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... really, that's it.
I've been playing around with varying houserules to try to recreate what I see from the big major genres in "television" fantasy (LotR, CotT, GoT). The general idea I've seen is that those are all "low level" settings. I would argue that the characters are actually closer to midlevel - spellcasting is simply not as powerful and it is a low magic world. So it's not that the characters in Game of Thrones are level six or so (umm... Melisandre casts Raise Dead and Summon Monster VI, while Ja'qen seems to be at least 10th level if not 12th between Assassinate and Master Disguise), but that magic isn't quite as powerful.
The exact details of how the limiting occurs is irrelevant for the question. The question is one of why there is such an immediate reaction to limiting spellcasters in the first place.
So... wassupwitdat?
I think rather than overly limiting all spell casters you could rather push for a party with limited number of spell casters. Accept that magic is rare but much of the party was drawn together because of their magican knack, and because of that they tend to be sent where their magic is need most (other rare cases of magical use). The Main characters in GoT don't encounter it often, because you guys are going around helping to keep it in check.
Finally you can allow casters, but limit their numbers, Say 1 Divine, and 1 Arcane. Or the party can forgo the single option of either for two relevant Hybrids. So you could run a Druid with a Blood-Rager and an Arcane Archer, or a Mage with a Paladin and a Ranger.
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How would people feel about a game where the GM said "No 9-level casters"? A lot of the conceptual niches filled by the 9 level casters could be filled with 6 level ones (especially factoring in archetypes), and the 6-level casters are some really strong, interesting, and powerful classes. So if the GM said "For this campaign, nobody play a full caster" would that be unreasonably limiting to the point where it breeds resentment?
I've actually had a player ask me to run a game with only 6 level casters.
I find the backlash to tinkering with the game absurd. The thousands of books from the d20 era are all hacks of 3.0 D&D. Pathfinder is a hack of D&D 3.5 which was a hack of 3.0. Your home brew hack of Pathfinder is no less valid than Pathfinder itself.
It is simple to play a different setting with Pathfinder. You just have to be willing to leave out most of the books. Is the resistance to this really the level of magic? or does it have more to do with people on these boards playing Pathfinder with all the books and all the options? I'm curious.
You can make a real world Viking Pathfinder game by just leaving out anyone who can cast spells. It would work just fine. You don't need a different system if Pathfinder is the system your table enjoys and has rules familiarity, or even mastery, with.
In Pathfinder, the full casters are among the most interesting character types -- so if the first thing players heard about your campaign is "I am planning to run a Pathfinder game", they might be disappointed when they find out that the full casters are not allowed.
If you have other RPGs available, their use could alter player expectations. In Ars Magica, the most powerful player characters are the mages, and everyone expects to take a turn at playing them. In Pendragon, on the other hand, the preferred character type is the knight, and magicians give up more than they gain. There are also games like Runequest and Grim Tales where spellcasting is available to everyone but never reaches the power levels of a d20 derived game. Traveller and its psionic system can probably be counted as being in this category unless you are playing an all-Zhodani game.
But if you do want to limit the maximum power level of magic in a Pathfinder game, I would recommend that you do the following:
1) Ensure that your players know what you plan to do from the beginning, and
2) Check and possibly adjust the power levels of monsters that either have powerful magical abilities or that are most easily defeated by powerful magic to ensure that a low-magic group has a fair chance of being able to handle them.
Darn you! I was just going to suggest that! :-)
Great minds think alike?
I think a lot of the problems with magic in Pathfinder hinges not only on the magnitude of stuff they can do at the higher levels, but on how early and how much they tend to get magical abilities that obliterate problems. This is sort of because a sorcerer or wizard can't be expected to do much except cast spells, so they have to have enough spell slots, and effective enough spell slots to make them viable. The Magus, Alchemist, and Bard however have things they can do other than "cast spells" so they get fewer of them both period and per day. The game is instantly less magical because the inquisitor, occultist, and hunter all have "smash face" in their bag of tricks.
