A super-de-doper optimized fighter can at best be really good at killing monsters.
A mildly optimized caster destroys your entire dungeon, then creates his demiplane, and becomes the new DM because he literally just made his own setting.
I've heard this argument before, but it always ignores the possiblity that swords might be swung within a party. I've always seen really high level fighters in the position of kingmaker.
At best, they do large amounts of HP damage and nothing else. They are completely shut down anytime there isn't a fight, and most of the time there is. Not worried at all.
I disagree that all they do is HP damage, I have seen trip focused fighters be more of a problem then battlefield control wizards [Enlarged, tripping feats using a reach weapon could lock down a fairly large space, especially if you include 3.5 and 3rd party material]. Its all about the player and their relative system mastery to the rest of the group.
In recent high level place I have seen crit specialists cause more havoc with their disabling conditions then the casters when highly optimized. Where the enemies that are meant to be strong could have high saves to resist the casters, the crit specialists just had to crit, which with enough attacks becomes more and more likely every turn.
Since when is easier than normal = hard? Last I checked, easier than normal = easy or very easy. And last I checked, the quoted text, which I preserved specifically states that Hard and Very Hard is playable. So what are you talking about?
I mis-read your post, I read it to mean hard campaigns would be unplayable, my apologies. But to be honest, reading it correctly, it makes less sense. How is it difficult to make an easy campaign with optimized characters? If anything its easier. Just throw normal CR enemies at highly optimized characters and things come out easy.
Ivory Tower Design. Yes, quite a few things are made intentionally bad for no purpose other than to reward optimizers for recognizing, and avoiding trap options.
Care to offer up examples of things that are made intentionally bad? Again it's a pretty strong claim without any actual facts behind it.
At best, they do large amounts of HP damage and nothing else. They are completely shut down anytime there isn't a fight, and most of the time there is. Not worried at all.I disagree that all they do is HP damage, I have seen trip focused fighters be more of a problem then battlefield control wizards [Enlarged, tripping feats using a reach weapon could lock down a fairly large space, especially if you include 3.5 and 3rd party material]. Its all about the player and their relative system mastery to the rest of the group.
In recent high level place I have seen crit specialists cause more havoc with their disabling conditions then the casters when highly optimized. Where the enemies that are meant to be strong could have high saves to resist the casters, the crit specialists just had to crit, which with enough attacks becomes more and more likely every turn.
Since when is easier than normal = hard? Last I checked, easier than normal = easy or very easy. And last I checked, the quoted text, which I preserved specifically states that Hard and Very Hard is playable. So what are you talking about?I mis-read your post, I read it to mean hard campaigns would be unplayable, my apologies. But to be honest, reading it correctly, it makes less sense. How is it difficult to make an easy campaign with optimized characters? If anything its easier. Just throw normal CR enemies at highly optimized characters and things come out easy.
Ivory Tower Design. Yes, quite a few things are made intentionally bad for no purpose other than to reward optimizers for recognizing, and avoiding trap options.Care to offer up examples of things that are made intentionally bad? Again it's a pretty strong claim without any actual facts behind it.
I think toughness, the way it was written originally, is an example. I think Monte Cook actually said it was a "trap feat".
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The disparity varies so immensely by class that the topic is moot. There is a VAST GULF of difference between an optimized and normal druid/wizard/summoner compared to rogue for example. Optimized rogues are still laughably horrible. There's no way 2 optimized rogues put together would contribute more than one of those 3 classes.
I removed a couple posts. Acting like an adult isn't hard.
I've heard this argument before, but it always ignores the possiblity that swords might be swung within a party. I've always seen really high level fighters in the position of kingmaker.A super-de-doper optimized fighter can at best be really good at killing monsters.
A mildly optimized caster destroys your entire dungeon, then creates his demiplane, and becomes the new DM because he literally just made his own setting.
If swords are being swung within the party, it isn't a party any more.
That being said last session in our Forgotten realms campaign we were fighting some evil clerics of cyric and our dwarven battle rager did like 77 points of damage in one criticle strike at 5th level.
This one confuses me. I run the barbarian in our current campaign. At level 1 he could do 75 points of damage on a crit. That's just high strength + rage (+10 to hit from str 2handed) + power attack (add another 3) with a greataxe (d12+13 damage and x3 on the critical hit).
Crits from your melee machine are supposed to be kind of ridiculous and amazing. That's why they're crits.
In MOST cases I will agree with you but when the DM optimises ALL of his villans around the damage one charecter can do it tends to make the rest of us spend alotta time healing rather than fighting.
The battlerager is great but he does so much damage that the really tough fights the DM wants to be cinematic rarely are so he gets a little frustrated. I also think it's funny that you just described the barbarians build exactly.
Once the rager leaves I am looking forward to the DM not putting us up against ridiculus NPC's anymore that do half of my HP in one stinking hit because they have to be able to challenge the little angry man.
