You could "snicker" have like some Masamune type swordmaster dude guy......"snicker"
make a reeeeeeeeely masterwork weapon with....
WAIT FOR IT!
Bonuses to....hit AND damage; bigger than......+1.......
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I never said drop +x armor or shield bonuses - and I never said drop all bonuses, I said cap stat bonuses to DCs for spells, SLA's and ability's. So no max AC 23 - don't try to feed some nonsense into the frenzy.
Just limit the amount of bonuses used to up DCs and you have eliminated the need for very high saves or the items needed to boost DCs to get the "win" button.
I don't mind rewarding dedicated players who specialize with some form of bonuses it just shouldn't turn a 3rd level spell (DC 13) into a DC 22 spell with Int 20 +4 circlet of crap, + 1 spell focus, +1 grt spell focus. It's still a 3rd level spell and should stay in the realm of 3rd level spell power, and that should include damage caps an limits on DC.
Think about what I said earlier:
does a +2 to STR (+1 to hit and damage with melee) or a +2 DEX (+1 limited dex bonus to AC, +1 to Ref only saves and +1 to hit with ranged)
=
a +2 to INT (arcane caster) who gets a +1 improvement to ALL his DCs.
+ Bonus spells and bonus skill points
Are these stat bonuses equal?
While a point of STR or DX may help you and make the final difference in a tough spot the stat boost to the casters prime casting stat carries much more weight, power and potential. Also since it can be self-inflating (buff spells), stat mods + feats make a huge impact in how the DC and save systems currently (don't) work.
I never said drop +x armor or shield bonuses - and I never said drop all bonuses, I said cap stat bonuses to DCs for spells, SLA's and ability's. So no max AC 23 - don't try to feed some nonsense into the frenzy.
Just limit the amount of bonuses used to up DCs and you have eliminated the need for very high saves or the items needed to boost DCs to get the "win" button.
And, at the same time, have not fixed the problem from the original post. +5 weapons, armor, rings of deflection, amulets of natural armor, and so on are just as much a part of the problem as belts of strength +6 and cloaks of resistance +5. He didn't ask for a way to balance DCs, he asked for a way (paraphrased) to keep players from being required to take boring mechanical bonuses just to keep up.
EDIT: And, by the way, spell save DCs progress faster than saves naturally (+1 per 2 levels plus naturally higher stat bonuses in general vs +1 per 3 levels and naturally lower stats for poor saves, or +1/2 and naturally lower stats for good saves), even without feats or items, so your fix fails in that regard as well.
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And, at the same time, have not fixed the problem from the original post. +5 weapons, armor, rings of deflection, amulets of natural armor, and so on are just as much a part of the problem as belts of strength +6 and cloaks of resistance +5. He didn't ask for a way to balance DCs, he asked for a way (paraphrased) to keep players from being required to take boring mechanical bonuses just to keep up.I never said drop +x armor or shield bonuses - and I never said drop all bonuses, I said cap stat bonuses to DCs for spells, SLA's and ability's. So no max AC 23 - don't try to feed some nonsense into the frenzy.
Just limit the amount of bonuses used to up DCs and you have eliminated the need for very high saves or the items needed to boost DCs to get the "win" button.
It isn't the items - it's the level/importance/need of the items and the power +X the items provide.
It's one thing to want magical plate and a wholly another thing to actually need it. As in I need this to survive, be viable, etc.
And yeah, in his case caps or limits on other aspects - magic item bonuses, how they stack, choose highest, etc, might do the trick if he wants to run a game with lower demand or need to stay ahead of the curve.
EDIT: And, by the way, spell save DCs progress faster than saves naturally (+1 per 2 levels plus naturally higher stat bonuses in general vs +1 per 3 levels and naturally lower stats for poor saves, or +1/2 and naturally lower stats for good saves), even without feats or items, so your fix fails in that regard as well.
Really, wow - you are a genius.
Thank you for proving my point that DC boosts via stats and other garbage are not needed.