If the party for whatever reason lacks what's considered "essential magic" (e.g. restoration) the GM could always work a way to slide it onto someone's spell list. IIRC Restoration is given to Paladins, Inquisitors, Alchemists, Mesmerists, and Spiritualists.
Rules have been suggested though and deemed overly limiting/pointless.
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Rules have been suggested though and deemed overly limiting/pointless.Not as part of the actual question. It is intentionally not part of the actual question. Finally, with all due respect, the rejection began in the second post, well before specific rules were mentioned.
Whether you suggested rules in the first post is irrelevant they have been suggested and rejected in the thread they are now part of the discussion.
The second post answered your question, that is why that poster resists this stuff.
You asked why people don't like it and that person told you why they didn't.
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The best part about thread like this are all the immediate "Wrong bad fun" posts that come out because someone else dares to play the game in a different way.Where? No really where? Which post is saying that OP is having fun the wrong way. All people are saying is 1. Pathfinder does not really support the kind of game you want to play; here are some options or 2. your changes are large enough that calling the game you play "Pathfinder" is misleading. Much like if I replaced the Rook and Bishop pieces with pawns and then claimed I played "Chess".
But badwrongfun? I'm not seeing it.
"wrongbadfun" has become one of the most annoying and misused phrases in rpg culture.
The idea here is that the rejection occurs whether or not rules are given or not.Therefore, I don't understand saying "well, sometimes rules were given" addresses things. It still doesn't cover the generalized rejection.
The second post labelled the process "punishment". That is the attitude I'm referencing.
Well frankly you are not the first person to make threads like this and threads to suggest rules alterations, everyone here has seen the rules before so people are rejecting those rules before you state them because they have a preformed idea of what rules you are going to suggest.
Because it seems like a punishment to people. Obviously.
stuff
Ok, so I'm going to say that I agree that martials have some narrative power, but I don't think they have enough as casters, and they don't have as many really big goals. I'm not going to go further than that because I'd rather not get into a C/MD argument.
So, banning 9th level casters. I feel that's pretty reasonable. I might be a bit disappointed if I had a specific concept to play that required a specific class, but certainly would be able to adapt. That said, I'd probably avoid such a game in most cases if I had the choice- Sorcerer and Druid are two of my favorite classes. But if it was, say, a group of players I knew, I'd have no objections to the rules as long as everyone was able to work with me to keep my character concepts working. (For example, not banning Feral Hunter as an alternative to Beast Shape Druid).
You quoted someone explicitly deriding it. It's hard to connect with "be careful".
That was disagreement more than an attack. He clearly isn't for limiting spellcasters, but at no point did he say doing so was WRONG, just that it ends up turning the game into something that isn't PF. I don't know if I agree with it, but it's hardly the worst opinion on this subject one could have.
This is a very borderline topic with a fair bit of passive aggression, don't get me wrong, but for a topic on spellcasters and what to do with them, which is a notorious recipe for arguments, it's actually fairly civil. So far.
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The idea here is that the rejection occurs whether or not rules are given or not.Therefore, I don't understand saying "well, sometimes rules were given" addresses things. It still doesn't cover the generalized rejection.
The second post labelled the process "punishment". That is the attitude I'm referencing.
Well frankly you are not the first person to make threads like this and threads to suggest rules alterations, everyone here has seem the rules before so people are rejecting those rules before you state them because they have a preformed idea of what rules you are going to suggest.
Because it seems like a punishment to people. Obviously.
I'm reading this and going "So... you don't know exactly what I believe, but you can assume you know what I am saying. Therefore, based on your assumption, this must clearly be punishment".
I don't think that makes it better.
Well by all means continue to deride people for having the wrong attitude in your thread, that will definitely promote healthy discussion.
People have seen these rules before, they were bad, these rules have even been suggested in this thread, they were still bad, people rejected them.
You realise you made a thread asking why people had a perceived 'bad' reaction to house ruling magic and now you're asking why people are reacting badly to your thread. Neither of these activities are productive.
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And to be fair, your topic title asked people to disagree with you.
Read it over. You're asking people to tell you why they don't like spellcasters being limited.
Which post #2 onwards did.
I recommend better topic titles if what you want is for people to NOT tell you why limiting spellcasting is bad.