Challengeing him means almost TPK for the rest of us. We have no cleric and my druid spells are used better as offens and defense rather than healing so our only recovery option is the paladin and a wand. My wolf animal companion has saved my but more than I can count because he was able to take some hits for me as another target while I withdrew and healed or healed others useing the vigor spells.
On the flip side in the other game we run the barbarian I keep talking about is the DM in that one and he is haveing the same issues with my wizard.
My mage is the damage dealer from heck in that game because of spells like Orb of force, the fact he weilds a +2 holy longsword(DM let me design my own weapon crystal that removed nonweapon proficency so I was useing a two handed great axe before I found my sword) Oh and the mage has a 16str and an 18con so when ever a strength check is needed my mage does it because he is the strongest member of the party.
I suppose that would be considered an optimised charecter but in eberron it fits.
As long as everyone is having fun, who cares? It's only when players start taking things like Defending Armor Spikes that I start to reach for my Rule 0 Hammer.I think you have summed up the discussion very well sir.
That being said last session in our Forgotten realms campaign we were fighting some evil clerics of cyric and our dwarven battle rager did like 77 points of damage in one criticle strike at 5th level.
The rest of us were doing ok danage(10-18pts per round) but when the BIG bad ogre fighter that was supposed to be a challeenge for the whole party gets almost taken down in one shot our DM was a little bit miffed.
Now in the players defense we REALLY needed that fighter. we have a paladin(same player) a druid(me) and a theif and a debuffing mage. The paladin is useful because he can use wands and be a partial cleric but he can't even come close to the damage the barbarian does. My druid was built as a spellcaster for the direct damage spells because the mage has NO damageing spells. The druid only gets into combat in his wildshaped forms so his strength goes from a 9 to a 15 or so then he can be a halway decent fighter with a pretty nasty bite.
Long and short of it was the barbarian was asked to retire and player asked to play the paladin because the rest of the party would be totally overwhelmed by anything that could take down that dwarf.
As a side note the paladin gets along better with the lawful neutral theif than the true neutral druid but that makes for some good rp.
I would be surprised if a Raging, Power Attacking Barbarian COULDN'T get near 70-80 damage on a crit with the x3 weapons they use.
If a normal, core melee class using normal, core rules is "breaking" the game, then some one is doing it wrong. Probably the DM.
If swords are being swung within the party, it isn't a party any more.I've heard this argument before, but it always ignores the possiblity that swords might be swung within a party. I've always seen really high level fighters in the position of kingmaker.A super-de-doper optimized fighter can at best be really good at killing monsters.
A mildly optimized caster destroys your entire dungeon, then creates his demiplane, and becomes the new DM because he literally just made his own setting.
I would say that is relatively true in this edition/version of the game. Not so much in earlier versions. Besides, arguments happen and fights do break out, sometimes with fatal results.
Once the rager leaves I am looking forward to the DM not putting us up against ridiculus NPC's anymore that do half of my HP in one stinking hit
Hi, this is my friend D&D, perhaps you've met? I think you need to go look through the bestiary and figure out which monsters meet your criteria, if you can.
Then you had terrible casters, because that crit line contains many of the worst feats I've ever seen, simply because of how unreliable and weak they are. Not to mention that any tactic that involves relying on critically hitting a foe is doomed to failure - especially at high levels.
I will admit, it was kind of a perfect storm. The dm would deliberately boost his npc/monster's saves to avoid status effects from the casters. In addition the casters in that game were not particularly adept, they where players that normally dont delve into spells. And there were not alot of enemies that were immune to critical hits. So you could crit fairly reliably, while spells were not performing exceptionally well.
You are still missing the point.Normal difficulty: You use enemies, who have the resources available to them and nothing else, played intelligently.
Hard difficulty: Enemies will, at the least be practically optimized. They still won't get any resources they aren't entitled to by the rules, but the average encounter will be 1-2 levels higher.
Very Hard difficulty: You will fight optimized, and ruthlessly efficient foes. They will be 3-4 levels higher than you, as a group by default. While they are still limited by things like WBL, expect every copper they have to be used to maximum possible benefit.
When I say anything lower than Normal is unplayable, I'm talking about the party. Any party that cannot handle stock encounters played intelligently is going to get slaughtered all the time by the same. And since that is the definition of Normal difficulty, and a game you can't stop losing is unplayable, the game becomes unplayable under those conditions.
The point is that there is a minimum baseline of competence for playing D&D. If you don't meet it, you can't play.
Ok I think i see what you are talking about nowAq. I thought you were speaking about how difficult things ended up being, as opposed to a kind of difficulty setting.
That statement I think I would agree with you. Although in theory the dm could learn enough to bring things down to the level of the party, but ofcourse that requires a certain level of system mastery for the dm.
Here's about ten:
The entire Fighter class: 3.x.
The entire Monk class: 3.x.
The entire "inflict critical hit, inflict minor status effect" line: PF.
The entire line of 1d6/level, and nothing else spells: 3.x.