Perfer the other way: Make magic items as common as dirt.
Lots of spells, lots of magic items, lots of new cantrips and tons of fantasy creatures every were.
~~This message brought to you by your local mage guild, support magic in your local area when possible, thanks ~~
It's one thing to want magical plate and a wholly another thing to actually need it. As in I need this to survive, be viable, etc.
Except that you do need them, unless you really like not being able to hit the enemies and being hit by them at will.
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It's one thing to want magical plate and a wholly another thing to actually need it. As in I need this to survive, be viable, etc.Except that you do need them, unless you really like not being able to hit the enemies and being hit by them at will.
-Sigh-
No, you don't need them. You only need them because the numbers tell you so.
If you like the game as it is - xmass tree effect, needing items to stay behind the curve (non-casters), flavorless and purely mechanical magic items, buying gear so you can remain viable, then by all means keep everything the way it is,
otherwise...
in his case caps or limits on other aspects - magic item bonuses, how they stack, choose highest, etc, might do the trick if he wants to run a game with lower demand or need to stay ahead of the curve.
The tighter the controls you place on bonuses the closer you are to controlling what players (and NPCs) "need" to operate and function.
If he doesn't like the "need" to have all these items I suggest that he should do something to mitigate that need - it can be done in smaller steps: limiting what some bonuses add to (no DC boosts) to larger ones: limiting/capping all bonuses. Ex - eliminate the need for hight AC if your attackers have a lower BAB/Attack bonus.As another example - in a low modifier environment a fighter with low magic gear/nonmagical gear will operate closer to one with high end gear in the same setting - if the variances between the two are +1 or +2 and not +8 to +10. Same goes with the above fighter relative to the secondary melee types.
The only thing I would leave in as boost items would be those that might help saves, that or increasing base saves as I detailed in another post - but keeping in mind that they should not vary as much as they currently do. Saves are already behind the curve for non-casters, this has been detailed to death in other posts.
The tighter controls on the bonuses the closer you can hit CR and have a more accurate and less "swingy" game and encounters. Of course that defeats the CharOp portion of 3.5: finding the shortest path to the greatest level of mechanical power via proper (and correct!) feat, magic item and spell selection.
It's one thing to want magical plate and a wholly another thing to actually need it. As in I need this to survive, be viable, etc.Except that you do need them, unless you really like not being able to hit the enemies and being hit by them at will.-Sigh-
No, you don't need them. You only need them because the numbers tell you so.
Don't the numbers determine what is needed versus what is not needed?
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Don't the designers determine the number of what is needed versus what is not needed?
Fixed for you.
If you are a slave to RAW, then yes.
If you are looking for a fix to accommodate your style, changes to resolve math issues, then no.
If you are looking for a game with some balance or just an alternate to the current system, then no.
Absolute max AC of 23??? Really, where did you find that number? If you keep playing the game as a christmas-tree magic-fest, that stomps out everything you can do with a little effort in the system into insignificance, then yes. If you are trying to adapt to it, then you would start using buff spells, feats, class features and so on to improve your AC. Be honest, when was the last time you took Combat Expertise? Dodge? Both of those are viable ways to improve your AC. Clerics have a few buff spells that improve the AC situation. If you don't have any good way of doing it, then you will simply have to try to limit the times you are attacked, through distraction, haste, direct damage spells, the environment, cover, tactics, and what have you.
All in all, that sounds pretty awesome to me. At least much better than "hey, I feel good about myself, because I am Ahead Of The Curve and can safely steamroll any appropriate-CR monster I meet."
True, banishing number-booster items will make monsters far more threatening than humanoids/NPCs. However, the reverse is true today. Would the game be terrible if the more monstrous creatures were the big threat?
Hasn't there been any number of threads where people complain about monsters being too weak to offer significant opposition?
