The Man Keeping the Martial Down

[Kyutaru]

Rather large difference between annoying and costly. In any case, it just furthers the notion that such magic without the cost should now be banned as it's too powerful for its spell level.

[Max_Killjoy]

Rather large difference between annoying and costly. In any case, it just furthers the notion that such magic without the cost should now be banned as it's too powerful for its spell level.

The players who will abuse it don't care about the cost. And the "annoyance" is just another cost.

(See edit to my post.)

The question of whether the magic is "too powerful" is separate from the cost, it was never balanced by that cost in the first place.

[Pleh]

The players who will abuse it don't care about the cost. And the "annoyance" is just another cost.

(See edit to my post.)

The question of whether the magic is "too powerful" is separate from the cost, it was never balanced by that cost in the first place.

Actually, it's balanced by permanent costs. When the cost actually has long term detriment rather than short term inconvenience, it becomes a real tradeoff. The idea that you get something powerful, but you lose something you noticeably need and can't get back.

Problem is that while it's effective balance, it' not what most people find a fun game.

[Quertus]

To Quertus: First off your reply to me kind of got scattered so I am just going to pick out a couple of high level points. The first small one is I would still love it if you could think of a problem a fighter can solve that a wizard can't.

The second larger issue is about 80% of the solutions you have proposed for fighters solving problems, I'm going to throw them out. You are still thinking like a wizard, you have effectively answered "how would a wizard trapped in the class of a fighter solve these problems". I want to know how would a fighter (in a fighter class) solve these problems. I should of said this from the start but I forgot that you are Quertus who beget Quertus. I accept full responsibility.

The question is more than "what can you do with the fighter class" as it should also be in keeping with the archetype. So the flying mount, I give that a pass. A knight is close enough to a fighter and knights ride horses so a fantasy fighter could ride a pegasus.* I give it a pass not with flying colours but it works.

Use Magic Device on the other hand is rejected. Its not as ridiculous as saying here is how my level 20 fighter can solve problems when it is actually an 11th level fighter and a 9th level wizard. But in my mind it is the same problem. You are not actually using the fighter's skill set but an orthogonal tool that just happens to be accessible. A fighter that does use UMD in combination with their standard skills is a legitimate character concept but A) I believe that falls outside the standard fighter archetype and B) you're not even downing that most of the time, the fighter part is just left behind.

So now I am going to try to define what the difference is. This may take a couple of tries so I apologize for any shifting goal posts, I will try not to knee-jerk reaction restrict things excessively.

So let's start with magic as that is the big issue here and with your solutions in my mind. Using magic to solve the problem is right out. Using magic to increase the fighter's ability to solve the problem is allowed. So using a scroll of knock to open a door is not allowed, using a scroll of toughening so the fighter can just punch the door down is fine. As long as a normal person's hands would still be ineffective.

Which leads into the next one. Any solution anyone could do - but the wizard usually wouldn't bother to do it that way - is going to receive half marks at best. There actually probably should be some of these, and some fighter-like solutions that are still not as good as the wizard's way. But there should be a similar number of situations that work the other way and the wizard has to turn to the commoner's solution.

Indirect solutions are allowed as long as they meet the other restrictions. I would accept the fighter doesn't have to escape the force cage, they take out their bow and arrow and continue the fight standing in the cage if someone showed that was a viable solution. I suspect it is not.

The other issue was learning into other mundane/martial/muggle (How come all of these words start with m?) classes. In the context of analysing the D&D fighter I would not allow that. In the context of the larger thread and the mechanical definitions and so on, I would. I'm going to split the difference and say if you say this is a solution for a rogue or ranger or barbarian then it can. Just don't pass them off as fighter solutions and its fine.

OK that took me a really long time to write, hopefully it all makes sense.

Ranged weapons, flying mounts, magical items that grant flight, sneaking past them, poisoning them in their sleep, booby-trapping their landing zone...

No such thing. But, if there were, break down the walls, pick the lock, go around, kill everyone inside with smoke/water/lava/cave-in, get a man on the inside, battering rams, items of teleportation, or just try knocking...

You glue a pen.. a stick to his head, and force him to use it to write in the dirt.

OK, now, I may be senile, but, as I recall it, the Force Cage question was me trying to answer how one particular character could not sit out bored 50+% of the time when the GM kept throwing them in time out with Force Cage. So I'm ignoring those responses.

Of the responses I gave you, I'm not seeing 80% Wizard. Let's make the list:

Ranged weapons
flying mounts
magical items that grant flight
sneaking past them
poisoning them in their sleep
booby-trapping their landing zone
break down the walls
pick the lock
go around
kill everyone inside with smoke/water/lava/cave-in
get a man on the inside
battering rams
items of teleportation
just try knocking...
You glue a pen.. a stick to his head, and force him to use it to write in the dirt.

That's using your hand to knock on the door, btw, not using a Scroll of Knock.

Note that the home of UMD - the Rogue - is a "Fighter" class for the purposes of Fighter vs Wizard. Not that any of these solutions require UMD, mind you, but I absolutely reserve the right for the "Fighter" to solve encounters via UMD. Oh, I see you addressed this - you are actually talking explicitly about the 3e Fighter class now, not the conceptual "Fighter". Well, that's… something. I'm not sure what yet. So, why?

