I see this a lot with 'linear Fighters' and 'quadratic Wizards'. Could someone explain to me exactly how this works out?
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It's the design of D&D prior to 4th edition where fighters start off strong and wizards start off weak. As they level up, the wizard starts to greatly outshine the fighter. This was intentional because previous editions usually assumed that every new character starts at level 1. Now, it's an unpopular concept, especially since the designer of 3rd Edition greatly buffed wizards and had a major double standard spells versus martial abilities.
It's the design of D&D prior to 4th edition where fighters start off strong and wizards start off weak. As they level up, the wizard starts to greatly outshine the fighter. This was intentional because previous editions usually assumed that every new character starts at level 1. Now, it's an unpopular concept, especially since the designer of 3rd Edition greatly buffed wizards and had a major double standard spells versus martial abilities.
*nods* That much I understand, what I'm looking for is examples of how this works in the classes in question.
A wizard gains spells as they level up that are the most powerful abilities of their level and can eventually rewrite the very fabric of reality to the wizard's whim.
A fighter simply gains numerical bonuses to attack and damage.
Wizards can basically rebuild their character every day to fit their daily needs.
Fighters are shoehorned into over-specializing due to how feats work.
Wizards have no restriction for learning spells for their level.
Fighters have to follow feat trees deliberately designed to waste their options.
A wizard gains spells as they level up that are the most powerful abilities of their level and can eventually rewrite the very fabric of reality to the wizard's whim.
A fighter simply gains numerical bonuses to attack and damage.Wizards can basically rebuild their character every day to fit their daily needs.
Fighters are shoehorned into over-specializing due to how feats work.Wizards have no restriction for learning spells for their level.
Fighters have to follow feat trees deliberately designed to waste their options.
Ah, okay. Does this happen with other classes too?
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As one of my friends once said: "Your wizard is like Magikarp, except instead of Gyarados it evolves into Mewtwo."
The dichotomy occurs between all classes that can cast (especially up to 9th level spells) and classes that can't (and don't get inherent magic powers to achieve similar effects).
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Casters both get more stuff (even a Sorcerer of a non-Arcane Bloodline without the Human Racial Favored Class Bonus, no Pages of Spell Knowledge, and no Feats put into Expanded Arcana has more spells known than a Human Fighter has Feats) and that stuff is pound for pound more powerful than anything a martial character can do.
The general logic for this is that spells are limited per day, so they SHOULD be more powerful...which I suppose is sound, but it was taken too far.
1st level spells don't cause TOO many problems at low levels, being both limited in number and utility (though can still be encounter ending, like Color Spray), meaning martials shine from 1st to about 5th level due to the ability to just kinda do their thing all day long as long as the HP holds out.
When 2nd level spells come in at 3rd or 4th level, things start to get dicey. There are a lot of spells here (like Spider Climb) which begin to obsolete skills. Skills increase linearly: My 1st level Fighter with 18 Str starts out with a +8 to Climb, This increases to +9 at 2nd, and +10 at 3rd. Or, if he wants to climb at half speed instead of 1/4 (we'll be generous and call this 15 feet since our hypothetical Fighter wears no armor, and thus no ACP or reduced movement speed).
Simultaneously, my Wizard with 10 Str and no ranks in CLimb starts out at +0 Climb. At 2nd level, he has a +0 Climb. At 3rd level, he now suddenly has a +13 Climb (+8 "racial" from having a Climb speed, and +5 from being able to move at 20 feet per round, 5 feet faster than the Fighter, without taking the -5 for an Accelerated Climb), and can Take 10 at any time. And can climb on ceilings.
Spider Climb is MILES better than investing in the skill itself...and the disparity between magical and non-magical only becomes more pronounced from there, going from simply "I can do a thing that you do, but better" to "I can do things you simply cannot begin to be able to come close to doing".
This is by no means the most egregious example of this effect, nor is it the most game disrupting. It's just one of the easiest.
For 1st through 3rd edition D&D, a first level party tends to hide behind the martial classes when combat occurs. Fighters, Barbarians, and other weapon fighting classes shine in the early levels as they could end encounters quickly. The casters at low level help, though they have fewer options and resources, so the often exhaust themselves far more quickly (healing injured team mates, run out of buff spells, only has one or two offensive spells in their arsenal, etc.).
By 20th level, the narrative power of the casters is far greater than the weapon dependent fighting classes. 20th level casters also have enough spell slots that only very unwise or unprepared casters would have to worry (didn't rest for 8 hours, or unwisely chose to have inappropriate spells). A fighter in the face in no laughing matter, yet they still have to bridge the distance to get there. Meanwhile, casters can plane shift, make duplicates of anyone (simulacrum), use wishes or miracles, divine plot secrets, and so on. A fighter in a 20th level party could easily be overshadowed when combat isn't needed, and even then is only called on to protect the party should the GM use opponents or tactics that sidestep the caster's abilities.
Items can bridge the gap, yet if you look at the big picture, all of those items were made by casters in the first place.
With so many game systems to compare it to, one can see how changing this dynamic really affects things. Games with low magic tends to punish people playing casters - making spells take a great deal of time and effort to pull off effects that would be equivalent to 1st - 4th level spells in D&D, while the sword swingers continue to dominate combats and encounters.
Some (like White Wolf's Mage) Take the martial / caster disparity to the extreme. Vampires and Werewolves are very powerful to start out, yet when the mage gains enough experience to maximize their powers, they can start turning those powerhouses into lawn furniture.
In the end, it is hard to mechanically balance out the sword swingers with the spell casters (or the space marines with the technicians, or whatever paradigm you use for brawn and brain dichotomy).
