3.5 is inherently imbalanced, but is that really an issue?

[Quertus]

@Everyone - basic concept that I want to beat into an undead horse: there are people who only enjoy doing, people who only enjoy thinking/planning, people who can enjoy either, and people who only enjoy both together.

Knowing which is which, you can have as a party Thor & a sentient potted plant, where one does the lion's share of the party's doing, another does only planning, the rest do a more balanced combination of the two, and everyone has a good time.

@upho - very thought-provoking couple of posts. I'll respond to them when I am capable of said thoughts, let alone articulating them.

[Hackulator]

@Everyone - basic concept that I want to beat into an undead horse: there are people who only enjoy doing, people who only enjoy thinking/planning, people who can enjoy either, and people who only enjoy both together.

Knowing which is which, you can have as a party Thor & a sentient potted plant, where one does the lion's share of the party's doing, another does only planning, the rest do a more balanced combination of the two, and everyone has a good time.

@upho - very thought-provoking couple of posts. I'll respond to them when I am capable of said thoughts, let alone articulating them.

A party of Leon, Mathilda, and the potted plant Leon takes everywhere with him.

From the movie Leon: The Professional if anyone doesn't get the reference.

[ryu]

And five is a smaller number than twenty. Cosi, WHY is it so hard to grok that less numbers going up is automatically going to rub that hind-brain the wrong way? It's simple. Not to mention a core conceit in the majority of rpgs for literally the last few decades.

[Cosi]

An optimized Wizard or Druid in the upper spectrum of the level range is operating with the kind of "phenomenal cosmic power" that even players of Mage: the Ascension aren't used to having and is capable of obliterating with Thanos-snap levels of ease opposition by pretty much any contemporary fantasy antagonist.

I disagree with this assessment fairly strongly, unless we're defining "optimized" as meaning "infinite minion loops" and "upper spectrum of the level range" as "20th level". An optimized Wizard is certainly powerful, but something like a Wizard 5/Mage of the Arcane Order 10 with Spontaneous Divination and a strong spell selection (BFC spells, utility spells, planar binding for a small number of minions or for utility), is not absurdly outside the idiom of contemporary fantasy. He fits reasonably well into the Malazan, The Second Apocalypse, and Cradle (maybe not the party currently, but certainly the setting). I could name more examples, but I think that suffices to show that we're not really dealing with an Outside Context Problem here.

The level-based system of D&D has a particular utility in supporting zero-to-hero character functionality. The problem is that, for different theoretical concepts 'hero' caps at different places.

This is certainly true, and to tie it back into the point about wanting to see numbers go up, while you want your character to acquire new abilities, you also want to get to tell stories about when your character has the abilities you care about. If you want to play a knight in shining armor who defends maidens from dragons, you don't just want to get progressively bigger bonuses to wearing armor and riding horses, you also want to eventually reach the point where you can use those abilities to rescue a maiden from a dragon. And you probably want that to happen sooner than later, because campaigns don't last forever. The 3e solution where the Paladin doesn't get a horse til 4th level is not really satisfying for someone who wants to play a mounted knight.

it's just the point that when you go that route you're basically saying "the way to make the fighter more balanced with the wizard is to make him more like the wizard" which of course works but eventually makes everyone a wizard.

Again, you haven't defined "Wizard". It seems obvious to me that there are lots of ways to make someone balanced with Wizards without making them into a Wizard. Consider some characters from Avengers: Infinity War. Doctor Strange is pretty clearly a Wizard. And he is one of the more powerful characters in the movie. But he's not the most powerful character in the movie. Both Thor and Iron Man are stronger than he is, and neither one is something I would describe as a Wizard. Thor is clearly a Barbarian with a PrC that grants weather magic, and Iron Man is conceptually an Artificer (though there are arguments for mechanically representing him as a Warlock).

So what makes someone a Wizard? Do you just mean "has supernatural power"? Is it an aesthetic descriptor, where anyone who casts spells and wears robes is a Wizard? Is it mechanical, and anyone with a big list of abilities they prepare a smaller list from is a Wizard? What about existing classes? Is a Sorcerer basically a Wizard? Is a Warlock basically a Wizard? Is a Swordsage basically a Wizard? Is a Dread Necromancer basically a Wizard? Is a Binder basically a Wizard?