All I know is, as a DM, I wouldn't be too worried. It's an easily defined group: Non-humanoid monsters. Just up the CR for these by say, 1 or 2, and you have a good starting point. From time to time, a monster will prove far more deadly than you assumed. That's okay. A good game should not hinge on PCs barging through every encounter thrown at them without ever having to consider their own mortality (i.e. fleeing). So, no, you won't have to rewrite the game, just change the expectations of how things Should Work.
If you are a slave to RAW, then yes.
If you are looking for a fix to accommodate your style, changes to resolve math issues, then no.
If you are looking for a game with some balance or just an alternate to the current system, then no.
In other words ... like I said in my very first post on the subject ... if you want to know the easiest way with the least re-designing needed, put the bonuses on the characters, rather than the gear. Any other way requires a great deal of design work, because the numbers the designers of Pathfinder used require characters to have +x magic items.
It's quite amusing seeing my argument written in your posts immediately after you've thrown all sorts of personal insults at me for making the same argument.
Absolute max AC of 23??? Really, where did you find that number?
10 base + 9 full plate + 2 dex + 2 heavy shield. I didn't account for feats because they really don't make any difference in the long term.
Be honest, when was the last time you took Combat Expertise? Dodge? Both of those are viable ways to improve your AC.
Not when the monsters need a -13 (that's "negative thirteen") to hit you and you need a 10 to hit the monsters.
True, banishing number-booster items will make monsters far more threatening than humanoids/NPCs. However, the reverse is true today. Would the game be terrible if the more monstrous creatures were the big threat?
There's a difference between being a big threat and auto-hitting every character with every attack while simultaneously being virtually immune to the attacks of non-full-BAB characters.
So, no, you won't have to rewrite the game, just change the expectations of how things Should Work.
Otherwise known as redesigning the game. The game is based on a default "expectation of how things Should Work"; if you change that expectation, you need to re-design everything based on that expectation, to make sure the numbers still match up.
No, redesigning the game means going into the nuts and bolts with all sorts of little things, you know, fixing up spell durations, changing every AC in the MM, and so on. D&D is a flexible game at heart. You can change how it should play to a great degree, even without any redesign work.
If we consider just edition 3.5, how many books were produced? 40? 60? I have no idea. Virtually ALL of these contain rule elements you can add in. The feats and prestige classes alone could fill phone registry tomes. Thus: Whatever you do, you are choosing to ignore over 90% of the available rules when you play (or I fear and pity you...) What is so terrible about choosing to ignore things in the DMG, compared to, say, Magic of Incarnum? Why are the spells in the PHB "better" than those in the Spell Compendium?
No, when you set up a campaign, you always make choices to exclude certain (big) parts of the game. Depending on this, you get different-playing games. I would love playing in a campaign where every encounter necessitated thinking on your feet. I understand that some don't like that, and that's for them. But really, going to personal attacks over it? Get a grip.
some stuff
If you are a slave to RAW, then yes.
If you are looking for a fix to accommodate your style, changes to resolve math issues, then no.If you are looking for a game with some balance or just an alternate to the current system, then no.
I don't see the point of the "fix" since designers have never told me what numbers I need, and the numbers we currently use in debates on the boards is due to the designers. I think my point still stands.
During debates or discussions it is assumed we are arguing from the same point which means the same numbers, and no matter what the numbers they still determine what is needed versus what is not needed.In short: You can change the numbers so you don't need magic items, but the numbers are still in charge. They are now allowing you to play the game without additional modifiers is all.
No, redesigning the game means going into the nuts and bolts with all sorts of little things, you know, fixing up spell durations, changing every AC in the MM, and so on. D&D is a flexible game at heart. You can change how it should play to a great degree, even without any redesign work.
If we consider just edition 3.5, how many books were produced? 40? 60? I have no idea. Virtually ALL of these contain rule elements you can add in. The feats and prestige classes alone could fill phone registry tomes. Thus: Whatever you do, you are choosing to ignore over 90% of the available rules when you play (or I fear and pity you...) What is so terrible about choosing to ignore things in the DMG, compared to, say, Magic of Incarnum? Why are the spells in the PHB "better" than those in the Spell Compendium?
