Forked Thread: I hate game balance! (How elves wrecked the wizard and game balance)

Forked from: I hate game balance!

Let me attempt to tackle the subject of wizards from one angle here.

In 30 years of gaming, I have seen *very few* single classed human wizards played (in any edition, be it OD&D, 1E, 2E, 3.0E, or 3.5E. I can't speak for 4E yet.)
Of those *very few* that I saw played, most were either killed or abandoned as characters before they made 9th level.
Of the *extremely few* I saw that made it beyond 9th level, some of these were the result of an overly easy DM ('My monsters attack the fighters only, and leave the wizard alone' or 'Here is 50,000 experience points, for these orcs and their treasure! and YES, you can go up 3 levels at once!')

Pre-generated characters were an exception to this rule, but then again they were an exception to the You-Must-Survive-To-This-Level rule.
RPGA games were an exception to this rule, since Tournament Conditions existed there (and still do.)

In short, few players were willing to take Gary Gygax's conception, and try to make it work ... for the good reason that it was SO INCREDIBLY HARD to make it work, if the DM did his job properly.

Had it just been that, the Wizard Controversy would never, in my opinion, have come about.

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Enter the elven fighter/wizard.
He gets all the advantages of a fighter.
He gets all the advantages of a wizard.
When he gets elven chain (it was always when, not if) he has just as good an armor class as anyone else.
He has all the special abilities of elves, on top of all the abilities of fighters and wizards.

Why do you think there are so many kinds of elves in D&D? Tolkien? No. The fighter/wizard (and variants?) Yes.
We have:

Grey elves, high elves, wood elves, wild elves, olvenfolk, highfolk, grugach, valley elves ...
Silvanesti, Qualinesti, Kargonesti, Dargonesti, Dimernesti ...
Gold elves, Silver elves (moon elves), Green Elves, Star Elves ...
Athan elves, Spelljammer elves, Birthright elves, AL-QADIM elves, Spiritfolk ...
Snow elves, Ice elves, Sky elves, Shadow elves ...

(ready to scream yet?)

We have drow, half drow, good drow, crinti (nasty ones, those), half-elves (half-elf / half-human, half-elf / half-drow, half-elf / half-elf, quarter-elf / half-elf / one-eighth elf - one quarter elf / one-sixteenth elf - one eighth elf ...)
Now, what did I miss?
I'm sure I've missed out on a lot of kinds of elves.

Well, ok, we have lots of different kinds of elves. Elves are popular. They are popular for a lot of reasons. And one of those reasons is that elves can be fighter/wizards.

Now, Gary Gygax wrote that elves were limited to levels 7 as fighters, and level 9 as wizards (or, levels 9 and 12, with extraordinary stats.)
But these got ignored, or overruled, and effectively there were no level limitations.

The elf got all the fun and advantages of being a fighter at lower level, then became massively powerful as a wizard at high levels (plus the benefits of being a high level fighter.)
And if that wasn't nice enough, elves could be a bunch of other combinations. A common houserule was the famous fighter/wizard/cleric. This class got EVERYTHING, and didn't have to give anything back. You could have it all.
Be an elf. He's an elf, you're an elf, I'm an elf, want to be an elf too?

Enter the drow. They didn't have such level limits to start with. And what limits they had, became very high indeed even in the core rules. That quickly went the way of the dodo.
Now, enter the GOOD drow. And exit any semblance of game balance.
But, but ... good drow are hated by everyone, right? Especially elves! They wouldn't allow a drow in the party! (chuckles ... sure they wouldn't ... we know just how well that went.)

So, now, instead of high level wizards being a once in a blue moon type of thing - as Gary Gygax envisioned - you have high level elven and drow wizards running amok.
This is what produced the glut of high level wizards with all those game breaking spells people talked about. This is where the prejudice against wizards really started.

If *I* am stuck playing a fighter OR a wizard, because he's human, and *you* are playing an elf and you have ALL the advantages of BOTH classes AND the abilities of elves on top of that, AND you advance almost as fast as I do (in 1E and 2E), AND you have no level limits, then of course my human character is going to be jealous. I'm not going to be real happy as a player, either, because the system grants you more opportunity and fun than me ... because I chose a human character.

And so, IN ADDITION, you can level up as a wizard - WITHOUT the hazards a single class wizard must go through because you have the advantages of a fighter also, with good armor class and hit points and attacks and elven goodness - and so you reach high level as a wizard and gain all that power without having to pay any of the price a single classed wizard would have had to pay.
You've gotten around the system. You've beaten the system. You've been handed it all on a golden platter. It's breakfast in bed.

