Pandora's page

Do you need to use clarivoyance to see around this corner or the next one?

Well Clairvoyance can be "misused" (in a sense that it makes an adventure boring) also as Squirrelloid has shown in his "High Level (15+) 'Solo' Wizard playtest series". Apparently you are not doing that yet, so you are lucky. That playtest really reads like a description of a covert raid by marines ... effective, but not stylish.

Without the Dwarf to buy me and the other spell casters some time to back her up we would routinely be bringing dead mage's back to life from simple physical attacks, ...

You also seem to be adventuring indoors mostly or the wizards would probably be flying / levitating and more or less immune to physical damage (arrows and bolts are pretty much a joke in their damage unless you are hit by a lot of them). Boots of Levitation are dead cheap, permanent and can be used as long as you want to which frees up a wizards spell slots for offensive purposes - yet another example on how a wizard gains MUCH more from a magic item than a fighter could. You seem to be in the "right environment" for balancing fighters and wizards (Close quarters favor fighters who dont care about being hit as much as wizards who fear exactly that.), but not everyone is that lucky. Other campaigns dont have that and many high level outdoor encounters are probably dominated by flying wizards if they are around.

If I remember correctly, Crusader of Logic posted somewhere here very nice breakdown of important "I win" wizardly spell effects (death spells, controller spells and so on). If the fighters were to be allowed access to feats which could nerf those effect types, balance would be easier to obtain.

I dont think that "more powers" are a good solution to this "subjective dilemma". Why? Well "more powers" doesnt solve anything because adding powers to counter other powers is counterproductive and with adding too much (Weapon training from Pathfinder is too much IMO) might imbalance things.

One of the reasons for the tilting of the balance in power is the number of magic items. If you have many items in your campaign the wizard will gain much more power from them compared to the fighter. Example: Compare the relative power gain for a level 20 figher and a level 20 wizard from a +6 item on their main ability (Str for fighter and Int for wizard), both start with 20 in these attributes ...
- level 20 fighter: +20 BAB, +5 Str, +5 weapon, +2 weapon focus *2, +4 weapon training (if you use Pathfinder) = +36 BAB and +3 from the item = +39 ... not even 10% increase, BUT sometimes the increase is lost, i.e. you dont need that increase to hit a level 1 Kobold,
- level 20 wizard: +3 DC - level 9 spells increase their DC from 26 to 29, AND a new spell slot for level 2,3,4,6,7,8 - which means a bigger flexibility / more power.
Another example is the increase from +4 weapon to +5 - which costs 18k gold, where the wizard could probably get a much better value for the same money.

Its true that fighters (and other melee classes) are gear dependant, but that doesnt mean they gain most from more magic items. You could also replace "fighter" in the above example with most other melee classes and arrive at the same conclusion.

The only solution to "balance" lies in the hands of evey DM, because it is his responsibility to give every character / player his 15 minutes of fame every gaming evening. The major pitfalls are:
- the 15 minute adventuring day (PCs stop advancing after the wizard has nuked his brains out and they rest in "Rope Trick" or other extradimensional safety.),
- the death of the wandering monster table (Teleport / magic travel is too easy and risk-free).
Justin Alexander analyzed this problem pretty nicely in his essay, but I dont share his conclusion of needing more power for the fighter. Less power for the wizard is a much easier way to go and this can easily be attained by low magic and tighter control over the encounters (Dispel Magic is your friend!). More power is usually harder to balance and he himself complained that one of the reasons is the wizards "spike damage gets a lot spikier" at higher levels. Where I do agree with Justin Alexander is that imbalance is caused by bad DMing, but no change of rules or power for certain classes can change that.

The big question is: Do you think there will be problems with the "Fighter vs. Wizard" balancing in the group so that some people might be unhappy? If that is a danger to your groups fun then try to make as few magic items as possible. Why? The answer can be seen easily: Take a level 20 Fighter and a level 20 Wizard and compare the impact of a +6 Str / Int item on their power and you will see that the RELATIVE gain for the fighter is MUCH lower. Fighters are focusing all their efforts on improving the one thing they can do, while the wizard is the King of flexibility and adding new stuff. In this case the gained spell slots (and +3 DC for spells!) far outweigh the jump from maybe +36 BAB to +39 BAB (and +3 damage) for the fighter. It is the same effect for the jump from a +4 weapon to a +5 weapon (18k gold), where the wizard would get a much bigger increase in power for the same amount of gold.

