Fighters didn't matter after 11th level?

[Wolfwood2]

Also there is a much easier fix to this whole problem if you still want to play 3E, but don't want the headache I presented. Mournblade mentioned spell interuption. Bring that back into the game. Don't allow concentration checks when a wizard is hit mid spell. This is a minor change that can balance things out some more, if you find the concentration checks are too easy to pass.

I don't like the idea of making magic (and remember we're talking about more than just a single character class here) even more swingy. The solution you propose is really the same sort of tool 3E already uses to control spellcasters with spell resistance, high monster saving throws, and such. "Your spell could do something that would alter the entire encounter if it worked, but the odds are stacked against it working."

It's actually weird to compare to fighter types. At low levels, fighter types miss a lot of the time but rarely have any trouble with the getting into positon to attack or making their damage significant part. Meanwhile spells usually succeed. At higher levels, fighters are nearly guaranteed to hit most opponents but have to work harder to make hitting matter. Meanwhile spellcasters "hit" somewhat less.

Just doesn't appeal to me; as 3E doesn't appeal to you.

You have this funny idea, which you state several times, that 3E doesn't appeal to me. That I don't like 3E. In fact, I like it a lot. It's an elegant system with a lot of appeal, and I've had a lot of fun with it.

Many of its features, including features that 4E dumped, have a lot of value to them. I really like the idea of a unified system of mechanics for PCs and monsters, and I would like it without having to pay too high a cost for it. Third edition made a lot of very difficult to implement mechanics work... some of the time.

Maybe I even like 3E better than you do, because I like it enough to really acknowledge faults I've seen in it. Some things that 3E does, especially connected with magic and the skill system, simply start to break down at high levels. And the thing is, a lot of what you've been writing is perfectly true. It is possible to address those problems with tools already existing in 3E. They don't necessarily lead to a bad game experience.

It starts to become a matter of cost/benefit more than anything else. Are the features that become problematic worth the effort the system has to go to in order to preserve them? Are they really that valuable?

You don't have to. If you don't like magic that way, play another game. Some people actually like using the tools 3E offers. Its a toolbox system. I like the magic in 3E. It is cool, it is a great plot device for GMs, and it adds a sense of wonder and suprise that really makes me enjoy the game. Sure wizards are more powerful at higher levels. I accept that. If that creates problems, though, there are ways to manage it.

See, I think it would be possible to get that sense of "wonder and surprise" and use those plot deviced while still dumping all the problematic stuff. Heck, in late third edition that's the way I saw the game going even within the 3E framework.

Take the Eberron setting which both made magic supremely controllable and unwonderous on the PC level while at the same time encouraging the DM to use 'eldritch machine' or 'draconic prophecy' plot device magic that obeyed no rules but the rules of narrative and story.

To me, that's where the wonder in magic comes from. The stuff a character tosses around in a fight isn't really magic. It's just a different form of boom.

 

[Kask]

Caster Interruption was really one of the important balances to the caster. This was largely (if not completely) eliminated in 3rd edition.

Yeah, I reintroduced this in my games and it goes a long way to reign in the spellcasters. Also, 5' step & cast is gone.

 

[billd91]

Why does everyone else have to have a specified job except the full caster, who can do every job?

Part of the problem here is that magic has no defined bounds. Even if you only had spells with limited application early in the game, as long as there are ways to develop new spells, it's hard to keep magic from encroaching on other jobs.
And if you defined bounds for what magic can do, how magical is it? Would it make sense? Would it make sense for magic to be able to one thing but not be able to do some other specific thing that seems related to what it can do?

 

[Kask]

as long as there are ways to develop new spells, it's hard to keep magic from encroaching on other jobs.

Actually, a player can attempt to design new spells. Per RAW the DM decides whether, and to what degree, it is successful. Hence, my sig.

 

[evilbob]

Sorry I'm late to this party and I haven't read through the last 9 pages, but I just wanted to say that my own personal experience differs greatly from that of Mr. Heinsoo. In fact, it was so different I honestly wonder if perhaps his personal experience was, in fact, a bit unusual.