EDIT: Missed this.
My mileage happens to vary. I find no way to lift martials to mages without using magic.
It's tricky, and I don't think it's possible to lift them all the way up to mage level. But I feel like Paths of War did a decent job at giving them a good deal more versatility, and I have hopes for the upcoming Spheres of Might that it will continue to help fix this conundrum.
In the meantime, there's small things to do that may not perfectly balance things, but make martials lives a little easier. Like revising combat maneuver rules and getting rid of feat taxes.
I wasn't saying that Gary Gygax was influenced by manga - I'd be surprised if he knew of it. I was suggesting that saying the FF1 magic system was taken from D&D neglects that it's a magic system that could equally have been derived from existing Japanese media.Oh, oh, I understand now. But that would also require you to also willfully ignore FF1's use of Bahamut, the Platinum Dragon; Tiamat, the Five-Headed Dragon Queen; Mindflayers; Beholders; Sahuagin; Carrion Crawlers; Otyughs; Marilith; Remorhaz; Bulette; Death Knights; and Purple Worms, to name a few, many of which are now protected intellectual property that not even Paizo can use. As well as the class's weapon proficiencies and stats eerily lining up with those of their D&D counterparts. But the magic system is as big a giveaway as any of those.
Those names, those creatures are NOT what's protected IP property. For example you can't trademark Abraham Lincoln or Nazis. (even if TSR did put a TM on a Nazi figure). What you CAN trademark are your unique expressions, such as "My Biography of Abraham Lincoln" or Bahamut's gaming stats in the Monster Manual. So when Final Fantasy has a summon called Bahamut in the game, it's their own unique and copyrightable expression.
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The idea here is that the rejection occurs whether or not rules are given or not.Therefore, I don't understand saying "well, sometimes rules were given" addresses things. It still doesn't cover the generalized rejection.
The second post labelled the process "punishment". That is the attitude I'm referencing.
Well frankly you are not the first person to make threads like this and threads to suggest rules alterations, everyone here has seem the rules before so people are rejecting those rules before you state them because they have a preformed idea of what rules you are going to suggest.
Because it seems like a punishment to people. Obviously.
I'm reading this and going "So... you don't know exactly what I believe, but you can assume you know what I am saying. Therefore, based on your assumption, this must clearly be punishment".
I don't think that makes it better.
Well by all means continue to deride people for having the wrong attitude in your thread, that will definitely promote healthy discussion.
People have seen these rules before, they were bad, these rules have even been suggested in this thread, they were still bad, people rejected them.
You realise you made a thread asking why people had a perceived 'bad' reaction to house ruling magic and now you're asking why people are reacting badly to your thread. Neither of these activities are productive.
Yeah, the answer really boils down to the same reason people are wary of a lot of house rules. Namely:
1) Sometimes house rules are poorly thought out and/or have unanticipated ripple effects.
2) Too many house rules can make a game "Not Pathfinder." Where exactly the line between heavily houseruled Pathfinder and Not Pathfinder lies is a matter of opinion, of course.
You can't protect historical figures or legendary or mythological ones. Actual creations you can trademark, independent of copyright of specific stories or stats. At least some of those listed fall in that category. Tiamat wouldn't - she's a Mesopotamian goddess, but Tiama, the Five-Headed Dragon Queen might.Those names, those creatures are NOT what's protected IP property. For example you can't trademark Abraham Lincoln or Nazis. (even if TSR did put a TM on a Nazi figure). What you CAN trademark are your unique expressions, such as "My Biography of Abraham Lincoln" or Bahamut's gaming stats in the Monster Manual. So when Final Fantasy has a summon called Bahamut in the game, it's their own unique and copyrightable expression.I wasn't saying that Gary Gygax was influenced by manga - I'd be surprised if he knew of it. I was suggesting that saying the FF1 magic system was taken from D&D neglects that it's a magic system that could equally have been derived from existing Japanese media.Oh, oh, I understand now. But that would also require you to also willfully ignore FF1's use of Bahamut, the Platinum Dragon; Tiamat, the Five-Headed Dragon Queen; Mindflayers; Beholders; Sahuagin; Carrion Crawlers; Otyughs; Marilith; Remorhaz; Bulette; Death Knights; and Purple Worms, to name a few, many of which are now protected intellectual property that not even Paizo can use. As well as the class's weapon proficiencies and stats eerily lining up with those of their D&D counterparts. But the magic system is as big a giveaway as any of those.