No, when you set up a campaign, you always make choices to exclude certain (big) parts of the game. Depending on this, you get different-playing games. I would love playing in a campaign where every encounter necessitated thinking on your feet. I understand that some don't like that, and that's for them. But really, going to personal attacks over it? Get a grip.
You do have to make the numbers match up. Those extra books don't change the basic game individually. They can however give a significant increase in power if certain ones are used(stacked) for powerful builds. At that point DM's need to counter the power. The increase in power does not change the basics though.
90% is a large number. I really doubt it is accurate.It is not about Incarnum being better or worse than the PHB. Certain things are assumed to be in the game. You change the basics, and you change the game.
The correct statement is when you setup a campaign you have the option to exclude certain parts of the game, but basic things like trying to make sure the fighter does not get dominated, and including, but not limited to casters being better off not using evocation spells(the majority of the time) are still the same.
What does thinking on your feat have to do with this discussion? This is just a question, and I really want to know if I may have missed something.
PS:To be fair they both insulted each other at some point.
PS: How much you can change a game and still have the same game(core) was at he heart of the 3.x vs 4E situation, since many don't respect 4E as D&D, and many 2nd edition players felt the same about 3E.
Edit:If you take away all of the player's add-ons then the monsters have to be powered down. The important thing is to keep the feel of the game the same.
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If you are a slave to RAW, then yes.
If you are looking for a fix to accommodate your style, changes to resolve math issues, then no.
If you are looking for a game with some balance or just an alternate to the current system, then no.In other words ... like I said in my very first post on the subject ... if you want to know the easiest way with the least re-designing needed, put the bonuses on the characters, rather than the gear. Any other way requires a great deal of design work, because the numbers the designers of Pathfinder used require characters to have +x magic items.
It's quite amusing seeing my argument written in your posts immediately after you've thrown all sorts of personal insults at me for making the same argument.
It's quite amusing that you would see that when that isn't the case - par for the course.
You want to fold abilities into classes, which doesn't address DC stat boost disparity - in other words, no real fix. No fix to the math, no fix for the need and now the items are just invisible - in summation - no fix.
I advocated getting rid of the need for all the excess items and not play the race to the highest number. I advocated a system where a guy with magic doesn't outright destroy a guy of the same level who doesn't have magic by making the number spread smaller.
Two different things, I hope you actually understand this time.
The numbers "matching up" means you can still play the christmas tree game as it is, which is kind of the reason people complained in the first place. Second, it's not changing all the numbers. Getting rid of most or all of the anonymous number boosting magic items would do wonders to IMPROVE balance between fighters and wizards. Suddenly the wizard WILL have a lousy fort save, something he can't easily compensate for through a magic ring that always works. This will in turn require some work for the wizard in upping his saves through spells, leaving fewer daily spells to his "building supremacy over martial classes" project.
The numbers I intended would be changed are those that define the balance between monsters and humanoids/NPCs/PCs. In a world where you can't wear stat and save boost harnesses, monsters will be much more scary. Is that a problem? Only if you want it to be. Yes, my changes would change the game. I would say it would change into a BETTER one, but I don't need to make horribly complex and extensive rule changes for this. When making a campaign, put some thought into what magic items you will allow for. When designing adventures, adjust the CRs of non-humanoid monsters in the adventure by +1 or +2. When you play this campaign, you will learn what works and what doesn't. And for the love of C'thulhu, don't play into the 15+ level span this way. I DMed up there a few times and learned exactly how much pain was involved. I am not making any big assumptions when I say few campaigns play high-level. Those who do, good on you, and feel free to decorate your PCs as much as you want.
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As a result, I’m trying to keep to RAW & keep house- and optional-rules to a minimum. They’re really taking to it and having a ball. I want to provide the wonder of magic items yet avoid having them feel that their characters are defined by them. I’m trying to use the guidelines presented in the GM Guide but honestly, it’s been so long since I’ve opened the Pandora’s Box of commonplace magic that I thought I’d look for advice.
