No, I've never played such an rpg, but imagine this: a fantasy rpg where you can't decide to be a 1st level caster, because magic has to be earned thru play. One of the points of adventuring, besides the ol' standbys gold and glory, is to discover your character's magical potential. So you start as a warrior, and eventually become a powerful warrior-mage.
This game would rock the free world and most of Communist China.
This argument is why I prefer the spellcasting system from games like Dark Heresy/WFRP to D&D/Pathfinder.
Casters can use their powers at will but every time they cast there is the chance of something awful happening (up to and including hordes of demons appearing and attacking the caster)
In that sort of system the caster has the I WIN button but he has to think carefully before pressing it.
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@Scott Betts
The Adventure Paths don't generally bear out your description of dungeons, and I'm pretty sure that is the style of play Paizo envisioned.
I can see why with that play style you've been such a strong advocate for 4e, but your play-style is not "the" play-style. If it works for you, fine, but if something is a problem in your game because of how you play the game, the problem isn't the game.
15 minute workdays do happen, but players should never know with any kind of certainty what kind of day they are getting into when they wake up in the morning to memorize spells (or when they are ambushed at night when they didn't yet...), and most fortresses and dungeons run by good GMs don't have "pause" buttons.
If you run the encounters as you think the enemies would run the encounters with the resources they have and the knowledge they have, the problems you've described become less and less problematic.
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Please note that Paizo has made the gap smaller by nerfing tons of spells, making them more difficult to cast, and limiting "unlimited" spells. 3.5 wizard is more powerful than PF wizard by a decent margin.
Damage dealing classes can actually deal damage and kill things very effectively now. But they still cannot do things that spellcasters can. PF has also not changed the magic mart from 3.5, so as long as players have access to even a reasonable amount of purchases, casters will still be very powerful.
I'd say a caster is weaker in combat in PF than in 3.5, but a caster is still just as strong as avoiding or bypassing the encounter.
I would absolutely nerf casters more, and separate them into more specific fields instead "can do it all with prep".
However, trying to balance all of that is very difficult. Nerfing casters so they are only good outside of combat would just make the game more boring. I'm not sure how to do with that without making the game worse.
This is definitely a Paizo thing.
I think that, when you have people who are saying that it's definitely a Paizo thing and definitely a WotC thing, it's probably safe to consider it the norm.
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@Scott Betts
The Adventure Paths don't generally bear out your description of dungeons, and I'm pretty sure that is the style of play Paizo envisioned.
Sure they do. I've run a bunch of them. The one dungeon I can recall that really took a while to slog through was the House of the Beast, and the adventure's designers made it pretty clear that it existed because they wanted to do the whole megadungeon thing for once in one of their AP products, and hadn't really gotten a chance to do so in the previous 19 adventures.
And even if they don't, dungeon size was basically completely unimportant to my argument - I brought it up as an aside because it illustrates why it's so cost effective to buy a wand of Mage Armor early on in your adventuring career.
You are right in the sense that the Fighter never loses his investment. But, practically speaking, that doesn't matter at all. He still needs to spend huge piles of money that the Wizard does not have to. Sure, if he buys that +1 sword for 2,000 gp at 3rd level, he'll never lose that investment. But unless he invests another 100,000 gp or so into that sword over the course of his adventuring career, the fact that he still has his original +1 sword won't count for much. The Ancient Red Dragon will laugh at his missing +4 bonus to attack.
I think you will find I have spent just as much building my gear as any fighter. Gear that I would have never afforded if 35% of my wealth were invested in consumables.
Compare, for example, the cost of your sword to the cost of my staff of power.
Compare, for example, the cost of your sword to the cost of my staff of power.
Again, the Fighter without that sword is non-effective at best, and a liability to his party at worst.
A high-level Wizard without a Staff of Power is still a high-level Wizard, and eats encounters for breakfast.
Compare, for example, the cost of your sword to the cost of my staff of power.Again, the Fighter without that sword is non-effective at best, and a liability to his party at worst.
