Rather than derail J Arcane's thread about "broken" mechanics, I'll say it here.

The Linear Fighters vs. Quadratic Mages paradigm is crap. Here are two arguments that are both hot air.

Quote from: DoomBut being a 'crappy' fighter meant that, hey, when it came time for combat, you didn't have to think too much about what to do, didn't ever catch crap for casting the 'wrong' spell, and if you didn't want spend money on books and time on reading them, you could quickly learn all you needed to know. It also meant that players that wanted to be a more 'realistic' hero had an option, a class that didn't necessarily do ridiculous things at some point.

Yes. It's okay to have a simple class. It's also okay to have a class that adheres to reality. That class doesn't excuse a class to be crappy however. Why can't you have an effective but simple and/or realistic class?

Quote from: CranewingsFighters are balanced in old D&D because they were necessary for adventuring. If the party encountered to many fights for the wizard to keep up with, only the fighter still could fight. A fighter buffed by a wizard is more powerful than a wizard and a fighter fighting on their own in a lot of cases (magiced weapons, haste). In the context of the dungeon, enemies can't get to the wizard because the fighter can block the hall.

Fighters are not necessary for adventuring in O/AD&D. Numbers are necessary though. The more people you have in a party, the more resources you have and the less attrition each given party member suffers when overcoming an obstacle. Only significant statistical superiority can negate the advantage of a large party size. Sure, fighters can fight after a wizard has depleted most or all of thier spells BUT they're still limited by their own resources (thier current HP, the state of their equipment, etc).

Also, buffing and tanking are only useful in very specific and rare situations (buffing works for ambushes and other schemes, tanking works if the DM is being an idiot with narrow corridors).

QuoteD&D isn't suppose to be a crappy pvp game, even though people want to play it that way. It is suppose to be team vs. environment.

Except most people notice this disparity not because of PVP analysis but as the result of actual gameplay where the fighter doesn't carry his weight in a given COMBAT situation let alone an out of combat situation.

The whole concept of "game balance" as understood today is complete, utter crap.

The balance of the rules do not reflect the balance of the game. The game is more than the sum of its rules. The rules are NOT the game, the game is NOT the rules.

Game balance happens because of interactions between the characters and their environment, the players with the GM, the GM with the players, the players with each other, the players with the rules and the GM with the rules. Rules are only one of the components here.

Ergo, one just needs to realize that fighters and magic users play differently, and will be useful in a variety of different situations run by different GMs while played by different players. The understanding of situations, GM, players and rules, and a communication between all these elements dedicated towards an equally fulfilling experience for each of its flesh and blood participants, helps create a feeling of game balance in the actual session as it is played.

Just like the argument that any mechanic might be inherently "broken" is bogus, the notion that "game balance" relies on the rules solely is an illusion, smoke and mirrors. Bullshit, in not so many words.

The title of this thread is a little screwed up.

In a good average adventuring group its not "Fighter vs. Wizard" - they're supposed to be part of the same team and back each other up in fights witheir respective skills and specialties.

If its a GOOD adventuring group - those two characters are drinking buddies not adversaries or even adversarial.


- Ed C.

Mages got quite a boost in overall power throughout the campaign in 3.x, or at least feats let them do crazier things earlier.

But from what I've observed in older rulesets, that doesn't really happen.  There are just too many restrictions on a caster and not enough ways around the really tough shit (no feats, no wide-open multiclassing) to make up for the shortcomings you have to deal with.  Couple that with the fact that most AD&D characters retire or more onto stronghold building around 10-14th level and it doesn't ever really become much of a factor.  The fighter is busy leading his armies.

So in terms of an encounter mages might be able to wipe things out easily at really high levels, but even when you zoom out to the campaign level, I still feel that the assumptions in O/AD&D work better for how mage power-levels play out in the long term.

Quote from: Benoist;393175The whole concept of "game balance" as understood today is complete, utter crap.

The balance of the rules do not reflect the balance of the game. The game is more than the sum of its rules. The rules are NOT the game, the game is NOT the rules.

Game balance happens because of interactions between the characters and their environment, the players with the GM, the GM with the players, the players with each other, the players with the rules and the GM with the rules. Rules are only one of the components here.

Ergo, one just needs to realize that fighters and magic users play differently, and will be useful in a variety of different situations run by different GMs while played by different players. The understanding of situations, GM, players and rules, and a communication between all these elements dedicated towards an equally fulfilling experience for each of its flesh and blood participants, helps create a feeling of game balance in the actual session as it is played.

Just like the argument that any mechanic might be inherently "broken" is bogus, the notion that "game balance" relies on the rules solely is an illusion, smoke and mirrors. Bullshit, in not so many words.

I used to lurk around the WOTC boards (mostly the Epic boards, actually) and you'd see endless threads about which classes suck the most. A thread on how fighters suck, then a thread on how rangers suck, then a thread on how monks suck, then a thread on how monks were overpowered and destroyed the game, and so on.  After awhile you'd see that campaign conditions, sourcebooks used, player skill and whatnot would impact substantially on the campaign.