We all did this, I fear. We all loved those elven multiclass characters. Who can say they haven't played a fighter/magic-user? It's really a lot of fun to do so, because you reap all the benefits the game offers (if you can be a fighter/magic-user/cleric, you've really got it all.)

In 3E, the equivalent would be that only elves (and other demihumans) could be gestalt, and basically only ELVES (and drow) could have arcane classes and PrCs as gestalt.
Humans? No gestalt.
But we'll put level limits on the elves to balance things out. Oh, but ... that's not fair to the elves ... we'll raise the level limits. But ... that's not fair either ... we'll just eliminate the level limits.

So, in 3E/3.5E, imagine a game where humans must abide by the normal rules, but *elves* can be Gestalt, they are the only demihuman race allowed to be Arcane Casters, and they have no level limits.
While your human character struggles along as a fighter, that elf is a fighter/wizard gestalt, gaining all the benefits of both classes but only needing the same number of experience points.

This was roughly the situation in 1E and 2E.

So, you get a glut of high level wizards who have not earned such power - not, at least, as a single classed human wizard would have to earn her way to high level - and now they are throwing around great power (or, better yet, Elven High Magic) and they have it all.

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You wouldn't allow a 3E game where demihumans could be gestalt and humans couldn't, where only elves could be Arcane Casters (besides humans) and they could have all the benefits of being elves + the benefits of gestalt + the benefits of being wizards, without any penalty at all.

But that's how it worked in 1E and 2E, that's where you got all those high level wizards, that's a great part of the reason why wizards became resented, and that's how the system got broken.

Had the system been maintained as Gary Gygax wanted, elves would NEVER have gone above 12th level as wizards (very weak indeed, compared to an 18th level archmage), single classed wizards (humans) would have been rare (due to the incredible difficulty of playing them) and none of the uproar over the Broken Wizard would have happened.
As for the drow, they were meant as NPCs. As PCs, they weren't viable because *everyone* tried to kill them on sight (with very good reason!) And if the party might tolerate a drow, the NPCs around them would not. So long as the DM maintained the game in that mode, a drow PC was very difficult indeed to play.

And there's your answer to the problem of balance and the wizard.
Elves wrecked it. (Perhaps, it is time to wreak some serious harm on said elves?)

(chuckles)

Elves, of course, have - in D&D - had a Superiority Complex over all the other peoples and races.
Indeed, the various kinds of elves have Superiority Complexes over each other.

Since they can have it all and the other races can't (or, couldn't) this Superiority Complex is justified - elves ARE better than everyone else!

So, not only does the elf get the greater flexibility, fun, options, whatever, over your character, but he gets to sneer at your character as inferior In Game, and he is justified in doing so.
Now, maybe that PC is decent and doesn't sneer, but all those elven kings and queens and NPCs *do*, and so don't go counting on visiting those elven lands (like Evermeet) anytime soon with your non-elven character. Heh.

Perhaps Forrester was right. Perhaps Cleanup on Isle Evermeet was needed ...

I run OD&D, so Elves are slightly different from what most D&D players are used to. OD&D gives the referee a lot of room for interpretation with Elves, but here's how I handle them:

In my game, Elves start as both Fighting Man and Magic User (i.e. Veteran and Medium). For starting hit points, the Elf rolls 1d6+1 (i.e. Veteran hit dice) and 1d6 (Medium hit dice), taking the higher of the two rolls. He tracks experience for each class separately. At the beginning of each adventure session (loosely defined as the from the start of an adventure until XP is awarded in a safe place), the Elf's player declares whether he is adventuring as a Fighter or as a Magic User. During that session, the Elf's earned XP goes to the declared class, and he fights and saves as the declared class. Regardless of declared class, the Elf can use any weapon, and may cast spells if he is not wearing armor, or if he is wearing magical armor. The Elf maintains a single hit point total. When the Elf advances a level, he rolls the total hit dice for his new level (e.g. if he advanced to Hero, he rolls 4d6), and takes the greater of his roll or his current hit point total). Elves are, of course, limited to 4th level Fighting Man (Hero) and 8th level Magic User (Warlock). The Elf abilities from Chainmail are translated as +1 to hit against kobolds, goblins, and hobgoblins, and orcs (the greater bonuses in Chainmail are interpreted as coming from magical weapons and from mass-combat tactics against certain foes). Elves possess infravision and can see in the dark (however, this special vision may not work in supernatural or mythic underworld settings). Note that while Chainmail mentions elvish invisibility, this is not translated as an individual ability, but as the use of magical elven cloaks or invisibility spells.