A high-level Wizard without a Staff of Power is still a high-level Wizard, and eats encounters for breakfast.
Remind me again: What is the DPR of a high level fighter?
How many rounds can said fighter maintain that DPR before he is no longer able to swing?
In any campaign with more than 2 - 3 encounters per adventuring day, The wizard MUST conserve power. The fighter can go full offensive 100% of the time without fear of depleting himself.
Your argument has now become class A deserves better gear than class B because class B can perform better under certain conditions (single encounters taken out of context).
To put the current state of melee in context, look at this current thread.
Compare, for example, the cost of your sword to the cost of my staff of power.Again, the Fighter without that sword is non-effective at best, and a liability to his party at worst.
A high-level Wizard without a Staff of Power is still a high-level Wizard, and eats encounters for breakfast.
Remind me again: What is the DPR of a high level fighter?
How many rounds can said fighter maintain that DPR before he is no longer able to swing?
That would depend greatly on a varying amount of numbers such as CR, AC, DR X/variable, the Fighter's build, the fighter's weapon, and what defenses the high level fighter has (he can't dish out DPR if he's only around for 1 round). From playing a rogue and talking with the d20 Character Optimization boards, it was something like level x10 for DPR output (for a rogue using SA all the time). At higher levels in the game when looking at PF and 3E, specifically, it comes down to who can win initiative first and cast the most potent spell for the situation. If it's a single monster, hard to say a caster can't nullify the situation all by himself with 1 spell vs the Fighter who's only option is to drop the Monster to 0 HP. Hence why we have Rage-lance, Pounce builds.
In any campaign with more than 2 - 3 encounters per adventuring day, The wizard MUST conserve power. The fighter can go full offensive 100% of the time without fear of depleting himself.Your argument has now become class A deserves better gear than class B because class B can perform better under certain conditions (single encounters taken out of context).
To put the current state of melee in context, look at this current thread.
Right, and I'd say that a high level fighter has a good chance to hit his two first attacks, a fair chance with the 3rd, and crappy chances with his 4th attacks. IF he's being supported fully by his allies such as a wizard that casts Haste and/or a cleric that cast Divine Favor, Righteous Wrath of the Faithful, Prayer, or Recitation for his Fighter is going to improve that quality. But all by himself, good chance that given the randomness of die rolls, he could miss every single attack or even poorly such as 3 for 8 in two turns. The Wizard has options that Overcome SR, that make his spells more potent, make his spells more poweful, longer lasting, provide status effects, and so forth.
When you look at it, obviously it comes down to play style. There will always be people who think that Wizards (and other full spellcasters) are overpowered. Likewise, we'll have the other side who feels that the balance should be handled by a DM and not hard wired into the rules. Put more restrictions on magic (in terms of availability) or limit how often those spells can be utilized (decrease Rest times) or even give the spellcaster far less in GP so they must spend the gold on longer lasting items. None of these are the right way to do it, but it's not the wrong way either. If one can't compromise it's easy enough just not to buy the system. I hate casting times longer than 1 round, I hate THAC0, I hate restrictions on classes for fluff reasons and I hate restricting certain races on any number of things. And because of that I just don't play 2nd Edition. It's not a bad game (so I'm told) but I can't compromise this aspects. If one can't do that with D&D:next, the are a LOT of other systems out there that probably do exactly what people are looking for.
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These are good points. Fighters have a healer (usually) on hand the 'refills' the resource that determines how long a fighter can continue - and as mentioned that is always at 100% effectiveness until the fighter drops. Wizards can not have another character refill their spell slots and as the day wears on their effectiveness decreases.
I would put my money on the Wizard in a wizard vs fighter grudge match early in the morning. But after a hard days adventuring my money is on the fighter. As it I think should be - unless the fighter can get the drop on the wizard in the morning, then it should be wizard swiss-cheese as the higher probability outcome.
S.
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Put more restrictions on magic (in terms of availability).