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One problem is that the farther along D&D went from 1st to 3.5rd edition, the easier it was for spellcasters to cast spells and use more powerful spells.
That and there isn't any mechanics for a a risk/reward system or consideration that using spells have a more effecting toil on the caster. For example the more or higher level spells one costs the more tiring and exhausting it is.
Ah, okay. Does this happen with other classes too?A wizard gains spells as they level up that are the most powerful abilities of their level and can eventually rewrite the very fabric of reality to the wizard's whim.
A fighter simply gains numerical bonuses to attack and damage.Wizards can basically rebuild their character every day to fit their daily needs.
Fighters are shoehorned into over-specializing due to how feats work.Wizards have no restriction for learning spells for their level.
Fighters have to follow feat trees deliberately designed to waste their options.
Yes. There was a double standard where non-spellcasting classes don't get interesting abilities because they're not magical. The designers way overvalued at-will martial abilities and feats. The rogue is an excellent example of this. The power of sneak attack was so greatly overvalued that the class was made weak and not given very many class features.
Pathfinder's designers are well aware of this. They taken initiative to making martial classes more interesting and have more options. The brawler, slayer, and swashbuckler are all fun classes. Pathfinder Unchained reworked the monk, rogue, and barbarian and interested a new mechanic for the fighter class that other martials can tap into as well.
I don't think "Linear Fighters Quadratic Wizards" will ever go away unless the game gets completely redone. In fact, one of Pathfinder's designers went on to make his own game to do eliminate it. However, Paizo and the fine homebrewers of this forum are doing their best to make martials fun to play. In the end, that's what matters most.
There is a 3rd party product called Spheres of Power that details a magic system built around a BAB-like bonus and feat-like traits. Even presents conversions of the existing spell-slots classes into their system. So if you find the Quadratic Wizards are messing with your fun you could try that. At least the two sides would be using similar systems.
I'm not saying that, but I've seen this sort of thing here very often and I wanted a good explanation of how people see it working out. Usually it's in one of the many, many 'let's fix the Fighter' threads.
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I'm not saying that, but I've seen this sort of thing here very often and I wanted a good explanation of how people see it working out.
I don't think Linear Fighters Quadratic Wizards is necessarily a bad thing. Having classes with different power curves makes the game more interesting. As former Paizo designer Sean K Reynolds said in an article, precise class balance is neither possible nor totally necessary. D&D/PF is a cooperative team game for creating stories through gameplay. It's fine if some classes are more powerful than others as long as they're all fun to play.
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Let me see if I can shine some light on this:
The "Linear vs Quadratic", as others have said, refers to the overall power of each class as they level up. Fighters get more powerful linearly (flat damage bonuses, more feats), whereas spellcasters get more powerful quadratically (each spell level is far more powerful than the last).
Basically, starting at about 6th level, spellcasters make fighters completely obsolete. There is nothing a fighter can do that a spellcaster can also do, and much more.
For example, there are many low-level spells that make entire skills completely useless.
The 1st-level spell Disguise Self, and especially its 2nd-level version, Alter Self, make the Disguise skill completely useless. Who needs lots of makeup and a wardrobe when you can snap your fingers and look like anyone?
The 2nd-level spell Invisibility makes Stealth almost useless, or at least shuts down the whole "can he see me or can he not" debate. Combine with some spells with the Silent Spell metamagic feat, or a Rod of Silent Spell, for extra hilarity.
By 3rd-level spells, the Fly spell allows for fairly long-duration flight. It makes the Climb skill pointless, and shuts down parts of Acrobatics. (You do need another skill, Fly, but it's far more versatile than Climb, which requires a vertical surface nearby.)
On the Cleric side of things, it's kind of odd that Clerics get Heal as a class skill, since they basically don't need it at all once they get 2nd, and especially 3rd, level spells. Even the first-level Cure Light Wounds can heal far faster and more effectively than several days of bed rest, and Remove Disease uses a caster level check, not a Heal check.
So, that's... *counts up on fingers*... 4 skills rendered completely useless so far, and I haven't even gotten into the 4th-level spells and up. Please note that, since fighters don't have spellcasting, they either need to put some ranks into those 4 skills if they want to be even half as good as a spellcaster, or they need to ask their spellcaster friends for some buffs.
The best summary I've heard of the problem comes from Jiggy. It was originally posted in this other thread.
Ultimately, having a "fantasy" setting just means there are things in the setting that go beyond reality. In a sense, the setting has two types of things in it: the mundane (that which is comparable to reality) and the fantastic (that which exceeds reality).
Now, different fantasy settings (which, remember, means "settings in which some things go beyond reality") will have different ways of determining how someone (or something) is allowed to exceed reality, to make the jump from being mundane to being fantastic.
In some settings, the necessary element to move from the mundane to the fantastic is simply magic. The Harry Potter universe is a perfect example: the fantasy setting is literally "reality plus magic". If you're a spellcaster (or magical creature), you're part of the fantasy story. If you're nonmagical, you're part of the mundane background; you're what the reader/viewer compares the magic to in order to see how much more fantastic it is than you are.
In other settings, a person could exceed reality and move from the category of "mundane" to the category of "fantastic" by any number of means: magic, training, enlightenment, divine parentage, and so forth. This type of setting is where you see people like Pecos Bill, who could lasso a tornado just by virtue of being a badass. Thus, his badassery was able to elevate him from "mundane" (realistic) to "fantastic" (beyond reality).
Both types of settings are fine. They tell different types of stories, and neither can really fill in for the other.
But there's an extra complication when you're talking about a game.
