The Man Keeping the Martial Down

[Mechalich]

Very few D&D settings actually don't fall apart - Generic Fantasy Land is kinda-medieval despite all the things in the setting that SHOULD have completely upended the social order, Because Tolkien.
Dark Sun doesn't fall apart now, because it DID fall apart long ago, as all the Big Magic and such completely ruined the world.

Generic Fantasy Land is kinda-medieval because people world-building from an extant baseline is possible and world building a completely fantastical reality wherein people can train really hard and turn into One Punch Man produces a gag comedy, not adventure stories.

The thing is, most setting design is for single-author narrative projects not collaborative multi-party games, but when switching to the game structure there's a failure to adjust setting design accordingly to the needs of the new scenario.

The average fantasy narrative setting breaks down pretty easily. Many of them break really hard, but they are able to cover themselves through various bits of sleight of hand and by bringing the curtain down before the full implications sink in. Take Wuxia. Wuxia settings are inherently ridiculous, because they involve single individuals with the power to slaughter hundreds or even thousands and to take complete control of the political system by eliminating any and all leadership figures they don't like on a whim. The movie Hero, in a rare case of acknowledging the reality of the setup, calls this out explicitly when Broken Sword storms the palace and the thousands of imperial guards are helpless to protect the king. That's okay within the context of the movie because there's a big debate about ethics and power at the center and everything else is just window dressing. However, if you let that happen in a game setting some player is just going to go murder the Emperor, burn down the palace, and laugh as everything descends into chaos just because they can. And by the way, we have complete evidence that this happens from video games, every time a video game allows players to do something horrible that derails the narrative a significant fraction of players jump at doing it, which is why story-critical NPCs require arbitrary invincibility.

One of the key points of the non-fantastical Fighting Man is that he cannot break the setting. He can't walk into a random town and murder everyone, and for many players and GMs that's a feature, not a bug.

Now, it doesn't have to work that way. It's perfectly okay to play fantasy superheroes and let the party break things and rampage with all the crazy power they want. It has implications for the kind of game you run and the kind of stories that game can tell, but it's perfectly okay to enact a low-immersion escapist power fantasy in your games. Nothing wrong with doing that.

But if you want the setting to work and to actually resemble a setting that the players understand, then you need to assert that boundaries present in actual people on earth (with some fudging) still matter because even if the PCs and major antagonists all surpass those limits the ordinary populace is still bound by them.

[Arbane]

Generic Fantasy Land is kinda-medieval because people world-building from an extant baseline is possible and world building a completely fantastical reality wherein people can train really hard and turn into One Punch Man produces a gag comedy, not adventure stories.

/stares at you in spellcaster

Take Wuxia. Wuxia settings are inherently ridiculous, because they involve single individuals with the power to slaughter hundreds or even thousands and to take complete control of the political system by eliminating any and all leadership figures they don't like on a whim.

All the ones who don't have adequate kung-fu and the Mandate of Heaven, that is.

[Florian]

Don't conflate anything D&D (the system, any version) has ever done with "sim" or "modelling RL physics".

It´s more a matter of the underlying thought processes than the actual execution. We have the part that things are supposed to work as we expect them to do, often by also trying to model physics, then we have the part that are explicitly outside of that and ignore the first part, which is magic. D&D just stands out because of the extremely sharp divide between those two parts, with everything that is not possible in RL automatically being either a spell or a magic item.

[Cluedrew]

The average fantasy narrative setting breaks down pretty easily. Many of them break really hard, but they are able to cover themselves through various bits of sleight of hand and by bringing the curtain down before the full implications sink in.

I mean you can build them so they don't, you just have put a bit more thought into it. Perhaps a lot more thought than many. So for raw power range, the simplest way to solve it in my experience is to pack all the intermediate levels. Many settings skip levels of power so that the second tier is so far below the highest that it doesn't matter.

On the other hand if there are enough level 1s who can take on all the level 2s and enough 2s for the 3s... then there is no group that "no one can touch" even if the level 1s cannot do anything. Plus it forces the population of the mid-levels up so there is enough sane ones to act as a stabilising force. Throw in resource dependencies from high to low (food, ammo, mana, whatever) and you get... a plausible* society that includes city destroying levels of power. I mean they aren't actually city destroying threats any more because there are people just a step or two below them defending that city.

Also I was bouncing around ideas to help address the system issues I mentioned (I don't know if anyone remembers post #1 at this point). I got one for turns. Besides just scaling numbers of actions you could give faster characters more prepared actions. Say** each prepared action has a defined "If X than I Y" for a kind of limited X and Y. Casters might be slower and so get one. A normal warrior might get two, an a faster one three or four. A lightning fast warrior might abandon the whole thing and basically get to insert their turn whenever they want.

There are deeper issues, but that is my 5 minute idea.

* I've never seen one unless we include bombs (traditional to nuclear) and the like.
** Assuming we don't dump formal turns all together and keep that tactical element.

[Kyutaru]

To look at the problem, I'd welcome you to examine card games.

MARTIAL CARDS VS MAGIC CARDS

Similar to Hearthstone or Magic, there are many ordinary seeming cards in your typical TCG. Fireballs that deal flat damage from afar, creatures with attack and defense and nothing else, big dudes with Trample or other combat tricks like First Strike, and none of these are bad at the game. In fact, the usual way to play card games is by splitting your deck focus between useful creatures that have strong efficient stat power (martial cards) and supporting them with removal or buff effects (magic cards). Generally you do this because they cannot replace each other in any but the most specialized of decks.

Take a simple martial card, the 2/2 first strike lion. This creature will swing before others in combat without retaliation, similar to gaining the initiative and then sneak attacking during the surprise round. A magic card equivalent would be the 1/1 direct damage sorcerer. This creature can simply be expended to target and damage anyone on the battlefield. They both have similar effects, dealing damage that can't be responded to, and while the martial has more potential in attack and defense, the magician can hurt things that are in the back lines or even the enemy player itself. The magician has more versatility in exchange for raw power.

Personally, I feel this supports what 5e has already, with martials being significantly more damaging, especially on crits. However they have to account for accuracy while the magician usually doesn't. This mileage varies according to enemy type and seems to make the magical approach more reliable. However, we're discounting the other types of effects you will find in both card games and D&D.

THREAT LEVEL NOT EQUAL

Take for instance buffs and removals. When you cast a spell that gives +1/+1 to a creature's stats, who are you going to cast it on? The 2/2 first strike lion would synergize greatly with the added offense while being a scary 3/3 threat that is harder to remove. It's certainly a better choice for your buff spell than the sorcerer unless you want to make the sorcerer a better blocker or survive incoming damage. Such circumstances may arise but traditionally you're better off buffing the lion. Similarly, using a removal spell to eliminate one of these threats from the field favors the martial cards again. A 2/2 first strike lion with synergistic buff potential is likely a more dangerous threat than the weakling despite his damaging ability. Perhaps not, sometimes it's better to remove the sorcerer as he's known as a pinger (deals 1 dmg to things) and can prove quite annoying in combat, effectively finishing off wounded enemies the lion can't first strike completely alone. But you can also kill off the sorcerer significantly easier than you could the lion, perhaps with a sorcerer of your own (the lion would survive a sorcerer's attack). Generally speaking, either can pose a threat to you but the lion is noticeably more difficult to remove later in the game and will often be the preferred target for removal.