I hate THAC0, I hate restrictions on classes for fluff reasons and I hate restricting certain races on any number of things. And because of that I just don't play 2nd Edition. It's not a bad game (so I'm told) but I can't compromise this aspects. If one can't do that with D&D:next, the are a LOT of other systems out there that probably do exactly what people are looking for.
I gather from the D&D:next posts that magic items will be more 1e/2e like (unless huge public outcry) in that many will be static and players won't be added powers like lollies to make mega-uber-our powers combine-ultratron swords (for example). A +1 Flame Tongue will once again make players go - wow! I'm all behind this, PF has that market sewn up.
As to restrictions, when we played 1e/2e those restrictions weren't seen as bad or evil, just the frame-work you made your character under. Halflings just weren't the types to don heavy plate and go off smiting demons (well demon knee-caps I presume?). In fact I have more problems with the newer equal employment rules of 3e+ than I ever did with the racial restrictions of 1e/2e (including the level caps).
Obviously if they are looking at a modular system I would like for that actually mean play styles reflecting 1e/3e/4e (which are all quite different). Part of me thinks just 1e/4e, because PF does 3e better than 3e ever did and I don't think that WotC can actually compete with Pazio in the 3e/PF arena - and I think it would be foolish of them to think they could just based on Brand.
S.
Remind me again: What is the DPR of a high level fighter?
Wizards don't deal in DPR. DPR is a context-less sucker's game. If you're concerned about damage, you've already lost.
How many rounds can said fighter maintain that DPR before he is no longer able to swing?
Infinity. Which really doesn't matter at all. It sounds nice to say, but means nothing in the course of actual play.
In any campaign with more than 2 - 3 encounters per adventuring day, The wizard MUST conserve power.
No, he doesn't. Stop playing terrible spellcasters. Any Wizard past 5th level can go 5+ encounters without feeling strained. And even after that, he still has command of his consumables. He is earning character wealth at a much faster pace than he is consuming it. And a Wizard's "conserved" power level is still leagues ahead of a Fighter's full-blast.
The fighter can go full offensive 100% of the time without fear of depleting himself.
Which is super great for Mr. Fire-and-Forget. Meanwhile, the Wizard actually ended the encounter in two rounds.
Your argument has now become class A deserves better gear than class B because class B can perform better under certain conditions (single encounters taken out of context).
I never said anything about any class deserving better gear. You've misunderstood me if you believe that's the case.
This kind of argument is to optimist.
No, it's not.
it asume the enemies never make their saving trows,
No, it doesn't.
that the wizard allways beat the SR
No, it doesn't.
, that the wizard always focus his spell in the right target( not to say an ilusion or something like that),
No, it doesn't.
that the enemy is not prepared to deal with the wizard tactics (negativeenergy inmunity, freedom of movement...),
No, it doesn't.
that the spellcaster always have his defenses on and never get dispelled(specially fly and invisibility),
No, it doesn't.
that the spellcasting is never interrupted by damage or some other inconveniente,
No, it doesn't.
that the wizard allways win the iniciative,
No, it doesn't.
the wizard is never hitted with status effect...
No, it doesn't.
It doesn't assume any of these things any more than it assumes those things of the Fighter. And - the critical difference! - the Wizard has an arsenal of reliable ways to avoid these problems, and the Fighter does not.
An the wizard do not do damage is a little extreme. First round, the enemy wizard/sorerer cast a empowered/intensified/maximized fireball followed by an empowered/quickened scorhing ray, the PC wizard is dead (unless of course is a Scrhodinger wizard)
So your argument is that, in a situation that favors a damage-dealing Wizard in every way possible, the damage-dealing Wizard will win?
Great.
Thanks.
In the context of an actual game of D&D, though, the opposite is true.
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I understand we are focusing on the 3e type Wizard. 4e in many ways solved this problem - however it has worked out that the 4e solution wasn't as well received as WotC had hoped, hence 5e. WotC have said that they will also look to the past (i.e. 1e/2e & may be even BECMI?) for solutions to the Wizard problem (which there really is in 3e for sure & casters in general). Rather than arguing that who has the largest cod-piece stuffer, a wizard or a fighter under 3e, I think WotC would rather have suggestions on what to do in 5e.