See, in a book or film or TV show, you can mix fantastic characters with mundane characters as you please, because you can carefully sculpt the action to have the result you want. In Avatar: the Last Airbender, the setting is of the first kind I described (only magic gets to exceed reality and be "fantastic"). However, the core group of protagonists includes both fantastic and mundane characters—there's even an episode about one of the mundane characters dealing with that gap. But since it's non-game fiction, the authors were able to create circumstances where the mundane characters could contribute meaningfully to the story through clever scripted use of circumstantial carefully-placed resources.
But in a fantasy game, that's a LOT harder to pull off. Even if you carefully sculpt situations where the muggle can help save Hogwarts, it will often feel hollow and contrived. Typically, it's no fun to have one player playing a fantasy hero and another player playing a mundane, non-fantastic character in the same game.
The ideal, then, is for every player character to be able to be "fantastic", to exceed reality. It doesn't matter which kind of setting you're using or what the requirement is for moving from mundane to fantastic; it just matters that each player has equal access to it. If exceeding reality requires a gift from the gods, then every player character should receive that gift. If exceeding reality requires being taught by a fantastic mentor, then every player character should have such a mentor. If exceeding reality requires access to magic, then every player character should have access to magic.
So again, it doesn't matter whether or not magic is the only way to go beyond reality and into fantasy. All that matters is that every player character gets to go there. The setting's definition of fantasy must be something within every player's reach.
And that's where the problem comes in: people who want a setting where X is required to exceed reality, but where not every player gets to have X. In the case of discussing Pathfinder, X is usually magic: people say that they want their fantasy to be defined as requiring magic in order to be fantastic (which is fine) but then fail to realize that some game options lack the very thing they defined as necessary for fantasy and are therefore by definition not fantasic!
The end result is this: if you want a setting where only magic can exceed reality, then fighters are not fantasy heroes, and you're just fooling yourself to say they are. If you want nonmagical characters to be capable of fantasy, then you have to allow nonmagical things to "go fantastic," to exceed reality. You've got to pick your direction and commit; trying to claim one setting while enforcing the mechanics of the other is why we keep having these arguments.
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As former Paizo designer Sean K Reynolds said in an article, precise class balance is neither possible nor totally necessary.
With all due respect to SKR, he inhabits a world in which all people play Magical Tea Party anyway, and can't really think outside of that box.
There are a number of methods of balancing classes, of which he seems to be aware of only one or two.
1. Make all classes roughly the same, then change the names of stuff. 4e went in this direction, but it's not the only way of doing things, and in my opinion it's not really the best way of doing them, either.
2. Enforce niche protection. 1st edition had a lot of this. Traps killed whole parties, in some cases with no save. Only rogues could disable traps. Ergo, you needed a rogue. Hp loss killed fighters. Only clerics (and to a much lesser extent, druids and paladins) could heal hp. Ergo, you needed a cleric. Etc. One way to do this in 3e would be to remove a lot of spells and hand them out to the people whose niches they're stealing -- for example, remove find the path, locate person, discern location, etc. as spells and make them ranger class features instead, so that now you need a ranger to track and find stuff. Remove spider climb and invisibility as spells, and instead make them things that a rogue can do using the Climb and Stealth skills. Etc. This kind of interdependence can be good, but it also potentially leaves you in a situation in which you get a TPK every week that Bob can't make it, so that's not a good deal.
3. Establish benchmarks. Figure out what challenges you want present at what levels, then design classes with those goalposts in mind. If you decide that 9th level is when they start ignoring long journeys, then wizards can get overland flight at that level, fighters can tame griffons or pegasi at that level, and rogues can activate flying carpets at that level. If you decide armies are obsolete at X level, then wizards get widened fireballs at that level, barbarians can rage and kill whole armies, and bards can inspire enough people to fight as an army for them. The idea is not to make them the same, but to make sure they're competent in the face of the benchmark challenges, albeit in their own different ways.
4. Give up. This is the "solution" that SKR is advocating, because (1) is boring, (2) feels like a step backwards, and (3) takes a lot of work, so people throw up their hands and yell sour grapes.
Kirth Gersen, I feel like you're completely misinterpreting Sean K. Reynold's article. He's arguing against the notion that all classes should be so precisely balanced in the same matter as that of a competitive online video game. I even confirmed this in the comments of that article. I used SKR's article within the context of the argument that it's fine if the power level of classes differ as long as they're still fun to play.
Needless to say, I'm rather confused about your arguments, especially when SKR frequently advocates a transparency between supernatural and extraordinary abilities, eliminating martial versus spell double standards, and quit developing Pathfinder to create an entirely new game in order to toss Linear Fighters - Quadratic Wizards out the window.
Another way of looking at it is this. Fighters get bonuse feats - their options increase as they get feats.
When a wizard goes up, they get more spell slots and they get new spells - not only do they get more resources, each of those slots gets more flexible. If you want to turn a mind-twisty wizard into an elemental blasty wizard, get them a few scrolls and days to scribe. They can then become an illusion-twister, a summoner, etc. And they don't lose their previous capability.
Since many combat feats build on other feats, a fighter takes a lot of time to respec. And they lose previous abilities.
How I normally explain it;
Casting power increases along 4 lines. Caster Level, Spell Slots, Spell Level and Spell Known.
Martial prowess increases along one line; Combat Feats.
Both of them benefit from BAB and whatever stat they use to empower or aim their abilities so naturally in terms of raw power and versatility casting ability is seen as quadradic(4 metrics of improvement) while martial ability is seen as linear (1 metric of improvement.) This is supposed to be balanced by martial power being sustainable while casting power is limited. In many to most cases this difference becomes less of a factor over time.