You can pretty much replace "fighter" in the above with any other melee class. Of course melee classes are very much gear dependant, but that doesnt mean they gain the most from better gear.

The biggest "problem" of games like this is that people think it is - or at least has to be - fair and balanced. Especially those constant whinings about mage superiority and the cry for more goodness for melee classes is a huge pain. The simple truth there is that you cant make these classes equally powerful without making them "the same". This is the 4e approach, but IMO it also makes classes much more boring simply because they are "the same in green".

There is a way to solve this dilemma without needing to fiddle with the rules too much, but it is not easy to write down guidelines for it. Simply put the DM has to make sure every player has had his share of fun in the evening. When you have a triggerhappy wizard just give him a few trash mobs to nuke and make him happy and then add a tough one with spell resistance / immunities for the fighter. Everyone should be happy then, and wont need to whine for a better set of rules.

Wizards simply are the most flexible class in the game, fighters are focusing everything on their one job. This is the structural difference which explains why they cant ever be balanced evenly by the rules and why the DM has to do this.

The non-spell dilemma
Even with the adjustments made in Pathfinder there is a discrepancy between weapon types. Two-handed weapons are simply the most effective way to deal damage because one-handed weapons, ranged weapons and shields dont have acceptable stats / effectiveness.
The solution for the fighter doesnt sound that good, simply because it makes this class too good compared to the other fighting classes. For suggestions to solve this see below.

Why? Well the short answer is that two-handed weapons simply do the most damage per hit – something that will never change – and this is important with damage reduction. One of the little bits of extra loving for two-handed weapons is the fact that the multiplier for Power Attack is 2, so it is more effective than a Strength bonus there and this might make these kinds of weapons simply more effective than they should be.

The question is: Can the other options be made viable too? IMO the answer is yes, but there might be the need for some more or less drastic changes.

1. ranged weapons (mainly looking at bows / crossbows here and not thrown weapons)
Ranged weapons have several disadvantages compared with melee and those more or less make them pretty bad.

• The “strategic problem”: most encounters take place in areas where ranged weapons are pretty useless: dungeons, inside buildings or even after a round or two of initial exchange of shots outside.
  
• Apart from specially designed bows there is no effect of your stats upon the damage they deal, so even if you are a level 20 fighter with awesome stats your damage will still be 1d6 to 1d10 unless you have spent feats to improve that.
  
• Compared to melee weapons the base damage of these weapons is pitiful and does not really compare to the “real world danger level”.

To solve this dilemma there are several possibilities:

• Allow stat boni to have an effect on the damage similar to melee weapons. The appropriate stat would be Dexterity because it increases precision of a shot.
  
• Increase the base damage of the weapons. This is a “must do” IMO to keep the danger in a volley of shots as it should be. It poses the problem of survivability for low level characters, but see below in “further changes” for a possible solution.
  
• Even if the damage is increased there could be a way of making it “open-ended” to allow for lucky shots. Example: change damage for a basic arrow from 1d6 to 2d4 AND reroll and add another d4 every time you roll “4” on a damage die. This sounds nice at first glance, BUT might get the following problem: If you have a “bigger arrow” and give that one 2d6 for damage it will get fewer results of 6 compared to the smaller one, so you might have to use “5 or 6” to add another die.

All of these suggestions might make ranged weapons too dangerous for low levels, so other considerations might be necessary.

2. shields
Fighting with a one-handed weapon and a shield isnt really a viable option for most fighters, simply because shields offer far too few benefits in combat. This can be corrected somewhat easily IMO. Simply add damage reduction (maybe 2/- per armor) to the shield to increase its usefulness. This doesnt imbalance it because you still cant use it in all directions, but it helps against a low level horde. Magical shields should NOT get such a bonus because the reasoning behind the damage reduction is that youre actively deflecting part of the force of the incoming blows. Shield specialization feats could add to this part of the item and increase their effectiveness.