Two Weapon Fighting: 3.5, PF.
Sword and board: 3.x.
Toughness: 3.5, possibly 3rd.
Level Adjustment: 3.5.
Full BAB: 3.x.
Higher HD size: 3.x.Some of these are merely heavily overpriced, the last three in particular. Most of them though are presented as something useful, but are really anything but. The alternative is to accept that they were incompetent, and screwed up unintentionally but if you Google Ivory Tower Design you'll get a confession that it was intentional. If you search around a bit more you'll find more specific confessions, such as TWF going in the trap pile because Andy Collins took personal offense to a dual wielding Rogue outdamaging his Dwarf Fighter with a Greataxe so TWF was nerfed hard, and that same nerfs are still in PF for the most part.
My apologies, I didnt make myself clear here, I definately think there were such trap options in the wizards days of dnd. After years past of playing magic the idea that some things were made deliberately better then others doesn't surprise me. I just dont believe there were deliberate choices made on the part of the current paizo devs to create such traps. I do think that some of them have still lingered as a matter of legacy, but certainly many have been removed or diminished, and I think paizo is going to work to continue that trend as much as possible.
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That being said last session in our Forgotten realms campaign we were fighting some evil clerics of cyric and our dwarven battle rager did like 77 points of damage in one criticle strike at 5th level.The rest of us were doing ok danage(10-18pts per round) but when the BIG bad ogre fighter that was supposed to be a challeenge for the whole party gets almost taken down in one shot our DM was a little bit miffed.
I would be surprised if a Raging, Power Attacking Barbarian COULDN'T get near 70-80 damage on a crit with the x3 weapons they use.
If a normal, core melee class using normal, core rules is "breaking" the game, then some one is doing it wrong. Probably the DM.
I can hardly believe I'm about to say this, but... yeah, you right. I play a similar build in my game and don't 'break' anything.
Things I steamroll:- Creatures that can't go toe-to-toe with a 200hp 11th lvl melee class that does 20-45hp on a normal hit (low AC, but I can soak up a lotta damage).
- Anything that forces me to make a fort save.
Things that make me cry like a little girl:
- Anything good at grappling or with the grab monster ability (damn you, swallow whole - damn you to hell!).
- Anything that forces me to make a will save.
- Anything with a high AC so as to make PA less viable.
Your DM needs to mix things up a bit, ST. One monk with decent Disarm and Grapple capabilities and some AC buffs would ruin that dwarf battlerager's day, without needing to resort to TPK-inducing damage output.
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Things that make me cry like a little girl:
- Anything good at grappling or with the grab monster ability (damn you, swallow whole - damn you to hell!).
- Anything that forces me to make a will save.
- Anything with a high AC so as to make PA less viable.Your DM needs to mix things up a bit, ST. One monk with decent Disarm and Grapple capabilities and some AC buffs would ruin that dwarf battlerager's day, without needing to resort to TPK-inducing damage output.
Invest in some spiked gauntlets, dude. Let's you solve that monk AND swallow whole problem in one pointy, punchy go.
But yeah, power attack smashy build isn't broken.
I have armor spikes, but 1D6 + 1HPA/Str isn't really in the neighborhood of 2D8 + 1-5D6 Situational + 2HPA/Str. Plus my GM is of the 'you can't sneak attack something that's swallowed you whole, even with darkvision' camp, despite what's in the 3.5FAQ, which I can't even begin to comprehend.
I spent way too much time in the guts of monsters, and not in the cool Conan bathe-in-the-blood-of-your-foes way. >:|
I'm beginning to think more and more that there should be a customization/rememorization class ability for martial characters and feats/talents/powers that works on part with spell lists for casters. It'd remove the problem of a lot of "trap" feats (because now the fighter can select a specific train for a single encounter) and allow the flexibility primary casters get.
May wind up being something I houserule.
Warrrrrrblaaaaaaade :D
Care to offer up examples of things that are made intentionally bad? Again it's a pretty strong claim without any actual facts behind it.Here's about ten:
The entire Fighter class: 3.x.
The entire Monk class: 3.x.
The entire "inflict critical hit, inflict minor status effect" line: PF.
The entire line of 1d6/level, and nothing else spells: 3.x.
Two Weapon Fighting: 3.5, PF.
Sword and board: 3.x.
Toughness: 3.5, possibly 3rd.
Level Adjustment: 3.5.
Full BAB: 3.x.
Higher HD size: 3.x.
This is hilarious. So the entire Fighter class was a trap, intentionally designed to be inferior, to the point that as soon as anyone figured it out they would never play a Fighter again? You really believe that?
I think they took the best stab at making a brand new game that they could and some things didn't balance as well as they hoped. They fixed some of that in 3.5 and now Paizo has fixed a ton more. Fighters are the DPR kings as far as I can tell and things like the DPR Olympics bear that out.