Because the Wizard is still just a muggle with magic slapped on, no, there is nothing conceptually that a "Fighter" can do that a "Wizard" cannot. That said, there are plenty of things that a particular Fighter could do that a particular Wizard cannot. Oh, but since we're talking explicit Fighter & Wizard, I'll name two: survive low levels under me as GM, and work in antimagic below level x.

[Jakinbandw]

To Quertus: First off your reply to me kind of got scattered so I am just going to pick out a couple of high level points. The first small one is I would still love it if you could think of a problem a fighter can solve that a wizard can't.

I just saw this and wanted to take a stab at it (or at least how it could be)!

The fighter uses swords and has the concept of Cut from all their training. An ancient God Killer has summoned (or some other catastrophe) and the party needs to deal with it. The Fighter Cuts the consequences from them to stop the ritual from happening and reality shifts so that while the summon got off without a hitch, nothing happens because it's cause has been cut from any effect. This allows the nullification of a threat that would otherwise require much fighting, or possible time travel.

[Satinavian]

The players who will abuse it don't care about the cost. And the "annoyance" is just another cost.

(See edit to my post.)

The question of whether the magic is "too powerful" is separate from the cost, it was never balanced by that cost in the first place.

Actually, it's balanced by permanent costs. When the cost actually has long term detriment rather than short term inconvenience, it becomes a real tradeoff. The idea that you get something powerful, but you lose something you noticeably need and can't get back.

Problem is that while it's effective balance, it' not what most people find a fun game.

There is annoyance, cost and permanent cost.


Annoyance is just a bad idea. It just makes the power difficult to use outgame without providingr real ingame reasons not to. That is things like having to make complex 10 minutes calculations every time you use it as DC or whatever depends on dozens of circumstances. Or having to keep track of huge numbers of ingredients which are all cheap and easy to get. Stuff like that.
It is just annoying at the table, but doesn't really balance anything. Sure, some player might opt to not use it when he himself has to put in too much effort for some relaxing hobby, but that doesn't make the power actually stronger or weaker.

Cost is good. Cost means you can have powers that you won't use everytime because it is just not worth it to trivialize minor stuff. That is stuff like Vis in Ars Magica, expensive material components, applying a nasty debuff for some time, XP cost. Theoretically even spell slots or mana points are costs, if very minor ones. If you have risky failures, chances for those are a cost too. Costs are useful for magic and present in nearly every system. Those costs are high enough when the power is used in practice as often as you want it.

Permanent costs are in theory just costs. Attribute points, lifeyears, permanently reduced maximum mana points, permanently reduced hitpoints. Stuff like that. That works well in a story where a charcter sacrifices something of himself to solve the main conflict.
It doesn't work in RPGs. Either there is no main conflict at all or there is only one in the whole campaign. Every session tends to have multiple minor conflicts. So a character would have between 0 or 1 really important situations in life where such a sacrifice is really worth it.
After decades of playing my observation is that powers with permanent costs tend to just not get used at all. It is nearly irrelevant if a character has such a power or not, he won't ever have a modus operandi that actually utilizes that power. He might take it as some kind of emergency fallback option if at all. Even then i have seen people sooner risk a TPK than use a permanent cost power bcause maybe they are lucky and don't need it.
Balancing class powers around permanent costs ? Stupid idea, never works. "Get a fleeting power boost now and be weaker for the rest of your adventuring career" is a trap option and an obvious one. It is inherently bad design, especially for stuff intended to be used repeatedly.

People are willing to accept permanent cost for permanent benefits. Many systems have crafting (unique stuff) with permanent costs or forms of self modification with permanent costs. This stuff works because cost and benefit are on the same scale.

[Florian]

@Quertus:

Ok, you asked what you are not seeing there. Your ideas about dealing with a force cage showcase that nearly to a point.

The core of the whole discussion is about internal vs. external options that is given to a class, indirectly followed by how those things are weighted as a whole. Next to all of the things you cited about dealing with a force cage is external stuff, a lot of it replicates internal options that other classes get handed along with their basic chassis and have also access to in the form as external options on top of that.

Ok, I´m mostly a PF player, so I give you an example based on that. The basic chassis of most PF martial classes is build around a level of competency that you cannot do anything wrong. You don't even have to try and replicate an Übercharger, you simply kill what is standing in your way.

Purely martial classes (so excluding Paladins and Rangers) can be geared towards the power of negation. Spell Sunder, Eater of Magic, Spellcut, Smash from the Air, the names of the abilities you can acquire should give you a hint where this is leading. When playing a martial character in PF, I will simply head-butt a force cage out of existence and kill the caster after that, no problem, craft and use Luck blades and Candles of Evocation, no biggie.

But: The combination of being too optimal for combat, a heap of reactionary abilities that are worth only in comparison to what they are able to negate and still being totally dependent on external options for active abilities is a bit grating.

[Kyutaru]

Permanent costs are in theory just costs. It doesn't work in RPGs.

It's unfortunate that's been your observations over the years as it seems to be a case of people getting far too attached to their characters. Coming from the older editions of D&D, we were already used to having our characters slaughtered in a meat grinder of instant death attacks, disintegration, and soul imprisonment. Having permanent costs associated with spells like Haste did curb their usage a bit but not so much that they were never used. It was recognized that your character was temporary and prone to being retired either forcibly or at the conclusion of the tale. Rerolling characters and continuing on was the standard. Now it feels like people expect to play the same character for many years.

