.

[Exploderwizard]

So as characters level up they get better at the thing they alread can do. Fighters Bab/Thac0 gets better, The Rogue/Thief get's better at his skill's. The Wizard/Cleric get a better CL/ can do more damage with spell/heal more hp.

However characters can also learn to do things they could not do before. This is lateral advancement. Casters get this in huge amounts, the start to fly, teleport, force saves vs death, replicate skills. So what kind of lateral advancment should the fighter get.

Without items a 20th level fighter is only really diffrent from a level 1 fighter in the fact that his numbers are better.

So what types of things can a fighter learn to do? In old school, after getting as good as someone can reasonably get at personal ass-kicking, the fighter attracts followers and gets to command troops, and rule some land. This is very fitting for a military leader. What kind of other non-combat abilities would the fighter logically get?

D&D combat was designed to be abstract and quickly resolved. It was never meant to simulate blow by blow combat. So giving the fighter a HAWK STRIKE DEATH BLOW that does extra damage is rather out of place in the abstract model.

ANY FUCKING BODY CAN OPEN A GOD DAMN RANDOM DOOR!

Providing that strength levels are relatively equal, yes.

[StormBringer]

You don't know the rules of the game.  Quit pretending you do.  You sound like an idiot.

So, the scroll allows a Fighter or Thief to memorize the spell contained thereon and cast it later whenever they want?

Your premises are supposed to support your conclusion.  I've pointed out that your premises are false.

And with a very few examples, you have managed to show there might be some minor problems with these premises.  'Pointing out' they are false is not the same as demonstrating they are false.  The best you have managed is that they are not absolutely true, but I think that is what people have been telling you all along.  And we still haven't seen this awesome spell-load out that puts Wizards way ahead of Fighters.  Sorry, I meant 'sensible' load out.

My conclusion is that: "All else being equal, access to spells makes a character more powerful."

Ok.  Where are the premises?  You are quite clever at nit-picking semantic details out (ie, use of a scroll is 'casting a spell' because of the skill description, so Fighters can 'cast spells' sometimes.), but so far you have utterly failed to demonstrate any reason why your conclusion should be even be treated as a conclusion, let alone considered seriously.  Show us how these few spells you mention in your post can be used by the Wizard day in and day out, with no impact on their regular activities.  And by 'regular activities', I mean 'contributing to the adventure', not 'showing up the Fighter, Thief, and anyone else once or twice a day just because it might be possible'.

[Lord Mistborn]

So what types of things can a fighter learn to do? In old school, after getting as good as someone can reasonably get at personal ass-kicking, the fighter attracts followers and gets to command troops, and rule some land. This is very fitting for a military leader. What kind of other non-combat abilities would the fighter logically get?

He get's what an noncater can get out of the skill system, and I assume starts to become unreasonably good at personal ass-kicking

D&D combat was designed to be abstract and quickly resolved. It was never meant to simulate blow by blow combat. So giving the fighter a HAWK STRIKE DEATH BLOW that does extra damage is rather out of place in the abstract model.

Please reread my examples.

[Exploderwizard]

So examples of lateral advancement for fighters, how about the ability to
-pinpoint the location of an invisible creature with perception skills
-jump superhuman distances
-run up walls
-block spells and the like with a weapon and/or shield
-hit people very hard, hard enough to ignore DR/not hurt except by +X
-shrug off debilitating conditions with raw willpower

-Detect Invisibility
- Jump
- Spider Climb
-Minor Globe/Antimagic Shell, etc.
- magic weapon
-(isn't this the very definition of a saving throw?)


So, other than magical abilities and procedures which already exist what else you got?

Remember, reskinning magical powers to be "martial" is the route 4E took. While it produced a fairly 'balanced ' combat game it also sucked donkey balls at being D&D. The 4E implied setting was tacked on as an afterthought to the rules structure.

This is what is bound to happen whenever you attempt to put the cart(rules) before the horse(game).

In other words, if what you are looking for is "not D&D" there is plenty of it already out there.

[beejazz]

Most of what you're talking about can be baked into the math without "button mashing." Since DCs are GM-side and spells/feats are player-side, one method of codification presents an "easy mode" for new or casual players.

So examples of lateral advancement for fighters, how about the ability to
-pinpoint the location of an invisible creature with perception skills

Skill points in listen. Attack bonus to offset penalties.

-jump superhuman distances

Jump skill. Good strength.

-run up walls

This one's pretty meh if you've got that jumping working right.

-block spells and the like with a weapon and/or shield

Functionally not different from having good saves. Flavor-wise kind of stupid. Actually doesn't do as much as interruption (pre-3e, since 3e kind of nerfed interruption).

-hit people very hard, hard enough to ignore DR/not hurt except by +X

Mostly numbers. Just nix DR/magic.