Looking at 5e, this holds over yet again. Buffs multiply the effectiveness of martial characters much more than they do the casters. Cast Haste on your wizard and he'll become a mean, lean, staffing machine! Look at those low attack rolls and that 1d6-1 dmg go! Meanwhile the fighter is sitting there rolling 25 dmg strikes 90% of the time. Cast Haste on him instead. And Enlarge. And Heroism. And Blur. And pretty much any other buff that isn't for Self only. Martials generally have extremely efficient combat stats and will do far better with those buffs than your mage will. Most mages only buff their own defense because they're just that weak and fragile without them. Meanwhile, if you are using debuffs or control magic, what's a bigger threat? That wizard who can cast a maximum of one spell per turn as long as he's not surrounded by bad guys or being harassed by an archer or counter wizard? Nah, people generally try to control the beasts and warriors rushing headlong at them into melee. Thank god they tend to be really easy to do that to since their saving throws are low against those sorts of effects.

ARTIFACT AND ENCHANTMENT POWER

Card games also tend to have two other types of cards: usable items that you summon to the field and global enchantments that affect everyone on it. These come in both martial and magical varieties so I won't compare them here. This is the one area where magical cards tend to become overpowered since they can link up effects in a daisy chain of cause and effect that renders the game over or unwinnable for your opponent. Sort of like a wizard who has succeeded in casting multiple spells to make himself virtually unkillable.

Yet D&D has its own versions of such cards that don't quite have the same result. Equipment supplants artifacts and tends to heavily favor martial characters given its stat buffing nature. All kinds of weapons and armor that serve no purpose to a wizard will benefit a fighter tremendously. With enough stacking, the fighter can even surpass the wizard in reliability and danger level, even accounting for the wizard's ability to hit many enemies at once. The wizard can only stack so much with items as they tend to not have synergistic effects but are more fire-and-forget one-off powers (at least the sort wizards use, barring protection items). Martials clearly win the equipment arms race with players savoring loot more than they do that new spell scroll they just found. Passive effects beat consumables, and martial vs magic is all about stacking those passive combat enhancers versus using spells as ammunition.

With global effects, such as weather, mass spells, and terrain, it seems to be a caster advantage given how disadvantaged martials get when their ability to perform is hindered but in truth it's the opposite. Casters are often just as impacted by the same global threats, even being at greater risk of them due to lower health and the ability to have their spells interrupted. Even Line of Sight can be an issue in the wrong sort of terrain, favoring characters that prefer to move towards their targets versus the ones that rely on sight. Wizards do get an edge in that they can negate disadvantaged situations with spells like Fly, Control Weather, or Dimension Door. But similar spells work on martial types as well and, as mentioned above, focusing on buffing them tends to work out better. Teleport the fighter to the enemy instead of using it to reposition your wizard.

CONCLUSION

Overall I think there's a good, healthy balance between the martial and magical character potentials. The martials benefit greatly from the tools of the caster and the caster benefits greatly from the martial character's presence as both a buff target and a potential guardian. But there's one caveat -- martials depend on casters for buffs, removal, enchants, problem-solving spells, counters, divination, etc but casters can do perfectly alright without the guys who bring nothing to the team but warm bodies and damage. Some martials are a bit better in this area, offering party buffs and other help, but generally speaking the wizard can Tenser's Transformation into a warrior when needed or hurl Fireballs instead of javelins. They can use all their buffs on themselves instead and deal their own damn damage. Very rarely do DMs structure an encounter where a juggernaut is required for the caster to stand a hope of surviving the turn. Smart casters usually have plenty of ways to work around such obstacles.

[Florian]

IAlso I was bouncing around ideas to help address the system issues I mentioned (I don't know if anyone remembers post #1 at this point). I got one for turns. Besides just scaling numbers of actions you could give faster characters more prepared actions.

Take a look at how Splittermond handles this (if you can read german). It uses a so-called "Tick System" instead of standard turn-based, so tracking the time of individual actions and when they are fully executed. One of the better parts of the system is that reactions and interrupts play a very important role, especially when compared to something like AoOs from D&D.

As for your other point, I get the impression that you´re thinking too much in D&D terms. For example, take a look at Shadow of the Demon Lord. Here, a character progresses through three very distinct phases while advancing along the levels:
- Novice Paths: The basic four fantasy classes (Fighter, Cleric, Thief, Wizard).
- Expert Paths: A huge slew of more specialized classes, from Druid, to Sorcerer, to Executioner, Knight, Paladin....
- Master Paths: One specialist class for each type of magic.

Note that advancement in SotDL does not directly correlate with power. By entering into a new path, you add more options to the character, which have to be build up in power by progressing along that path, before you switch again for more options. So a Fighter > Paladin > Theurgist might have more options and a vastly deeper understanding of magic, but didn't outpace the lowly Fighter all that much.

You can find similar effects in point-based games like L5R 4th and the aforementioned Splittermond, which use thresholds for character development. As in, you need to have spent a certain amount of XP to "unlock" the next higher set of abilities or raise the cap on skills and attributes.

[Quertus]

Related to the OP - I think that the system can impair certain concepts (like, say, exorbitant skill costs in certain point buy systems makes the 7 degrees / "skill monkey" style character concept all but useless). But I don't think that the conditions in the OP inherently necessitate a martial / caster divide (as my many muggle examples hint at that stance).

So you don't see how those things you list would be a different experience within playing an RPG than just casting Knock and bypassing the situation entirely -- and all represent "character overcoming an obstacle through various means" elements similar to picking the lock... while the Knock spell just negates the obstacle entirely?

Um, nope, I don't.

Let's say you're using some lockpick minigame that I hate. I choose to bypass that minigame by using "man on the inside" vs I choose to bypass that minigame by using "Knock"? It's the same from where I'm sitting.

Why would you view them as different?

-----

To put it another way, the Babylon 5 CCG had you to use different stats for various purposes, but there was a card (the name eludes me) that let you use an arbitrary stat instead. Not entirely unlike how Doran the Siege Tower from MtG lets (and forces) creatures to deal damage based on their Toughness rather than their Power.

Point is, reframing the challenge is a minigame I personally enjoy. Being able to magically open locks, Teleport past doors, corrode locks, make electronic devices take random actions (like randomly lock/unlock, in the case of an electronic door), etc, are all ways of reframing "pick the lock" into a different thing. Just like "kick down the door", "search for a hidden key", "look for another entrance", etc, similarly reframe the challenge.

Invisibility acting as total stealth doesn't fit the name, much less the fiction. An invisible person in a tin can makes just as much noise as a visible one--more, in fact if they're not dextrous and not being careful. There can be other spells that aid in stealth. 5e has pass without trace which gives a group of people a +10 bonus to Dexterity (Stealth) checks for an hour but doesn't grant invisibility (so you still need cover to hide and can't walk out in the open). With the drastically reduced DCs, that's usually enough unless someone dumped DEX hard and is wearing the heaviest of armors. Not much use in combat, which is fine.

I don't like hard counters. To anything. If you don't want to deal with locks, have a rogue who's just that good that he's not going to fail. In 5e, the standard lock is DC 15. A level 11 rogue can't fail that (minimum roll is 10 due to reliable talent, automatic proficiency gives +4, a rogue has at least a +1 DEX mod), and can't even fail a DC 19 check, assuming a maxed ability score. So for a high-level party with a rogue, I'm not even going to make anyone roll for a door that's not arcanely locked (DC 25). And unless there are roaming patrols or traps (or time is a critical issue), I'm not going to make anyone explicitly roll for unlocking a door or chest. Because that's boring when they can repeat things.