And five is a smaller number than twenty. Cosi, WHY is it so hard to grok that less numbers going up is automatically going to rub that hind-brain the wrong way? It's simple. Not to mention a core conceit in the majority of rpgs for literally the last few decades.

Yes, and the number twenty is smaller than the number thirty. And the number thirty is smaller than the number one hundred. And the number one hundred is smaller than the number one billion. People clearly do not need their numbers to go up as much as possible to be satisfied with the game.

[Crake]

Again, you haven't defined "Wizard". It seems obvious to me that there are lots of ways to make someone balanced with Wizards without making them into a Wizard. Consider some characters from Avengers: Infinity War. Doctor Strange is pretty clearly a Wizard. And he is one of the more powerful characters in the movie. But he's not the most powerful character in the movie. Both Thor and Iron Man are stronger than he is, and neither one is something I would describe as a Wizard. Thor is clearly a Barbarian with a PrC that grants weather magic, and Iron Man is conceptually an Artificer (though there are arguments for mechanically representing him as a Warlock).

Uhhh, what? Have you actually watched any of the marvel movies? Thor and Iron Man are not stronger than doctor strange.

[Cosi]

Uhhh, what? Have you actually watched any of the marvel movies? Thor and Iron Man are not stronger than doctor strange.

Yes they are. All three have solo fights with Thanos, and Strange is clearly the least effective. Iron Man draws blood, and gets explicitly acknowledged as a worth opponent by Thanos. Thor throws Stormbringer at Thanos through a blast from the Infinity Gauntlet, and it's still the most serious injury anyone inflicts on Thanos. And, according the word of god, if he'd gone for the head as Thanos suggests, it would have killed Thanos. You could maybe argue Iron Man, but by both on-screen feats and WoG, Thor is stronger than Strange.

[Jack_Simth]

I'm not assuming that, it's true. Warblades are balanced with Warlocks. Balancing casters and martials is not impossible. Wizards are balanced with Druids. Balancing characters with abilities that impact the plot is not impossible. The burden of proof is very much on the people who think balance is impossible to demonstrate that you can't do both of those things at once.

If you're doing the Warblade & Warlock, then you've removed breadth from the game - namely the Wizard, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Barbarian, Monk, Paladin, etcetera - those that do not fit the target balance zone.

I'm not saying the game cannot be more balanced - but all reasonably-successful attempts I've ever seen to do so make it more balanced by either cutting out options seen as too far away from the target balance zone (whether cut via a hard ban by simply not allowing it, or a soft ban by making it have drawbacks to the point where basically nobody will ever use it), or by pushing things seen as too far below the balance zone up (to the point where I'd call it wuxia or anime style for the Mundanes; and yes, I count the Tome of Battle base classes in that category). These are not necessarily bad things, of themselves, but do remove breadth from the game.

And, yes, you said "mundanes", but that's irrelevant for a host of reasons. Most pressingly, there are certainly going to be some levels where characters are mundane in practice. But it's also true that even nominally-mundane classes like the Fighter aren't in practice once you get to high levels, and that there simply aren't twenty gradations of power within mundanity (seriously, try to come up with a list of twenty different characters where the strongest is "Conan" and tell me you'd be satisfied with that progression).

Didn't say I would be satisfied with the progression. I'm of the opinion that unbalanced is only sometimes an issue; it's more of a "pick your poison" scenario from my perspective. Look back a few pages to confirm that if you'd like.

Woah, your missing a couple things here:

3)Dangerous Magic. Magic is a great, powerful force that people can just barley use and control and with the slightest blink can be very harmful and even kill. 1E and 2E D&D did magic of this type. Teleport is powerful, yes....but it can also kill your character. The same is true with all powerful magic.

4)High Magic World. Everyone has defenses, both mundane and magical. It's an endless 'race', but no one ability will ever put you on top...for long.