In my experience, 3.5 fighters hold their own well up past level 11 - especially two-handed weapon fighters. It's actually closer to level 15 - when 8th level spells become available but more importantly 6th and 7th level spells become more common - when the power level is less even, and then level 16 comes along and boosts the fighter again. But then level 17 happens, and suddenly it swings back against the fighter pretty heavily.

On the other hand, how many games actually get to level 17? (By the end of the 3.5 life cycle, I had a personal rule: never start a game under level 6.)

The main thing is that a fighter at level 11 can attack 3 times and will almost certainly hit 3 times. And each of those attacks should be dealing gobs and gobs of damage. And frankly, there's no reason you should ever -not- be able to do that damage, given the crazy amounts of potions and spells and wands and things that get thrown around in 3.5 - you can always get to the target, and frankly the target wants to get to you.

I've seen the most broken 3.5 cleric combination ever in play, and it still couldn't top a fighter for direct damage because a fighter gets everything the cleric can do PLUS feats. Wizards can throw some pretty vicious save-or-dies around, but honestly fighters are more reliable because they hit more often and their damage is more guaranteed.

In my experience, the fighter's player being absent would have been much more important to the game than the cleric or wizard, except for one thing: it was incredibly easy for someone else to NPC the fighter. That's really the difference: to NPC a cleric or a wizard, you have to be versed in dozens of spells and combos and tactics. For the fighter, you pretty much had to know what dice to roll. Sure they probably had a few tricks as well, but nothing like the casters.

But overall, given the choice? I'd place the fighter dead last on the list of "characters we can start the game without." Sure, clerics and wizards are next-to-last, but it's not like we're talking about a monk here. If the monk didn't show up I wonder if anyone would notice?

 

[Wolfwood2]

The main thing is that a fighter at level 11 can attack 3 times and will almost certainly hit 3 times. And each of those attacks should be dealing gobs and gobs of damage. And frankly, there's no reason you should ever -not- be able to do that damage, given the crazy amounts of potions and spells and wands and things that get thrown around in 3.5 - you can always get to the target, and frankly the target wants to get to you.

The other part of this, which I mentioned briefly earlier in the thread, is that playing a high level fighter in D&D starts to get kind of boring.

Roll attack, roll damage. Roll attack, roll damage. Yawn. There's not much strategy or tactics involved. If you're using one of the specialized maneuvers like grapple or something then you're probably specialized enough that you try to do it all the time. Spellcasters get to shuffle their spells and pick which to use, as well as often having a bigger choice of opponents (or allies) to target round-by-round. I think that's one of the biggest reasons that Book of Nine Swords was so popular. It wasn't jsut that the classes in it were more powerful (debatable) but that the PCs had more interesting choices to make round by round.

You said it yourself. Anybody can NPC a fighter. And while not everybody wants to deal with the complexity of a high level 3E spellcaster, there's a middle ground between the two.

 

[ProfessorPain]

I don't like the idea of making magic (and remember we're talking about more than just a single character class here) even more swingy. The solution you propose is really the same sort of tool 3E already uses to control spellcasters with spell resistance, high monster saving throws, and such. "Your spell could do something that would alter the entire encounter if it worked, but the odds are stacked against it working."

It's actually weird to compare to fighter types. At low levels, fighter types miss a lot of the time but rarely have any trouble with the getting into positon to attack or making their damage significant part. Meanwhile spells usually succeed. At higher levels, fighters are nearly guaranteed to hit most opponents but have to work harder to make hitting matter. Meanwhile spellcasters "hit" somewhat less.



You have this funny idea, which you state several times, that 3E doesn't appeal to me. That I don't like 3E. In fact, I like it a lot. It's an elegant system with a lot of appeal, and I've had a lot of fun with it.

Many of its features, including features that 4E dumped, have a lot of value to them. I really like the idea of a unified system of mechanics for PCs and monsters, and I would like it without having to pay too high a cost for it. Third edition made a lot of very difficult to implement mechanics work... some of the time.

