Quote from: Werekoala;498496Well I think the LotR comparison is kinda valid - after all, even though the Fellowship was made up (for the most part) of pretty epic figures, they could still be felled by arrows - if not, those goblin archers (in the movie) could shoot at them all day and Aragorn wouldn't need to duck. Gandalf did too, I'll note. If they didn't have the protection of Story Immunity, I doubt many of them would have made it beyond the first book. So they were very powerful, very competent people who could still be taken down much like any other person.

As to overpowered wizards - enforce the concentration rules, and harry them with arrows or whatehaveyou, and I'd imagine they'll be quite busy trying to avoid getting killed, and lucky to get off a spell or two in a really big fight.

And despite the difference in their powers, who was the guy who actually vanished the great evil directly?

The lousy hobbit, that's who.

The wizards are the greatest character, when you can feel the wizard - an arcane advisor to the party's leader. Unless the wizard has a high charisma and is the party's leader, that is - in which the warrior is perhaps his bodyguard/prince he wishes to reinstate/military advisor etc. etc.

All I am saying that unless the players are some PvP buffs, they will not really have much problems with being inadequately powerful. Besides - magical items can be used to balance stuff out, and in low magic settings - Profession system from D20 Modern.

LotR comparisons are boring...anyway, if you want to emulate LotR maybe you should design a game from the ground up for it.

About campaign-breaking spells, how about adding extremely rare and expensive material components? Or take the Carcosa route and require extreme acts?

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;498502LotR comparisons are boring...anyway, if you want to emulate LotR maybe you should design a game from the ground up for it.

About campaign-breaking spells, how about adding extremely rare and expensive material components? Or take the Carcosa route and require extreme acts?

LotR is just a metaphor that a party that is not perfectly balanced still can work great. Plus One Ring probably did that for me. Not that I have any need of emulating LotR - I'd rather go with the setting of Malazan or Black Company. Both have really powerful wizards, who can fall to an arrow, if caught under right opportunity. Or first books from Wheel of Time. Or Star Wars - even in later episodes, Han Solo's still a pretty cool guy. Or in Conan, where the powerful magic still perishes before the will of a mortal and steel.

Of course, those are just books - but then again, let's face it. If you're building a campaign, you might as well draw inspirations from everywhere. And a wizard that is slightly/slightly more powerful in terms of raw damage he can deal out/knowledge, will not be that much of a problem. Especially since in DnD they are glass cannons.

Quote from: Werekoala;498496As to overpowered wizards - enforce the concentration rules, and harry them with arrows or whatehaveyou, and I'd imagine they'll be quite busy trying to avoid getting killed, and lucky to get off a spell or two in a really big fight.

No. A second level spell in 3e makes you immune to being "harried by arrows" essentially forever.

Quote from: JDCorley;498514No. A second level spell in 3e makes you immune to being "harried by arrows" essentially forever.

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Protection_from_Arrows

10/-. Nothing that a Sneak Attack won't help surpass with a good roll.

Shortbow 1d6 + 2d6 SA (3rd level rogue), that's 3d6 attack. 8/18 chance to deal damage in range of 1 to 8. And the 3rd level wizard will have something between 6 and 24/27 (the 24/27 is including 18 Con and Toughness feat).

Not to mention that when I'd be such a rogue, I'd draw two daggers and run into melee, and take the wizard out before he/she could concentrate to smack me down. Rogues are perfect wizard killers.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;498502LotR comparisons are boring...anyway, if you want to emulate LotR maybe you should design a game from the ground up for it.

?

I think the thing is, lots of gamers want to have the leeway to emulate LOTR but also emulate more high magic fantasy as well. Personally I would find a game that focused entirely on running a LOTR style game, a bit boring. But I don't mind having LOTR elements in a game like D&D.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;498517I think the thing is, lots of gamers want to have the leeway to emulate LOTR but also emulate more high magic fantasy as well. Personally I would find a game that focused entirely on running a LOTR style game, a bit boring. But I don't mind having LOTR elements in a game like D&D.

LotR IS the High Magic Fantasy. Still - it's completely not what my metaphor was about. I took LotR and a good bunch of other classics to showcase how parties that weren't balanced in power worked just fine.

Not that there's anything wrong with balance of power per say - it is just unnecessary for a successful game/rpg.

Quote from: Rincewind1;498515Not to mention that when I'd be such a rogue, I'd draw two daggers and run into melee, and take the wizard out before he/she could concentrate to smack me down. Rogues are perfect wizard killers.

I thought we were talking about high level characters, not low level. At low levels, the proposed game changes don't even kick in.

And no, doing a few points of damage doesn't make a Concentration check difficult. Remember, the wizard knows that Concentration is the spell that will let him murder 20th level fighters with a third level spell. There is no reason for him to put his skill points anywhere else.

Quote from: JDCorley;498521I thought we were talking about high level characters, not low level. At low levels, the proposed game changes don't even kick in.

And no, doing a few points of damage doesn't make a Concentration check difficult. Remember, the wizard knows that Concentration is the spell that will let him murder 20th level fighters with a third level spell. There is no reason for him to put his skill points anywhere else.

You can also be a killing machine for anything that's alive even as far as 7th level! Here, let me give you a write up.

Step 1. Pick Sun Elf as a race, assign 18 to int, have starting of 20 with bonus.
Step 2. Take Wizard as class.
Step 3. Take SF Illusion and GSF Illusion
Step 4. Phantasmal Killer + Fox's Cunning
Step 5. GG no re

With GSF, 21 Int + fox's cunning bonus, you will have the DC of your PK around 23 + 1/2/3. And that's one of the more laughably obvious builds.