That said, I have yet to see a caster actually learn, much less prepare knock.

I strongly dislike the idea of having "must be this tall to ride" signs on challenges--minimum "gear requirements" or "must have immunities" for encounters. I hate gear treadmills or "mandatory" gear requirements. I want most of a person's power to come from their innate abilities (class features, racial traits, spells known), and find things like "bonus feats, the class" (3e fighters), "skill list, the class" (some peoples' idea of rogues), or "big spell list, the class" (3e wizards) to be bad design. Give the classes actual features, and don't let spells (or other abilities) duplicate them without substantial cost (opportunity cost at a minimum, actual cost preferred). When comparing spells (or feats for that matter) to class features, the spell/feat should be an inferior substitute, not a replacement. It's something you get because you don't have a Rogue/Barbarian/Bard/etc, at a meaningful cost. Versatility at the cost of power.

The common perception is that "magic" (ie spell-casters) get versatility and power. Their spells can do anything that "makes sense" and always work or can do things that are impossible. On the flip side, "martials" are held to a worse-than-real-life standard. That double standard needs to die. Either everyone is fantastic and can do larger-than-life things (with appropriate limits) or no one is (or can). Will that mean cutting down the power of spell-casters? Sure. And that's a good thing IMO for the game. Make opportunity costs real. A wizard should have to choose what they can do, just like anyone else. No more "just give me a day and I can do anything!" standards.

Wow. Let's take it from the top.

We do not disagree on invisibility. However, sometimes, after you sent the Rogue in invisible, he's an idiot (OK, that one is probably a given), trips some alarm, and the guards come out and search the grounds. At that point, turning the tin cans invisible (and asking them to hold still) can sometimes prevent a TPK, or worse, getting expelled.

Hard counters are a matter of taste. I personally do like them. Among other things, they make it harder for the GM to railroad.

Knock is pretty suboptimal. Which is why I suspect Quertus, my signature academia mage, for whom this account is named, probably knows it. I don't know that he's ever cast it, though.

This tall to ride… if the adventure is on another plane, you have to have some way to get there, no? I'm not sure how you can have that adventure without being "this tall". Unless there's neon signs pointing to the nearest planar gate or something, someone has to have the power or knowledge to get you there. Of course, I advocate being able to fall all the way back to "an NPC can get you to the other plane" if the PCs are, in fact, not tall enough to ride by themselves (or just letting the plot "fail" / be one that the PCs cannot interact with).

I agree that the specialist should generally be the goto guy. We even agree on who that is re: stealth & invisibility. We may disagree between The Wren & Hermione as to who is the "specialist" in opening locks, however, because neither answer is inherently "wrong". Which means that the system making that decision invalidates certain character concepts.

I also strongly agree that it's good to give classes (lesser) options to fill various niches, to (among other things) prevent necessitating cookie-cutter parties.

Related to the OP - I think that, if each player got to pick one area for their character to "shine", that the system could make that bad. Take ShadowRun for example. The Decker gets to shine in the net, the Mage gets to shine in Astral space, and nobody else can even participate. But the solo? He shines in combat… but everyone else gets to participate in his minigame. Happily, this is done right, IMO, and just makes him look cooler by comparison. But a bad system could easily have everyone's "shine" feel different, making some unsatisfying, either in how little they shine compared to others in their field, how quick or unimpressive their shine minigame is, or even how easily obviated their shine minigame is (see my various ways to not pick a lock IRL).

"Give me a day, and I can do anything" - isn't that better than "give me a day, and I can still do nothing"? Isn't being able to participate in the session a good thing?

[Florian]

Couldn't we make a "Muggle" (class, if 3e) that gets numerous SoS/SoD (or even NSJS) on-hit rider effects, "quick hands" reaction abilities / extra actions, "bardic knowledge"+ style knowledge of ways to do stuff (like where planar gates are located, completely mundane words that certain magical creatures will hear & respond to, etc), CPR to resurrect fallen allies, exercises / stretches to remove stat damage, therapy to remove sanity loss, evasion that extends to your mount (which gets massive bonuses because you know how to take care of it, let alone how to ride it), diplomacy, Willow level combat bluff, "action hero" ignoring wounds / "self-healing", etc? At what level (of ability, or actual 3e level) would a Wizard still care about having another Wizard, but no longer care about having a good Muggle?

You are thinking too much in D&D terms and design.

Quite often, there is a hard wall between the mundane and magic. Either you have magic, or you don't. Magic is the free pass to do stuff that is outside or above the mundane. In games like D&D or that are inspired by D&D, this often takes the form of spells.

Now consider this: If you do your initial world building and rules representing the world right, you have the choice how much of the "magic" to directly integrate into the physics and how they interact. For example, if we consider the function and ability to draw "magic circles", create functioning wards/seals/signs, create golems, become invincible to bathing in dragon blood or to perform a "summoning ritual" as true, then there's no pressing need to give "muggles" anything, but we have to rethink how to access all that stuff and what Wizards now are.

I tend to mention Splittermond a lot and I forgot to answer one of your recent queries, it´s time to remedy that. IMHO, the strength of that system is that it manages a smooth integration and interaction of mundane and magic. Both have clearly defined bottoms and ceilings, but the strength of the system lies in allowing a synthesis of both to go up and beyond those. For example, your archetypical Knight benefits from pumping XP in armor and shield skills and talents, but will only reach highest efficiency by supplementing that with protection magic skills and talents, but without losing the "look & feel" of a "muggle". In the same way, your archetypical "Combat Wizard" will supplement his Protection magic by investing into armor/shield stuff mentioned above, without losing their flavor.

"Give me a day, and I can do anything" - isn't that better than "give me a day, and I can still do nothing"? Isn't being able to participate in the session a good thing?

Hm... let me think....

Nah, total failure at more than one level.

Ok, let me use the Dark Heresy family of games as an example here. The basic assumption here is, if you have a 50% chance to succeed at a task, you succeed, no dice needed. So most characters tend to be proficient and competent with stuff that is either common, routine or very easy. What that exactly means shifts up with XP investment into skills and talents, a specialist will still not have to roll, but have a higher chance at success at something that is outside of routine/easy, as a character that will have to rely on luck at one point or another.

D&D is pretty much borked in that regard, as it cannot handle that in a more fluid way but rather tends to use absolutes. Once you cannot simply talk to someone or tell a white lie without having to resort to Diplomacy and Bluff, it breaks down. In this case, it is quite fair to say that if a Fighter can't relocate all skill points and feats after a good night sleep, giving the ability to do so to another class for free is a bit.... well...

[Mechalich]

On the other hand if there are enough level 1s who can take on all the level 2s and enough 2s for the 3s... then there is no group that "no one can touch" even if the level 1s cannot do anything. Plus it forces the population of the mid-levels up so there is enough sane ones to act as a stabilising force. Throw in resource dependencies from high to low (food, ammo, mana, whatever) and you get... a plausible* society that includes city destroying levels of power. I mean they aren't actually city destroying threats any more because there are people just a step or two below them defending that city.