5)Dangerous World. Again, like 1E and 2E. The whole world is dangerous. So watch out.

6)Making a couple, simple alterations to magic use.

So... you're saying I'm missing things from my list that would make it more balanced, but remove breadth from the game in doing? I'm pretty sure I'm not understanding your intent correctly. You may wish to re-word.

Assuming for the moment you mean "these are things you can do to make the game more balanced without removing breadth from the system"...

3) If you get it to the point where it brings the high casters down to the level of the mundanes, you've mostly put a soft-ban on magic. Also, you've removed the option of re-creating the scenes in Sword and the Stone where Merlin turns himself and the young Arthur into small animals to teach him something about the world - which is removing breadth from the game (3.5 can do that at about 7th, via Polymorph).

4, 5, & 6) I've yet to see an example where that actually functions to put mundanes and high-fantasy casters on the same level. I'm not saying it's not possible... I'm saying "might be valid... or it might not. The only real way to check would be to try it." Care to provide an example for analysis?

[Cosi]

If you're doing the Warblade & Warlock, then you've removed breadth from the game - namely the Wizard, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Barbarian, Monk, Paladin, etcetera - those that do not fit the target balance zone.

No you're not. Those classes were given as proof of concept that you can balance "uses a sword" and "uses magic". You can then adjust the power of those classes to be equal to whichever other classes you care about (or vice versa). So the onus is on you to show that either:

A) The identity of the Warblade and the Warlock is intrinsically tied to their current power level, and the classes would become unrecognizable if the power of their abilities was increased to be on par with a Wizard.
B) It is literally impossible to write a list of maneuvers or invocations that can produce characters on a power level comparable to the Wizard.

Those claims are very much not obvious, but I invite you to explain why you believe at least one of them (or something similar). We know of balanced subsets of the game that individually have whatever properties we might want. It's on the anti-balance people to show that those subsets can't be extended to an acceptable breadth without losing the properties we care about.

[Talakeal]

Question, does anyone actually like the 3.X implementation of the fighter?

Because it is commonly used as the poster boy for the mundane side in these caster vs mundane debates, but frankly I feel that it is an absolutely terribly implemented class and I am legitimately wondering if anyone will actually defend the design or if it is just a straw-man that they assume appeals to someone.

D&D 3.5 is accidentally the closest to flawless tabletop experience that has ever existed. All you need to do is be upfront about the inherent inequality, label everything, and you're done.

Surely you mean that it is your favorite game, right?

Objectively 3.5 is full of flaws.

Subjectively it might meet your needs for a super high powered game of nigh omnipotent wizards, but how many other games like that have you played?

Have you actually played every game out there extensively? How much time have you spent playing other high level games in other high powered RPGs like Mage, Ars Magica, In Nomine, Exalted, Nobilis, Immortals Basic D&D, etc.?

How can you be so sure that one of those doesn't better fit your subjective criteria for a flawless tabletop experiance?

I'm not assuming that, it's true. Warblades are balanced with Warlocks. Balancing casters and martials is not impossible. Wizards are balanced with Druids. Balancing characters with abilities that impact the plot is not impossible. The burden of proof is very much on the people who think balance is impossible to demonstrate that you can't do both of those things at once.

And, yes, you said "mundanes", but that's irrelevant for a host of reasons. Most pressingly, there are certainly going to be some levels where characters are mundane in practice. But it's also true that even nominally-mundane classes like the Fighter aren't in practice once you get to high levels, and that there simply aren't twenty gradations of power within mundanity (seriously, try to come up with a list of twenty different characters where the strongest is "Conan" and tell me you'd be satisfied with that progression).

Well, I can imagine a fighter who can defeat a CR 20 monster in a one on one fight, and the same for every other CR pre epic, so there's that.

Has anyone actually said that Conan represents the pinnacle of what a mundane character should be? Coman is a cool archetype, but saying he is the be all and end all of "mundane" characters seems to be a bit of a straw man. Despite the ELH listing him as an example epic character I have trouble seeing him higher than level eight or so, and that is with a couple of levels of rogue.