3. further suggestions
It is low level mathematics you need to come to the conclusion that with smaller numbers every change of “1” has a big effect, thus it might be necessary to be able to finetune the damage vs. hit points ratios to increase these numbers from traditional values. Adding damage reduction is especially painful, because it makes relatively big steps. Thus the following might be a good start:

• Double all hit points of creatures – except those gained from spells and spell effects,
  
• double ranged weapon damage,
  
• increase melee weapon damage by approximately one die,
  
• increase Weapon Specialization damage to (a) twice the value OR (b) half the max. value of the basic weapon (new longsword damage would be d10, so the bonus would be +5),
  
• keep damage done by spells and by “general damage skills & feats” (Ranger favoured enemy for example) at the same level.

The reasoning behind this? IMO it solves several problems:

• Ranged weapons are a little more dangerous compared to melee WITHOUT killing low level characters too easily,
  
• weapons can be balanced more easily,
  
• spells loose their damage effectiveness compared to melee/ranged and mages nuking everything will be a little rarer.

The current suggestion on how to adjust the fighter class doesnt seem to work too well IMO and putting the solution into feats is a better choice IMO. Getting too many boni from too many directions is bad and it also makes the fighter leap ahead too much of the other classes who are supposed to be fighting in melee. With different levels of hit points you can adjust the boni for the fighting classes a lot easier. Some suggestions on the classes:

• Barbarian: I think the rage should be changed into a general bonus with “simple weapons” (axes, clubs, ...), because not every barbarian is a berserker, right? Berserker would become either a PrC or a class option.
  
• Fighter: The feats Weapon specialization and Weapon focus should get increased effect. Maybe along the lines of “+1 to hit at BAB 1-10, +2 to hit BAB 11-20” for Weapon focus (and similarly increasing effects for BAB 8-15 = +1; 16-28 = +2 for Greater Weapon focus) and a similar treatment for Weapon Specialization (or my suggestion above).
  
• Paladin: The “spirit in a weapon” idea sounds a bit ridiculous to me because it is simply too flexible. It does things which only truly magic weapons should be able to do and more or less makes paladins stop having wet dreams about that Holy Avenger. The improved Weapon Focus should be enough for them to keep up with fighters.
  
• Ranger: With the increase in damage for ranged weapons this class might be good as it is.
  
• Rogue: Sneak attacks should stay at d6, thus they continue to deal a lot of damage, but the methods of getting one in combat might become a bit easier.

So tell me what you think about this ...

That sounds like a start, because the "weapon familiarity" for the fighter will give him too much of an advantage over other melee classes and thats not a good thing IMO. Since there are two levels of Weapon Focus I would add the bonus at +11 BAB, so you could get +4 only from having both WF and improved WF.

More magic items is actually BAD for the comparative power between Melee and Caster classes. Simply compare the impact of +6 stat increasing items on the classes and notice that the Fighter gets maybe 7-10% increase in relative power (depending on your starting stats and so on) while the Wizard gets a host of new bonus spells. This represents a MUCH bigger gain in power and really shows the structural differences between the classes. This difference in gained power is apparent from the low level Boots of Levitation which are more or less useless to melee classes, but which make wizards immune to melee in many situations - for free.

The wizard classes main aspect is the flexibility, but melee classes are more or less focused on their - more or less - one way of dealing damage.

There are two ways to "fix" these differences (at least that I came up with):
1. Change the class mechanics so the classes all get the same amount of powers at the same time. This is the 4e approach, but it also was apparent in Everquest 2.

2. Point out these structural differences to the DMs and the game/module designers so any encounters / monsters are designed to give every player his "15 minutes of fame" every gaming evening.

Rizzen the unkillable wrote:

i can tailer my encounters to try to stop this but i shouldnt have to.

Two points. First, your players have abilities so that they can use them, regardless of if those abilities are spells, axes, or tripping feats. You should try to keep in mind that players being able to do neat things that helps them is GOOD. If your cleric player has found a tactic that he/she enjoys, that's a Good Thing.

Too much goodness is actually bad.