In practice, I don't think this really works. Real life social systems will never acquire the sort of mandated pyramidal stability to make this sort of thing work, especially when in many cases the top few tiers will be only a handful of people and they are far more likely to ally into an overpowering oligarchy that can dominate those below them utterly and reduce the bottom rungs to miserable slavery instead, or the first person to the height of the hierarchy will systematically hollow out the tiers immediately below them and then ruler as a tyrant over the masses afterwards. I mean, it sounds like a useful way to approach design, but I just don't know of a case where it works.

Quite often, there is a hard wall between the mundane and magic. Either you have magic, or you don't. Magic is the free pass to do stuff that is outside or above the mundane.

Also, it's usually the case that only a very small percentage of the people in any given setting will have magic or any kind. There are settings were everybody has magic - Codex Alera is one - but those tend to have massive verisimilitude problems - Codex Alera definitely does - and are often very weird besides. Even settings where it is assumed that all PCs will have magic need to deal with the issue that the bulk of the NPC population doesn't have magic.

Now, it's perfectly possible to say that the masses just aren't special and will never be more than minions and mooks compared to the magic using elite unless in great numbers (if then) and the story is about the magical people. That's how essentially all WoD games were built and while there are some tricky problems with that approach it's certainly a doable option. Many modern epic fantasy series are built this way too. In the Wheel of Time all of the major characters have magic of some kind by the end (Mat, Perrin, and Rand all have different forms of magic, but they've all got some), as do all the major characters in the Stormlight Archive. If your magic-users are sufficiently rare and their magic is not overwhelmingly powerful, this doesn't even necessarily present any huge world-building problems. For instance at the beginning of the Wheel of Time all of the magic users live in one big tower way far off and project a limited amount of influence over the rest of the world allowing it to resemble a standard pseudo-medieval setup without too much trouble, it's only when their numbers, power, and capabilities sharply increase that things start to fall to pieces (and to the credit of the authors it is implied that the world that comes after the epic conclusion changes into one that looks very different rather quickly).

The real trouble comes when you want the non-magic users to compete head to head and one to one with the magic users. As Max_Killjoy has noted repeatedly this means you either impose a strict cap on the kinds of things magic can do (or impose a hugely crippling cost on its use, like in those works were a mage burns through their own life force to cast spells) or you have to change the baseline of what ordinary people can do, which is functionally the same as turning your setting into one where everyone has magic.

That leaves basically three options as I see it:
1. Low-powered or otherwise limited magic that can't provide an insurmountable edge compared to the non-magical approach.
2. Magic for everyone in the whole setting.
3. Superheroes, with all the consequences thereof.

The inherent problem that D&D, specifically has, it that its trapped between two competing intents. There's some people who very much want it to be #1 (and R.A. Salvatore is one of them) and there's others who want it to be #3 (and Ed Greenwood is in this camp) who are twisting themselves into knots trying to play in the same sandbox in order to maximize their respective profits.

[Florian]

@Mechalich:

I tend to disagree a bit. For one thing, the fiction you cite as an example seems to suffer a bit from what I tend to call the "Shonen Syndrome": Meet barrier > Take out Sladgehammer > Fail at breaking thru barrier > Go training a bit > Get Bigger Sledgehammer > Break Barrier > Rinse and repeat. That's the reason why certain kinds of fiction make very bad example points when we're talking about a TTRPG.

Quite a lot of the game systems I use tend to follow a very different kind of internal logic, tho. They grant magic the ability to ignore the mundane rules and even go deep into the impossible, but differentiate between the knowledge of how it can be done and having the means/power to actually pull it off or sustain it.

As a simple example, in DSA/Dark Eye, a caster can learn any spell right from the start. The system uses various kinds of spell points and (re)gain mechanics, with the cost not being tied to the spell but to the desired effect, as in, 1 SP per point of damage dealed/healed, the costs of a Cure Poison/Disease being dependent on the particular poison/disease and so on. Magic still has no upper limit and is quite fantastic, but the ability to really pull the high power stuff off is very rare. The Cleric equivalent are the Blessed, who have to build up Karmic Points with the deity granting them miracles. You have to be an effing saint to build up a point balance to spent on an effect that can easily rival anything D&D or even AM can offer, but then you have to start gaining those points again....

I tend to mention Splittermond quite often, because that uses an interesting variant of it. Mechanically, you still have your spell points, but its your choice whether to "use" or "lock" them. In this context, "lock" means to activate a permanent effect whose cost is reduced from your spell points total until you end it, thereby reducing your potential pool size, while "use" will generate an instant effect and you have to wait until your pool refreshes again. The key difference between "mundane" and "magic" characters (and the spectrum in between) is based on the weighting of "locked" vs. open to "use" spell point management.

Edit: To clarify that a bit, yes, in a sense, that means that everyone uses magic. The basic setup is geared towards supporting both, the "mundane" and the "magical" feeling and the accompanying verisimilitude that goes with it. "Locked" points enhance what is already there, while "use" points give you momentarily tremendous power.

[Quertus]

You are thinking too much in D&D terms and design.

No, that misses the point.

The claim of the OP is that something curiously like a subset of 3e rules creates the martial / caster divide. I am simply demonstrating with the most 3e-like system I can think of (which, curiously, is 3e) how so much of that divide is *not* inherent to the underlying system.

Quite often, there is a hard wall between the mundane and magic. Either you have magic, or you don't. Magic is the free pass to do stuff that is outside or above the mundane. In games like D&D or that are inspired by D&D, this often takes the form of spells.

Now consider this: If you do your initial world building and rules representing the world right, you have the choice how much of the "magic" to directly integrate into the physics and how they interact. For example, if we consider the function and ability to draw "magic circles", create functioning wards/seals/signs, create golems, become invincible to bathing in dragon blood or to perform a "summoning ritual" as true, then there's no pressing need to give "muggles" anything, but we have to rethink how to access all that stuff and what Wizards now are.

I'm not sure what any of that has to do with HP, turn-based combat, or exception-based abilities.

I tend to mention Splittermond a lot and I forgot to answer one of your recent queries, it´s time to remedy that. IMHO, the strength of that system is that it manages a smooth integration and interaction of mundane and magic. Both have clearly defined bottoms and ceilings, but the strength of the system lies in allowing a synthesis of both to go up and beyond those. For example, your archetypical Knight benefits from pumping XP in armor and shield skills and talents, but will only reach highest efficiency by supplementing that with protection magic skills and talents, but without losing the "look & feel" of a "muggle". In the same way, your archetypical "Combat Wizard" will supplement his Protection magic by investing into armor/shield stuff mentioned above, without losing their flavor.

Flavor? Sure. But wouldn't be acceptable to the die-hard muggle lovers.

Hm... let me think....

Nah, total failure at more than one level.

The complaint I was responding to is, IMO, usually best worded as, "the Wizard actually gets to play the game, and the Fighter doesn't, so we should make it to where nobody gets to play the game." My response continues to be, "wouldn't it be better if, instead, we make it to where *everyone* can play the game?".

Ok, let me use the Dark Heresy family of games as an example here. The basic assumption here is, if you have a 50% chance to succeed at a task, you succeed, no dice needed. So most characters tend to be proficient and competent with stuff that is either common, routine or very easy. What that exactly means shifts up with XP investment into skills and talents, a specialist will still not have to roll, but have a higher chance at success at something that is outside of routine/easy, as a character that will have to rely on luck at one point or another.

D&D is pretty much borked in that regard, as it cannot handle that in a more fluid way but rather tends to use absolutes. Once you cannot simply talk to someone or tell a white lie without having to resort to Diplomacy and Bluff, it breaks down. In this case, it is quite fair to say that if a Fighter can't relocate all skill points and feats after a good night sleep, giving the ability to do so to another class for free is a bit.... well...