Overall though I agree with almost everything you have said in this thread.

[MeimuHakurei]

Question, does anyone actually like the 3.X implementation of the fighter?

Because it is commonly used as the poster boy for the mundane side in these caster vs mundane debates, but frankly I feel that it is an absolutely terribly implemented class and I am legitimately wondering if anyone will actually defend the design or if it is just a straw-man that they assume appeals to someone.

The Fighter is used as a stand-in for mundane classes due to its recognizability and having the least ties to the supernatural (though the Rogue is occasionally also cited in topics for character roles and sometimes mundane utility). The Ranger, Paladin and Monk, as well as a few branches of the Barbarian class are all clearly magical/supernatural in one way of another, so they're generally not ideal examples for what a mundane character is.

[Morty]

Question, does anyone actually like the 3.X implementation of the fighter?

Because it is commonly used as the poster boy for the mundane side in these caster vs mundane debates, but frankly I feel that it is an absolutely terribly implemented class and I am legitimately wondering if anyone will actually defend the design or if it is just a straw-man that they assume appeals to someone.

Two arguments for it I have seen are either liking it for its "flexibility", which baffles me, and lumping it together with the idea of a non-magical warrior winning through training and strength. And then acting as if the 3E fighter is the only way to express it. The flexibility argument, I assume, comes from people who don't know many games outside of D&D. And a lot of the time, like MeimuHakurei said, "fighter" is used as a short-hand for all sorts of classes.

In truth, neither the fighter nor the wizard are remotely good balance points. Well, I suppose a level 5-7 wizard might be. At that point, they're not miserably weak like on lower levels, but aren't he boring invincible nerd superheroes they become later.

[HouseRules]

Well, I defined some house rules vocabulary to determine the distinctions.

Natural Abilities divide into Ordinary Natural Abilities and Extraordinary Natural Abilities. Ordinary Natural Abilities are labelled Natural Abilities by the game, and Extraordinary Natural Abilities are labelled Extraordinary Abilities by the game.

Similarly, Supernatural Abilities divide into Ordinary Supernatural Abilities and Extraordinary Supernatural Abilities. The Ordinary Supernatural Abilities are labelled Supernatural Abilities by the game, and the Extraordinary Supernatural Abilities each have different labels depending on the subsystem they are part of. Extraordinary Supernatural Abilities consists of Spell-Like Abilities, Psi-Like Abilities, and other Magical Effects that are not labelled Supernatural Ability.

While Spellcasting is a Natural Ability, Spell Effects are Extraordinary Supernatural Ability.

Edit:
When a Fighter uses Magic Arms and Armor, they are not Mundane.
When a Rogue uses Use Magic Device, they are not Mundane.

[EldritchWeaver]

I'm not saying the game cannot be more balanced - but all reasonably-successful attempts I've ever seen to do so make it more balanced by either cutting out options seen as too far away from the target balance zone (whether cut via a hard ban by simply not allowing it, or a soft ban by making it have drawbacks to the point where basically nobody will ever use it), or by pushing things seen as too far below the balance zone up (to the point where I'd call it wuxia or anime style for the Mundanes; and yes, I count the Tome of Battle base classes in that category). These are not necessarily bad things, of themselves, but do remove breadth from the game.

I think you can have a game where all of the options are available, but you can't reasonable use them all in the same group. So effectively you need to label abilities to be able to determine if an option is appropriate.

[Hackulator]

So here's a question.

If 3.5 had shipped with the tier system described in the books, and it said "hey look these classes are not the same power level at the same level of optimization because guy who swings sword doesn't match guy who bends reality so either don't put them together or be prepared for that issue" would people still have anything to complain about regarding this issue?

[MeimuHakurei]

So here's a question.

If 3.5 had shipped with the tier system described in the books, and it said "hey look these classes are not the same power level at the same level of optimization because guy who swings sword doesn't match guy who bends reality so either don't put them together or be prepared for that issue" would people still have anything to complain about regarding this issue?

The complaint would mostly be on not having a Tier 1 option for a martial character probably.

[Hackulator]

The complaint would mostly be on not having a Tier 1 option for a martial character probably.