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Kirth Gersen, I feel like you're completely misinterpreting Sean K. Reynold's article. He's arguing against the notion that all classes should be so precisely balanced in the same matter as that of a competitive online video game. I even confirmed this in the comments of that article. I used SKR's article within the context of the argument that it's fine if the power level of classes differ as long as they're still fun to play.
Which is fine if you believe that.
I personally (as do many others) believe fun and balance aren't mutually exclusive concepts.
Needless to say, I'm rather confused about your arguments, especially when SKR frequently advocates a transparency between supernatural and extraordinary abilities, eliminating martial versus spell double standards, and quit developing Pathfinder to create an entirely new game in order to toss Linear Fighters - Quadratic Wizards out the window.
Quibble: SKR quit Paizo for family reasons, not with a direct intent to leave and make a new game.
And frankly, I don't think his game is going to accomplish those goals as well as a lot of people think they do. SKR is a lot of things, but in my experience with him he's not someone who fully understood the problem in the first place. And if you don't grok the problem, you have a slim chance of solving it by anything other than accident.
His game very well may turn out to be a good game, and a fun one, but my expectations for it solving the martial-caster disparity problem in any meaningful way are low.
Rynjin - I agree with a lot of your perspective there, but I don't think anybody's saying that fun and balance are mutually exclusive, so much as that they aren't equivalent. You choose what to optimize for with the development resources you have. If something significantly increases fun but damages balance slightly, that's acceptable if fun is what you're after but not if balance is your primary virtue.
I think you know this, but I figured it's worth having as an accompaniment to your post.
I'm not saying that, but I've seen this sort of thing here very often and I wanted a good explanation of how people see it working out.I don't think Linear Fighters Quadratic Wizards is necessarily a bad thing. Having classes with different power curves makes the game more interesting. As former Paizo designer Sean K Reynolds said in an article, precise class balance is neither possible nor totally necessary. D&D/PF is a cooperative team game for creating stories through gameplay. It's fine if some classes are more powerful than others as long as they're all fun to play.
I think this is a great point. The classes will NEVER be balanced because of personal customization that is allowed by the game itself.
Not every barbarian will be that same, just as no spell-caster will choose the same spells. The ups and downs, the ebb and flow, the underdog taking on the big guy sort of thing make the game interesting.
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There was a double standard where non-spellcasting classes don't get interesting abilities because they're not magical. The designers way overvalued at-will martial abilities and feats. The rogue is an excellent example of this. The power of sneak attack was so greatly overvalued that the class was made weak and not given very many class features.
Although some of the main reasons for this are the players community, largely in the name of "realism." Basically, people can't "realistically" behave like fantasy heroes, because we don't live in an action movie. But this seems for some reason to bother a lot of people. Some examples (which you can find on this board if you search appropriately):
* It shouldn't be possible for a musket to fire multiple times per round, or even once per round. It takes at least fifteen seconds to load a musket, so gunslingers should only be able to fire once every three rounds!
* Hit points don't make sense! If I score a critical hit with a pistol, I'll do a maximum of 32 hit points of damage, which any fifth level barbarian can just shrug off! I should be able to insta-geek anyone with a firearm!
* Take 10 rules aren't realistic. It's simply not possible for someone to be able to eliminate all chance of failure on a skill use -- after all, even experienced roofers fall down once it a while!
* Real world katana's weren't that good of weapons. They shouldn't get all of those fancy abilities like the high crit range and the deadly property!
The problem is, of course, that realism is only a limitation to the martial characters. No one -- well, no one in their right mind -- says that summoned demons can only do X and Y, but not Z. And no one object to the idea that wizards can safely fly up to the tops of buildings without risk (even if a rogue isn't allowed to take 10 on his climb roll). So the effect is that martials have to work under a whole lot of conceptual restrictions that wizards simply ignore. "How does conservation of momentum work when you teleport to another planet?" "It works very well, thank you."
How I normally explain it;
Casting power increases along 4 lines. Caster Level, Spell Slots, Spell Level and Spell Known.
Martial prowess increases along one line; Combat Feats.
That's the best description and the most formally accurate. Conceptually, fighters get better at doing what they already do, hitting things, because they can hit more powerfully.
Casters get better at doing what they already do, casting spells, because they can cast more powerful spells. If you had a wizard who could cast 5 spells per day, each doing 1d6 per level, he would be advancing linearly as well.
But wizards not only get more powerful spells, they get more of them. This is like growing both sides of a square. If you double the sides of a square, you get four times as much area (quadratic progression). Hence the term "quadratic."
Kirth Gersen, I feel like you're completely misinterpreting Sean K. Reynold's article. He's arguing against the notion that all classes should be so precisely balanced in the same matter as that of a competitive online video game. I even confirmed this in the comments of that article. I used SKR's article within the context of the argument that it's fine if the power level of classes differ as long as they're still fun to play.Which is fine if you believe that.
I personally (as do many others) believe fun and balance aren't mutually exclusive concepts.
I never made that argument. I don't think anyone here made that argument. I mean that it's okay when one class has more power than another as long as the classes are still fun to play. Obviously, a class might become unfun if that disparity proves too high. In that case, then -- yes -- we have a problem. However, our goal should be making sure classes have enough power/contribution to not cause that disparity rather than making sure every class is precisely "balanced." Game design is not so black and white as that.
I often feel like gamers put an undue amount of importance on "balance" that they easily lose focus of the truly important spirit about D&D/PF. In addition, there's more to game design than simply making everything equal to each other In fact, sometimes you don't want elements to have equal prominence. Gamer communities fetishize "balance" so much that Disney Imagineer Jesse Schell dedicates an entire chapter of his game design book on that.
