Quote from: The Ent;684438Agreed! That's much more of a 3e thing. MUs certainly got powerful at high levels in AD&D too but so did fighters too (a high-level AD&D fighter is like a force of nature. Dragons, giants, demons, whatevs, he hacks them to pieces).

Actually, in most cases, who dominates is based on degree of preperation if you ignore magic items that can grossly favor either.

Fighter wins in a cage with no preperation.

Wizard wins with preperation.


Usually.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;6844234-6 rounds?  That estimate greatly exceeds the magic users 25 hp life expectancy.

Round 1:  1 in 6 hit chance/ 1 in 5 hit chance
Round 2: 1 in 4 hit chance/ 1 in 3 hit chance
Round 3: 1 in 2 hit chance/ splat

This is assuming maximum images were rolled and the spell went off.

A hold person would be a fight ender IF it were cast successfully AND the very good spell save was failed. Meanwhile even average Joe the fighter is thwacking the magic user for 2d8 each round.  At 9 points of damage per round the magic user is dead meat in less than 2 rounds of successful attacks.

This is assuming all average stats and hp for both characters. Heck I'm not even giving the fighter a STR bonus.

Fortunately the poor wizard is not always berift of any ac, trapped in a cage with a fighter armed with daggers for beating spell casting time.

More likely, the wizard will defeat the fighter before the fighter knows what the hell happened.

That's how it has been in countless games I have seen over the years.

A fighter that would prepare for a fight against a MU by saying "I ready my sword and wait" is a moron who deserves to die. If you put the fight in a barren white room you ignore 99.99999% of actual game situations where this type of confrontation would occur, and that's just theoretical wankery completely irrelevant to the game itself.

Quote from: Benoist;684467A fighter that would prepare for a fight against a MU by saying "I ready my sword and wait" is a moron who deserves to die. If you put the fight in a barren white room you ignore 99.99999% of actual game situations where this type of confrontation would occur, and that's just theoretical wankery completely irrelevant to the game itself.

Exactly. Even more goofy, the people who rail against LFQW complain that spellcasters are better at combat and utility situations. They posit stuff like spamming divination, detect, and knock spells endlessly, and then put forward scenarios where a wizard is stacked with all combat spells to take on a fighter. The simple fact that spellcasters are limited in the number of spells they know, the number of spells they can study at any given time, and that every spell they have available is a bunch they don't have available is totally lost on them. Either they let spellcasters learn and use any spell at will, or they are just engaging in theory-wank.

The only real 'certainty' with Fighters and wizards is the wizard has a bigger toolbox.

I have heard  quite a few people over the years state fighters or wizards are 'more powerful' but in actual play, I can't recall either feeling useless.

I don't want to get into a wizard versus fighter debate, but I do have some thoughts for the OP.

Are the players saying something is 'unfair' when it is allowed by the rules?  

The rules aren't necessarily fair, but they provide a baseline for what players should expect.  You seem to indicate that the players think something is unfair (an ability) that another player has.  How did this player get the ability?

If you're using the rules and applying them fairly, I don't think anyone can really claim that you're being unfair.  If you're giving a favorite PC all kinds of magical gear and/or bonus feats or somesuch, maybe you're not being fair.  

If you're following the rules and they think the game is inherently unfair, it's worth asking why they think that's the case.  

If it is something like 'I want to play a fighter because that's fun, but I don't think it's fair that Pete gets to solve every problem with magic and I never get to do anything cool', you might want to look at some houserules.  In a game like 3.x, Fighters are noticeably weaker than most every other class, whether based on skills, special abilities, or spells.  If your players feel that systemic issues from rules cause unfairness in play, you're looking at a houserule solution.  

And finally, if your players are just unhappy that they're not the one doing everything and they don't want any other players to contribute, that's a people problem and needs to be dealt with in that manner.

Quote from: Haffrung;684476Either they let spellcasters learn and use any spell at will, or they are just engaging in theory-wank.

Theory-Wank is not without use.  And there's not much difference between imagining a likely situation and playtesting a likely situation.  If something can come up in a game, it probably will.  If it destroys the game (pun-pun?) it probably needs to be addressed.  

In 3.x, it's not difficult for a Wizard of mid- to high-level to be prepared for every situation.  Item creation rules allow them to have scrolls and wands of a wide-variety of useful spells to address every situation, particularly since they don't need to spend large amounts of 'wealth by level' on swords and armor.  If you're giving everyone 'equal money', Wizards tend to benefit because they don't have specific tools required to accomplish their goals, and are thus more easily able to convert that money into 'utility' items that make them better in a broad variety of circumstances.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;684490Theory-Wank is not without use.  And there's not much difference between imagining a likely situation and playtesting a likely situation.  If something can come up in a game, it probably will.  If it destroys the game (pun-pun?) it probably needs to be addressed.  