Sorry, how does Dark Heresy get around rolling Diplomacy vs Bluff for white lies? Because my experience with War Hammer Fantasy definitely includes rolling dice "like a failure" for just that scenario, and I suspect Dark Heresy does, too.

[Mechalich]

I tend to disagree a bit. For one thing, the fiction you cite as an example seems to suffer a bit from what I tend to call the "Shonen Syndrome": Meet barrier > Take out Sladgehammer > Fail at breaking thru barrier > Go training a bit > Get Bigger Sledgehammer > Break Barrier > Rinse and repeat. That's the reason why certain kinds of fiction make very bad example points when we're talking about a TTRPG.

Okay, I've been at pains to cite series that are as popular as a I know. Wheel of Time is the best-selling, most popular high fantasy epic of the past several decades in the English-language. It just is. Stormlight Archive, while unfinished, is a massively well known project. Codex Alera is the high fantasy by Dresden Files author Jim Butcher. If you can't make a jump from what's popular in a genre to functional games, then there's a problem. Most modern, English-speaking high-magic fantasy (and most East Asian fantasy too in my experience) embraces the 'fantasy superheroes' approach and gives all major characters supernatural abilities of some kind. It's somewhat ironic in that Tolkien more or less invented the modern incarnation of the genre with high-fantasy low-magic world, but that combination is now (and I suspect the massive influence of D&D contributed to this) really quite rare.

Now there does seem to be a current trend to produce works of sword & sorcery where the characters are primarily 'mundanes' struggling in a universe where rare and elusive magic users lord over the populace and the highly elite mundane heroes have to somehow outwit and overcome them which draws on the heritage of Howard and Lieber and others, but in such setups the magic available to the villains isn't part of the PC tool box. D&D, as I mentioned, has stories like this. Drizzt, much like Conan, fights a lot of wizards (and priestesses), and his 'party' is comprised more or less entirely of mundanes and he has a tendency to break up with wizard allies after a short time. And that works, because you can have magic work very differently in a system where it is not intended to be a PC tool. The problem that D&D has it that it takes the magical abilities possessed by the villains that it is intended to take absolutely everything the PCs have to overcome and turns around and hands them to the PCs. This isn't unique to D&D - there are superhero systems that, drawing a little too closely from comics, allow certain OP powers that were never meant to belong to the good guys into everyday builds.

Edit: To clarify that a bit, yes, in a sense, that means that everyone uses magic. The basic setup is geared towards supporting both, the "mundane" and the "magical" feeling and the accompanying verisimilitude that goes with it. "Locked" points enhance what is already there, while "use" points give you momentarily tremendous power.

That's seems to me like it's straight up everyone uses magic, it's just that the fluff is pretending otherwise. And that's fine, but mechanically everyone is still using magic, they're just doing so in different ways, some of which may be more subtle than others. There's plenty of this in lots of games. Humanoid giants are in lots of games after all, and they're often completely 'non-magical' even though you have to play really fast and loose with physics and biomechanics to allow them to exist.

[Florian]

@Quertus:

Bottom to top, no quotes.

Either you, or the people introducing you to Warhammer missed a crucial point. Assuming ordinary circumstance, a WH/DH character is very competent. The whole system is geared towards ignoring those and only handling extraordinary circumstances.

Things get screwed when you remove ordinary circumstances and only deal with extraordinary circumstances instead, tho.

As for D&D, the problem only starts when you don't allow characters to be competent, but always call for a contested roll. Meaning you can't have a conversation without rolling for Diplomacy or you can't tell a white lie without rolling for Bluff, two things that are entirely uncalled for. That is, because they disregard any assumption of basic competency. Thus the complaint: When you have to prove anything you want to try on a mechanical basis, then a class that can get "hard counters" after a long rest rules supreme, which is pretty wrong.

Being a die-hard "muggle lover" myself, that is all that matters.

It shows that some concepts don't really work when your overall goal is creating parity between the different classes. Take a look at 4E: The design here was very clear about having more or less standardized effects in concert with standardized rounds. You want non-standardized effects, get rid of the round structure. Instead, ask the question what skill it takes and what time to draw a Magic Circle against Evil when it is not a spell.

And that leads us full circle back to D&D.... which screwed up with the M/C thingie in such a brutal way, don't even try to apologize here.

[Talakeal]

The complaint I was responding to is, IMO, usually best worded as, "the Wizard actually gets to play the game, and the Fighter doesn't, so we should make it to where nobody gets to play the game." My response continues to be, "wouldn't it be better if, instead, we make it to where *everyone* can play the game?"

Care to elaborate on what exactly "the game" is and who wants more people unable to play it?

In my experiance people dont like how martials are arbitrarily prohibited from participating in certain content, for example overlymrestrictive cross class skills, everything and its mother being immune to sneak attack and combat manuevers, trap finding, uber charge builds being pretty binary, etc.

Likewise peoples problems with casters is that they dont actually use the systems in the book, teynjust bypass them, for example who needs to worry about all the detailed economic rules when they can just conjure infinite walls of salt?

Are you talking about exceptional stuff, like adventures on other planes or the bottom of the sea? Because in my experiance one caster can cover the entire party, and lacking a caster you can just buy a potion / wand / scroll and then be good to go.

[Satinavian]

That's seems to me like it's straight up everyone uses magic, it's just that the fluff is pretending otherwise. And that's fine, but mechanically everyone is still using magic, they're just doing so in different ways, some of which may be more subtle than others. There's plenty of this in lots of games. Humanoid giants are in lots of games after all, and they're often completely 'non-magical' even though you have to play really fast and loose with physics and biomechanics to allow them to exist.

Splittermond has no classes. It is point buy with slowly raising caps. There are magical abilities and nonmagical abilities and they roughly are equally powerful. If you want to build a muggle, you buy nonmagical stuff, if you want to build a wizard, you buy magical stuff.

Now there are abilities that you can buy that would help with all your magic without giving out any powers directly. In theory those would make wizard characters and muggle characters more attractive. The first one get most out of them, the other ones can forgoe them completely and syve the points where the hybrids would be compelled to invest in some of them but not getting as much out of it.

But overall this incentive seems to be too weak. Splittermond is mostly dominated by hybrid characters. The real wizard and the pure muggle are slightly suboptimal in that system. Not least because there are often synergies in combining magical and nonmagical tools.

"Give me a day, and I can do anything" - isn't that better than "give me a day, and I can still do nothing"? Isn't being able to participate in the session a good thing?

No.

"Give me a day and I can do anything" means nothing less than "every challenge that is known beforehand or lasts longer than one day becomes utterly trivial and not even worth the time playing through it".

That is indeed one of the many flaws of D&D magic and the reason the wizards in most other systems look closer to D&D sorcerers than to D&D wizards rule wise.

[Florian]

Correct. Still more or less answers the initial OP by proving that "the man" can support mundane and magic on equal footing without favoring one over the other. That hybrids win out is the actual prove of that, as the magic side gains by investing in mundane stuff instead of just getting it via magical means/magic overwriting everything else.

[Max_Killjoy]

Care to elaborate on what exactly "the game" is and who wants more people unable to play it?

In my experiance people dont like how martials are arbitrarily prohibited from participating in certain content, for example overlymrestrictive cross class skills, everything and its mother being immune to sneak attack and combat manuevers, trap finding, uber charge builds being pretty binary, etc.