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....the underdog taking on the big guy sort of thing make the game interesting.Some people don't like being the underdog.
How that should be solved I will leave to other people.
The issue isn't the underdog taking on the big dog. That's happens fairly often, enough to have a trope name ("boss fight").
The problem is the sidekick being overshadowed. Think of Robin, the Boy Hostage, always finding himself in trouble and needing to be rescued, because the comic is really about Batman. (There's also the "Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit" video that I'm too lazy to Google.)
Any boss that can take out Batman is not generally going to be hindered by Robin, absent some highly contrived circumstances. How often is Lois Lane going to get a chance to rescue Superman? When is Pepper Potts going to punch out someone that flattened Iron Man?
The basic problem is that most people want to play Batman, and don't want to play Commissioner Gordon.
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Kirth Gersen, I feel like you're completely misinterpreting Sean K. Reynold's article. He's arguing against the notion that all classes should be so precisely balanced in the same matter as that of a competitive online video game. I even confirmed this in the comments of that article. I used SKR's article within the context of the argument that it's fine if the power level of classes differ as long as they're still fun to play.Which is fine if you believe that.
I personally (as do many others) believe fun and balance aren't mutually exclusive concepts.
I never made that argument. I don't think anyone here made that argument. I mean that it's okay when one class has more power than another as long as the classes are still fun to play. Obviously, a class might become unfun if that disparity proves too high. In that case, then -- yes -- we have a problem. However, our goal should be making sure classes have enough power/contribution to not cause that disparity rather than making sure every class is precisely "balanced." Game design is not so black and white as that.
I often feel like gamers put an undue amount of importance on "balance" that they easily lose focus of the truly important spirit about D&D/PF. In addition, there's more to game design than simply making everything equal to each other In fact, sometimes you don't want elements to have equal prominence. Gamer communities fetishize "balance" so much that Disney Imagineer Jesse Schell dedicates an entire chapter of his game design book on that.
I have Schell's book. It's a very good book.
But what he says and what you're saying are, to my recollection, a bit different (sadly, all my books are in storage, so I can't just look it up).
Fun is important. In fact, fun is the MOST important, as he says (as hard to define as "fun" is).
But, to my eyes, balance is a big part of fun. Not everything needs to be perfectly equal, but everything needs to have some significant advantage over another thing, and be balanced to the game as a whole.
Look at the middle "tiers" of Paizo design. The Inquisitor, Bard, Alchemist, Magus...these are all VERY well balanced classes that nevertheless have some advantage over each other.
Bards are the best at buffing the party, Alchemists are great at AoE damage and very consistent buffs, Inquisitors have a very powerful assortment of buffs to put on themselves (inverse of the Bard) and can throw down the hardest with the least use of resources, and the Magus' list has a bit more utility and tons of nova potential.
And outside of combat, all of these classes have different ways to contribute.
If the whole game was balanced like that, the game would be very well balanced, if not perfectly so.
But as-is the gap between he most powerful (Wizard, Cleric) and the least powerful (Rogue, Fighter) is ENORMOUS, and addressing this would, IMO, increase the amount of fun for everyone involved. Rogues, Fighters, et al would get more toys and be able to contribute better, while casters would perhaps have less raw power, but more staying power (a good way to rebalance casters would be to trim the power of spells and increase spells per day significantly IMO).
Plus, if they have the same attitude as I do, balancing is fun for the designers too. Everybody wins!
The problem with linear vs quadratic is as necessarily about the raw power or numbers, it's about the options. Wizards, Clerics, and Druids can do EVERYTHING in the end. Damage, Summon, Transport, Crafting, and overcome just about any obstacle.
While the frail wizard who was once protected by the fighter ends up with amazing power to protect his guardian can be an interesting story, it's been done to death and most people coming to TTRPGs aren't looking for that anymore. The fact the casters are no longer frail and limited at 1st level is proof, and yet they still begin to overshadow the rest of the cast with their spells.
It is possible to balance different classes while making different classes separate beasts, 13th Age does a good job. As Kirth says cutting spells can do a world of wonders, as most of the unbalancing comes from specific spells.
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The way I see it, it's like kids with toys. The little kid playing the fighter gets a toy sword. The little kid playing the rogue gets a black cape. The little kid playing the ranger gets a stuffed dog. The little kid playing the wizard gets a robe and a toy staff -- and a closet full of other costumes and stuffed animals, and a toy gun, and a grappling hook, and a set of toy trains, and a Big Wheel, and a Lego set and an Erector set and a chemistry set and a working GPS device and a cell phone.
The solution is not to take away all the toys except toy swords and then just hand those out. The solution is not to say, "Well, a toy sword can still be fun!" Sure it can, but when you're playing legos, the toy sword sucks.
One real solution is to hand out different toys to different kids, rather than giving all of them to one kid. Take the chemistry and erector sets away from the kid playing the wizard, and only let the kid playing the alchemist have them both. Take the GPS and Big Wheel away from the kid playing the wizard and give them to the kid playing the ranger, who needs them a lot more than the wizard does. Give the toy gun and army of Legos to the fighter kid. Give the costumes and grappling hook to the rogue kid. The wizard kid still has a robe and a staff and stuffed animals and toy trains and a cell phone -- isn't that enough?
Yeah the caster/martial disparity discussion
Rynjin, I'm honestly not sure how to respond to you anymore. Everytime you offer a rebuttal to one of my arguments, you come around to make the same argument back at me, because...
Not everything needs to be perfectly equal, but everything needs to have some significant advantage over another thing, and be balanced to the game as a whole.
...is largely my point. And the point of SKR's article that you slammed.