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(Note that I'm using the "roll all your hit dice each time" method for determining how many hit points of damage you can take.)

Elves do have many advantages, but some of that is offset by the level caps (i.e. 4th level Fighting Man, 8th level Magic User). However, note that these level caps aren't particularly oppressive, given the level scaling of OD&D. (In my game, 8th-10 level is high level, and levels above that are legendary figures.) With their multiple classes, Elves also tend to advance slower.

One difficulty Elves have in my game is the fact that they are "living in a human world."* And my game's Elves are not Tolkien-style "prettier and more perfect humans" kind of elves. They're stranger and more wild and fey. Even alien, in some ways. They don't have a unified look, either. Some might look like Tolkien-style Elves. Some might look more like dwarves or gnomes. Some might look like humans with a fox tail, or an animal head. Et cetera.

One of the distinctive elements of OD&D is the way Elves choose to act as Fighting Men or as Magic Users. This is an odd rule. But Elves *are* odd and alien. They go off and meditate or commune with the cosmos or something, and come back almost as a different person. Maybe their personality even changes. They're damn weird, from a human point of view.

Anyway, this weirdness, and their minority numbers, compared to humans, make them outcasts, in many ways. They're not really evil (usually), but they're so alien and removed from the norm of (human) society that many people fear or distrust them.

Not an argument about the effect elves had on the game, over the years. Just my take on elves. So far, it's working out pretty well.

* - this "human world" concept is also the justification for demi-human level caps, in general. I like the concept of the "fading" elder races and the "rise" of humans, and the "short lives burning bright/limitless potential" of humans, compared to the "slow, long smoulder" of most demihumans. YMMV, of course, but these concepts fit the kind of fantasy I like and relate to the best.

Ah yes, a very dim, ancient memory rekindled. 'Fighting man', the term for the fighter in OD&D. I remember that.

There was another thread on elves and how different they are. I figure they must be very different. How could they stand living for 2,000 years, under the kind of duress humans are subject to, and not go mad? They are different indeed.

When 1st edition came around, people played elves because it was fun. Why not?
Elves offered the chance at multiclassing - fighter/magic-user, and other combinations. The greatest versatility, the greatest fun. One could debate the greatest power, but that wasn't always so.
If gestalt had been a mainstream rule of 3.0, and hadn't come in at the very end of 3.5, I have to wonder if it would have replaced 1E and 2E multiclassing? And how it would have impacted elves?

Of course, most of us played elves like humans, not elves. We the players are, after all, human. I saw very few elves played like, say, the elves of Rivendell in The Hobbit. (In fact, most elves I saw played were sorta Lawful Neutralish ...)

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I understood the level limit rule, and why it was there. But I was never comfortable with it, and few others were either. It seemed too arbitrary, too unfounded, and so although it made sense in game balance terms, it made little sense In Game.
So we bent and eventually abandoned the rule, and elves could advance into high levels, and high level wizards became common.
Was there another, better answer? The game, at that time, did not offer one. It wasn't until much later that solid In Game reasons for elven weakness surfaced (what they would nowadays call the Fluff reasons for the mechanics.)
Then 3E came out, and nobody could multiclass in the old sense, while everyone could be Jack-of-all-trades with assorted trade-offs. I must wonder, again, what would have happened if Gestalt characters had been a part of the core 3.0?

If we do not alter the wizard (if she can still throw the original, mighty 1E Shapechange at 18th level) then could we have employed a different approach that kept the fun of elves while avoiding a glut of high level wizards?
I think we could have.

Funny how peoples' experiences differ, isn't it?

I've seen loads of single-classed human wizards, (far more than elven wizards) in all my OD&D, 1e and 2e days. I've played several myself. We play with tough DMs and a high mortality rate, but the human wizards survived just fine a significant amount of time. My highest level character ever in OD&D and 1e was a wizard in both cases.

Cheers

So, you're saying that ignoring rules made for game balance unbalanced the game? Amazing!

Hmm, this thread makes me want to introduce gestalts to 4.0... those old editions really were a different age. I wish I could find games that still played second edition.

How close did Baldur Gate simulate second edition rules?