A lot of what you list is 3.x. A lot of those received huge boosts in Pathfinder. In many cases they didn't go quite far enough, but honestly it is probably far better that they keep things a little under power than go over. If they came out with a Monk that punched through spells to kill Wizards in one hit, tripped the Tarrasque on a 2 or better and ignored critical hits from greataxe wielding Fighters the Pathfinder game would have been laughed out of the game store. As it is every class was improved while the relative power levels remained the same. Casters still rule, but not quite as much as before.
Some of these are merely heavily overpriced, the last three in particular. Most of them though are presented as something useful, but are really anything but. The alternative is to accept that they were incompetent, and screwed up unintentionally but if you Google Ivory Tower Design you'll get a confession that it was intentional.
Let's look at the last three.
1. Level adjustment is gone2. Higher BAB IS useful if you are hitting things with a weapon. I know that your opinion is that HP damage is worthless, but you are flat out wrong.
3. Hit points keep you from being dead. The more you have, the greater your chances of being not dead.
Look at it this way. You go into a situation loaded for bear (casters). Out of the middle of these caster pops up an archer. You ignore him of course, because "HPs don't matter until it kills you". You exchange some Save or dies and the archer shoots you full of arrows, but you are not dead. So worthless, right? Next round. Do you try to kill a caster that might kill you if you fail your save? Or do you try to kill the archer that WILL kill you if you don't do something about it, no save? If there were two archers you may not even have a chance of getting a second round.
If you search around a bit more you'll find more specific confessions, such as TWF going in the trap pile because Andy Collins took personal offense to a dual wielding Rogue outdamaging his Dwarf Fighter with a Greataxe so TWF was nerfed hard, and that same nerfs are still in PF for the most part.
Link or it didn't happen. If you post this stuff it is up to you to prove it. It is not up to everyone else to prove or disprove your points.
If they came out with a Monk that punched through spells to kill Wizards in one hit, tripped the Tarrasque on a 2 or better and ignored critical hits from greataxe wielding Fighters the Pathfinder game would have been laughed out of the game store.
My question is thus:
Why is it accepted for casters to do all of the above, then?
The way to deal with low system mastery/beginners at the table:
Get them to tell you their character concepts.
Design the characters for them.
Let them play a while and get the feel of the game.
That's what I do, anyway. Currently setting up a game with my kids, my ex and few friends some of whom have played casually before, but no serious players. So I ask them what they want:
My 8-year old daughter: "I want to hit things with a big sword!"
No problem, 2-handed fighter with Greatsword, Power Attack and Cleave.
My 11-year old daughter: "I want to be able to fight and do a bit of magic."
No problem, sword-and-board paladin.
My 13-year old son (he knows the system, has played Neverwinter Nights a lot): "I'll go draconic sorcerer and summon creatures to fight for me."
Easy build, conjuration specialist sorcerer.
My 19-year old god-daughter: "I want someone who knows a lot and can do a bit of everything."
Easy choice, bard.
If swords are being swung within the party, it isn't a party any more.I would say that is relatively true in this edition/version of the game. Not so much in earlier versions. Besides, arguments happen and fights do break out, sometimes with fatal results.
Trust me, any version, if the party fight among themselves there is generally a serious problem. Don't get me wrong, friction between characters is not a bad thing, but flames between players is always bad.
Because they have to prepare the right spells for the situation.
Or be less versatile.
Or just memorize a whole bunch of teleports that day. :)
That's not a viable answer.
The statement was "If a non-caster could ever do these things it would be terrible"
I want to know why, then, casters are allowed to do it.
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If they came out with a Monk that punched through spells to kill Wizards in one hit, tripped the Tarrasque on a 2 or better and ignored critical hits from greataxe wielding Fighters the Pathfinder game would have been laughed out of the game store.My question is thus:
Why is it accepted for casters to do all of the above, then?
well, Monk makes this a hard trick to pull off, but...
High Stealth, ridiculous Initiative, Max Stunning Fist DC = Wizard Gets Stunned. Ranger may be a better avenue for success, but still, it's possible.
Tripping the Tarrasque on a 2, I'll take as hyperbole (Casters can't really do anything to it, either, remember, this thing is CR 25 and Immune to pretty much anything that's not "plane shift" or "600 pts of HP damage"), but a CMB of 64 should, theoretically be available to a significant;y high PC. As an Epic threat in a game without Epic rules, however, this particular challenge SHOULD be one requiring pretty much everything the players can come up and then some.
For "negating critical hits", I direct you towards the Free-Hand-Fighter's 19th level ability "Reversal", the Duelist's "Parry" ability, the Fortification armor ability, and those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head.
"Non Casters Don't Get Nice Things" may have been the norm for 2ed through 3.5 (and maybe for 4e, although I honestly don't know that), but as far as I can tell, in PF, the supposed discrepancy in actual gameplay is much less apparent.