They can balance 'within a fight' as in 3e (that failed btw) or 4e. Or balance as 1e/2e (more 1e) by making a wizards power very difficult to use in combat situations. What is preferable - obvious not the 3e approach?
No, he doesn't. Stop playing terrible spellcasters. Any Wizard past 5th level can go 5+ encounters without feeling strained. And even after that, he still has command of his consumables. He is earning character wealth at a much faster pace than he is consuming it. And a Wizard's "conserved" power level is still leagues ahead of a Fighter's full-blast.
Not really, and I understand he has party members, but he just blows spells which is what I am thinking the other poster was getting at the 4th or 5th encounter may have him twiddling his thumb while the party takes the enemy out.
Even at level 5 you might have to deal with enough variety that either you can blow the wrong spell early, or you just don't have anything that is particularly useful.
In actual gameplay those consumables may not be there either because you don't have access to them or because you are currently behind WBL*.
*In most games you never directly match WBL. There will be times you might be a level or two behind, and then times when you are well ahead of it.
Being level X should not make you immune to Y if you did not prepare for it.
You may have your deity's spells. You might be good in hand to hand combat. You might have ridiculous knowledge of magic, demons, and other monsters, but you can still be clumsy(or at least not have good balance), and that heavy armor you are wearing is not helping. On top of that you are now trying to climb a slick surface, whether it be coated/covered with ice or grease from a first level spell.
In short being awesome in one area does not mean you should be awesome everywhere else.
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No, I've never played such an rpg, but imagine this: a fantasy rpg where you can't decide to be a 1st level caster, because magic has to be earned thru play. One of the points of adventuring, besides the ol' standbys gold and glory, is to discover your character's magical potential. So you start as a warrior, and eventually become a powerful warrior-mage.
*Gives Tequila Sunrise a copy of Call of Cthulhu and the Dreamlands supplement.
All the classes seem to work pretty well together, in my experience. Our group(s), there is some overlap/crossover, have been going for about a year now. Our conclusions thus far:
1)Sorcerers can be awesome! And squishy. Damage dealing is fun and the default for arcane.
2)Clerics should heal, druids should heal, bards should heal, everybody should heal! Anybody who can heal should have at least one healing spell prepared/know, preferably more. Healing during combat has saved the party many a time.
3)Skill monkeys are useful. Casters, usually arcane, and warriors, usually fighters, should never be allowed to venture into wilderness/dungeons/towns/their-bedrooms alone.
4)Fighters are cool, tough, smiting tanks that lead the way, like actual tanks. They shall remain when all else expended.
5)Everyone is useful, nobody is essential. Any motley crew can become heroes, but sometimes it would be really convenient if someone was X.
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I also think the "LFtr/QWiz, Angel Summoner" crowd has taken things way too far in the last 5+ years, the net effect of which (IMO) damaged D&D by bringing on the 4e knee-jerk.
Here's the thing: wizard spells always look meaner on paper than they actually play. Saves, SR, ER, immunities, allies in the area of effect, concentration checks, bad rolls, etc. All these contribute to making spells (IME) rarely being as nasty in the fog of war as on paper.
I am saddened to say that the 5e Wiz looks like a win for the LF/QW side. Spells look weak, already, on-paper. Spells don't scale. Saves look easier. Less spell slots. Scrolls aren't as good. Mirror image has 2 images. Etc. Yet Wiz still gets d4 HD, no armor, and still has a spellbook to worry about. Basically, the weaknesses of 1e with the spells markedly scaled back. At-will cantrips does not make up for this ;)
Now, this is a cursory examination of an early test, but the philosophy of Wiz nerf-batting seems ingrained (the reason for Monte's departure?). This 5e is sure making me appreciate PF more every day ;)
Then I do not see how the wizard always win in two rounds for 5+ battle per day.