Yeah, though even then it's fuzzy which parts of Tiamat are D&D creations, and which parts of obscure myths that not many people have ever heard of outside of D&D. It's presumably one of the reasons WotC has never (as far as I know) tried to enforce trademark on her: sorting out exactly what they own and what they don't would be a legal nightmare and a ton of effort for little reward.
That, and it's pretty easy to end up looking like a corporate bully and losing whatever fuzzy legal claim you had to the term in the first place (See Games Workshop's attempt to copyright "Space Marine" and subsequent mass renaming freakout when they lost the case).
Typical responses to that are "Fighters are meant to be 100% mundane", "If I wanted anime stuff I'd play Exalted", and "But that's unrealistic!" (usually referencing one or both of the prior)My mileage happens to vary. I find no way to lift martials to mages without using magic.Not a big fan of mythology, I take it?
So give 'em magic, then. PF's ditched D&D editions' conceit that the only way to break physics is by waving your fingers and messing with bat guano, and good riddance to it. Plenty of classes can get (sp) or (su) abilities now.
If monks can get *magic powerz* by meditating and punching people, why can't fighters get them by, I dunno, practicing and stabbing people?
More nuanced responses would be that if you want martials and/or meleers with magical powers, play something other than a fighter.
Honestly, im kind of surprised fighters don't have regularly useable Save or Die abilites.
Head lopping and sword through a vital point are pretty key fantasy tropes for the type of weapon master fighter is supposed to represent.
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Come on, heh it's true.
No, it is not. Having run over 350 games and played in at least half that, I can tell you that you have no idea what you're talking about. (Actually counts appear to be 372 and 252 respectively.)
It also has nothing to do with the OP, so you don't need to bring it up.
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Personally, I feel that the game becomes much more balanced when people play 2/3 lvl spellcasters with 3/4 BAB.
Make warpriests, bards, magus, hunters, alchemists and maybe (unchained) summoners the bulk of your casting sistem, and it works much more smoothly. Teleport comes online at 13th, instead of 9, which gives a bit more of room for "traveling adventures" before you skip them for a different flavor of challenges. The really big trump cards like Wish and Miracle are out of the question. The party still has a lot of resources, which are needed in the game at higher levels, at least in the core game with the core assumptions (like playing an AP as is in the books), but a few of those resources are part of class skills (such as Arcana pool or others), magic is more contained, and characters are better balanced, in my opinion.
Personally, I feel that the game becomes much more balanced when people play 2/3 lvl spellcasters with 3/4 BAB.
Make warpriests, bards, magus, hunters, alchemists and maybe (unchained) summoners the bulk of your casting sistem, and it works much more smoothly. Teleport comes online at 13th, instead of 9, which gives a bit more of room for "traveling adventures" before you skip them for a different flavor of challenges. The really big trump cards like Wish and Miracle are out of the question. The party still has a lot of resources, which are needed in the game at higher levels, at least in the core game with the core assumptions (like playing an AP as is in the books), but a few of those resources are part of class skills (such as Arcana pool or others), magic is more contained, and characters are better balanced, in my opinion.
I'm actually working on a campaign based on the setting of the Locke Lamora books. 9th level casting exists, in arcane form, as an npc only class because the Bondmages basically monopolized spellcasting, Holy men are basically paladins with an archetype that removes spellcasting. Alchemists are it for 6 level casting, and most of the gross physical changes or outright physics destroying extracts removed (no flying, magic jaring, or polymorphing, heavy emphasis on curatives and poisons, less on the jeckyl and hyde aspect) No other 6 level casters but any class can archetype away their spellcasting and be ok.
As a result, most antagonists are also human/humanoid.
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More nuanced responses would be that if you want martials and/or meleers with magical powers, play something other than a fighter.