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Yeah, that's because it *wasn't* a viable answer. It was a tongue-in-cheek answer to relieve a bit of the tension. :D
But you want a serious answer, so here it is. Why are casters allowed to do it? Traditionally, spellcasters were super super easy to kill. They were very difficult to get into high levels because they didn't survive into high levels. Magic then became very powerful at those levels as a payoff for surviving that long.
You can think of it as players choosing between normal or hard mode. Eventually, hard mode has great returns, but it's so difficult that many people will probably choose normal mode.
That was when the game first came out.
There's this thing that basically causes each iteration of a game to become more powerful in order to draw people to the newest format. Basically, this power growth lead to greater survivability of spell casters to the point where they weren't at any greater risk than anyone else of dying early. The increased frequency of resurrection-type spells also helped to guarantee that your spellcaster would survive into end game levels.
But due to the power growth concept, they couldn't reduce the power level of spellcasters without causing an uproar, so spellcasters remained powerful without the offsetting factor of dying to a stiff breeze.
People have an expectation to be very powerful endgame as a caster. They have an expectation to be extremely versatile, with spells that do radically different things. Since the game is about making people happy so that more product sells, those expectations that were set up long ago are still being fulfilled today.
There *are* limiting factors built into the classes, such as spell preparation or limited spells known. Spell preparation is a great way to limit the spellcaster because those things a caster memorizes might be useful or might not be useful. Unfortunately, most players want to hold into all the power they can, so a few divination spells are given as examples as to why the spellcaster should always have the right spells memorized. Generally speaking, if you rein in the power of those divination spells, you restore some balance between the classes. Yes, the wizard might memorize one or two spells so he can deal with anything. That's fine, because after one or two spellcastings, he's out of effective juice and has to rely on subpar options.
Learning spells from scrolls is another limiting factor that most people ignore. Just because the wizard wants to have all the spells out there, he can only get them if he can find them. However, expectations kick in here again. Players expect to be able to purchase anything they can find in the CRB, so they figure they can just buy all the spells they can afford when they get back to town. Controlling availability of spells known for wizards is a major balancing factor that most DM's ignore because the player puts up such a big stink about it. Similarly with a cleric class acting in a way that their religion doesn't appreciate. Most dms will wait until some really really terrible action occurs before affecting the clerics spellcasting at all. Without the religious restraints firmly in place, the cleric will be happily killing away using whatever spells he feels like memorizing based on, again, those divination spells.
The implementation of druids was meant to be a more nature-themed type of cleric. Unfortunately, their ability to change into animal forms was a way for players to cheese themselves up heavily. Due, again, to dms not wanting to enforce certain restrictions like those of form choice, the general restraints on the ability were reduced even farther.
Sorcerers restricted spells known, I think, goes a long way towards making them more equal to non-casters. Being able to research and properly apply a spell does make spellcasters somewhat more difficult to use. There's a higher entry bar than a fighter, who will generally be using the same two or three abilities instead of choosing one ability out of twenty, thirty, or more choices.
Most spellcasting classes started off much more frailly than their non-caster cousins, and developed much greater power over time. Though power leak, that frailty has gone away, while their power has only continued to increase. There are built-in tools for managing that power, which most dms don't end up using due to the mindset of the players and the idea of "as long as we're having fun".
But even when these tools are being used appropriately, due to the history and evolution of the game, and the design to meet past expectations in future products, the spellcaster is designed to be more powerful in the end game.
Doesn't change anything though. Once a person has something, they kick and scream if you try to take it away from them. They'll only be happy if you give them more. So each iteration of the game, there is a little more. A little more customization, a little more power. But they kick and scream if someone gets more than they do. So its easy for designers to shy away from improving endgame non-casters to have the same versatility as casters. The trick is to increase the power of both, but give the edge to the non-casters. Do this long enough and eventually you'll establish parity.
That's why right now, spellcasters can do everything.
"Non Casters Don't Get Nice Things" may have been the norm for 2ed through 3.5 (and maybe for 4e, although I honestly don't know that)
As a 4e DM and player, I sometimes think that 4e is making up for past lameness in the non-magic classes. Weapons are cooler than implements, martial classes have two splat books to everyone else's one, and power gamers just love fighters and rangers.
Go figure.
See, even small shifts don't work.
Tome of Battle doesn't make martial characters better then casters. In fact, they're still not as good by far. But it was still decried as being overpowered and unbalanced.
Some people feel that non-casters don't get nice things. It doesn't matter how much or how little you change the game - as soon as a non-spellcaster gets a Nice Thing, they're done with it.
So yeah, I disagree with needing to make small minute balance changes over time. Not only is that too slow, but it doesn't actually solve anything.
Flat out, if you feel that, in a fantasy game, some classes should be completely better then others because they have magic, I don't want you in my game - and partially it's because you don't understand how fantasy works.
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See, even small shifts don't work.
Tome of Battle doesn't make martial characters better then casters. In fact, they're still not as good by far. But it was still decried as being overpowered and unbalanced.
Some people feel that non-casters don't get nice things. It doesn't matter how much or how little you change the game - as soon as a non-spellcaster gets a Nice Thing, they're done with it.