Not always, just a lot of the time.
And it's important to note that winning an encounter is not the same as ending the encounter.
The fighter can fly (carpet of fliying), can dispel (ring of dispel magic), see invisivility (permanent see invisivility), can nulify the magic of the wizard (ring of antimagic field, somewhat expensive but not thant much at 15+ level).
And while the Fighter is blowing his gold on magic items to be able to compete, the Wizard is spending his gold on things that enable him to win encounters, because he doesn't need magic items to accomplish the above.
Also, Ring of Antimagic Field? Way to make up non-functional magic items!
The wizard is stronger than the fighter at higher levels, but is far from being the unhitteable guy.
At higher levels, a Wizard is basically invulnerable.
Not to mention than a single critical hit from the fighter ends the fight.
The Fighter will never get the chance. If the Wizard allows the Fighter to attack him, the Wizard is being played incorrectly.
Also, since when is this about the Wizard and Fighter going at it? This is about which one is able to meaningfully contribute, and which one is relegated to mop-up crew.
There are hybrids builds Blaster/Controller wizards. The hybrid do (a lot of) damage when is convenient and do some other thing if is a better strategy. Wizar do not do damage IS a extreme statement.
No, it's not. If your priority as a Wizard is to deal damage, you're doing it wrong. Anyone can deal damage. Leave that to the guy with the pointy stick. Wizards have better things to spend their time and resources on.
Not really, and I understand he has party members, but he just blows spells which is what I am thinking the other poster was getting at the 4th or 5th encounter may have him twiddling his thumb while the party takes the enemy out.
Even at level 5 you might have to deal with enough variety that either you can blow the wrong spell early, or you just don't have anything that is particularly useful.
In actual gameplay those consumables may not be there either because you don't have access to them or because you are currently behind WBL*.
*In most games you never directly match WBL. There will be times you might be a level or two behind, and then times when you are well ahead of it.
And that's why we are discussing a typical game. Anyone can come in here and say, "Well, that's not true under these specific set of in-game circumstances that obviously favor non-spellcasters!" but over the course of a typical game of D&D, it holds true.
Not to mention the slots the wizard use in non-combat realted spells.
Nah, leave that to scrolls where you can skimp on things like caster level and save DCs. Your spell slots are reserved for things where your own stats matter.
So if real wizards don't do damage what's the problem? How are they stepping on the fighters toes if they're organising the battle field and casting buff spells? If your opinion is that a wizard casting damage spells is not being played effectively how are they overpowered?
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Save-or-die or save-or-suck - it can be all over before it's begun. Case in point - in my PbP right now an NPC sub-boss killed by the mage with a single Suffocate spell (and yes, he got saves - three of them over three rounds - but didn't have much chance of making them and, indeed, didn't). The mage, while the sub-boss was dying, then killed the mooks with his spell-like ability Wall of Fire (note - not even a spell) without breaking a sweat. And this was an evoker - i.e. a sub-optimal build, or at least it was in 3.5. The melee types got to watch. Now, to be fair, it doesn't always go like that, the opposition was reltively weak, and since this was a sub-boss and some chaff I'm not too bothered since that's a spell that won't be used against the uber-boss later on. But I am bothered that I created a fairly complex set-up that rewarded physical skill use to get about, and it was basically negated by a spell and a spell-like ability performed at range (my fault, I guess, for approaching a 3e encounter with a 4e mentality). But even so it is a demonstration that mage's can easily overcome the obstacles in an encounter with the other characters barely getting a look-in.
Then I do not see how the wizard always win in two rounds for 5+ battle per day.Not always, just a lot of the time.
No it doesn't
And it's important to note that winning an encounter is not the same as ending the encounter.
Yes it is, unless you're just running away to end it.
And while the Fighter is blowing his gold on magic items to be able to compete, the Wizard is spending his gold on things that enable him to win encounters, because he doesn't need magic items to accomplish the above.
totally your unfounded and unproven opinion
The wizard is stronger than the fighter at higher levels, but is far from being the unhitteable guy.At higher levels, a Wizard is basically invulnerable.