Builds don't make a hero. Builds are just numbers. If a player'd make such a Sun Elf and just say he's a wizard, I'd slap him probably and tell him he takes me for an idiot.

But if he made a backstory about a Sun Elf wizard who actually does rarely use his magic, as he accidentally killed his brother in a spell duel/promised his wife whom actually wanted to test his love, and now only uses his vast magical powers for special occasions such as saving everyone's arse - now there, me lad, there you have some material for an interesting character. And interesting characters make a hero.

First of all, by writing a character backstory, you are stepping outside the realm of the character, how do you even know your character has a brother? You aren't playing your character's parents, they decide if your character has a brother, not your character. By stepping outside your character you ruin immersion/emulation and you become a story swine and are trying to destroy the hobby.



Second of all, what does "being a hero" have to do with the discussion? I assume everyone is roleplaying well and having fun in their own way. It doesn't mean that the game benefits when wizards can do everything everyone else can do better than them and combat is resolved by whose spellcaster gets initiative. That's just not fun. It makes the game worse than playing it the normal way.

Quote from: JDCorley;498530First of all, by writing a character backstory, you are stepping outside the realm of the character, how do you even know your character has a brother? You aren't playing your character's parents, they decide if your character has a brother, not your character. By stepping outside your character you ruin immersion/emulation and you become a story swine and are trying to destroy the hobby.

Bollocks. Pundit likes Amber, he can't be against character backstories - and they are imo important for immersion, as they are the moment to flesh the character out.

QuoteSecond of all, what does "being a hero" have to do with the discussion? I assume everyone is roleplaying well and having fun in their own way. It doesn't mean that the game benefits when wizards can do everything everyone else can do better than them and combat is resolved by whose spellcaster gets initiative. That's just not fun. It makes the game worse than playing it the normal way.

First of all, you mistake "allowing wizards to be slightly more powerful" with "letting them become overlords of humanity riding fellow players like bitches".

But let's say that the spellcaster has magic that allows him for some really powerful spells, compared to what the rest of the party can do, but he retains a low hit dice of DnD wizard.

Obviously, term "glass cannon" comes to mind. And if you see an enemy party - you send out your rogue with a poison - tipped arrow  to take the enemy's wizard out. Remember that adventurer's aren't some random morons running around - they are people who live in the world for quite some time. They know what their wizard is capable of - they will want to take other's side wizard out first.

You can hinder the wizard in other ways - perhaps drawing upon the very arcane power is dangerous, as it can render the user mad? Perhaps it's always a contest between not drawing too much, nor too little? You call these things problems, I call them opportunities. I'm trying to advice Werekoala  that an imbalanced party is not equal to a bad party. Because I find it a steaming pile of bullshit sold by MMORPGs. I presume Werekoala wishes to make a campaign about epic adventures, even if he downgrades heroes hit points. Heroes hit points, you might've noticed I wrote. Because as I said many times....

A character is something that's beyond just the bunch of numbers.

Quote from: Rincewind1;498520

LotR IS the High Magic Fantasy. Still - it's completely not what my metaphor was about. I took LotR and a good bunch of other classics to showcase how parties that weren't balanced in power worked just fine.

Not that there's anything wrong with balance of power per say - it is just unnecessary for a successful game/rpg.

I wasn't talking about the literary subgenre of high fantasy, but the distinction gamers make between high magic and low magic settings. By gaming standards, lord of the rings is pretty low magic in my opinion.

I understood that you were arguing for a lack of balance. But I was responding to eliot's point (if I understood it) that games emulating LOTR should go all the way and be built from the ground up to resemble it. My point was simply that some gamers want flexibility in a system so it can hit certain LOTR notes while also allowing for more high magic play.

LotR has few wizards, but it has a plethora of magical ancient items, artifacts and magical creatures - but really, we ought to take that talk to a LotR thread. I'd rather help Werekoala then be forced into defending some 'agenda' of mine.

I'm not saying that LotR model is a perfect RPG party - but it proves that a party without balance can work. And if you scroll up, I have made much more examples of adventuring parties in fantasy literature, that worked despite power differences.

Of course, if your players snark at the very prospect of such heresy - then don't do that. Or do it but make them thing you did not, and tell only when it's too late.

Quote from: Rincewind1;498545LotR has few wizards, but it has a plethora of magical ancient items, artifacts and magical creatures - but really, we ought to take that talk to a LotR thread.

I'm not saying that LotR model is a perfect RPG party - but it proves that a party without balance can work. And if you scroll up, I have made much more examples of adventuring parties in fantasy literature, that worked despite power differences.

Keep in mind I agree with you that imbalanced parties can work (though I would quibble and say really it is about not balancing everything around combat), but I don't think LOTR proves it can work since it is a story and not a game. What proves it can work is that there are games out there where balance isn't the priority, and plenty of people have enjoyed playing mixed parties (though again I would say really it tends to boil down to not balancing the game around combat).

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;498546Keep in mind I agree with you that imbalanced parties can work (though I would quibble and say really it is about not balancing everything around combat), but I don't think LOTR proves it can work since it is a story and not a game. What proves it can work is that there are games out there where balance isn't the priority, and plenty of people have enjoyed playing mixed parties (though again I would say really it tends to boil down to not balancing the game around combat).

Though let's face it, when you plan out adventures, you usually drive inspirations from movies/books/comics etc. etc. And if it's a fantasy adventure, LotR provides some guidance how to be a good GM...and a bad GM, as DM of the Rings taught us .