So yeah, I disagree with needing to make small minute balance changes over time. Not only is that too slow, but it doesn't actually solve anything.
Flat out, if you feel that, in a fantasy game, some classes should be completely better then others because they have magic, I don't want you in my game - and partially it's because you don't understand how fantasy works.
Yep, because if they don't share your idea of how it should work, then they're wrong. Wait, what?
Fantasy, by definition, can include worlds where a normal man can become powerful enough to withstand ten fireballs to the face.
Or
Where the only way for a normal man to become powerful is to take up magic.
I don't think you understand what fantasy really means. While you're welcome to run your campaign any way you want, it's still not appropriate to blame different viewpoints on a failure of everyone else to understand you. They can disagree with you and not be wrong. Opinions are not absolute. It's the equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and going 'La la la, I can't hear you! I'm right and you're wrong! La la la!'
And this is also a good point for understanding why some people think that a fighter should be weaker than a wizard, and why others think they should have parity of power. It really comes down to a fundamental view of what fantasy means.
Are you playing Gandalf, where you only use your powers when there is a fearsome creature that normal men could not hope to defeat? Well, there's a good example of why people think wizards should be more powerful.
Or, are you playing Gandalf, only using your powers when you must because you are so easily reduced to being a powerless old man? Fantasy fits both explanations because fantasy is encompassing and not limiting.
I would estimate pathfinder to be a small shift in the disparity between casters and non-casters. In that regard, I will argue that since pathfinder is working, small shifts can work. Tome of Battle was generally too different from the original material for most people in my group to get into. Stances? Maneuvers? They shook their heads and went back to the Complete series. Frankly, the headache I got from reading it was akin to the headache I get from reading the bard class, so I can't really speak as to the power of martial classes there.
If you're looking for a big change to bring parity between classes, well, I'm pretty sure that what you're looking at is 4.0. That's where they simplified and condensed everything down enough to make it pretty easy to balance casters and non-casters. If you want parity between effectiveness in 3.x, you'll either need to make some houserules, or wait and hope that the next version of d&d that pathfinder releases in ten or twenty years is closer to what you want.
You know, whatever works best for you. But each opinion has merit. Non-casters don't get nice things? Depending on how you judge nice things, this is potentially very true. Depending on which version of Gandalf you're coming from, it could remove the fantasy element for you if the big sweaty guy who spends the whole day hacking at a tree stump can suddenly compete effectively with Gandalf against the balor. Or it might make sense to you in the man-greater-than-man sense of heroic combat so the fact that you can't does nothing but frustrate you. But fantasy encompasses both, and whichever viewpoint you hold is one of those things that a DM should be imparting to his players before the campaign ever starts.
We all pursue the things we love, such as this game, with passion and vehemence. These boards would be empty if there weren't some strong opinions and emotions around the game. Some of us grew up with it, some of us had a friend invite us to a game, or found a book in a game store. Everyone has the same love of the game, but we need to try to remember that the game means different things to different people. It's ok, it's even helpful to create a more interesting result. We just need to watch where we step when we walk. Footsteps of giants and all.
Flat out, if you feel that, in a fantasy game, some classes should be completely better then others because they have magic, I don't want you in my game - and partially it's because you don't understand how fantasy works.
Fantasy works any damn which way you please. You can justify anything with "it's fantasy" - the question is not what you justify, but does it have verisimilitude enough to be enjoyable, and does it work in the game?
Flat out, if you feel that, in a fantasy game, some classes should be completely better then others because they have magic, I don't want you in my game - and partially it's because you don't understand how fantasy works.Fantasy works any damn which way you please. You can justify anything with "it's fantasy" - the question is not what you justify, but does it have verisimilitude enough to be enjoyable, and does it work in the game?
Know what breaks my verisimilitude more then anything else?
"This class can't be good because he's not arbitrarily magical enough."
Go on, read through some fiction. Grab some fantasy. Flip through some mythology, Identify the "PCs." Now find the ones that aren't allowed to do anything cool because they're not magical enough to play with everyone else.
Find them?
No?
There is no magical/non-magical divide in fiction amongst protagonists and antagonists. There is just that - a protagonist/antagonist and "non-tagonist" divide, a divide between main characters and secondary characters.
Know why I laugh whenever people use Gandalf? Let's go ahead and compare him to the D&D wizard. Let's see, what spells did Gandalf use? Well, he REALLY liked to cast light. There was that time he...no, that was also him casting light. He stood in front of a Balor and then got pulled under, that was - wait, no spell there. Hmm, doesn't quite seem up to par with being a flying invisible hydra.
Oh yeah, also, he was Michael the archangel. Yeah.
There is no magical/non-magical divide outside of D&D. There is only a main character / secondary character one. When you create the magical/non-magical divide, you are creating the other one, too. You are telling fighters and monks and rogues, "Hey, guess what? You aren't main characters. Sorry! You can't change the setting the way these other classes can. You get to be the secondary characters of this story."