-shrug off debilitating conditions with raw willpower

Second saves. I'm pretty meh on those. My game has concentration based duration spells. So a punch in the face can end spell effects, including those that affect an ally (this kind of interruption has broader utility than a second save).

[RandallS]

So examples of lateral advancement for fighters, how about the ability to
-pinpoint the location of an invisible creature with perception skills

Anyone or anything with senses other than sight gets to try this in my games, after all invisibility does not block sound, smell, touch, etc.

-jump superhuman distances

It depends on what you mean by superhuman distances. I might be willing to give a small bonus to high level fighters (say +1 foot per level over ten to standing broad jump and +1.5 feet per level over 10 to running broad jump -- MAX)

-run up walls

Not in my games.

-block spells and the like with a weapon and/or shield

Probably not -- unless it destroyed the weapon on shield used to block the spell -- and area effect spells would not be blockable. Even here, I would have to try it in the game for a good while before giving final approval.

-hit people very hard, hard enough to ignore DR/not hurt except by +X

I've used 3.x so little that I can't say.  However, I have allowed fighters to hit monsters that need magic weapons to hit without one in the past (in some settings) starting with monsters that need +1 weapons to hit at 5th level, +2 weapons to hit at 10th level, +3 weapons to hit at 15th level. This was NOT a superhuman ability, however, it was defined as the fighter's combat expertise allowing him to find places to hit the monster to damage it.

-shrug off debilitating conditions with raw willpower

My answer would depends on the condition.

[jibbajibba]

Personally I think it changes the game a lot to do this. I  have no problem with them including these options, but the more the game goes down the road of this being default, the quicker it loses my interest as a player and GM.

See I hate super frequent magic item adventures. I hate being presented with the fact that by 15th level my fighter will have on average found 120 magic swords so probably has a +5 defender or equiv. This was a debate on the FvW thread.

I hate the fact that magic is so ubiquitous that magic swords and super armour are an expected thing found through just rooting round in old caves and whatnot. I hate that my fighter changes his sword every level cos he can trade up to something better.
My perfect world would have none of these mundane magic items, all items would be akin to artefacts and they would be very rare so by 15th level my fighter may have encountered a dozen or so and perhaps owns 1.
But as I have been informed D&D doesn't work like that.

So what could I do to fix it. Well I looked at the actual mechanical advantage of magic items. What do they actually do? and there is a slew of stuff but basically heal, defend, attack, mobility and utility. Is there a way to fill those gaps for the mundane classes, and they do have the worse of this, without the huge number of items without the constant trading up in gear.

I am not sure there is but the idea that the fighter's sword levels with him somehow maybe not his very first sword but his first magic sword. Maybe he finds it in lair and its +1/+1 but maybe by the time he is 10th level its +3/+3 and is when it kills an opponent it releases a wave of fear and any withn 10 feet must make a save. Maybe he finds a shield at 4th level and its +2 but by the time he is 15th level its +4 and has the ability to cause gaze reflection.
I am not sure I like it yet. I am not sure how it relates to my fundamental desire to make fighters totally mundane and get rid of all the magic and have them able to dodge and not take damage or block and parry and all the other stuff I have raised in the past. But I know I don't like the magic item train where keeping on using your father's sword is seen as a daft roleplay pretension.

[Bedrockbrendan]

I think magic items are a default assumption of the game. Ravenloft attempted to go magic light and the nature of the setting allowed it to work pretty well in my opinion. I ran campaign into the higher levels that worked pretty well even without a crazy number of magic items (though even there you still expect fighters might have magic swords with bonuses to attack). I havent played a 2E ravenloft campaign in a while but some of the stuff that made it work:

-the gm was encouraged to give monsters specific weaknesses: this vampire in particular is immune to anything but a stake fashioned by one of his ancestors (something the pcs are expected to figure out through investigation). This allowed you to get around the need for +x weapon to hit.

-magic was very dangerous in ravenloft. Some spells by their nature required a powers check just to cast them. Stuff like teleport, divination, etc were changed by the demiplane. Many other spells and magic items had unexpected effects.

-focus wasnt on combat: in ravenloft there was a lot less focus on combat, adventures tended to be rp heavy and investigative...and this meant you really didn't care as much about who is contributing what in a fight.

-combat was meant to be scary. Players being overwhelmed by a threat and needing to flee was okay. Dungeon crawls were not encouraged.

I found the game worked just fine. I dont know that changing how fighters worked would have added anyting useful. Especially since they were pretty effective in 2E in my opinion.