Admittedly, a thought behind my comment lies with my belief that the community puts too much focus on balance, as if it's the most important thing in designing content. This occurs despite the fact that balance (and game design) is much more complicated than making sure options have equal merit. I attribute this tendency to the lack of game design knowledge as a whole -- weighing the power levels of classes/options is one of the few game design values that most gamers understand. Yes, making sure classes have roughly the same power in terms of statistics and incomparables is important. However, one should not place "balancing" above all else. On this homebrew forum, when someone comes to me with homebrew content, they ask if it's balanced. They do not ask if it's fun, which is a far more important question. They see balancing as a goal, not a means as it should be.
everything doesn't need to be equal sure, but does that mean we shouldn't try? is Rynjin's point i've more or less gathered.
everything doesn't need to be equal sure, but does that mean we shouldn't try? is Rynjin's point i've more or less gathered.
I never said we shouldn't try. It's still important, but not as important as the community fetishizes. And they fetishize only one aspect of balance (making classes/options have equal merit) rather than others.
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Rynjin, I'm honestly not sure how to respond to you anymore. Everytime you offer a rebuttal to one of my arguments, you come around to make the same argument back at me, because...
Not everything needs to be perfectly equal, but everything needs to have some significant advantage over another thing, and be balanced to the game as a whole....is largely my point. And the point of SKR's article that you slammed.
I'll admit to a bit of bias as far as SKR is concerned. I do not like SKR as a person. I am not inclined to subject myself to anything he has written, will write, or will speak out loud, perform in interpretive dance, or in any other medium he cares to express himself, so if you linked an ARTICLE by SKR, I probably just edited out of my brain (but I don't recall you doing so, just mentioning that he had a new game coming out).
Admittedly, a thought behind my comment lies with my belief that the community puts too much focus on balance, as if it's the most important thing in designing content. This occurs despite the fact that balance (and game design) is much more complicated than making sure options have equal merit. I attribute this tendency to the lack of game design knowledge as a whole -- weighing the power levels of classes/options is one of the few game design values that most gamers understand. Yes, making sure classes have roughly the same power in terms of statistics and incomparables is important. However, one should not place "balancing" above all else. On this homebrew forum, when someone comes to me with homebrew content, they ask if it's balanced. They do not ask if it's fun, which is a far more important question. They see balancing as a goal, not a means as it should be.
The thing abut fun is that fun is subjective. You cannot quantify fun.
You can, to a better extent, quantify balance. Not perfectly, but you can do it.
Fun will naturally follow from something that fits together well. Sure, you come up with an initial idea and abilities that sound cool...but any 5 year old can do that. That's not design.
Making sure something is balanced is a BIG part of good design. If it's too weak, who gives a s+$# how good the concept is?
If it's too strong, you overcompensated. It's not as bad unless you go way overboard, but it's still less well designed than something which is balanced to the rest of the game as a whole.
Implementation is everything. And as far as tabletop games go, balance is the majority of implementation.
The game has set up certain standards for classes and bonuses (scaling attack and damage bonuses generally cap at +5, for instance. So do bonuses to saves and certain kinds of AC for that matter). This is a balance thing. They didn't pick +5 as an arbitrary number. The majority of the game's math under the hood is built around those +5's.
Go back and take a good look at the classes of the game some time and see where ones with similar abilities match up with each other.
If an ability literally does not function due to wording, then it is poorly designed (and by extension, poorly balanced). Likewise if it over performs.
Everything about an ability comes back to balance in some way or another.
If you have a different opinion, share it, but give me something specific besides "fun". What do you think is the biggest part of actually designing a class?
tbh when designing a class, i do scrap abilities based on how boring or interesting they actually are even if they're balanced.
What it means is fighters get 10 bonus feats, BAB, and feats. These are static bonus. Each level they get a feat, +1 BAB an 6 avg hit points. It's linear. Then add a few static +1 bonuses on top.
The wizard get spell. Each level of spell is more power than then next by magnitude of power. So wizards power exponentially grow with each new spell level they get all the way up to level 17 and 9th level spells. They also get 5 bonus feat and some class features on top of that which grow in power and not static +1 bonuses.
Even the feats for fighter don't match up with what a wizard can pick.
So fighter is 1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1 and the wizard 1+9+25+49+81+121+169+225+289. It's not accurate of course but illustrates the progression of power between the two classes.
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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The best summary I've heard of the problem comes from Jiggy. It was originally posted in this other thread.
Aw, you're gonna make me blush. :)
What it means is fighters get 10 bonus feats, BAB, and feats. These are static bonus. Each level they get a feat, +1 BAB an 6 avg hit points. It's linear. Then add a few static +1 bonuses on top.
The wizard get spell. Each level of spell is more power than then next by magnitude of power. So wizards power exponentially grow with each new spell level they get all the way up to level 17 and 9th level spells. They also get 5 bonus feat and some class features on top of that which grow in power and not static +1 bonuses.
Even the feats for fighter don't match up with what a wizard can pick.
So fighter is 1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1 and the wizard 1+9+25+49+81+121+169+225+289. It's not accurate of course but illustrates the progression of power between the two classes.
wow he's only about 14 and a half times more powerful? i'd thought it'd be higher.
edit nvm i need to do math.
48 and a half times is more like it.
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In general I think of it like this. Martials get 5-10 points of power per level. Full casters get their level squared per level.
.
.