Even the crafting you mentioned wasn't permanent. Mordenkainen's Disjunction was notorious as the DM's reset spell. It could purge a party of their magic items and start over from scratch if the players were getting too powerful. The Deck of the Many Things and its campaign crashing party destruction was but a taste of the horrors in store. And even Raise Dead had a permanent constitution cost to prevent anyone from achieving immortality so easily. Imagine a world where bad guys could be raised every week and players sent their backup teams to handle risky problems then raising the fallen ones.

The costs made sense for the spells associated with them given how easily they could be abused. Removing the costs without curbing the abuse was a terrible idea that turned casters into gods. But understandably not everyone will see it that way, especially if they weren't used to the cycle of rebirth and latched onto the same character session after session.

[Florian]

There is annoyance, cost and permanent cost.

We already had that in the sister thread about muggles.

I can only accept your stance under the premisses that
a) you're entitled to use certain stuff
b) certain stuff is expected to be used to play the game

Most game systems I know that handle magic as something dangerous keep the layers of mundane reality and magical reality clearly apart and offer the option to use power at a price, but don't necessarily enforce the use of power. The choice is yours.

I´ll echo what another use just wrote: There's a stark difference between the concepts of a zero to hero story and a heroic sacrifice story.

We talk 3E, more specifically PF, I'm absolutely with you, no question. The interplay between a hardcoded difficulty, as expressed in CR/EL, classes and buff/debuff spells is a thing and adding additional costs beyond acquiring enough system mastery to know and understand this interaction would be weird.

The core game experience of systems like L5R 4th, CoC (especially the german version, which you should know), the Dark Heresy family or Warhammer Fantasy 2nd or Shadow of the Demon Lord is quite different and this difference has to be understood and accepted. A character is not expected to last and the question is what risks he/she/it is willing to take to last a little longer before succumbing.

I hope you can accept that there are different appeals to why we play what we play and accept that difference.

[Quertus]

@Quertus:

Ok, you asked what you are not seeing there. Your ideas about dealing with a force cage showcase that nearly to a point.

The core of the whole discussion is about internal vs. external options that is given to a class, indirectly followed by how those things are weighted as a whole. Next to all of the things you cited about dealing with a force cage is external stuff, a lot of it replicates internal options that other classes get handed along with their basic chassis and have also access to in the form as external options on top of that.

Let's take me out of it. A common Playgrounder truth is, to paraphrase, "a Fighter without tactical Teleport is an idiot" or "a Fighter without a magical weapon is an idiot".

OK, where would you like to go from there?

Ok, I´m mostly a PF player, so I give you an example based on that. The basic chassis of most PF martial classes is build around a level of competency that you cannot do anything wrong. You don't even have to try and replicate an Übercharger, you simply kill what is standing in your way.

Purely martial classes (so excluding Paladins and Rangers) can be geared towards the power of negation. Spell Sunder, Eater of Magic, Spellcut, Smash from the Air, the names of the abilities you can acquire should give you a hint where this is leading. When playing a martial character in PF, I will simply head-butt a force cage out of existence and kill the caster after that, no problem, craft and use Luck blades and Candles of Evocation, no biggie.

But: The combination of being too optimal for combat, a heap of reactionary abilities that are worth only in comparison to what they are able to negate and still being totally dependent on external options for active abilities is a bit grating.

I find this type of power especially grading. I introduce a new power source, like technology or time control or earth bending, to the campaign. Suddenly, your magic-destroying Fighter is being trapped in Force Fields or Chrono Cages or 50' beneath the earth.

Any ability designed to counter a particular power source is unbalanced and uninteresting.

[Kyutaru]

Any ability designed to counter a particular power source is unbalanced and uninteresting.

Let's look at that one for a moment. An entire power source, perhaps. Antimagic Field does it but it's one of the extreme examples. How about specific powers though?

RPGs tend to be this arms race of power. You start out stronger than the opposition. Now they gain access to something new and you discover or develop the counter to it. Protection from Arrows comes at a time when ranged weapons are clearly superior to melee weapons. Anti-poison spells arrive when monsters start using poison. Dispel Magic comes when buffs are beginning to seriously impact combat. Fireball and Lightning Bolt introduce potent area of effects while being countered by the Communal version of Resist Energy. Ability damage turns into ability drain and along comes Restoration. Disintegrate destroys Raise Dead as a viable solution but Resurrection reverts it. Imprisonment traps someone while Freedom frees them. Death Ward comes along just as undead are starting to get level drains.

Any time a new type of power is introduced an appropriate counter should be available soon or already. This keeps the balance of the game through controlled escalation. Like a new set for a card game, options arrive that shift the meta and force players to rethink the status quo. When they're comfortable feeling like nothing can defeat a Hasted Blurred Fighter you throw a Domination on them and teach them to guard their minds. This is just the natural progression of any good RPG. Final Fantasy games even introduce enemy mechanics like Earthquake and then grant you the Float spells that counter them. Holy magic arrives shortly after you are introduced to the major demons it slaughters. Death magic comes when enemies now have thousands of hitpoints due to formulaic scaling. The goal is to consistently make combat tactical and fun regardless of how strong the party gets.