But fighters with supernatural level of power are common, both in the tropes (like Achilles and his unbreakable skin) and the game, where a lvl 15 fighter can grapple a rhino with a hand tied to his back, without any magic item.
The problem with Pathfinder/DnD with martials, is that they suffer what I call "selective realism". Like, drawing knives to throw? You need a move action for that, or pay a feat tax, because realism. But arrows? You can draw as many of them from a quiver as you damn please. And no, you can't put daggers in a quiver-like sheath to shoot faster. Because realism is selective.
Melee characers surviving 10 miles falls? That's fine. Melee characters jumping 10' into the air? That's unrealistic. Retrieving a vial of acid to use it as a free action? That's unrealistic. Retrieving a vial of chemical products and a catalyst, and mixing them both, and creating a bomb for an alchemists? That's a free action, and you can do as many of them as you have attacks, including rapid shot and others.
Really, people simply turn the blind eye selectively to what they deem as worthy of the "unrealistic" tag, and ignore greater elephants on the room. There's nothing more unrealistic than the intiative system, where characters create bubbles of time while everybody else stands still. Example, your fighter and a ranger archer both roll initiative, being adjacent. The archer wins by the minimal possible difference (say, you tie, and he wins the tie). He takes a 5' step, "casts time stop", and spend the next 6 seconds worth of shots and makes you a hedgehog full of arrows, while you are desperated, 5 feet away, frozen in time, with your greatsword ready to swing. Yet nobody bats an eye about this supernatural ability to freeze time, or calls it unrealistic.
OTOH, within a couple levels, just as the wizard started getting the good spells, those trends reversed - the wizard only needed 60,000xp to reach 7th, while the fighter needed 64,000xp. The gap widened from there and didn't close until 14th level where both needed 1,500,000xp.
I wouldn't rely on that to prove anything about power levels or balance. I've got no idea what Gygax was thinking with the old xp tables, but it clearly wasn't: Wizards are more powerful, so they need to advance slower.You'd be incorrect again.
See Fighters gained an additional percentage of any experience gained through combat.
Wizards gained extra experience per spell cast. (Which was less than the Fighter got.)
So the Fighter, on average, would hit 64k long before the Wizard hit 60. Especially at that level.
By the time that 60k worth of monsters were killed the Fighter had earned around 72k.
But at lvl 10-11 the difference was big enough that the fighter was lagging behind in level.
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... really, that's it.
I've been playing around with varying houserules to try to recreate what I see from the big major genres in "television" fantasy (LotR, CotT, GoT). The general idea I've seen is that those are all "low level" settings. I would argue that the characters are actually closer to midlevel - spellcasting is simply not as powerful and it is a low magic world.
A human level 12 fighter using the standard array with a starting STR of 15+2, and 3 level based bumps to str, will have a CMB of +17, not counting any magic item, buff, or feat to improve it.
A Rhino has CMD 20. Which means the fighter can take the -4 of not using one hand (like tying it to his back) and still grapple the rhino with a 7+. If he does, he can hold the pin with 2+, thanks to the +5 to keep the grapple.
Said mid level fighter can jump from The Wall, and take 20d6 damage, and not die, with 14 Con, favored class bonus, average HP, and toughness feat. He can rutinely eat arsenic without risk, because his base +8 FOR and +2 CON can pretty much ignore the DC 13 of the Arsenic. He can easily swim or climb in full plate, thanks to armor training 3 and masterwork reducing the penalty to -2, just having a couple ranks, class skill and str +5.
Average encounters for a CR 12 include Large sized black dragons, a Purple Worm, a Valkyrie or a Monadic Deva Angel. Within the +3 level range, adequate for group vs BBEG fights, you can find things like the Heralds of the gods, Linnorms, 12 headed firebreathing hydras, and similar monsters, which I have a really tough time addressing as rivals for Brienne of Tarth, Arya Stark or Jaime Lannister.