Maybe I even like 3E better than you do, because I like it enough to really acknowledge faults I've seen in it. Some things that 3E does, especially connected with magic and the skill system, simply start to break down at high levels. And the thing is, a lot of what you've been writing is perfectly true. It is possible to address those problems with tools already existing in 3E. They don't necessarily lead to a bad game experience.

It starts to become a matter of cost/benefit more than anything else. Are the features that become problematic worth the effort the system has to go to in order to preserve them? Are they really that valuable?



See, I think it would be possible to get that sense of "wonder and surprise" and use those plot deviced while still dumping all the problematic stuff. Heck, in late third edition that's the way I saw the game going even within the 3E framework.

Take the Eberron setting which both made magic supremely controllable and unwonderous on the PC level while at the same time encouraging the DM to use 'eldritch machine' or 'draconic prophecy' plot device magic that obeyed no rules but the rules of narrative and story.

To me, that's where the wonder in magic comes from. The stuff a character tosses around in a fight isn't really magic. It's just a different form of boom.

Wolf, based on your post, I don't think we disagree about the fundamentals then. We both acknowledge 3E has flaws when it comes to non-casters and casters at higher levels; and we both believe many existing rules in the system can be used to remedied these flaws. Where we disagree is whether it is worth the effort. I think it is. Personally I would like to see an easier fix. But if my option is between 3E with its flaws, and 4E; I go with 3E. If Paizo manages to fix these problems in a way that makes my job easier, that would be great. But for now, I don't mind the additional work 3E creates.

I do think we differ on what we want from magic though. I'll admit I sometimes like a low magic campaign, where the "real magic" is outside of PC bounds. But I also think stuff the wizards do with spells in combat is more than just another kind of boom. It has a level of coolness that seperates it from a normal attack. In fact, my favorite thing about spells in 3E and earlier editions, is they are open to very creative uses. I have had players do some interesting things with the less damage oriented spells, that really adds a level of shine to the game and makes magic spectacular.

 

[Ourph]

I don't think any example I provide will convince you then, because even if the wizard is expending his spells every round, and combat lasts a long time; you are not satisfied. If you don't like 3E, you don't like it and I can't convince you it is managable at high levels.

Listen, I'm not trying to be obstinate, I just don't agree with some of what you are saying. If you're getting frustrated with the conversation, that's fine, we can agree to disagree, but I don't appreciate you implying that I'm just a 3e hater taking pot shots. I've been responding to your posts because I'm actually interested in what you're saying, my experiences just don't mesh with most of it. I do agree that some of your examples would move the game toward being MORE balanced between casters and non-casters if you used those methods all the time, but I still maintain two things are true, and even though I've read and understood all of your posts, I haven't read anything that's changed my mind about them.

1) The DM can't engineer encounters that significantly deplete the resources of the casters or hamper their ability to drastically affect the outcome of the fight, without also dramatically increasing the difficulty of the fight for the non-casters. IME, when such an encounter comes along, it's actually the non-casters who are likely to suffer rather than the casters. The non-casters die in droves while the casters survive because they have more magical "Get Out of Trouble Free" cards to play.

2) It's actually the players who are most significant in evening the playing field between casters and non-casters, not the DM. Unless the DM heavily houserules the game, there are just too many powerful, out-of-the-box options for casters and almost none for non-casters in the game. The players can even the playing field by eschewing the powerful options that step on the non-caster's toes or make them irrelevant and by using caster resources to make non-casters more equal (i.e. buffing, casting invisibility, fly, stoneskin, etc. on the non-casters), but that's a style choice that requires player buy-in, not something that can be dictated by the DM.

IME that is the only way in which class power can remain even close to equal in high level 3e between casters and non-casters and even then it's only an illusion of equality, because as soon as the Fighter isn't around anymore, the casters can replicate the aspects of his role most important to the success of the party through magic. While if the Cleric or Wizard disappears for some reason, the Fighter has absolutely no ability to replicate the aspects of their roles most important to the party's success.