Fighters encountering enemies with Forcecage may be granted an ability that counters it somehow. Not necessarily immediately, and not necessarily for free, but an option may appear eventually that solves this annoying dilemma that has so far been a weakness of the Fighter. Just as items may appear that solve inherent weaknesses to the class, such as Boots of Flying. It's all part of the Grand Design.

[Cluedrew]

Of the responses I gave you, I'm not seeing 80% Wizard. Let's make the list:
[...]
Note that the home of UMD - the Rogue - is a "Fighter" class for the purposes of Fighter vs Wizard. Not that any of these solutions require UMD, mind you, but I absolutely reserve the right for the "Fighter" to solve encounters via UMD. Oh, I see you addressed this - you are actually talking explicitly about the 3e Fighter class now, not the conceptual "Fighter". Well, that's… something. I'm not sure what yet. So, why?

Oh, I just thought that is what you were talking about. I just martial and caster for the two general archetypes. And if I go down that list you gave me with that in mind:

• Ranged weapons - Martial
• flying mounts - Martial/Either
• magical items that grant flight - Caster
• sneaking past them - Martial
• poisoning them in their sleep - Martial
• booby-trapping their landing zone - Either
• break down the walls - Martial
• pick the lock - Martial
• go around - Anyone
• kill everyone inside with smoke/water/lava/cave-in - Either
• get a man on the inside - Anyone
• battering rams - was break down the walls supposed to be with hands
• items of teleportation - Caster
• just try knocking... - Anyone
• You glue a pen.. a stick to his head, and force him to use it to write in the dirt. - Anyone

That is pretty good actually. Only two I would definitely describe as "caster solutions". A couple others (marked either) that depend on details but there should be a martial way of doing it. Solutions marked anyone I feel are not actually part of a particular archetype's skill set.

Because the Wizard is still just a muggle with magic slapped on, no, there is nothing conceptually that a "Fighter" can do that a "Wizard" cannot. That said, there are plenty of things that a particular Fighter could do that a particular Wizard cannot.

All right but what do you mean by "muggle" because that makes a significant difference here. I would say a caster is a normal person with magic slapped on. Just as a martial is a normal person with great physical mastery added. And in a game or story where martial and caster characters are supposed to be working together, the fact that one lets you do anything and the other not a lot more than the base line is in fact an issue. And one I would like to try to address.

Although you hit back to the "exception based abilities" from the first post, that actually seems to be the big one of the ones I could think of.

[Morty]

Describing lock-picking as a martial pursuit isn't the most absurd thing I've seen in those discussions, but it is up there.

[Talakeal]

OK, now, I may be senile, but, as I recall it, the Force Cage question was me trying to answer how one particular character could not sit out bored 50+% of the time when the GM kept throwing them in time out with Force Cage. So I'm ignoring those responses.

Of the responses I gave you, I'm not seeing 80% Wizard. Let's make the list:

Ranged weapons
flying mounts
magical items that grant flight
sneaking past them
poisoning them in their sleep
booby-trapping their landing zone
break down the walls
pick the lock
go around
kill everyone inside with smoke/water/lava/cave-in
get a man on the inside
battering rams
items of teleportation
just try knocking...
You glue a pen.. a stick to his head, and force him to use it to write in the dirt.

That's using your hand to knock on the door, btw, not using a Scroll of Knock.

Note that the home of UMD - the Rogue - is a "Fighter" class for the purposes of Fighter vs Wizard. Not that any of these solutions require UMD, mind you, but I absolutely reserve the right for the "Fighter" to solve encounters via UMD. Oh, I see you addressed this - you are actually talking explicitly about the 3e Fighter class now, not the conceptual "Fighter". Well, that's… something. I'm not sure what yet. So, why?

Because the Wizard is still just a muggle with magic slapped on, no, there is nothing conceptually that a "Fighter" can do that a "Wizard" cannot. That said, there are plenty of things that a particular Fighter could do that a particular Wizard cannot. Oh, but since we're talking explicit Fighter & Wizard, I'll name two: survive low levels under me as GM, and work in antimagic below level x.

Please note that I brought up Force Cage as an example of why 3.X is bad for martials.

If we are talking conceptually it isn't a problem. In my current game a fighter can evade the area of a force cage while it is still being cast, cut through a force cage with a sufficiently sharp sword, push through it with superhuman strength, or temporarily disrupt it with holy water or cold iron. And that is discounting specific anti-magic techniques are item, and the fact that a fighter is actually worthwhile so casters might actually find it worth the spell to help them out.

[AMFV]

Please note that I brought up Force Cage as an example of why 3.X is bad for martials.

If we are talking conceptually it isn't a problem. In my current game a fighter can evade the area of a force cage while it is still being cast, cut thriugh a focr cage with a sufficiently sharp sword, push through it with superhuman strength, or temporarily disrupt it with holy water or cold iron. And that is discounting specific anti-magic techniques are item, and the fact that a fighter is actually worthwhile so casters might sctually find it worse the spell to help them out.