No he isn't
Not to mention than a single critical hit from the fighter ends the fight.The Fighter will never get the chance. If the Wizard allows the Fighter to attack him, the Wizard is being played incorrectly.
No it isn't
Also, since when is this about the Wizard and Fighter going at it? This is about which one is able to meaningfully contribute, and which one is relegated to mop-up crew.
No actually you turned it into that when you came into the thread and got on your soap box. This was about how an article for 5th edition was all about nerfing wizards.
No, it's not. If your priority as a Wizard is to deal damage, you're doing it wrong. Anyone can deal damage. Leave that to the guy with the pointy stick. Wizards have better things to spend their time and resources on.There are hybrids builds Blaster/Controller wizards. The hybrid do (a lot of) damage when is convenient and do some other thing if is a better strategy. Wizar do not do damage IS a extreme statement.
Why do you think you have the right to tell us how to play this game? It's really offensive the way you run your mouth insisting we are doing it wrong if we don't play the way you think we should.
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Point: damage as a Wizard will always be inferior to whatever else you can do.
I pity the fools who prepare magic missile with their 1st-level slots. Sleep is, against living foes, basically a save or Be Killed By My Buddies at 1st level.
At 3rd level (and I had to check that, because I was sure that spell couldn't be a 2nd level spell what with how powerful it is) we get glitterdust, which is another encounter turning spell. As long as your enemies rely on sight (how many of them don't?) they now can't see s+%@, and Your Buddies May Kill Them.
Oh, by the way, did I mention that as you level up and gain new spell levels, you also gain progressively more spell slots at your lowest spell levels, allowing you to throw out all those now useless low-level save or dies and just prepare a bunch of low level utility and defensive spells?
Basically, as you gain access to higher levels of spells, you are also gaining more low-level resources to use. Since not all low-level spells are equal (sleep loses its utility pretty early on) you will just end up swapping out your low level spells for ones which have universal utility.
And guess what? Now you've got mage armor on all day every day and rope trick prepared every day.
The thing is, as a spellcaster, as your old SoD spells outlive their usefulness (because their spell DCs are too low or they don't affect enough HD of creatures) you just use your low level spell slots to prepare a bunch of utility and defensive spells. I mean, nobody is concerned about a 20th level Wizard who casts 4 magic missiles each day. The concern is with the 20th level Wizard who kills everything with their daily 9th level spells, maybe using a couple of lower level spell slots in the process, but ultimately retreats to safety with their Rope Trick spell for an eight-hour nap.
The thing is, a high level Wizard has so many low level spell slots available to them that they have so much utility that their spell slots are nearly negligible, assuming the player has Rope Trick prepared.
This argument is based on the Rules as Written. Personally, I'm not happy with how it is and usually either ban Rope Trick or have s#&& happen if the players are too liberal with resting in dungeons, but it is 100% a thing which happens with the rules as written. If you can houserule it away, good, but that doesn't have anything to do with a discussion of the game as written and balance therein.
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@Scott Betts
The Adventure Paths don't generally bear out your description of dungeons, and I'm pretty sure that is the style of play Paizo envisioned.
Sure they do. I've run a bunch of them. The one dungeon I can recall that really took a while to slog through was the House of the Beast, and the adventure's designers made it pretty clear that it existed because they wanted to do the whole megadungeon thing for once in one of their AP products, and hadn't really gotten a chance to do so in the previous 19 adventures.
And even if they don't, dungeon size was basically completely unimportant to my argument - I brought it up as an aside because it illustrates why it's so cost effective to buy a wand of Mage Armor early on in your adventuring career.
Pick an AP and I'll show you how you are wrong, book by book. In a separate thread if you like.
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Point: damage as a Wizard will always be inferior to whatever else you can do.
I pity the fools who prepare magic missile with their 1st-level slots. Sleep is, against living foes, basically a save or Be Killed By My Buddies at 1st level.