So, how do you help your players avoid the “My Character is his Gear” trap?
This is what the OP was asking. You can play the rest of the game completely as is even if you restrict magic items (i.e. give out less of them). Its harder on the GM the higher level you go, but the game has built-in solutions. This doesn't favor casters over non-casters in gear dependence. It doesn't require you to re-write the system. It does mean that the GM must carefully look at how he/she builds encounters using the CR system (which he/she should be doing anyway, because it's a very fickle system and doesn't always work the way it's intended to). Individual monsters with high CRs will be out of whack vs. the PCs with less magic items? Guess what? Opt for a different encounter. Encounters are built with a CR budget after all. The game "as is" says that two encounters of a given CR are not necessarily equal.
A GM should be able to have a "feel" for what the PCs can handle after playing several sessions. Level 10 PCs? Instead of throwing a fire giant at them (whose numbers might suggest it may be too much for the party), you instead go with 3 hill giants or 8 gargoyles or 12 ogres or some other CR 10 equivalent whose numbers match up with the PCs.
A geared up standard level 10 party will have no problem taking out the fire giant, and the other CR 10 encounters will probably be a joke to them. On the other hand, a level 10 party with only a handful of magic items could be hard pressed to defeat a lone fire giant, but will match up well against the ogres or gargoyles. Suddenly, the fighter with the 23 AC and 2 attacks at +15 doesn't look so "gimped". He even starts to look more "defined" by his feat selection. Imagine that.
The core rules offer little in the way of advice to help GM's tailor the game. I have the GMG, but haven't read a good part of it, and I don't know how thoroughly it addresses this.
Simply getting rid of the bonuses or building them into the level progressions doesn't get rid of the "x-mas tree effect". All it does is shift it from those magic items that grant them to other ones, which isn't bad either. If the goal is to actually get rid of or mitigate the "x-mas tree effect," and "bring back the wonder of magic items", you as the GM must come up with a solution that doesn't allow the players to fill every item slot on their PC.
My suggestion is just one of several ways to go about it of course.
Those aren't the only two possibilities, unless the GM is severely lacking in rules-savvy or imagination.
Not really, nobody forces you to seek out foes with the same nominal CR as your APL (unless your GM is both a gamist and a sadist, or a narrativist with an insane propensity for fudging). If your party can't handle such, pick on smaller foes. Yes, it means you'll get less treasure and advance in levels slower. Oh...the humanity.I think Mista Green's reaction is based on the propensity of "low magic" campaigns to, in fact, only hone in on magic gear and not on magic usage. I know I've seen a lot of people who claim their campaigns are "low magic" because the PCs are level 10 and only have one +1 Longsword between them, but there's a fully 10th level wizard and cleric running around without restriction. It's a fair assumption when discussing "low magic" campaigns without any additional information, since it's a very common approach, from what I've seen.It's simpler than that. The alternative to 'casters get even more godly, everyone else sucks more' is 'no one can deal with encounters, so everyone gets slaughtered over and over'.
So you see, I assumed low magic meant low item availability, and that casters were rare because I was trying to give them the benefit of the doubt by assuming the best possible interpretation.
The issue is that the players don't normally choose the fights that are available. The BBEG has certain things at his disposal. Monster X is not going to magically morph into monster Y so you can defeat it easier. Assuming the DM is going to have the common sense, and correct sense of game balance is just that, an assumption.
True. But the other possibilities are worse than both of those. After all, the former at least gives you mindless flash and slash as casters, and the latter gets it over with quickly so you can play a game that doesn't suck. Whereas say... having your 10th level party struggle to beat up some mooks? Yeah, you'll be stuck with that fail game a while.
I disagree, but as I doubt my ability to write a constructive response I'll leave it at that.
If the players are having fun that is all that matters.