This is a common occurrence with pathfinder and DnD. Many people want to play LotR or GoT with it, but those are stories for lvl 6 and below. Gygax created the Wraith to represent the Nazgul, and Wraiths are CR5 monsters. Which happen to be incredibly dangerous if you don't have magic weapons (because incorporeal give them inmunity to normal weapons) and happen to kill you with a touch (because they have energy drain). But that's it. She-Lob is an Ogre Spider, a CR5 Huge Vermin, without any magical power. Higher CR spiders, like the Leng Spider, can actually cast spells.
Using the Pathfinder/DnD ruleset, the best way to represent LotR and GoT, is using epic 6. Anything else requires that you turn the blind eye to the fact that at lvl 15, Aragorn could jump from the citadel of Gondor and don't die, regardless of Gandalf's ability to teleport or not.
Really, people simply turn the blind eye selectively to what they deem as worthy of the "unrealistic" tag, and ignore greater elephants on the room. There's nothing more unrealistic than the intiative system, where characters create bubbles of time while everybody else stands still. Example, your fighter and a ranger archer both roll initiative, being adjacent. The archer wins by the minimal possible difference (say, you tie, and he wins the tie). He takes a 5' step, "casts time stop", and spend the next 6 seconds worth of shots and makes you a hedgehog full of arrows, while you are desperated, 5 feet away, frozen in time, with your greatsword ready to swing. Yet nobody bats an eye about this supernatural ability to freeze time, or calls it unrealistic.
While I agree with your general point, I think the initiative system isn't defended as realistic by anyone: it's just one of those necessary abstraction to make the game easy to play. I haven't seen any tabletop games that don't have some sort of turn-based system.
But at lvl 10-11 the difference was big enough that the fighter was lagging behind in level.Uhm. You know level 10-11 was close to level cap for just about everything but humans right?
It's not like PF where people usually go for 20. In many editions players could only go to 10. Epic adventures allowed for 11+ but those were optional.
I started with AD&D second edition, so I can't tell about the orginal D&D. But in AD&D I had a lvl 17 half-elf fighter, among other things.
However, let's take your example
At lvl 10, a wizard needed 250k xp. A fighter, 500k. A Ranger needed 600k. A druid could get there with 125k xp. The fact that the game doesn't go much further than that, is actually a PROBLEM for the fighters. Wizards arrived to the "real end game levels" way faster. They had a harder time to arrive to lvl 20, but those levels weren't played that much, and as you mention, not even all races could get there.
So the wizards, specialist priests, and druids, arrived to the realistic campaign goal faster. The fighter would tie them somewhere around lvl 14 or so, right when the campaign ended and you started over again.
Really, people simply turn the blind eye selectively to what they deem as worthy of the "unrealistic" tag, and ignore greater elephants on the room. There's nothing more unrealistic than the intiative system, where characters create bubbles of time while everybody else stands still. Example, your fighter and a ranger archer both roll initiative, being adjacent. The archer wins by the minimal possible difference (say, you tie, and he wins the tie). He takes a 5' step, "casts time stop", and spend the next 6 seconds worth of shots and makes you a hedgehog full of arrows, while you are desperated, 5 feet away, frozen in time, with your greatsword ready to swing. Yet nobody bats an eye about this supernatural ability to freeze time, or calls it unrealistic.While I agree with your general point, I think the initiative system isn't defended as realistic by anyone: it's just one of those necessary abstraction to make the game easy to play. I haven't seen any tabletop games that don't have some sort of turn-based system.
I agree. My point is that the fact that we are already have those "time bubbles", and several other things, make the game unrealistic anyways. So it's a bit strange cherry picking your fights against certain parts of "unrealistic rules" and not others.
There are games with better rules for simultaneous combat (even if those rules had their own set of flaws). For example, if my memory serves me well, one of the first incarnations of Ars Magic had some sort of "phases" where every player could act. So you resolve movement first, then attacks. In the example above, the archer moves, the fighter moves, then they resolve, but the archer isn't in the unreachable "magic spot 5' away from you in a time frozen zone for 6 seconds".