In 3.x, it's not difficult for a Wizard of mid- to high-level to be prepared for every situation.  Item creation rules allow them to have scrolls and wands of a wide-variety of useful spells to address every situation, particularly since they don't need to spend large amounts of 'wealth by level' on swords and armor.  If you're giving everyone 'equal money', Wizards tend to benefit because they don't have specific tools required to accomplish their goals, and are thus more easily able to convert that money into 'utility' items that make them better in a broad variety of circumstances.

One of the things that I hate the most about 3X is magic items trivializing the number of spells per day of casters.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;684490In 3.x, it's not difficult for a Wizard of mid- to high-level to be prepared for every situation.  Item creation rules allow them to have scrolls and wands of a wide-variety of useful spells to address every situation, particularly since they don't need to spend large amounts of 'wealth by level' on swords and armor.  If you're giving everyone 'equal money', Wizards tend to benefit because they don't have specific tools required to accomplish their goals, and are thus more easily able to convert that money into 'utility' items that make them better in a broad variety of circumstances.

Agree completely. It is one of the reasons earlier editions don't suffer from the LFQW problem.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;684490Theory-Wank is not without use.  And there's not much difference between imagining a likely situation and playtesting a likely situation.  If something can come up in a game, it probably will.  If it destroys the game (pun-pun?) it probably needs to be addressed.

But the situations posited by the balance theory-wanks are never likely game situations. "Rogues are useless because wizards can just use knock on every locked door and use invisibility to sneak around. And they can also do more damage than fighters."  But it's impossible for a wizard to do all of those things. They have to choose. Beating every other class at their own game is angels dancing on a pin stuff because it can't happen in a real game.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;684490In 3.x, it's not difficult for a Wizard of mid- to high-level to be prepared for every situation.  Item creation rules allow them to have scrolls and wands of a wide-variety of useful spells to address every situation, particularly since they don't need to spend large amounts of 'wealth by level' on swords and armor.  If you're giving everyone 'equal money', Wizards tend to benefit because they don't have specific tools required to accomplish their goals, and are thus more easily able to convert that money into 'utility' items that make them better in a broad variety of circumstances.

Then the real culprit is free access to magic items and item creation. And it looks like Next is dealing with that decisively by making magic items rare and given out only at the discretion of the DM. But we don't hear about that from theory-wanks. All we hear are arguments that the only solution to balance is adopting the 4e model of universal, generic abilities.

Quote from: Haffrung;684497But the situations posited by the balance theory-wanks are never likely game situations. "Rogues are useless because wizards can just use knock on every locked door and use invisibility to sneak around. And they can also do more damage than fighters."

Still steamed about that eh. Thieves are useless in basic/expert because they have a miniscule chance of succeeding at any of their special abilities until a fairly high level. The wizards being able to do their job 100% of the time if they so choose is just icing on the cake. I also suggested a few alternatives, none of which involved copying 4e.

Quote from: The Traveller;684499Still steamed about that eh. Thieves are useless in basic/expert because they have a miniscule chance of succeeding at any of their special abilities until a fairly high level. The wizards being able to do their job 100% of the time if they so choose is just icing on the cake. I also suggested a few alternatives, none of which involved copying 4e.

If I was inclined to change the 1E thief skills, I would have some of them start out a bit higher but increase slower.

Quote from: Bill;684501If I was inclined to change the 1E thief skills, I would have some of them start out a bit higher but increase slower.

They didn't increase all that fast either. I'd have started them out at 40% to 60% and bumped them up by 10% a level, maxing out at 200% to allow for penalties for picking exceptionally tough locks etc. Salt in a few abilities at level 3, level 6, level 9 etc like say detect magical trap, bypass glyph, invisibility to infravision, that sort of good stuff, and you have an attractive class.

The thief should have been a central feature in a game about raiding tombs, really, especially since most XP was gained from treasure.

I'm partial to the 2e way of handling thief skills, myself.
It's not at all hard for a 2e thief to start with good scores in his fave skills at 1st level.

Quote from: The Ent;684509I'm partial to the 2e way of handling thief skills, myself.
It's not at all hard for a 2e thief to start with good scores in his fave skills at 1st level.

True; I like 2e thief skills better.

One could also allow a 1E thief to move points around without any real trouble I think.