One of the problems is confusion over "the wizards role," and it's because there is no "wizards role" in stories.
There is the role of a wise old mentor, but that character is typically a secondary one. It's why LotR doesn't start - and end - with Gandalf just going "Oh bugger this," taking the ring, hopping on his eagle buddy, and throwing it into the volcano himself. Or just flying there on his own. It's why Arthurian tales aren't just Merlin magicking away every problem that could ever come up.
Consequently, it's why D&D wizards are so badly done. There is no role of "Main character who is master of the universe," unless he is facing - and is only facing - other masters of the universe.
More modern fiction introduced the idea of the wizard protagonist, but even in this modern fiction, all the other characters have equal power to the wizard, if they aren't all wizards themselves. That is because of, again, the main character / secondary character divide. This isn't to say main characters shouldn't be super powerful like D&D wizards are. On the contrary, much of mythology is made of super powerful characters fighting each other. Indian and Hindu mythology is almost entirely characterized by the actions of godos, after all. What it does mean is that there is no separate levels of narrative power.
What I see a lot of is talk of combat power, but that's not all D&D is. Any game, unless you are running the barest of dungeon crawls, is about narrative power - the power to change the setting. See, in D&D, fighters don't have any of that. If the DM wants to railroad, then choo choo, all aboard, non-casters! He doesn't even have to twist or bend or change any rules to do so.
Casters on the other hand? "Between you and the castle of evil is - " "Things that don't matter, teleport." Or how about, "The ancient and evil curse - " "Is now dispelled, bam." Want to hide evil characters to spring a sudden trap? Nope! magic lets the character know they're evil in advance (Detect Evil got the nickname of Destroy Plotline for awhile, after all). There's no mystery with the wizard; any potential question can be answered with magic.
The problem is that D&D is trying to be two games. It's trying to be a more gritty game where martial classes do battle with weird creatures and struggle against a vaguely uncaring universe filled with dastardly traps and strange magic. It's also trying to be a high flying fantasy adventure with powerful wizards and fantastic spells. Thing is, these two games cannot coexist, because those powerful wizards and fantastic spells have a tendency to yawn their way through the weird creatures,, dastardly traps, and then master the strange magic.
This, then, is why there is no role of the wizard - because there is no character build up when every answer is "I cast my spell." Sinbad's adventures would become nonexistant ("I fly to the rock's next. I fly out of the cave. In fact, flight in general sorta makes everything meaningless, huh? Lol level 3 spell."). The story of Sir Roland finally falling before the armies of the Moors would've never happened. The Trojan War would've never even started; just teleport to your wife and take her back! Consequently, fly over the city and throw a fireball at it!
Pathfinder does a LOT to close the gap between combatants and spellcasters. That should be said.
I had the problem of Wizards being able to do whatever in Kingmaker:
But nope. Scry, wizard and rogue teleport in while he sleeps, rogue performs coup de grace and they disappear. Part 4 out the window, forcing me to come up with a hackneyed plot on the spot to get ANY use from it.
So I now houserule that teleports happen with flash and noise, and that you are dazed for 1 round after, due to disorientation.
Then I found a spell WELL within the baron's wizard's potential that could have dealt with it. And that scrying can be defeated by adding a sheet of lead in the walls. Which now leads to me ruling that a lead sheet in the key rooms such as bedrooms, planning rooms and throne rooms is standard issue for castles and similar places. Seriously, it is fantasy-equivalent of bulletproof glass in the president's office.
But, back to the topic: I think Min/Maxing is going too far when you completely disregard stats that are of little consequence to you. If you play a character with multiple 7 or 8 stats, so you can have 1 or 2 more in your important stats, making a character that does not feel realistic in the slightest, then it is going too far.
I am playing a lv5 paladin, and I reliably do 16ish damage on average with my 2h power attack. I pretty much use a tweaked elite NPC array of 8, 10, 12, 14, 14, 16 (20 point buy) for S16, D14, C12, I10, W8, Ch17. Sure, a 2H user should go for 18, as the difference between 16 and 18 equals the bonus from Weapon Focus+Specialization, but I figure I will find a belt +2 soon enough. I wanted good dex for my concept (Samurai) and it just felt wrong to have merely 14 cha. Built him like an all-rounder with Power Attack, Furious Focus, Deadly Aim and Quick Draw.
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But nope. Scry, wizard and rogue teleport in while he sleeps, rogue performs coup de grace and they disappear. Part 4 out the window, forcing me to come up with a hackneyed plot on the spot to get ANY use from it.
So the Baron failed his +5 will save? And when and where did you observe him.
Also in a world with teleport my higher level enemies would always have defenses up to counter it.
Know what breaks my verisimilitude more then anything else?
"This class can't be good because he's not arbitrarily magical enough."
Each to their own, mate.