<sigh> I'm so tired of this argument. They're situational, and both have their place. Besides the many undead monsters you could run into, how many others are immune to mind-effecting spells or sleep (elves!)? A wizard who prepares sleep and magic missile is a smart wizard. One who only prepares sleep is a dead wizard.
I've seen enough encounters one-shot by a well placed area of effect spell (and a TPK due to an empowered cone of cold from an invisible caster) to know that dealing damage can indeed be effective in the right circumstances.
An effective wizard has prepared enough options to always have something to bring to the table without knowing beforehand what kind of foe he'll be facing. That includes both damage and save-or-die/suck.
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For a single encounter, sure. For a series of encounters without rest...YMMV.
An effective wizard has prepared enough options to always have something to bring to the table without knowing beforehand what kind of foe he'll be facing. That includes both damage and save-or-die/suck.
I don't see why it makes any difference. You still don't know what kinds of foes you're going to encounter throughout the day when you prepare your spells in the morning. What happens when you prepare nothing but save-or-suck spells and then have 5 encounters that day consisting of a horde of monsters that happen to be immune to them? Gee, we sure could use a fireball right now...
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<sigh> I'm so tired of this argument. They're situational, and both have their place. Besides the many undead monsters you could run into, how many others are immune to mind-effecting spells or sleep (elves!)? A wizard who prepares sleep and magic missile is a smart wizard. One who only prepares sleep is a dead wizard.Point: damage as a Wizard will always be inferior to whatever else you can do.
I pity the fools who prepare magic missile with their 1st-level slots. Sleep is, against living foes, basically a save or Be Killed By My Buddies at 1st level.
For the undead? Disrupt Undead. That stuff is at-will in Pathfinder. It might not be an auto-hit like Magic Missile, but Magic Missile is pretty terrible any way.
As for elves... well, how many times do you come across hostile elves at 1st level? Really?
No, I've never played such an rpg, but imagine this: a fantasy rpg where you can't decide to be a 1st level caster, because magic has to be earned thru play. One of the points of adventuring, besides the ol' standbys gold and glory, is to discover your character's magical potential. So you start as a warrior, and eventually become a powerful warrior-mage.*Gives Tequila Sunrise a copy of Call of Cthulhu and the Dreamlands supplement.
Isn't CoC about everyone dying and/or going insane in horrible ways?
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If you were a professional adventurer, you would do everything in your power to give yourself the advantage in your chosen profession.
Yeah, but then, if you were a professional adventurer, you wouldn't even know about all those nifty goodies in [Splat Book XXX] because those books simply do not exist in your world. So while I agree with your statement in general, this has nothing to do with players optimizing their character by skimming through all the material available and GM's not doing their job and restricting access to the material as they should.
Stop acting like spellcasters aren't the gods-incarnate that they are....
Well, in my games they never were. But maybe I'm just lucky to play with people who got it all wrong. Silly us.
Isn't CoC about everyone dying and/or going insane in horrible ways?No, I've never played such an rpg, but imagine this: a fantasy rpg where you can't decide to be a 1st level caster, because magic has to be earned thru play. One of the points of adventuring, besides the ol' standbys gold and glory, is to discover your character's magical potential. So you start as a warrior, and eventually become a powerful warrior-mage.*Gives Tequila Sunrise a copy of Call of Cthulhu and the Dreamlands supplement.
But you learn magic at the same time; it's AWESOME!!
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But you learn magic at the same time; it's AWESOME!!Isn't CoC about everyone dying and/or going insane in horrible ways?No, I've never played such an rpg, but imagine this: a fantasy rpg where you can't decide to be a 1st level caster, because magic has to be earned thru play. One of the points of adventuring, besides the ol' standbys gold and glory, is to discover your character's magical potential. So you start as a warrior, and eventually become a powerful warrior-mage.*Gives Tequila Sunrise a copy of Call of Cthulhu and the Dreamlands supplement.
We always burned all the books. It's the only sane way to play.