Plane Sailing said:

Funny how peoples' experiences differ, isn't it?

I've seen loads of single-classed human wizards, (far more than elven wizards) in all my OD&D, 1e and 2e days. I've played several myself. We play with tough DMs and a high mortality rate, but the human wizards survived just fine a significant amount of time. My highest level character ever in OD&D and 1e was a wizard in both cases.

Cheers

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Hey there. Cheers to yourself, Plane Sailing. A pleasure to meet you.

I don't know what to say. Except a big cheer to yourself and those of you who played straight class wizards, considering how hard the class was to play.
I mean, nothing like ... d4 for hit points, worst THAC0 (what THAC0, really!), no armor, no weapons, a handful of spells, a spellbook all too likely to go boom, and a magical item or two. Gads. I remember ... it was no picnic (and of course, NPCs would *never* cooperate with you trying to gain spells, ala the 1E DMG ... lol ...)

Now, if it was the Tomb of Horrors, it didn't matter whether you played the fighter or the wizard. The rule there was Everyone Died!
But in other games, it was a real pain playing a low level wizard. I tried several times, but to no avail. They all died. Only my multiclass characters made it (which shows, I was a lousy wizard player ... and I am willing to admit it ...)

How did you and your friends keep your single class wizards alive? What tactics did you pull? You've got my curiosity up, bigtime!

Cheers
Edena_of_Neith

Edena_of_Neith said:

If *I* am stuck playing a fighter OR a wizard, because he's human, and *you* are playing an elf and you have ALL the advantages of BOTH classes AND the abilities of elves on top of that, AND you advance almost as fast as I do (in 1E and 2E), AND you have no level limits, then of course my human character is going to be jealous. I'm not going to be real happy as a player, either, because the system grants you more opportunity and fun than me ... because I chose a human character.

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My experience was similar in a number of ways.

One thing I remember seeing though: The players who choose human PCs generally put more thought into their actions than the players with elf PCs. So, those human PCs—in my group—often were more effective than the elf PCs despite the elves’ mechanical advantages.

I do it myself. When I make my PC choices more on mechanics, I tend to be lazier in play.

Of course, in my favorite edition—B/X classic D&D—elves require more XP to level and have a level cap (by the book). Combined with the fact that (by the book) elves can’t be clerics or thieves or single-classed, that tends to keep the elves in balance.

JRRNeiklot said:

So, you're saying that ignoring rules made for game balance unbalanced the game? Amazing!

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(rueful look)

I am Guilty As Charged. But then, so was almost everyone back then. Everyone seemed to love elven multiclass characters. We had elves coming out of our ears back then. Yeah, we did.

Gary Gygax (*May His Memory Always Be Honored*) created a specific system, where wizards worked in X way, fighters in Y way. It was possible to adapt this system to specific settings, such as Hyboria (Conan), but it took work. (You didn't see wizards, as a general rule, running around using the Vancian magic system in Hyboria, obviously, so some modification was needed.)

He created level limits. Very severe at first, as noted for OD&D (6 for fighter, 8 for wizard.)
He upped the limits in 1E to 7 and 9 (9 and 11 with great stats.)
Then, he upped the limits again in 1E Unearthed Arcana (to 10 and 15, I think ...)

And yeah, we sorta got rid of those level limits. LOL. Guilty as Charged. Me and all my compatriots. Elves were fun. Elves ruled. Elven multiclass characters had it all.
Everyone did it. Everyone. Nobody wanted to be stuck with level limits. Even Gygax bowed to the pressure, and upped the limits.

And heck, in 2E, they allowed for Slow Advancement and Elven High Magic, which was a big step forward for the elves and their power level. So now, you could Officially have an elven archmage of 18th level, and High Magic to boot.

So yeah, we ignored the rules meant to balance the game, and of course the game became unbalanced. And that, produced that glut of high level wizards - and Gary Gygax never intended such a glut - who threw around high powered spells (and better yet, Elven High Magic) and that further unbalanced things.

Heh. You know what should have happened?
Yamara, of all comics, got it right. The drow should have gotten tired of all this elven goodness, and led by Yocchi (sp?) should have come up and conquered the surface.
No more elves!
Do as the nice drow tell you ... or be their next sacrifice to Lolth. (and guys, remember that drow females ARE bigger, stronger, smarter, wiser, and higher in charisma than drow males. It's right there in 1E. What to do? Put on that cursed Girdle of Femininity, quick!)