Yep, which is exactly a good description of what is keeping the martial down. In many games it's the refusal of the martial to take full advantage of things. Like multiclassing to get features that let them handle things. If you have Fighter 20 on your character sheet in mid-op game, you're doing it wrong. If you don't have a ton of magical items and tricks at mid-levels you're doing it wrong. Of course it was worse in core only, but nobody really should be playing that way (honestly) it's like playing without all of the later fixes for things.

I mean your fighter could take a couple levels in Bard, that gives him an enormous powerboost and the ability to UMD things, that's one option. Even in core only that's a good option. A couple levels of Rogue would likewise be a good option for a core only fighter (fixes some of their skill problem, gives them sneak attack, and once you get out of core only Craven). The thing keeping the fighter down is the fact that the fighter is not willing to take options that would help them.

Not that I'm arguing that this fixes the caster-martial disparity entirely, and not that I'm arguing that needing to do that is good game design. But I am arguing that if you are comparing a high OP wizard with a low OP fighter then your comparison is inherently going to be a flawed one.

[Quertus]

[*]go around - Anyone

There's a lot from your post I could discuss, but I chose this bit. Why? Well, because I'm insane, of course. But also because of the thread title.

See, in the original D&D system, "go around" meant extra time. Which meant extra rolls for random encounters. The Wizard had finite resources; the Fighter generally* had infinite resources.

So, despite the fact that "anyone" could go around, by the mechanics of the system, this solution still favors the muggles.

And that makes for some interesting questions about game design, adventure design, and the purpose of this thread.

Do we care *how many* options a character has? Do we care how many *unique* options they have? Do we care how many *superior* options they have? Do we just care that they have non-zero options?

What we care about determines how we evaluate a given setup.

* Offensively - sure, they both have finite HP (under normal conditions)

[Max_Killjoy]

If you have Fighter 20 on your character sheet in mid-op game, you're doing it wrong.

That's a problem with the system and the class, then.

and not that I'm arguing that needing to do that is good game design.

OK. I missed that part on first reading.

But I am arguing that if you are comparing a high OP wizard with a low OP fighter then your comparison is inherently going to be a flawed one.

"OP"?

Based on context, I'm going to guess it means something like "optimized", and thus say that the problem at hand is that a high "OP" fighter still comes out second fiddle to a low "OP" wizard in D&D.

[Quertus]

Let's look at that one for a moment. An entire power source, perhaps. Antimagic Field does it but it's one of the extreme examples. How about specific powers though?

RPGs tend to be this arms race of power. You start out stronger than the opposition. Now they gain access to something new and you discover or develop the counter to it. Protection from Arrows comes at a time when ranged weapons are clearly superior to melee weapons. Anti-poison spells arrive when monsters start using poison. Dispel Magic comes when buffs are beginning to seriously impact combat. Fireball and Lightning Bolt introduce potent area of effects while being countered by the Communal version of Resist Energy. Ability damage turns into ability drain and along comes Restoration. Disintegrate destroys Raise Dead as a viable solution but Resurrection reverts it. Imprisonment traps someone while Freedom frees them. Death Ward comes along just as undead are starting to get level drains.

Any time a new type of power is introduced an appropriate counter should be available soon or already. This keeps the balance of the game through controlled escalation. Like a new set for a card game, options arrive that shift the meta and force players to rethink the status quo. When they're comfortable feeling like nothing can defeat a Hasted Blurred Fighter you throw a Domination on them and teach them to guard their minds. This is just the natural progression of any good RPG. Final Fantasy games even introduce enemy mechanics like Earthquake and then grant you the Float spells that counter them. Holy magic arrives shortly after you are introduced to the major demons it slaughters. Death magic comes when enemies now have thousands of hitpoints due to formulaic scaling. The goal is to consistently make combat tactical and fun regardless of how strong the party gets.

Fighters encountering enemies with Forcecage may be granted an ability that counters it somehow. Not necessarily immediately, and not necessarily for free, but an option may appear eventually that solves this annoying dilemma that has so far been a weakness of the Fighter. Just as items may appear that solve inherent weaknesses to the class, such as Boots of Flying. It's all part of the Grand Design.

Huh. You know, I hadn't really noticed before, but D&D does have a strong lean towards very singular-purpose spells & abilities that aren't generally useful, but instead are "star-shaped pegs for star-shaped holes". Combine that with spell slots, and it's no wonder casters prefer to use Divinations to "read the module ahead of time". Otherwise, most of their "power" is wasted, and they can still be pulling a by lacking something vital - or even by lacking sufficient copies of something vital.

[AMFV]

That's a problem with the system and the class, then.

Arguably, but if a part of the system is that you build complex builds (which it certainly is in 3.5e, 3e, and Pathfinder), and part of the class is that you multiclass (which it certainly is in 3.5e, and 3e) then I would argue that's not a problem. That's the game working as intended. Now whether the intent there is a good thing or not, I don't know, but that's clearly the way it's intentionally designed.

I would argue that the problem is that Wizards don't have to do that rigmarole. I think that if you had it so that wizards had to do as much complex character building to work as fighters, then it would be fine. (Or if you made it so that fighters could be successful without, as 4e did). But when I play 3.5e or Pathfinder or 3e I want to be spending hours building a character digging through different source material, if I don't want to do that, I'll play AD&D (which I do occasionally) or one of half a dozen other systems that don't involve that. D&D is like GURPS, it's all about building the character.