The tier 1 option for a martial character would be to build a tier 1 class around self buffs and melee, which you can certainly do.

[Talakeal]

So here's a question.

If 3.5 had shipped with the tier system described in the books, and it said "hey look these classes are not the same power level at the same level of optimization because guy who swings sword doesn't match guy who bends reality so either don't put them together or be prepared for that issue" would people still have anything to complain about regarding this issue?

I think the system would have been DoA. If people were told upfront that they couldnt nave the classic fighter, wizard, cleric, rogue dungeon crawling experiance that was iconic d&d they never would have given the game a chance and it would not have a devoted fanbase to this day.

Althihgh a few hardcore 3e fans might be having a similar conversation about how the system could be fixed and if such a thing would be worth doing.

[HouseRules]

The tier 1 option for a martial character would be to build a tier 1 class around self buffs and melee, which you can certainly do.

Not exactly Tier 1 if they focus on the self buff and lost utility. They may be Tier 2 at best under such circumstances.

[Hackulator]

Not exactly Tier 1 if they focus on the self buff and lost utility. They may be Tier 2 at best under such circumstances.

A tier 1 class can maintain utility and still have plenty of room for self buffs.

[ryu]

Not going to bother with quoting and pruning because that's tedious and the person who made the request knows who they are.

Tried exalted. Abstracted too many details turning the wonderfully complex strategy to a game of happy slaps. All style no substance, play Xenoblade Chronicles instead.

Prospective other games? Literally the only flaw in 3.5 is that it doesn't label things which gets people into a confused mess about muggles equaling the closest thing we'd have to gods were they to show up in our world. Unless you want to count the tedious busywork necessary to actually make the game happen, but you aint skipping that without creating software stupidly complex beyond the scope of human knowability. ALL other aspects I will personally defend to the death in a back ally wifflebat fight. Tongue in cheek talk of what the argument would be should be obvious.

Even the stupid weakling peasants can be used to model the destitute/untalented/opportunity challenged of any given setting.

[JNAProductions]

Not going to bother with quoting and pruning because that's tedious and the person who made the request knows who they are.

Tried exalted. Abstracted too many details turning the wonderfully complex strategy to a game of happy slaps. All style no substance, play Xenoblade Chronicles instead.

Prospective other games? Literally the only flaw in 3.5 is that it doesn't label things which gets people into a confused mess about muggles equaling the closest thing we'd have to gods were they to show up in our world. Unless you want to count the tedious busywork necessary to actually make the game happen, but you aint skipping that without creating software stupidly complex beyond the scope of human knowability. ALL other aspects I will personally defend to the death in a back ally wifflebat fight. Tongue in cheek talk of what the argument would be should be obvious.

Even the stupid weakling peasants can be used to model the destitute/untalented/opportunity challenged of any given setting.

There are nine threads-find the latest one here-one rules dysfunctions.

So... What's that about "literally the only flaw"?

[ryu]

There are nine threads-find the latest one here-one rules dysfunctions.

So... What's that about "literally the only flaw"?

Hilarious therefore feature. Next.

[Talakeal]

Not going to bother with quoting and pruning because that's tedious and the person who made the request knows who they are.

Tried exalted. Abstracted too many details turning the wonderfully complex strategy to a game of happy slaps. All style no substance, play Xenoblade Chronicles instead.

Prospective other games? Literally the only flaw in 3.5 is that it doesn't label things which gets people into a confused mess about muggles equaling the closest thing we'd have to gods were they to show up in our world. Unless you want to count the tedious busywork necessary to actually make the game happen, but you aint skipping that without creating software stupidly complex beyond the scope of human knowability. ALL other aspects I will personally defend to the death in a back ally wifflebat fight. Tongue in cheek talk of what the argument would be should be obvious.

Even the stupid weakling peasants can be used to model the destitute/untalented/opportunity challenged of any given setting.

I can't argue with that.

I mean, literally, that is an unfalsifiable argument.

[ryu]

I can't argue with that.

I mean, literally, that is an unfalsifiable argument.