Likewise peoples problems with casters is that they dont actually use the systems in the book, teynjust bypass them, for example who needs to worry about all the detailed economic rules when they can just conjure infinite walls of salt?

Are you talking about exceptional stuff, like adventures on other planes or the bottom of the sea? Because in my experiance one caster can cover the entire party, and lacking a caster you can just buy a potion / wand / scroll and then be good to go.

This goes back a long way, but if my memory serves "The Game" is effectively 5d wizard chess -- the time-bending, nested-contingency, "but I had a defense ready for that" "but I had a bypass for that defense just in case" "that doesn't work, see page blah blah blah in obscure sourcebook you've never heard of" nonsense that ends up sounding like a cross between the Wesley/Inigo banter and two nerds debating the trivia minutia of their favorite 30-book series.... on a bizarro cocktail of speed, quaaludes, and LSD.

If that's the case, the complaint IS NOT that "fighters don't get the play the game", the complaint is other players constantly trying to make fantasy RPGs "about" 5d wizard chess in the first place.

[Max_Killjoy]

Um, nope, I don't.

Let's say you're using some lockpick minigame that I hate. I choose to bypass that minigame by using "man on the inside" vs I choose to bypass that minigame by using "Knock"? It's the same from where I'm sitting.

Why would you view them as different?

-----

To put it another way, the Babylon 5 CCG had you to use different stats for various purposes, but there was a card (the name eludes me) that let you use an arbitrary stat instead. Not entirely unlike how Doran the Siege Tower from MtG lets (and forces) creatures to deal damage based on their Toughness rather than their Power.

Point is, reframing the challenge is a minigame I personally enjoy. Being able to magically open locks, Teleport past doors, corrode locks, make electronic devices take random actions (like randomly lock/unlock, in the case of an electronic door), etc, are all ways of reframing "pick the lock" into a different thing. Just like "kick down the door", "search for a hidden key", "look for another entrance", etc, similarly reframe the challenge.

There's a door. It's locked. It's an obstacle. It's (hopefully) there because it makes sense "in the fiction".

There's a long list of ways that the character can engage that obstacle, from picking the lock to talking someone into opening the door to kicking it in to finding another way in to whatever.

There's no "re-framing", because the point was never "pick the lock", it was that the character wanted to get into the room and there was something making getting into the room harder, and the character has to come up with a way to get around it.

There is no "minigame".

"Knock" is the magic equivalent of one of those automatic lock picking "guns", or a "I brought a door hacking spike" in a Star Wars game. It just negates the situation, and any thought or effort that any other character might put into working through the situation.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Care to elaborate on what exactly "the game" is and who wants more people unable to play it?

In my experiance people dont like how martials are arbitrarily prohibited from participating in certain content, for example overlymrestrictive cross class skills, everything and its mother being immune to sneak attack and combat manuevers, trap finding, uber charge builds being pretty binary, etc.

Likewise peoples problems with casters is that they dont actually use the systems in the book, teynjust bypass them, for example who needs to worry about all the detailed economic rules when they can just conjure infinite walls of salt?

Are you talking about exceptional stuff, like adventures on other planes or the bottom of the sea? Because in my experiance one caster can cover the entire party, and lacking a caster you can just buy a potion / wand / scroll and then be good to go.

This goes back a long way, but if my memory serves "The Game" is effectively 5d wizard chess -- the time-bending, nested-contingency, "but I had a defense ready for that" "but I had a bypass for that defense just in case" "that doesn't work, see page blah blah blah in obscure sourcebook you've never heard of" nonsense that ends up sounding like a cross between the Wesley/Inigo banter and two nerds debating the trivia minutia of their favorite 30-book series.... on a bizarro cocktail of speed, quaaludes, and LSD.

If that's the case, the complaint IS NOT that "fighters don't get the play the game", the complaint is other players constantly trying to make fantasy RPGs "about" 5d wizard chess in the first place.

Yeah. Quertus's idea of "the game" is (from the game designer's perspective) a mistake. It's an ascended bug in the system that wasn't supposed to be there anyway. So the reason that only some people can play "the game" is that those characters are abusing a bug in the system. And bugs should get patched.

That doesn't mean that that playstyle is bad, just that it's not supposed to be in that particular game at all, let alone the most important part of it. There are other games that cater to it. But trying to shoehorn it into D&D, in particular, makes for bad times and broken systems.

"Knock" is the magic equivalent of one of those automatic lock picking "guns", or a "I brought a door hacking spike" in a Star Wars game. It just negates the situation, and any thought or effort that any other character might put into working through the situation.

I agree with this. Situations that should be (are designed to be) challenging at a particular level of play (abstractly speaking) should be a challenge. No one should have a set of automatic "I win" buttons for them at that point. At a later point, trivializing those particular challenges is fine, and everyone[1] should either have an "I win" button or the DM should simply wave them away because they're pointless. A solo character dealing with a single guard at level 1 should be a challenge. A solo character dealing with a single guard at level 20 should not be a challenge, and probably isn't worth even going into "initiative mode" for. Just narratively ask what the character does and narrate that.

Giving some people "I win" buttons against relevant challenges is just plain bad design. If everyone has them, then they're no longer relevant challenges (by definition). If no one has them, then they're a challenge for everyone. If only 1 person has them, then the challenge isn't relevant as long as that person's along.

[1] where "everyone" means "everyone who wants them", ie equality of access. You can choose to not take those "I win" buttons, but that's a conscious choice with consequences. It's saying "I want this challenge to remain relevant to me."

[CharonsHelper]

In the case of Knock - it could probably be fixed just by making it really loud.

It would be better than letting the barbarian smash it open because it's fast and won't chance breaking what's inside, but it's inferior to someone who invested in lockpicking because that doesn't let everyone around know you're there.

I did the same thing with electronic locks in the system I'm making. Sure, there's a tool to brute force open them (I don't want PCs to be "stuck") but it sets off all of that system's alarms - which is bad.

[Quertus]

Care to elaborate on what exactly "the game" is and who wants more people unable to play it?

In my experiance people dont like how martials are arbitrarily prohibited from participating in certain content, for example overlymrestrictive cross class skills, everything and its mother being immune to sneak attack and combat manuevers, trap finding, uber charge builds being pretty binary, etc.

Likewise peoples problems with casters is that they dont actually use the systems in the book, teynjust bypass them, for example who needs to worry about all the detailed economic rules when they can just conjure infinite walls of salt?

Are you talking about exceptional stuff, like adventures on other planes or the bottom of the sea? Because in my experiance one caster can cover the entire party, and lacking a caster you can just buy a potion / wand / scroll and then be good to go.

No.

"Give me a day and I can do anything" means nothing less than "every challenge that is known beforehand or lasts longer than one day becomes utterly trivial and not even worth the time playing through it".

This goes back a long way, but if my memory serves "The Game" is effectively 5d wizard chess -- the time-bending, nested-contingency, "but I had a defense ready for that" "but I had a bypass for that defense just in case" "that doesn't work, see page blah blah blah in obscure sourcebook you've never heard of" nonsense that ends up sounding like a cross between the Wesley/Inigo banter and two nerds debating the trivia minutia of their favorite 30-book series.... on a bizarro cocktail of speed, quaaludes, and LSD.

If that's the case, the complaint IS NOT that "fighters don't get the play the game", the complaint is other players constantly trying to make fantasy RPGs "about" 5d wizard chess in the first place.