So I would argue that the fix would be to make Wizards have to multiclass in the same way that fighters do. Maybe have all the base classes only have ten levels so that people know that's expected.

"OP"?

Based on context, I'm going to guess it means something like "optimized", and thus say that the problem at hand is that a high "OP" fighter still comes out second fiddle to a low "OP" wizard in D&D.

A high-op fighter will be drastically better than a low-op wizard. Flat-out. A high-op fighter will include multiclassing, skills, will have a way to use spell trigger items (and will have those), may have their own spells, may be a gish, certainly they have a lot of abilities compared to a wizard who is just using fireballs (the classical low-OP wizard).

It's also worth noting that a part of optimization is using things tactically and understanding how to respond to a given tactical encounter. So that also will play in. I think that right around mid-low optimization wizard is about where they start to pull ahead of even a highly optimized fighter, but a highly optimized fighter is probably going to be fine up to about a medium-op wizard.

[Max_Killjoy]

Huh. You know, I hadn't really noticed before, but D&D does have a strong lean towards very singular-purpose spells & abilities that aren't generally useful, but instead are "star-shaped pegs for star-shaped holes". Combine that with spell slots, and it's no wonder casters prefer to use Divinations to "read the module ahead of time". Otherwise, most of their "power" is wasted, and they can still be pulling a by lacking something vital - or even by lacking sufficient copies of something vital.

That combination of prepared-slots casting and "key for each lock" spell design, is one of the classic elements both driving players to engage in 5d Chess, and enabling those players who try to turn the game into 5d Chess.

[Max_Killjoy]

Arguably, but if a part of the system is that you build complex builds (which it certainly is in 3.5e, 3e, and Pathfinder), and part of the class is that you multiclass (which it certainly is in 3.5e, and 3e) then I would argue that's not a problem. That's the game working as intended. Now whether the intent there is a good thing or not, I don't know, but that's clearly the way it's intentionally designed.

As much as I defend the option to multi-class, I'm going to have to question that assertion that the game is designed such that "complex builds" are the default assumption. I think that stance is entirely an artifact of the online numbers-optimization-centric echo-chamber.

(Further, I'd assert that multi-classing exists as much to provide variety and to facilitate character-mapping-optimization as it does to facilitate numbers-optimization.)

In a game system with Classes, the Classes as-provided should all be completely viable and as balanced as possible straight out of the box -- anything else is objectively poor game design.

I would argue that the problem is that Wizards don't have to do that rigmarole. I think that if you had it so that wizards had to do as much complex character building to work as fighters, then it would be fine. (Or if you made it so that fighters could be successful without, as 4e did). But when I play 3.5e or Pathfinder or 3e I want to be spending hours building a character digging through different source material, if I don't want to do that, I'll play AD&D (which I do occasionally) or one of half a dozen other systems that don't involve that. D&D is like GURPS, it's all about building the character.

So I would argue that the fix would be to make Wizards have to multiclass in the same way that fighters do. Maybe have all the base classes only have ten levels so that people know that's expected.

So the "fix" is to make every class a mess?

Have you ever read Harrison Bergeron?

A high-op fighter will be drastically better than a low-op wizard. Flat-out. A high-op fighter will include multiclassing, skills, will have a way to use spell trigger items (and will have those), may have their own spells, may be a gish, certainly they have a lot of abilities compared to a wizard who is just using fireballs (the classical low-OP wizard).

It's also worth noting that a part of optimization is using things tactically and understanding how to respond to a given tactical encounter. So that also will play in. I think that right around mid-low optimization wizard is about where they start to pull ahead of even a highly optimized fighter, but a highly optimized fighter is probably going to be fine up to about a medium-op wizard.

Once the Fighter multiclasses, it's not a Fighter anymore, it's a Fighter/X. If we're going to discuss the balance between Classes, it has to be the actual Classes, not an assumption of some build involving bits of other Classes.

[AMFV]

As much as I defend the option to multi-class, I'm going to have to question that assertion that the game is designed such that "complex builds" are the default assumption. I think that stance is entirely an artifact of the online numbers-optimization-centric echo-chamber.

It very clearly was:

Here's Monte Cooke talking about how he designed the game to "reward" system mastery:

https://1d4chan.org/wiki/File:Montecookquote.png

So clearly the game was designed with multiclassing and complex builds as the goal for a player with "system mastery" who would then be "rewarded" with a better play experience. Whether that's a good thing or not it was a design goal. I would argue that the way to fix it would be to leave the complexity in place (since a lot of people love the complexity), and to reduce the number of trap options, so that it's more choices and less "I suck now" things since I don't think that's actually good design.

But yes, the game was deliberately designed with complex builds and trap options in mind.

(Further, I'd assert that multi-classing exists as much to provide variety and to facilitate character-mapping-optimization as it does to facilitate numbers-optimization.)

Certainly so! Those are both functions of multiclassing, which is why in a perfect world you'd have multiple multiclassing and prestige classing options that would all be equally useful to your character. And it's not just "numbers optimization" it's optimization of play experience.