So - a wizard vs a low end martial
Level ........ Power Level
Level 1: Martial=5 / Wizard=1
Level 2: Martial=10 / Wizard=4
Level 3: Martial=15 / Wizard=9
Level 4: Martial=20 / Wizard=16
Level 5: Martial=25 / Wizard=25
Level 6: Martial=30 / Wizard=36
Level 7: Martial=35 / Wizard=49
Level 8: Martial=40 / Wizard=64
Level 9: Martial=45 / Wizard=81
Level 10: Martial=50 / Wizard=100
etc
A pretty decent ballpark for a mediocre martial vs standard wizard. Though a well built and/or higher tier martial will stay competitive longer.
I see this a lot with 'linear Fighters' and 'quadratic Wizards'. Could someone explain to me exactly how this works out?
I think the linear vs quadratic refers to what each class is able to do with it's standard action as they advance in level.
The fighter can swing his sword (or ranged attack, or make a combat maneuver). His attack is liner - essentially +1 BAB each level. His damage also increases slowly, probably close to +1/level. (Note: due to items/feats this is probably closer to +2/+2/level.)
The wizard can cast a spell with his standard action, and like the fighter he generally starts with about 3 options in the form of three different 1st level spells he can cast. At each level, he does not get +1 to his spells effectiveness or even +1 additional spells, he gets several more spells, and they are generally much more powerful as he advances. Also, his lower level spells scale up very nicely as he advances as well.
This means that after 20 levels of advancement, the fighter is at +40 to hit, and 1d12+25 while the caster is casting a wish spell, or wail of the banshee, stopping time, etc.
If this is a problem, the only real solution is to tone down high level magic. High level casters can easily break the game. Giving those kinds of powers to other classes, just means more classes are capable of breaking the game.
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The interesting part about the linear vs quadratic question is everyone has a different answer...and none of them are really wrong.
Just a quick historical note:
Back in AD&D wizards (magic-users) were very frail - 1d4+2 hp was the max you could get when you leveled. They had very limited spells to cast each day (imagine never getting ANY bonus spells, AND slower progression) and scrolls, wands and staffs were rare and VERY difficult to make (I think you had to be 12th level to create any item!). Also, magic often had rough blowback effects! As the game evolved, the designers realized that these restrictions were not very fun, so they were eroded.
As a quick example, the fireball spell is almost identical in power between AD&D and Pathfinder: 1d6/level fire damage area effect. The difference is that monsters have more hp, and that a 5th level magic user can cast it 2-4 times instead of once. Also, it has almost no chance of bouncing back on the players. Spells that don't inflict damage, such as Hold Person and most other save-or-suck spells are every bit as powerful as they were in AD&D, and are no longer a once a day type thing.
On the other hand, fighters did not change all that much. They have more hp (like almost everything in the game!) and their attacks scale fairly well throughout the levels.
The biggest change was that the game went from being mostly played at the lower levels 1-7, with 10th being the "name level" to much more of play being focused on levels 5-15. Also, magical treasure became about 30% of a characters power (~50% for crafters), as compared to about 10% in earlier editions. Characters are expected to be able to tailor their items through shopping and crafting far more then in past editions.
Unfortunately, Quadratic doesn't have anything to do with '4' - that would be 'quadric'. Quadratic (which relates to second-order properties) is derived from a Latin word relating to area.How I normally explain it;
Casting power increases along 4 lines. Caster Level, Spell Slots, Spell Level and Spell Known.
Martial prowess increases along one line; Combat Feats.
Both of them benefit from BAB and whatever stat they use to empower or aim their abilities so naturally in terms of raw power and versatility casting ability is seen as quadratic(4 metrics of improvement) while martial ability is seen as linear (1 metric of improvement.)
I done derped. But I think everyone's explanation amounts to the same idea. Fighters go up by a certain rate which is a fraction of the Wizard's rate but Fighters start off more broken than Wizards. This was more fun or less fun depending on who you are when wizards could get one-shotted by housecats at early levels.
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The thing abut fun is that fun is subjective. You cannot quantify fun.
So your argument is that, due to the subjectivity and inability to quantify fun, a designer should focus on balancing a class's power level rather than most other aspects? This argument makes me cringe for so many reasons.
1) You can quantify fun. Not numerically, not precisely, but you can do it. Just as you can quantify aesthetics. What viewers find aesthetically pleasing is subjective, but any visual designer can tell you the aesthetic merits of any given image or other visual medium. He can tell you why people will find some images more pleasing than others just as I can explain why a player will likely find game content more fun than others.
2) An experienced game designer understands principles, techniques, and values that can contribute to fun gameplay. They learn, through experience, what most people find fun or not fun. They know what designs will facilitate their player's fun. Making gameplay options equally attractive for players is only one way of achieving this.
You can, to a better extent, quantify balance. Not perfectly, but you can do it.
Yes, you can imprecisely measure the power of a class's incomparables (game content whose power cannot be measured numerically). That's very important to do. But a game designer should prioritize ensuring they're cool and interesting to use. Though not straight forward, there exists several ways to quantify that quality.
Ideally, we want to create content that's both fun and balanced. However, it's more practical to focus on making the content enjoyable. That means merely ensuring there isn't an egregious power disparity as opposed to agonizing over the precise power between things. Such precision isn't as important as it is in competitive games.
Fun will naturally follow from something that fits together well. Sure, you come up with an initial idea and abilities that sound cool...but any 5 year old can do that. That's not design.
I agree on the importance of good execution of ideas. However, your first sentence is not true. A well balanced, fine tuned game/content will not necessarily lead to a fun experience. This is why iteration is a cornerstone of the design process.
Making sure something is balanced is a BIG part of good design.
This illustrates my biggest problem with many of your (and some of Kirth Gersen's) arguments. You strike me as always thinking in black and white. Game design is more complicated than that. Ensuring the equality of power level among classes constitutes only ONE aspect of designing classes.