Yeah. Quertus's idea of "the game" is (from the game designer's perspective) a mistake. It's an ascended bug in the system that wasn't supposed to be there anyway. So the reason that only some people can play "the game" is that those characters are abusing a bug in the system. And bugs should get patched.

That doesn't mean that that playstyle is bad, just that it's not supposed to be in that particular game at all, let alone the most important part of it. There are other games that cater to it. But trying to shoehorn it into D&D, in particular, makes for bad times and broken systems.

So, when I say "the game", I am not referring to 5d Wizard chess (although, yes, I happen to like that minigame), but to the RPG (in most cases, that means D&D). Or, rather, to the breadth of minigames that an RPG has to offer. So props to Talakeal for having the right of it (mostly).

You've got a Beholder floating over a pool of lava. You've got an underwater portal to another plane with invisible incorporeal guardians. Your spell jamming vessel just exploded. You want to scout out a trap-filled maze. Your sun will die within 3 years unless you can enter the heart of a dieing star and awaken the trapped sun god. Etc etc etc.

It's actually easier to discuss in the context of ShadowRun, because the answer to balance there was "what's that?" & "nobody can play the game". If there are x characters, playing x minigames, everybody else sits there twiddling their thumbs (x-1)/x of the time.

So, ShadowRun is what the game looks like when nobody can play the game. I am advocating letting everybody play the game.

The Wizard being able to interact with any minigame, given time, is… questionable. Personally, I think that the game is best when every character can interact with almost every minigame, all the time.

Now, you may disagree with me. You may like catching up on your texts while someone else is getting their spotlight time in ShadowRun. You may enjoy not having to participate most of the session. You may prefer more enforced spotlight sharing, or even prefer spotlight sharing through "shine or unable to participate" mechanics.

But me? I prefer systems where everybody gets to participate (even if not equally). Even in ShadowRun, the poster child of "you cannot participate", *everyone* can participate in combat. And this is true of combat in most systems (pretty much anything short of "Thor and the sentient potted plant" territory).

This is why, despite me personally finding RPG combat to be snooze mode compared to war game combat, I love combat in RPGs. It's the one time that it's guaranteed that the whole party can participate. Unless, of course, the Fighter is an idiot, and doesn't have a ranged weapon, or forces the Wizard to play his personal buff bot. Or you're playing 2e (the best RPG of all time) and your foe is immune to your attacks (you don't have a sufficiently magical weapon) and you lack the creativity to participate in other ways. Or you're a typical D&D Wizard who is out of spells.

But, usually, unless you're making things feel really contrived or you have a really specialized party, not everybody will participate in a scouting mission, or in disarming a trap. Not everyone will (and, in my groups, certainly not everyone should!) participate in "talky time". Rarely will everyone participate in strategy (although, IME, there had been a strong correlation between "better group" and "higher participation").

And don't get me started on the epic challenge of the locked door, and how it's so impossible for anyone to ever participate in that minigame.

Clearer what I mean when I say someone cannot play the game now?

[Quertus]

No.

"Give me a day and I can do anything" means nothing less than "every challenge that is known beforehand or lasts longer than one day becomes utterly trivial and not even worth the time playing through it".

That is indeed one of the many flaws of D&D magic and the reason the wizards in most other systems look closer to D&D sorcerers than to D&D wizards rule wise.

There's a door. It's locked. It's an obstacle. It's (hopefully) there because it makes sense "in the fiction".

There's a long list of ways that the character can engage that obstacle, from picking the lock to talking someone into opening the door to kicking it in to finding another way in to whatever.

There's no "re-framing", because the point was never "pick the lock", it was that the character wanted to get into the room and there was something making getting into the room harder, and the character has to come up with a way to get around it.

There is no "minigame".

"Knock" is the magic equivalent of one of those automatic lock picking "guns", or a "I brought a door hacking spike" in a Star Wars game. It just negates the situation, and any thought or effort that any other character might put into working through the situation.

I agree with this. Situations that should be (are designed to be) challenging at a particular level of play (abstractly speaking) should be a challenge. No one should have a set of automatic "I win" buttons for them at that point. At a later point, trivializing those particular challenges is fine, and everyone[1] should either have an "I win" button or the DM should simply wave them away because they're pointless. A solo character dealing with a single guard at level 1 should be a challenge. A solo character dealing with a single guard at level 20 should not be a challenge, and probably isn't worth even going into "initiative mode" for. Just narratively ask what the character does and narrate that.

Giving some people "I win" buttons against relevant challenges is just plain bad design. If everyone has them, then they're no longer relevant challenges (by definition). If no one has them, then they're a challenge for everyone. If only 1 person has them, then the challenge isn't relevant as long as that person's along.

[1] where "everyone" means "everyone who wants them", ie equality of access. You can choose to not take those "I win" buttons, but that's a conscious choice with consequences. It's saying "I want this challenge to remain relevant to me."

I believe that determining what level of challenge something is "supposed to be" is railroading. Just present the scenario, and let the reality of the rules, the characters capabilities, and their choices determine how difficult it is.

Why do I avoid the "pick the lock" minigame IRL? Well, (let's say) because it's illegal. And slow. If I need to get in *right now*, I'll kick down the door. Otherwise, I'll search for a more legal / "less likely to get someone to call the cops on me" (even if it's my property / I have the owner's permission), to avoid the "talk to the cops" minigame. That sounds believable, right?

Now, I can accept that some people might have a problem with minmaxed characters who either cannot participate or singlehandedly solve a problem (see ShadowRun). And I can certainly see the problem with the max-maxed character who can singlehandedly solve every problem.

The funny thing is, afaict, the Wizard is the former. He can only solve the subset of problems that he has a spell prepared for. Memorize Knock? What if there's two locked doors? Or none? There's so many different types of potential problems, real Wizards at real tables don't actually solve everything. What they can do is adapt to different parties, to cover weaknesses.

I continue to view them as the working model, that all other classes should strive to emulate.

Now, they're is some concern about some of their solutions being overly effective. My response is, to put it squarely in 3e parlance, give them d10 HD, full BAB, the ability to cast in armor, and make all their spells at will abilities. Then balance the Fighter up to their level. Then nerf everybody's "win buttons" to taste.

[Man_Over_Game]

I believe that determining what level of challenge something is "supposed to be" is railroading. Just present the scenario, and let the reality of the rules, the characters capabilities, and their choices determine how difficult it is.

Why do I avoid the "pick the lock" minigame IRL? Well, (let's say) because it's illegal. And slow. If I need to get in *right now*, I'll kick down the door. Otherwise, I'll search for a more legal / "less likely to get someone to call the cops on me" (even if it's my property / I have the owner's permission), to avoid the "talk to the cops" minigame. That sounds believable, right?

Now, I can accept that some people might have a problem with minmaxed characters who either cannot participate or singlehandedly solve a problem (see ShadowRun). And I can certainly see the problem with the max-maxed character who can singlehandedly solve every problem.

The funny thing is, afaict, the Wizard is the former. He can only solve the subset of problems that he has a spell prepared for. Memorize Knock? What if there's two locked doors? Or none? There's so many different types of potential problems, real Wizards at real tables don't actually solve everything. What they can do is adapt to different parties, to cover weaknesses.

That's not always how it is, though. A Wizard might have limited resources, but a Wizard who focuses primarily on combat often outperforms a Fighter who has no choice but to focus on combat.