However, I do think the way the system is put together can have an impact on how easy it is to balance something in-game, for the GM. The 3.5 rogue is either most powerful class or can be made accidentally useless, depending on what monsters you tend to use.

Back to the main topic, in my home campaigns the warrior types usually tend to be stronger than the wizards, which I gather is unusual. Weird combination of player min/maxing, ridiculously high stats and excessive gold, I guess.

In my OD&D / S&W:WB games, Fighting Men gain a damage bonus equal to their BAB.   They do lots and lots of chop-chop.  A 10th level lord is dropping D6+8 damage versus the cleric who is still doing 1D6.

That's my thought on how to "balance" them.  

I gave a damage bonus instead of multi-attacks simply because I rather less dice rolls.  It also has the effect of making their blows very stunning in their damage.  Keep in mind that S&W uses D6 for Monster HD so a 5HD monster has 18 HP and a 8th level Fighting Man can cut one down in 2 blows with my house rule.

The ambush is the regular situation in most of the games I've played. The sneaky character finds the enemy. The caster prepares the group. Then the fighter charges in and draws all the fire. Then whoever deals the most burst damage jumps in. I'd say WELL over half of all the combat encounters I've ever had as a player, I was ambushing someone. Less in fantasy than in modern or science fiction, but still more than half.

In the group I play in, someone usually jacks their perception skill up over +12 at first level.

Secondly, I don't think have more players is that helpful depending on their makeup. If they just take damage and waste healing spells, more people on the trip can hurt a party.

Another problem with the fighter vs. wizard is in how people write up their fighter. You can put your second highest stat in wisdom and use some of those extra feats you get for Iron Will and Improved Iron Will to start. Their are other ways to boost your magic save. Race and splat book powers can boost it up as well. It is easy to make a fighter that can shrug off spells. People choose not to do that because they are looking for that 10+ damage per hit at first level, which isn't the fighter's job.

The main problem in the fighter vs. wizard deal is that even if a fighter is immune to mind affecting spells and has enough hit points to shrug off all the direct damage, he still can't deal with a mage using invisibility, blink, mirror image, who is flying, or doing whatever else.

But a wizard won't have all those spells cast if he is being ambushed by the fighter, or they are starting on a level field. One round of ranged weapon fire can wipe out most wizards. Wizards also have horrible perception checks which can be taken advantage of by sneaky fighters (who get Stealth as a class skill by using one of their excessive feats).

If you play in a game where people can spend gold on magic items, fighters can buy the same odd crap wizards can (glasses of true seeing, capes of teleportation, boots of flying) so at higher levels, they can rely on equipment to protect them. If the fight starts going bad and they can get away, all they have to do is find the wizard later that day before his spells come back.

All that aside, the wizard is more useful in a normal game if there are less than four or so encounters per day, because they can blow all of their spells at once. They are less useful if their are 4 or so or more because they have to conserve them, because the fighter can just keep chopping.

Players of fighters that fail to acquire magic items that give them wizard-like powers and don't take the proper protective feats that they are suppose to take with all of their excessive feats because all they care about is getting rogue like burst damage are digging their own grave.

That said... in my own Pathfinder game, I wrote a bunch of rogue class style special abilities for fighters and gave them more skills.

For wizards and sorcerers, during the four segments before their turn their spells can be potentially disrupted if they suffer any damage.

I also tend to give better magic items to fighters.

I feel like I have to do all that because I usually have less than 4 encounters per day and wizards see fairly little attrition in my games.

Quote from: Cranewings;393200Another problem with the fighter vs. wizard is in how people write up their fighter. You can put your second highest stat in wisdom and use some of those extra feats you get for Iron Will and Improved Iron Will to start. Their are other ways to boost your magic save. Race and splat book powers can boost it up as well. It is easy to make a fighter that can shrug off spells. People choose not to do that because they are looking for that 10+ damage per hit at first level, which isn't the fighter's job.

I agree with the sentiment here. Just to nitpick Iron Will isn't the greatest feat for fighters, if you're paranoid about Will saves. At +1 feat/2 levels and no other class features a fighter is probably better off multiclassing to boost their Will save- one of the warrior's strengths being that they multiclass well - to pick up a level or two of hexblade, paladin or dwarf paragon, say, unless they want Iron Will to qualify for something else (e.g. Savage Species' Cumbrous Will for +6 to Will saves, if its allowed, or a PrC like Warrior of Darkness), want feats that need fighter levels to qualify (Weapon Specialization, Daring Warrior, or the PHB II feats with a fighter level requirement), or would suffer a favoured class penalty for doing so.

Also worth noting that there are lots of races that pick up Will save bonuses (dwarf, elf) so Iron Will isn't a great choice for humans -you're trading your main ability (an extra feat) for something an elf or dwarf gets as a freebie. There are lots of "nonpeople races" that are simply immune to stuff like Charm Person and Hold Person too - half-giants, planetouched, elans, etc.
 
Steadfast Determination (requires Endurance, add Con bonus to Will saves instead of Wis - good for dwarf rangers and especially deepwardens), or Mage Slayer (+1 to Will saves, threatened casters can't cast defensively) are pretty good other alternative feats for boosting Will saves.