Fun fact, people generally do not hold positions they consider to be wrong. You could find some section of the game you consider to be flawed, make arguments for why. Anything involving the arguments silly, unintended, or overly complicated are doomed to fail as just demonstrated. I'm of the opinion that most of the designers were incompetents who not only couldn't design something internally consistent, but that the game they intended, the touted classic party and classic playstyle, was boring. They created the greatest tabletop ever, by accident.

Edit: Oh or you could suggest a game that actually delivers on my desires better. Exalted got denied because power isn't the soul defining asset. You need substantive, hilariously complex strategy ceiling.

[Morty]

So here's a question.

If 3.5 had shipped with the tier system described in the books, and it said "hey look these classes are not the same power level at the same level of optimization because guy who swings sword doesn't match guy who bends reality so either don't put them together or be prepared for that issue" would people still have anything to complain about regarding this issue?

The complaint would mostly be on not having a Tier 1 option for a martial character probably.

Furthermore, the low-tier PHB classes, fighters in particular, are bad even without comparing them to spellcasters. So that would only go so far. And a core game with no spellcasters... would look like Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Only everyone might be able to take a ballista bolt to the face if it's high level.

[Talakeal]

Fun fact, people generally do not hold positions they consider to be wrong.

True, but there are a great many people who will continue to argue a position that they know to be ludicrous.

[ryu]

Furthermore, the low-tier PHB classes, fighters in particular, are bad even without comparing them to spellcasters. So that would only go so far. And a core game with no spellcasters... would look like Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Only everyone might be able to take a ballista bolt to the face if it's high level.

That's the single best job anyone has ever done, and will likely ever do for arguing a mundane campaign in my presence. I still likely wouldn't do it, but I can see it being non-miserable. Congratulations.

Edit: Not ludicrous to me. Got dragged through dozens of other games for at least a session, disappointed every time. Spent years exalting in 3.5. Mountain of supporting evidence.

[Gnaeus]

Question, does anyone actually like the 3.X implementation of the fighter?

Because it is commonly used as the poster boy for the mundane side in these caster vs mundane debates, but frankly I feel that it is an absolutely terribly implemented class and I am legitimately wondering if anyone will actually defend the design or if it is just a straw-man that they assume appeals to someone.a.

The Fighter is used as a stand-in for mundane classes due to its recognizability and having the least ties to the supernatural (though the Rogue is occasionally also cited in topics for character roles and sometimes mundane utility). The Ranger, Paladin and Monk, as well as a few branches of the Barbarian class are all clearly magical/supernatural in one way of another, so they're generally not ideal examples for what a mundane character is.

Also, fighter is core. And there are clearly worse mundanes than fighter. Monk. Swashbuckler. Knight. Soulknife. TWF Ranger. Samurai. Most of us (I suspect) would agree that most of them are horrible classes. Fighter seems to get the nod because we don’t have to analyze the comparative values of fast movement or disease immunity or 2 extra skill points or other niche abilities, just contributing in combat. I don’t think that I’ve seen any arguments regarding fighter that wouldn’t be equally or more valid regarding other, worse T5 classes.

[Cosi]

Well, I can imagine a fighter who can defeat a CR 20 monster in a one on one fight, and the same for every other CR pre epic, so there's that.

So what does that character look like? Because Captain America -- who is physically superhuman and has an artifact shield -- spends the climax of the first Avengers movie not personally fighting monsters that are like dragons, except without breath weapons or spellcasting. He punches a bunch of Chitauri, but the space whale/snake/dragon monsters get dispatched by Hulk, Thor, and Iron Man.

The Fighter is used as a stand-in for mundane classes due to its recognizability and having the least ties to the supernatural (though the Rogue is occasionally also cited in topics for character roles and sometimes mundane utility). The Ranger, Paladin and Monk, as well as a few branches of the Barbarian class are all clearly magical/supernatural in one way of another, so they're generally not ideal examples for what a mundane character is.