Usually, a Wizard has a mixture of both utility and combat, and performs just as well in combat as the Fighter. But the balance is off, here. The Fighter provides very little to non-combat scenarios, where the Wizard can.

Most of what I've seen is a combat-focused Wizard, being better than a Fighter at combat, and neither being good at utility,
-OR-
A balanced Wizard being just as useful as the Fighter in combat and solving several problems out of combat.

In neither of these scenarios does a Fighter really get to shine against the Wizard's capabilities. The Fighter might shine in a few niche scenarios (at low levels in certain editions of DnD, or when attrition is so bad that the Wizard has ran out of resources), but those scenarios are few and far between.

If something like DnD is broken into 3 pillars of Combat, Exploration, and Social Interaction, the Wizard is competent in all three when the Fighter is only competent in one. Where's the fairness in that?

[Quertus]

That's not always how it is, though. A Wizard might have limited resources, but a Wizard who focuses primarily on combat often outperforms a Fighter who has no choice but to focus on combat.

Usually, a Wizard has a mixture of both utility and combat, and performs just as well in combat as the Fighter. But the balance is off, here. The Fighter provides very little to non-combat scenarios, where the Wizard can.

Most of what I've seen is a combat-focused Wizard, being better than a Fighter at combat, and neither being good at utility,
-OR-
A balanced Wizard being just as useful as the Fighter in combat and solving several problems out of combat.

In neither of these scenarios does a Fighter really get to shine against the Wizard's capabilities. The Fighter might shine in a few niche scenarios (at low levels in certain editions of DnD, or when attrition is so bad that the Wizard has ran out of resources), but those scenarios are few and far between.

If something like DnD is broken into 3 pillars of Combat, Exploration, and Social Interaction, the Wizard is competent in all three when the Fighter is only competent in one. Where's the fairness in that?

Oh, I've never said D&D was balanced or fair. Quertus, my signature academia mage, for whom this account is named, is constantly outshone by the party Fighter & Monk. But, yes, in most groups, you'll see what you've seen.

Balance to the table. That's the golden rule. Follow that, and you won't see that.

Now, would it be nice if the Fighter a) had some built-in "game" outside fighting, or b) had "fighting" "in the bag" the way a ShadowRun Solo Street Samurai does? Well, sure. But even working with what we've got in 3e, the ubercharger can be "more than effective enough" to "rule" most combat.

Anyway, relevant to this thread, as I've said, there is nothing inherent in the design of d20 games (HP, turn-based, what have you) that necessitate a Muggle inferiority complex. The fault is not in their stars, but in themselves, that they are to be Wizards' underlings.

[Florian]

@Quertus:

Let´s go at this from a different design perspective. Basic assumption is that we can clearly identify the core activities that we want to feature in a game system - combat, exploration, social interaction and such.

Now I partially agree with what you wrote about SR. Only partial because the model of "exclusive access" breaks down exactly because of "Combat" being the only core activity that everyone has access to, basically negating the niche protection of the combat specialists, especially since every other character will have the gear to upgrade combat abilities beyond their initial niche.

You might want to contrast that with Leverage, which is also a heist-based game system and goes for total "exclusive access" by only having the "bruiser" participate in combat, no one else.

Other game systems approach the method of siloing abilities for each core activity more in the manner of granting high or low access, depending on the chosen niche for a character. While you can't shine beyond being functional with low access, you are at least not locked out, but you won't infringe on someone with high access.

As a side-note, an interesting point is based on what you can consider to be a fetish amongst D&D players: Distrust of the GM coupled with the empowerment that comes with the knowledge that a character has the granted ability to pull certain things off, like wanting to be able to cast Plane Shift to, well, be able to plane shift.

In a way, I think that D&D 4E actually was on the right track by separating "combat magic" from "ritual magic", as in low access to combat, high access to magic.

What's also open is the question of how much can be generally externalized as a neutral factor and interfaced with having either, high or low access to it. As in, does a setting with a number of portals/rifts really need a Plane Shift spell or is that not rather redundant when knowledge of/access to those things s a given? This would bring us to the basic situation that either a game world has portals, or it doesn't, removing the need to argue about things like said spell.

[Max_Killjoy]

That's not always how it is, though. A Wizard might have limited resources, but a Wizard who focuses primarily on combat often outperforms a Fighter who has no choice but to focus on combat.

Usually, a Wizard has a mixture of both utility and combat, and performs just as well in combat as the Fighter. But the balance is off, here. The Fighter provides very little to non-combat scenarios, where the Wizard can.

Part of that comes from locking Skills and non-combat Proficiencies largely into other classes... the Fighter is set up by the "devs" across multiple editions to intentionally not have a lot of non-combat utility.

[Jakinbandw]

Part of that comes from locking Skills and non-combat Proficiencies largely into other classes... the Fighter is set up by the "devs" across multiple editions to intentionally not have a lot of non-combat utility.

It's one of the nice things in 5e. A fighter can use one of their extra feats to pick up stuff like ritual magic, or a couple cantrips which will tend to have decent out of combat utility. Also people tend to all have roughly the same number of skills with rouges and bards breaking that only a bit.

[Bohandas]

Part of that comes from locking Skills and non-combat Proficiencies largely into other classes... the Fighter is set up by the "devs" across multiple editions to intentionally not have a lot of non-combat utility.

This brings up a tweak to the game that I've been mulling over. What if we made skill modifiers be equal to exactly one half of the relevant ability score, (and then increased all fixed DCs by five). This would remove a lot of unnecessary math and it would also fix the skill system so that characters actually had enough skill points.

[Florian]

This brings up a tweak to the game that I've been mulling over. What if we made skill modifiers be equal to exactly one half of the relevant ability score, (and then increased all fixed DCs by five). This would remove a lot of unnecessary math and it would also fix the skill system so that characters actually had enough skill points.

Why, tho? It´s a lot easier to establish what can be done without a roll in the first place.

[Man_Over_Game]

Part of that comes from locking Skills and non-combat Proficiencies largely into other classes... the Fighter is set up by the "devs" across multiple editions to intentionally not have a lot of non-combat utility.

And that's fine, as long as the campaign is being defined by everyone equally.

Using the three pillars I used as an example before (Combat, Social, Exploration), the Fighter doesn't have to have much emphasis on Exploration or Social, as long as he dominates in Combat.

Let's just say we give the Fighter some rough estimates, where we scale things from 1-10 on how much that class contributes, with 5 being the average character in the team, 1 being very minimal impact from the class features, and 10 effectively carrying the team in that pillar.

• Combat: 6
• Exploration: 1
• Social: 1

Now, let's compare this to an expected, generic Wizard:

• Combat: 5
• Exploration: 5
• Social: 4

(The numbers are not about precision, but about quantifying the concept, making it easier to grasp and read).


Even if the Wizard contributes slightly less in combat than the Fighter, the Wizard still contributes 5x more everywhere else. In order for a Fighter to have as much of a spotlight, he'd need a 12 in combat, effectively hosing every possible combatant put in front of him. The Wizard would have to feel vastly inferior to the Fighter in combat, and that's not usually the case.

Or, put in another way, why is the Fighter allowed to feel inferior in Exploration and Social scenarios, but the Wizard is rarely inferior in combat?

When Fighters are as good at exploring and solving puzzles as Wizards, that's when a Wizard should be allowed to contribute in combat. But that'll never happen.