In current game, if you move 20', and have a guy 40' away that moves 500' per round, you can actually catch him if you start to run against him a split of a second before he does. There are dozens of examples like that. Which are needed, because, you know, it's a game. But somewhat, people freak out if the fighter can jump 10'
That's false. AD&D in any edition NEVER assumed you would retire at tenth level. You just got more responsibility.
But at lvl 10-11 the difference was big enough that the fighter was lagging behind in level.Serious question: what does "lagging behind" actually mean? Because I can't figure out what the practical impact of that is in terms of comparing an AD&D 1E fighter to an AD&D 1E magic-user that's one level higher and so makes them being different levels disadvantageous.
Suppose the fighter is one level behind the magic-user; as you noted, we'll say that the fighter is 10th level and the magic-user is 11th.
-The fighter is still going to have more hit points (9d10+3 for the fighter; 11d4 for the magic-user).
-The fighter's values on their attack matrices will be better than the wizard's (e.g. to hit an armor class of 0, a 10th-level fighter will a 12 or better; an 11th-level magic-user will need a 16 or better).
-Their saving throws will be comparable, with the fighter having two saving throws that are better than the magic-user's, two that are worse, and one that is the same. (Specifically, the fighter's saving throws are PPD 8, PP 9, RSW 10, BW 9, and S 11. The magic-user's are going to be PPD 11, PP 9, RSW 7, BW 11, and S 8.)
That's about it in terms of class values that can be directly compared between the two. So I'm not sure how the fighter can be said to be suffering compared to the magic-user because of a one-level difference.
There's a lot of other things that we could use to make an argument that magic was more balanced in 2e. The biggest one, is that magic could be easily interrupted, just taking damage before you cast the spell (instead of exactly when you doit).
However, the point made in the thread, which was "wizards advanced slowlier because they were more powerful", isn't true. If you admit that they were more powerful, then they were both more powerful, and advanced faster, to the meaningful part of the game. They had a tougher time to advance from level 1, yes, and would had to pay more to reach the theoretical lvl 20, which wasn't that common, but needed HALF the experience to reach lvl 10.
If warriors and mages were balanced back them, which is possible, wasn't because of XP
I don't have the books, but that doesn't seem right, as I still have my 18th level Halfling Thief from twenty five years ago. And we just had the PHB, DMG MM, MM 2, Unearthed Arcana and Fiend Folio.
Also, keep in mind, we never got any adventures, ever.
My first published adventure I bought was Stolen Lands.
I started with AD&D second edition, so I can't tell about the orginal D&D. But in AD&D I had a lvl 17 half-elf fighter, among other things.I'm still bed ridden so I can't get to my 2e book. Half-Elf could hit max in Thief or Ranger. You can't by the book reach 17th level in AD&D 2e as a Half-Elf Fighter.
Level 14 was their max Fighter.
Your GM probably house rules it.
No. There was a rule for a higher level cap, based on your main stat ("exceptional score"). Lvl 14 was the max lvl for half elf fighters with str 13. Mine had str 19 (thanks to a Deck of Many Things), and could go to lvl 18 actually, but he died to a gygaxian "step on this and you die" trap.
That's false. AD&D in any edition NEVER assumed you would retire at tenth level. You just got more responsibility.AD&D assumed PCs stopped at level 10-14.
You needed an optional supplement to go higher than that. Not to mention you could only do it as certain race/class combinations.
Not true for AD&D 2nd edition, at least, which is when I started. Can't speak for AD&D 1st edition, never played it.
Not true in first edition either.
More nuanced responses would be that if you want martials and/or meleers with magical powers, play something other than a fighter.But fighters with supernatural level of power are common, both in the tropes (like Achilles and his unbreakable skin) and the game, where a lvl 15 fighter can grapple a rhino with a hand tied to his back, without any magic item.
The problem with Pathfinder/DnD with martials, is that they suffer what I call "selective realism".
You do realise that the examples you quoted.. One of them included origin. "bathed in fire by one of the 12 primary gods of the campaign?"
That's essentially a mythic campaign, not exactly a standard origin for adventurers.
And if you actually checked the rules a level 15 fighter without any gear, who deliberately handicaps his CMB is going to have major problems with a rhino, which has size and four-footed advantages and other things going for it.