But nope. Scry, wizard and rogue teleport in while he sleeps, rogue performs coup de grace and they disappear. Part 4 out the window, forcing me to come up with a hackneyed plot on the spot to get ANY use from it.
So the Baron failed his +5 will save? And when and where did you observe him.
Also in a world with teleport my higher level enemies would always have defenses up to counter it.
Yes, the Fighter/Rogue with Wis8 failed the DC22 will save against the wizard who had obtained a likeness of him through reading the mind of the daughter of the captain of the guard.
And yes, now I am scripting anyone with access to magic to have protections against scrying and teleporting. Though I also allow the players to have them so there is a reason why the big bad doesn't just buy a helm of teleportation and a crystal ball to kill everyone in their sleep.
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That's kind of the point about Gandalf. He did so little in the books, but when he did act, it was usually doing something that no one else 'apparently' could do. He fell off the bridge with the balor, but reappears having survived the fight which is not something that the other folks in that party could have done.
People tend to bring those comparisons with them into other games. How often is the most powerful villain in a book a magic user? It isn't the feudal lord sitting in his fort who brings a thousand years of darkness or whatever to the world.
Personally, I like to think of my wizards as the wizard from Big Trouble in Little China Town. I could easily see that wizard as thirty years younger, and Jack running along as *his* sidekick.
The power to change the setting really rests in the players hands, and not their characters. For your example of teleporting into the castle, the castle could be a no-teleport zone, or the only available locations to appear could be in the dungeon cells which lock and seal in anyone foolish enough to attempt entry. Fly? I can practically hear you say it. Gouts of burning lava, clouds of poisonous gas, creatures flying around the ramparts.
I'm sorry, but the only one who takes or gives a player the ability to change the world is the DM. And here the bias comes in again. If the DM thinks of parity between classes, then that fighter is going to be able to affect the story just as much as that wizard.
If the DM thinks wizard before fighter, then the wizard benefits.
If, and I had a dm like this, the DM felt that casters should be less powerful than melee, the fighter will have more opportunities to affect the world.
When you talk about shaping the world, you're not talking about what class a character is, you're talking about what kind of person that player has made his character into.
Yes, spellcasters have many abilities that provide identification or power, but it's just as easy to use those in the narrative to provide extra umph.
The castle has an ancient and evil curse? The spellcaster attempts to dispel, but falls to the ground clutching their head in agony as the overwhelming evil of the place tries to destroy their mind forever. Curse remains, more emphasized than before the caster acted.
You do have an excellent point about the game trying to be two things at once, and I agree with you completely. It tries to move from gritty to high-fantasy as characters move up in levels, but its usually the dm that determines which version of the game he's trying to play.
When playing the gritty version, sinbad is climbing the rocks, inch by sweaty inch.
When playing the fantasy version, Sinbad is watching two powerful mages exchange spells of destruction flying overhead while he sits and waits for his friend to fly down and pick him up.
But, as you said, this isn't a game about absolute numbers and combat. A good DM can involve all players equally in his game and make them all feel like they're contributing equally to the growth and development of the game world. It doesn't matter if Bill has a level 12 sorcerer, and Joe has a level 12 fighter, because the dm will give them both opportunities to shine, to develop their characters, and to change the world around them. That's part of what makes this game so great. The DM can self-correct these problems without needing a whole new game to do it. Houserules are evident at almost every table, world limitations on races or classes, situations that are more common than others. It's the power of the game, and why it has remained so popular for so long despite a lack of advertisement.
You aren't proving me wrong.
Gandalf isn't a main character, or a PC. He's deus ex machina. He is literally the hand of god coming down to save the others. Again, Gandalf is an archangel, not just an old man with a funny hat.
You'd turn Jake into a sidekick? Think about that - you are turning the main character, the lead protagonist, into a sidekick. That's your example on how wizards and fighters are the same?
BBEGs? No, outside of D&D, very, very few are primary spellcasters. They're evil generals leading an army of darkness (hurr hurr) who also know two or three spells. They're supernatural creatures who are more powerful then ordinary men are. They're magical beings with a few tricks...but none of them are flying invisible hydras that throw fireballs. The D&D wizard is entirely unique in this. I mean hell, even Odin only knew 12 spells.
As for all your examples...again, you're proving me right. Want to curtail the fighter? Just go by the rules. Want to curtail the wizard? Make things up. I'm sorry, but the second you say "Break the rules" or "houserule," you are saying "The rules are not good enough." The fighter is naturally curtailed; the spellcaster you have to target specifically. And this still doesn't fix the problem, because what do the players see? Bob the fighter is doing his own thing and being pushed back, Joe the sorcerer needs the hand of god to come down and stop him from derailing the universe. Yeah, that'll make them both feel equal.
Likewise with the claim that everyone can shine. How? How does the fighter shine? He has two skill points, no out of combat abilities, and no spells. The fighter's grand improvement is "I can attack more then once," while the sorcerer gets "I can literally create a new plane of existence." How are they both shining?