[Sacrosanct]

OK so this earth elemental it's really big. 32ft tall in fact. It's massive, 24 tons of rock and dirt. It's also totally undifferentiated. It has no blood to bleed, no veins to cut, no organs to puncture, it has in fact no discernible anatomy whatsoever. So with your sword you need to somehow render inanimate this 32ft tall 24 ton earthen behemoth, while it's smashing you with arms that are bigger than your entire body and weigh around 2-3 tons each. Good luck with that mister ordinary human.

So no, you can't give me a specific thing that the fighter is doing that is superhuman.

Big surprise.  Oh, and "not super human" =/= "ordinary"



I'd like to apologize to all of the other posters here for my kneejerk reactions.  Clearly LM isn't arguing in good faith and blatantly ignores half of the objective facts that prove him wrong, and outright changes the definition of the other half.

There is really no point in me continuing with someone who ignores the stuff right in front of his face.  It would be a futile effort to try with someone like that.

Congrats LM, you got me with your trolling.

[Black Vulmea]

. . . ANY FUCKING BODY CAN OPEN A GOD DAMN RANDOM DOOR!

Translation? "LA-LA-LA! I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"

So, in order to makes your respective arguments, Lord Mistborn ignores the rules for hit points and you ignore the rules for opening doors, and you wonder why so many here - other than jj, who doesn't know shit about the rules, either - think you guys are less-than-serious.

It's one thing to say, 'I don't care for that rule, and here's how and why I would change it.' It's another thing altogether to say, 'That rule sucks, so I ignore it since it doesn't fit my argument.'

[jibbajibba]

I think magic items are a default assumption of the game. Ravenloft attempted to go magic light and the nature of the setting allowed it to work pretty well in my opinion. I ran campaign into the higher levels that worked pretty well even without a crazy number of magic items (though even there you still expect fighters might have magic swords with bonuses to attack). I havent played a 2E ravenloft campaign in a while but some of the stuff that made it work:

-the gm was encouraged to give monsters specific weaknesses: this vampire in particular is immune to anything but a stake fashioned by one of his ancestors (something the pcs are expected to figure out through investigation). This allowed you to get around the need for +x weapon to hit.

-magic was very dangerous in ravenloft. Some spells by their nature required a powers check just to cast them. Stuff like teleport, divination, etc were changed by the demiplane. Many other spells and magic items had unexpected effects.

-focus wasnt on combat: in ravenloft there was a lot less focus on combat, adventures tended to be rp heavy and investigative...and this meant you really didn't care as much about who is contributing what in a fight.

-combat was meant to be scary. Players being overwhelmed by a threat and needing to flee was okay. Dungeon crawls were not encouraged.

I found the game worked just fine. I dont know that changing how fighters worked would have added anyting useful. Especially since they were pretty effective in 2E in my opinion.

We have played magic light games for years and aside from changing HP wounds and recovery its worked really well but we had a mundane party. When that balance was upset with the addition of a wizard ally things became less easy to manage.
Similarly the DM was running a game for mundanes. His magic was high magic and inexplicable.Thw whole thing very S&S.

then we more recently played a more standard D&D game. The need to upgrade equipment each level was palpable.
I didn't do so enjoying the character with the stuff he had and not wanting to Xmas tree him. He dies as a result at 8th level.  

So I am looking to see if a minor change in the narrative of D&D which no real change to the rules or the way it plays might fill my need for less bling whilst making  mundane characters still able to compete past 8th level.

[Exploderwizard]

We have played magic light games for years and aside from changing HP wounds and recovery its worked really well but we had a mundane party. When that balance was upset with the addition of a wizard ally things became less easy to manage.
Similarly the DM was running a game for mundanes. His magic was high magic and inexplicable.Thw whole thing very S&S.

then we more recently played a more standard D&D game. The need to upgrade equipment each level was palpable.
I didn't do so enjoying the character with the stuff he had and not wanting to Xmas tree him. He dies as a result at 8th level.  

So I am looking to see if a minor change in the narrative of D&D which no real change to the rules or the way it plays might fill my need for less bling whilst making  mundane characters still able to compete past 8th level.

The whole constant upgrade thing was never an issue for us in B/X or 1E. Some campaigns had a lot more magic items than others but I don't remember need X amount just to survive.

It must be a 3E thing because of all the WBL assumptions baked into the math.

[Lord Mistborn]

So no, you can't give me a specific thing that the fighter is doing that is superhuman.

Big surprise.  Oh, and "not super human" =/= "ordinary"

He's hacking appart 24 tons of living rock while it's trying to kill him. That's pretty superhuman in my book.

Listen at the end of they day you're going to have to fight

The guy on the right at level 20. He's not only bigger, faster, and stronger than you he has his own list of spell-like abilities. He can teleport, cast save or dies, summon some of his demoinc bro's to fight with him, and yeah he can fly. What the fuck is the fighter suposed to be able to do against that.