It's not even the only type of balance! Jesse Schell dedicated an entire chapter of his book explaining that. In fact, sometimes good game design involves making certain things not balanced. For example, Pathfinder favors offense over defense because the designers want combat to flow faster and not stagnate into turtling. Using spells/gameplay to prevent damage is more optimal than healing it because the game designers wanted to encourage winning fights through preparation and smart decisions rather than winning fights by outsustaining enemies. Balance constitutes more than making everything equal. It involves ensuring game elements exist harmoniously to create the experience you (as a designer) want to convey to the player. Adjusting the power level of classes is only one aspect of this.
I will reiterate: I am not making the argument that balancing the power level of classes isn't important. I'm arguing it's only one of the many important things to consider when designing classes and TTRPGs. In many circumstances, it's not even most important, despite how much the community fetishizes it.
If it's too weak, who gives a s+!+ how good the concept is?
The concept and interesting game mechanics make you care about the class in the first place. Yes, we want to make sure a class's power level isn't out of line. However, a great concept can keep a player engaged with a weaker class whereas a player will likely bore of a strong yet bland class quickly.
The swashbuckler and cleric are great examples of this. The swashbuckler is probably the weakest class in the Advanced Class Guide, and yet it's quite popular. I've seen significantly more swashbucklers in PFS than any other class from that book. On the contrary, many consider the cleric one of the strongest yet one of the most boring classes to play. Much of its power is allocated in places that make the class more viable, but not as fun.
Again, making sure the overall power level of a class equates to others does not alone constitute good game design or balance.
If you have a different opinion, share it, but give me something specific besides "fun". What do you think is the biggest part of actually designing a class?
Creating and implementing a concrete concept that translates into meaningful game mechanics that facilitate gameplay. In other words, make a class that gives the player interesting things to do. Even if they might not be as powerful as other classes.
There's many considerations to take when trying to accomplish your design goals with a class. How many offensive, defensive, or utility abilities should they have? Do the mechanics convey the experience or flavor I want in this class? Does the class give the player enough things to do during combat? How flexible do I want possible build paths? All of these are important considerations. Some of them more important than just whether or not the class is strong or weak as a whole.
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I'm not sure you and I have the same concept of "balance".
Asymmetrical design does not constitute an imbalance.
Pathfinder favors offense over defense, yes. This is not an imbalance, this is a core part of the design. The game's default assumptions are that a good offense will trump an equally good defense (for a given value of "equal". Equal effort at making them optimized, anyway).
Balance (in the individual moving parts) comes in when you compare them TO the base paradigm of the game.
If Class A can do X, and Class B can do X+1, those classes are imbalanced towards each other.
Likewise if Class C can do X+3, but the game only accounts for X+2 at a stretch, Class C is imbalanced towards the game as a whole.
Likewise likewise, if Class A can only do X, but Class B can do X, Y, and Z, they are imbalanced to each other.
Keeping all those moving parts within a certain area of each other is what game balance IS.
You even wrote this:
There's many considerations to take when trying to accomplish your design goals with a class. How many offensive, defensive, or utility abilities should they have? Does the class give the player enough things to do during combat? How flexible do I want possible build paths? All of these are important considerations. Some of them more important than just whether or not the class is strong or weak as a whole.
ALL of this is game balance. Every piece of that (besides the bit I OOC'd) contributes to the balance of the class against both other classes and the game as a whole.
It's not a matter of arbitrary "this is weak" and "this is strong" those things are WHY a class or option is weak or strong.
That's what this whole Linear Warriors vs Quadratic Wizards thing is ABOUT.
Spellcasters in general have more offensive (damage, battlefield control, save or suck), defensive (miss chance, DR, mirror images, flight, etc.), utility (do I need to spell this one out?) than martial classes do which are generally offense (damage and maneuvers), defense (AC and maybe DR), utility (skills).
Look at how flexible casters are in build vs how most martials are. A Wizard can be a completely different character from one day to the next (maximum flexibility), and spells in general result in a myriad of possible build combos. Martials have less.
Do they have enough to do? Yes in both cases, as long as you're fine being stuck to damage or maneuvers for most martials.
All of it is meant to be balanced against each other, and the game as a whole. You can look and see that one side is weighted more heavily than the other. All of that stuff you list, and more, are what constitutes what balance is at its very core. It's not just "these numbers are bigger than some of those other numbers".
Many of the most popular classes in the game (Magus, Inquisitor, Alchemist, Bard) are also the best balanced.
Because they have both a good concept, AND are well balanced. And the latter contributes heavily to their popularity in play, because they FEEL better than a lot of classes in the game. You can look at them and your mind is immediately flooded with the sheer POSSIBILITIES they provide mechanically.
Now look at the Vigilante. Look at how much s*&~ it's getting, especially the Zealot aspect.
It's got a GREAT concept.
But its execution is poor...which makes that first point moot.
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I believe the term originally refers to the fact that fighter bonuses scale linearly (+1 BAB etc) up to 20, while wizards gain linear scaling twice - they get linear bonuses such as +1d6 per caster level AND also linear spell level increases (1st -> 9th). These combine multiplicatively to create a quadratic (exponential) increase in power as the wizard levels. Not only do his previous options get more powerful, but he gains new options with every level which also get more powerful as he continues to gain even more options, etc etc.
This is why 5e claims to 'kill' the quadratic wizard, because those power increases now also require higher spell slots (so the increase goes back to a factor of only 1 - ie spell level- instead of 2 - ie spell level * caster level).
TLDR:
Marital power = Character level.
Caster power = Character level * spell level.
Spell level increases with character level, therefore:
Caster power = character level^2
IE a quadratic equation.