Seriously, a wizard without an entire buttload of magic items has several severe disadvantages: Low AC, low reflex and fortitude saves, low hp are merely the most obvious. Add to this that their superior save DC progression takes a big hit if you eliminate stat boosters, and it's quite clear that wizards are the ones who gain the most from cheap magic items. As I stated previously, they are going to have to invest some of their daily slots per day into protection for themselves, thereby limiting their offensive capabilities. Really, having 1d4 hp plus Con bonus per level isn't very impressive. 30-50 hp at level 10 is not a recipe for survival. With their bad AC (10 +2 Dex +4 Mage armor) means any 10th-level martial character can probably wipe the wizard in a round or two, especially if they use ranged weapons. The wizard will have to use far more protective spells on himself, not just to boost others in the party, they will need to be physically protected by the others. They will also need to use at least some resources (feats and such) to bolster their combat survivability. A Dodge feat could perhaps help their AC a little. That hurts for someone who is used to devoting all their feats to buffing up their save DCs and other spellcasting abilities, no?
Discussing the christmas tree effect is a problem because the people who love playing an ungodly powerful wizard or sorcerer will try arguing that limiting easy magic items will make the game unplayable without the christmas tree effect, and will claim that this "destroys the balance between the classes", that "this can't be done without rewriting the entire game from scratch", and that "it will result in TPKs at level 45 party trying to fight a single kobold child (with crutches)".
Saying that those arguments are pathetic is an understatement. The majority of the unbalance between classes that exists is due to cheap magic items that can compensate for the weaknesses of the spellcasting classes. Adding 1-2 to the CR for nonhumanoid monsters you want to use is not "rewriting the entire game", it's very easy to do, you can even use a calculator if you have problems with doing additions. Since we're talking about at most a few dozen monsters, it's perhaps a minute of work when designing adventures. And finally, what the PCs can fight and hope to destroy will change a little, yes, but I fail to see why this would destroy the game. Is it a self-image thing, that you feel unmanly if you can't kill a creature that is normally slightly below your APL without getting hurt?
The wizard has no such alternatives without expending spells. Remember, bracers of armor is another example of all that anonymous magic stuff.
And reflex effects don't matter? Well, try ignoring it and you'll see what happens. Remember, you're not the only wizard in the world, and when the fireball comes calling, you'll be grateful for your reflex save.
Nope what? You don't intend to have to make fortitude saves?
Without magic items, the fighter still has a respectable AC, decent hit points and a good fort save, not to mention he can full attack with decent odds of actually hitting anything, compared to the wizard. The wizard, however, has severe shortcomings in all these areas, and can't compensate without using his spells. So, I just don't see why "the fighter is the magic dependent one".
Discussing hit points from 3.5, 67 hp as an average for level 10 means Con 18. So, you seriously suggest only upping Int and Con to 18 for wizards? Or, is there some other strategy in this character generation that I am missing? What if someone didn't want to play int 18, con 18, everything else dump? Would you just consider them "suboptimal"?
As for the fighter being less of a threat, well, I don't buy it. As a wizard without tons of magic items, you have only your spells to rely on. Mage armor is about as sexy as that gets, at least regarding AC. Once the fighter has run up to you and starts pewpewpewing with full attacks and a decent crit chance, plus whatever feat effects he can add to it, you could be taking damage far beyond 1d8+5. How about 2d12+14 from the guy with the greataxe, or four attacks (and corresponding crits) by a two-weapon fighter? Like it or not, you're not easily going to defeat a fighter with a second level spell either, and that's even without counting your weakened spell DC without cheap magic.
All in all, I am very glad I don't play in your game. Besides, you're wrong. Arrogant people who are wrong are always amusing. And as I wrote above: wizard players who love christmas tree magic always crawl out of the woodwork in this discussion, with the same arguments they always spout.
Wraithstrike,
If the players do their due dilligence in research and information gathering, they're unlikely to go after BBEG's with resources available to them that they can't handle, unless you railroad them. I recognize that effective railroading is the norm in a lot of gamist and narrativist games, but it doesn't have to be that way. If you're significantly monkeying with the guts of the game mechanics, like a 'low magic' setting does, you've got two options---just into the embrace of simulationism or invest a lot of work into restructuring the entire CR system.