Quote from: Koltar;393176The title of this thread is a little screwed up.

In a good average adventuring group its not "Fighter vs. Wizard" - they're supposed to be part of the same team and back each other up in fights witheir respective skills and specialties.

If its a GOOD adventuring group - those two characters are drinking buddies not adversaries or even adversarial.


- Ed C.

Yes! And moreover, the two players are drinking buddies, not adversaries or even adversarial.

If you play a wizard character and you are stealing the limelight from the player with the fighter character by hogging combat, you are acting like a complete cock-end, plain and simple. It's nothing to do with the rules, it's to do with basic human social skills. Let your mate do his fight-y thing if he's the fighter and he'll let you do your mage-y thing because you're the mage. Everyone's a winner.

Quote from: Peregrin;393178But from what I've observed in older rulesets, that doesn't really happen.  There are just too many restrictions on a caster and not enough ways around the really tough shit (no feats, no wide-open multiclassing) to make up for the shortcomings you have to deal with.  Couple that with the fact that most AD&D characters retire or more onto stronghold building around 10-14th level and it doesn't ever really become much of a factor.  The fighter is busy leading his armies.

QFT.

I've never had a problem with magic-users making everyone else usually in OD&D, AD&D 1e, AD&D 2e (core books), B/X or BECMI/RC D&D.

As you point out, 3.x did a lot of things that make mages far more powerful than they had been in previous editions. Chief among these were options that allowed mages to cast spells even if the casting was interrupted by damage or other distracting actions of opponents. In previous versions, the spell not only did not go off in such situations, but it disappeared from memory just as if it had been cast. Just removing "concentration feat" like abilities from mages in 3.x will noticeable reduce their over-effectiveness.

Another problem was "buff spells."  There were a lot of them and the encounter design system seemed to assume that they would be used at all times. This made everyone dependent on mages (and these spells) and was a contributor to the "15 minute adventuring day" problem.

Etc. Etc. Etc.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;393188I used to lurk around the WOTC boards (mostly the Epic boards, actually) and you'd see endless threads about which classes suck the most. A thread on how fighters suck, then a thread on how rangers suck, then a thread on how monks suck, then a thread on how monks were overpowered and destroyed the game, and so on.  After awhile you'd see that campaign conditions, sourcebooks used, player skill and whatnot would impact substantially on the campaign.

Absolutely, which I'll have more to say about in a second...

QuoteBack to the main topic, in my home campaigns the warrior types usually tend to be stronger than the wizards, which I gather is unusual. Weird combination of player min/maxing, ridiculously high stats and excessive gold, I guess.

In my last major 3.5 campaign, the fighter ruled the roost as well. I don't find that surprising, but nor do I find people having a different experience surprising either. In the core 3.x system, there are lots of built in spoilers for the wizard (mainly SR cratures). But in later supplements, designers started throwing spells and feats out the letting pcs break inherent limits. That campaigns fell apart using this poorly thought out stuff does not surprise me.

DEDU's OP seems to indicate early games, and so I won't derail into what I did with my systems, except to say that I made Buff spells a lot more enticing, so that the fighter/mage mix-collaboration is more enticing.  And I have a lot of types of magic.

But back in the day, first off, as Peregrin mentions, it was about the lifespan of the character.  And for the early levels, the Fighter was often the more active in the combat world, especially if the campaign used a lot of puzzles  and historical notes.  My MUs had to have 'comp lang' and 'detect magic' hanging at al times, or risk a major slowdown.  (this is because I believe the early game was foccused/balanced on exploring as much as fighting...perosnal opinion)
This continues later on, so the MU was not just artillery as a swiss army knife for the asventuring group.

Add this to the rules for spell casting times and components, and the balance issue never seemed to come up in our 0/AD&D games.

I think there is one legitimate problem you are ignoring: With the right combination of spells, the 3E Wizard can do any other classes' job - At least as well and sometimes better - And generally for long enough.

Knock, for example. Whoops - Guess the Rogue didn't need those lockpicks after all.

And yeah, that's a player thing as well. A Wizard who gets Knock in a party with a Rogue is generally being a jerk, even if unintentional.

But! And I think this is one place legitimate complaints come from - The rules allow it. The spell lists encourage it.

And that - Is broken.

Quote from: Narf the Mouse;393270I think there is one legitimate problem you are ignoring: With the right combination of spells, the 3E Wizard can do any other classes' job - At least as well and sometimes better - And generally for long enough.

Knock, for example. Whoops - Guess the Rogue didn't need those lockpicks after all.

And yeah, that's a player thing as well. A Wizard who gets Knock in a party with a Rogue is generally being a jerk, even if unintentional.

But! And I think this is one place legitimate complaints come from - The rules allow it. The spell lists encourage it.

And that - Is broken.

This was never a problem for us, though it IS a good point.  
KNock, for example, was more for doors that the theif failed picking (or when the rogue did).  As I said, the wizard was the swiss army knife...but had daily limits on availability.

But as for 3e...you may be more right.