The Fighter is notable because, in addition to being mechanically subpar, it has serious conceptual problems. Notably, the name gives the class a mandate to ... fight. But every class fights, so really what it does is define the character as not being part of other important aspects of the game like "exploration" and "negotiation" and it fails to give the character a shtick to actually use in combat. There are classes that are worse (like the Monk), but those classes are generally worse for contingent mechanical reasons, not fundamental conceptual ones. The Monk is bad, but if you declared that the Monk could do Exalted-style (or even Tome of Battle-style) magic kung fu, it would be substantially less bad. But for the Fighter to be good, it has to stop being a Fighter.

In truth, neither the fighter nor the wizard are remotely good balance points. Well, I suppose a level 5-7 wizard might be. At that point, they're not miserably weak like on lower levels, but aren't he boring invincible nerd superheroes they become later.

The degree to which high level Wizards are "boring invincible nerd superheroes" and beyond the scope of any source material is pretty massively overstated. The level of optimization where Wizards overshadow mundanes is much lower than the level where they become unkillable TO monstrosities (and, as I have often noted, the fact that abilities like teleport are Wizard-exclusive locks you into some degree of Wizard balance point unless you throw those abilities out wholesale). And while the Wizard is more powerful than a lot of fantasy stories, there are still plenty of fantasy stories he is appropriate in, and (again, as noted) twenty levels is really a lot of levels. You're not spending all of that on the difference between the Mountain and the Hound. A 10/5/5 split between Heroic (purely mundane), Paragon (lower end superheroes), and Epic (full gonzo) is enough to cover pretty much any character in fantasy reasonably well. There's really nothing you're losing from having ten levels of mundane warrior instead of twenty levels of mundane warrior.

If 3.5 had shipped with the tier system described in the books, and it said "hey look these classes are not the same power level at the same level of optimization because guy who swings sword doesn't match guy who bends reality so either don't put them together or be prepared for that issue" would people still have anything to complain about regarding this issue?

Yes, specifically the fact that "multiple balance points" is an absolutely terrible way for the game to work. It's not just that having it be non-obvious sucks, it's that the paradigm sucks flat out. Most obviously, it means you are committing to an extraordinarily inefficient ratio of "content printed" to "content anyone uses". Imagine that you launched with a game with three distinct tiers. There are only eleven classes in the core rules, so even assuming a perfectly even distribution of classes, there's going to be a tier where you can't put together a full four-man party. Unless you're skewing towards one tier (making the other problem even worse), there's no tier where you can have more than one party composition. And the actual tier system has six tiers!

And even getting into expansion material -- which, again, you need for everyone to get their own class -- you still have to write everything three times. I don't care that you can make a Wizard-level character that is Barbarian-ish by speccing your Druid appropriately, the fact that we had to write that Druid ACF/ability suite/PrC/whatever means that we didn't get to write one that lets your Druid be a Vermin Master or a Dragonlord or whatever they might aspire to be in a world where the Barbarian class could actually cover the whole system's needs for people who get angry and smash things. Not to mention that we have as many as four other tiers that are notionally supported and all need some version of "angry warrior" that is going to take up even more space and mean that even less concepts actually get covered.

And that's not even discussing questions like "how the hell is CR supposed to work in this system" (hint: it won't) and "what balance point should non-class options be at" and "what happens when someone really likes one of the abilities of a class in a different tier from the rest of the party". Making the game actually balanced is simply the overwhelmingly superior option according to an reasonable analysis.

[RifleAvenger]

Edit: Oh or you could suggest a game that actually delivers on my desires better. Exalted got denied because power isn't the soul defining asset. You need substantive, hilariously complex strategy ceiling.

Mage.

Not much in the tactical wargame manner. But if your storyteller is playing just as hard to do in the party as the party is to their enemies, you can easily have the same nth level wizard chess contingency fest as 3.5, with convoluted politics stapled on at every level from apprentice to Exarch/Oracle, complete with creating sentient demiplanes capable of their own spellcasting out of your soul and literally rewriting the sourcecode of the universe at the archmage level of play. Even starting characters have a weakened form of epic spellcasting (and time stop and rewinding the last turn if someone begins w/ Time 3) and it just gets crazier from there.