 

[The Ghost]

The other part of this, which I mentioned briefly earlier in the thread, is that playing a high level fighter in D&D starts to get kind of boring.

That's funny, I find playing high level spell-casters starts to get kind of boring.

I can spend hours trying to optimize my spell selection so that any encounter I face can easily be defeated with one spell. I can spend hours scrying locations waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike. I can spend hours optimizing my magic items and making sure my party is buffed and ready to go. Or, I can just say "to hell with it" and have fun and make do with Fireball.

I choose the latter method - it is more fun! (for me)

 

[ProfessorPain]

Listen, I'm not trying to be obstinate, I just don't agree with some of what you are saying. If you're getting frustrated with the conversation, that's fine, we can agree to disagree, but I don't appreciate you implying that I'm just a 3e hater taking pot shots. I've been responding to your posts because I'm actually interested in what you're saying, my experiences just don't mesh with most of it. I do agree that some of your examples would move the game toward being MORE balanced between casters and non-casters if you used those methods all the time, but I still maintain two things are true, and even though I've read and understood all of your posts, I haven't read anything that's changed my mind about them. .

My intentions were not to be hostile or angry, I appologize if it came accros that way. But I do feel we have reached an impasse. And my goal hasn't been to change anyone's mind, but present the solutions I found to the problem. I have given examples of what works in my game; and we disagree on how effective my remedies would be. I think our experiences are very different. The player element is an important consideration here. But I have seen my game go from imbalanced to balanced by implementing the various remedies I mentioned. If I fail to change your mind, that is okay. You seem like a polite poster and everything. But I am just running out of steam on this topic. Originally I just wanted to give my two cents on what I found helpful. Not get drawn into an argument about the merits and flaws of 3EWe can agree to disagree. I think I just misread your dissagreement more strongly than it was intended.

1) The DM can't engineer encounters that significantly deplete the resources of the casters or hamper their ability to drastically affect the outcome of the fight, without also dramatically increasing the difficulty of the fight for the non-casters. IME, when such an encounter comes along, it's actually the non-casters who are likely to suffer rather than the casters. The non-casters die in droves while the casters survive because they have more magical "Get Out of Trouble Free" cards to play.

This just hasn't been the case in my game. In practice, these have worked fine for me. The casters may not be able to effectively fight the creature directly, but if they use their spells to assist the combat classes, things balance out pretty well. In fact this is sort of the reverse of the typical, fighter guards the wizard while he casts uber spell scenario.

2) It's actually the players who are most significant in evening the playing field between casters and non-casters, not the DM. Unless the DM heavily houserules the game, there are just too many powerful, out-of-the-box options for casters and almost none for non-casters in the game. The players can even the playing field by eschewing the powerful options that step on the non-caster's toes or make them irrelevant and by using caster resources to make non-casters more equal (i.e. buffing, casting invisibility, fly, stoneskin, etc. on the non-casters), but that's a style choice that requires player buy-in, not something that can be dictated by the DM.

I do agree that players are important in this respect. But I have seen a broken game fixed by DM management, so I think the DMs role is more important as the rules adjudicator and narrator.

IME that is the only way in which class power can remain even close to equal in high level 3e between casters and non-casters and even then it's only an illusion of equality, because as soon as the Fighter isn't around anymore, the casters can replicate the aspects of his role most important to the success of the party through magic. While if the Cleric or Wizard disappears for some reason, the Fighter has absolutely no ability to replicate the aspects of their roles most important to the party's success.

I concede that the lack of spell caster has a more pronounced effect than the lack of a fighter. But they can't replicate everything a fighter brings to the table, and even when they come close, they are limited by what is available and the spells they have memorized. You can't assume access to every spell for every situation. By the same token, if the fighter is missing, but the cleric is around, he doesn't have a high BAB guy to use buff spells on (though summoning, which takes a round, can help). He can use them on himself, but as others have pointed out, that wastes a round on something that does about as much damage in the end as a simple area of effect or strike spell. Much better to have a fighter to buff, and then unleash other spells while he is going to town.