Sometimes the information is not available, the players may fail the information gathering/diplomacy checks. The bad guy may find out people are asking around and feed false information to them. It is also difficult to find out how hard an encounter will be ahead of time unless it is a stock monster. As the DM you can let the players know the guy they are hunting solo'd a CR 10 monster, or he can cast disintegrate. That means that at level 5 they should probably not try the "direct approach", but some may see that as coddling.
[pause game]
Are you saying the DM should take care to lower CR's for low magic item/low magic games?
I don't feel like reading this thread again.
interesting musing
Mr.Green is arrogant, but he is right about a lot of things also. In a world without magic/with low level magic, the "magic man" is king. Remember we are taking all levels(class) into account, not just the lower(below 7) levels, or at least I though we were.
His auto attack stats? Maybe 1d8+8 damage, with a +18 to hit. He hits more often than not, but...
Our 7th level fighter with the two-handed archetype is dealing about 4d6+17 on a single attack with her greatsword. That's from memory, and not factoring in any magical buffs, items, or the magic on the sword itself, and using non-magical feats.
To the OP;
Found this on teh interweb some time ago.
+1 weapons also defeat DR /silver
+2 weapons also defeat DR /silver and DR /cold iron
+3 weapons beat DR /any special material except adamantine
+4 weapons beat any special material DR (including adamantine).
+5 - best a man can get!
The point I am making is that wizards and sorcerers without cheap stat- and save-boosters, and easy fixes like bracers of armor, are nowhere nearly as omnipotent as they are with these items. For survivability, they need to divert resources to stuff they could safely ignore otherwise, such as combat feats, daily spells used for covering up bad saves, AC, and so on. This is far less pain than martial classes take, especially since they need to roll lower DCs on the saves on hostile spells.
As for higher levels, I am fine with the more mythical magic items, but remember, that includes things like vorpal swords. But that's just pewpewpewing too, isn't it? It's just the anonymous shitty items that only provide a numerical bonus that I suggest abolishing. It may of course be that I am wrong... but I'd like to see data that's a bit better than that "fighters only exist for the betterment of wizards". Kind of hard to take people like that seriously, you know?
Don't forget that the 10th level fighter has two attacks, Greenie boy. Trivial? In your 3 minute adventuring day, perhaps. And if the trouble is he won't hit, let me show you: He has a +10 to hit from his class, +5 or so from strength, weapon focus, MW and such add a few more, for +17-20 to hit. His second attack is 5 lower. All in all, with your massive AC of 16 (see above), he is going to autohit the first attack, then need a 2+ to 4+ to hit you with the second. If it's an average of 30 hp per attack or so, that means you're in for about 60 points of damage in one round. And that's without counting crits. We can safely assume he has a crit range of 17-20, meaning one in five attacks will crit you, or 36% to crit you each round. The confirm rolls will succeed, naturally. Thus, with a x2 crit weapon, we're going to see twice the damage on a third of the hits, or a third of an extra hit (about 10 points) every full attack action, for a grand total of 70 hit points, + or - a few points.
But you still aren't counting the penalties to saves and AC, are you?
The point I am making is that wizards and sorcerers without cheap stat- and save-boosters, and easy fixes like bracers of armor, are nowhere nearly as omnipotent as they are with these items.
No class is as good without magic items as it is when it has them.
A wizard that is in melee is normally done for anyway. No reason to bother with AC, at least if he has to pay for it. If he is not using mirror image, and/or displacement he probably won't live long anyway. Even those are last resorts. The primary goal is to play keep away.
The point still remains the while every class benefits from magic items, fighters need them more.
Haste, Summon Monster X, and magic weapon/greater magic weapon anyway, which are the world-beater spells in a setting with very few magic items.
So the mage summons a fighter to fight the fighter? Or he prays that your saves suck and you don't roll good high.
Save or die...OR. Or = boned wizard.