This is also why when I'm building a "martial" character I might have a diverse array of different options. My Fighter/Bard/Suel Arcanamach/Sublime Chord is going to be a profoundly different character (and arguably not a martial any more) than my Horizon Tripper character, or than my Barbarian Ubercharger or than my "The Big Guy is With Me" mount build.

In a game system with Classes, the Classes as-provided should all be completely viable and as balanced as possible straight out of the box -- anything else is objectively poor game design.

That's not correct at all. That depends entirely on your design goals. If your goal is to create a system where people are expected to multiclass, it's not poor design to have a game where that is the case. It may not be design that is to your taste, but it's certainly not poor game design. There is a reason why people jumped ship from Wizards to Paizo, with the release of 4e. And it's not some kind of Stockholm Syndrome, it's that they actually enjoyed the complex building aspects.

So the "fix" is to make every class a mess?

No, the fix is to have either all classes complicated (like the fighter) or all classes simple (like the Wizard). I've seen all classes simplified in the AEDU design of 4e (which I actually enjoy from time to time), I've never seen the reverse attempted. I think that if it's a stated assumption that characters are going to multi and prestige class and that's what you expect I think that would make the game richer, of course that involves a lot of complexity so it would be difficult to design, but I would argue that if the character creation minigame is what you're there for, then making that more the case would be good.

Have you ever read Harrison Bergeron?

I've actually missed that one. But I don't think that's what I'm advocating for.

Once the Fighter multiclasses, it's not a Fighter anymore, it's a Fighter/X. If we're going to discuss the balance between Classes, it has to be the actual Classes, not an assumption of some build involving bits of other Classes.

But we're not discussing actual classes. We're discussing the disparity between "martials" and "casters" and a martial if they are playing the way that the game was designed is expected to multiclass and have a complex build. Fighter 20 is a intentional design trap the same way that the toughness feat was an intentional design trap. The expectation is the complex build. And a big part of the game is building complex characters. This is why I love building gishes, because when I love casters, but I lose out on the complex build aspect when I play casters in game.

[Max_Killjoy]

It very clearly was:

Here's Monte Cooke talking about how he designed the game to "reward" system mastery:

https://1d4chan.org/wiki/File:Montecookquote.png

So clearly the game was designed with multiclassing and complex builds as the goal for a player with "system mastery" who would then be "rewarded" with a better play experience. Whether that's a good thing or not it was a design goal. I would argue that the way to fix it would be to leave the complexity in place (since a lot of people love the complexity), and to reduce the number of trap options, so that it's more choices and less "I suck now" things since I don't think that's actually good design.

But yes, the game was deliberately designed with complex builds and trap options in mind.



Certainly so! Those are both functions of multiclassing, which is why in a perfect world you'd have multiple multiclassing and prestige classing options that would all be equally useful to your character. And it's not just "numbers optimization" it's optimization of play experience.

This is also why when I'm building a "martial" character I might have a diverse array of different options. My Fighter/Bard/Suel Arcanamach/Sublime Chord is going to be a profoundly different character (and arguably not a martial any more) than my Horizon Tripper character, or than my Barbarian Ubercharger or than my "The Big Guy is With Me" mount build.



That's not correct at all. That depends entirely on your design goals. If your goal is to create a system where people are expected to multiclass, it's not poor design to have a game where that is the case. It may not be design that is to your taste, but it's certainly not poor game design. There is a reason why people jumped ship from Wizards to Paizo, with the release of 4e. And it's not some kind of Stockholm Syndrome, it's that they actually enjoyed the complex building aspects.



No, the fix is to have either all classes complicated (like the fighter) or all classes simple (like the Wizard). I've seen all classes simplified in the AEDU design of 4e (which I actually enjoy from time to time), I've never seen the reverse attempted. I think that if it's a stated assumption that characters are going to multi and prestige class and that's what you expect I think that would make the game richer, of course that involves a lot of complexity so it would be difficult to design, but I would argue that if the character creation minigame is what you're there for, then making that more the case would be good.



I've actually missed that one. But I don't think that's what I'm advocating for.



But we're not discussing actual classes. We're discussing the disparity between "martials" and "casters" and a martial if they are playing the way that the game was designed is expected to multiclass and have a complex build. Fighter 20 is a intentional design trap the same way that the toughness feat was an intentional design trap. The expectation is the complex build. And a big part of the game is building complex characters. This is why I love building gishes, because when I love casters, but I lose out on the complex build aspect when I play casters in game.

"Intentional design traps" are bad game design. There's no way around that, no way to say it more clearly.


An RPG deliberately designed to "trap" and negatively impact players with hidden gotchas in character building/progression is no different from a car designed to stall the engine if the driver doesn't skip 4th gear when upshifting between 53 and 56 mph... or from a computer OS deliberately designed to delete a random file if the user changes the system time without first opening an unrelated settings screen.

If 3.x was designed with deliberate (and often hidden) bad options to negatively impact players who didn't quote-unquote "master" the build tricks and traps, then 3.x is objectively a bad system. No way around that, no way to say it more clearly.


It's been a long time, but I don't recall anything in the PHB for 3.0 that openly said "this system is designed for you to multi-class, single class characters will struggle to keep up". And reading that quote from Monte Cook... it becomes clear that I don't remember it because it was deliberately not there. He comes across as a total jackwagon, and someone who should never be allowed to design an RPG or any other product ever again. "Ivory tower game design" is the worst sort of the worst parts of "Gamist" RPG design, deliberately making the system as convoluted and opaque as possible so that people can who gain "mastery" can get sorely missing personal affirmation from a false sense of "superiority".

It's like designing a computer programming language to be as convoluted and obtuse as possible in order to "sort" programmers by how well they can "master" it -- instead of designing the language to be as useful as possible in it's actual function, programming new software -- and then telling programmers that they should feel superior for "mastering" all the hidden failure points in the language.


The "Timmy" cards in MTG are the LAST thing that any RPG designer should EVER try to emulate.

[AMFV]

"Intentional design traps" are bad game design. There's no way around that, no way to say it more clearly.

I think that if that is not stated in the game that it is bad design. But I think that if it is stated in the game it's not. MtG is not designed badly because there are bad options in it. Chess isn't designed badly because letting your Queen out early is usually a really bad move. The thing is that there are plenty of games that are like that. I think that coming out right and saying it is the best thing to do. And many early editions of D&D, said as much, they valued player skill or they had versions of the game that were "Advanced" I think there's nothing inherently wrong with having bad choices in a game where character design is a big part of the game. I think that there is something wrong with not saying as much upfront.

An RPG deliberately designed to "trap" and negatively impact players with hidden gotchas in character building/progression is no different from a car designed to stall the engine if the driver doesn't skip 4th gear when upshifting between 53 and 56 mph... or from a computer OS deliberately designed to delete a random file if the user changes the system time without first opening an unrelated settings screen.

A car or an OS has a completely different function than a game. Period. You can't compare the two. Those are single function machines, in essence. This is more like a song, where there are rules, but the rules are a lot taste as well as actual purpose.

It's been a long time, but I don't recall anything in the PHB for 3.0 that openly said "this system is designed for you to multi-class, single class characters will struggle to keep up".

Well Fighters need to multiclass, Wizards, Bards, Clerics, and Sorcerers don't. In fact for them to multiclass they'd often get weaker. I think that's a big part of the problem. You have some classes with a lot more in-built traps than others. And if you are building a game around the character building minigame it should affect everybody equally.

As I pointed out, I don't enjoy straight classed wizards, because I miss out on the minigame, and I love it. So I play gishes (also I love gishes conceptually).

If 3.x was designed with deliberate (and often hidden) bad options to negatively impact players who didn't quote-unquote "master" the build tricks and traps, then 3.x is objectively a bad system. No way around that, no way to say it more clearly.

Yet, 3.x is the most popular edition of D&D by most metrics (arguably 5e is coming close though). On these forums 3.x D&D has the most traffic, and probably has more current threads going than even the 5e threads. While that's not the best sample, it shows that people who are familiar with both games will often prefer 3.x. I tend to enjoy 3.X a lot of the time (although not exclusively, I'm actually considering running a 4E game nowadays). The thing is that 3.X needed to say those things.

And reading that quote from Monte Cook... he comes across as a total jackwagon, and someone who should never be allowed to design an RPG or any other product ever again.

He definitely comes across as a total jackwagon in that quote. He later said that he felt it was the wrong choice. I think that it may not have been the wrong choice if they had been more open about it. I've seen people try to make the character creation minigame simpler (4E, OSRs) I've not seen people try to introduce the complexity of what you need to build a martial to build a caster.

[Rhedyn]

In a game with HP, the damage dealer has to be doing damage. Thus martials are stuck in a rut.

The DCC RPG addressed this with the mighty deed die which made non damage a rider on melee attack and its effects were only limited by the GM. Overall a great system that presents way now balance between the classes in the Classic D&D format. Magic is strong but risky. The martial lack of utilities is compensated somewhat by them being able to afford the luck penalties from tons of magic items and magic swords being cool.

[Kyutaru]

So I would argue that the fix would be to make Wizards have to multiclass in the same way that fighters do. Maybe have all the base classes only have ten levels so that people know that's expected.

I'd just make Wizards choose three schools and deny them access to everything else. They are strong due to expanding versatility. Limit them to specialists just as the martials have to be.

[Telok]

It may be important to remember that, however it turned out because of all the other changes from D&D 2e to 3e, the intention was to reward people who engaged with the game and the system. They weren't trying to cripple a character if the player made lousy choices, but to give small boosts to those who figured out which choices were better.

It didn't exactly fall out that way in D&D 3e, but that was the intent. And even if the consious intent isn't there the effect is still present in the later D&D editions (reference the threads about how to keep non-casters / non-expertise classes relevant in out of combat situations).

[Max_Killjoy]

A game system is not a song, and it is not a work of art -- it is in fact a functional "machine", a tool. It can be judged, objectively, by how well it does its job.

[Talakeal]

I'd just make Wizards choose three schools and deny them access to everything else. They are strong due to expanding versatility. Limit them to specialists just as the martials have to be.

The really broken spells in 3E are all about ignoring limitations thiugh, for example by simply summoning or turning into a creature who nas whatever spell you would like to cast as an SL?

[Morty]

I've never treated Monte Cook's quote as much more than a "we totally meant to do that!" maneuver. Particularly since I don't think this "D&D for Dummies" book ever came out. Of course, whether this is worse or better than intentionally designing an imbalanced mess is difficult to say.