The Role of the Wizard, or "How Come Billy Gets to Create a Demiplane?"

[Jefe Bergenstein]

And why shouldnt a DM be key to making the game "work"?[/qutoe]

Why shouldnt the first step being the rules themselves, instead of relying on Rule 0? Its pretty easy to add imbalance if you dont care about the consequences. Its harder to balance the game if you do care.

As for players limiting themselves, couldnt it be a give and take kinda
thing? I mean, just because my Cleric can cast Find Traps doesnt mean I'm not going to let the rogue do his thing-cause thats his thing. Now, when the Rogue2/Swordsage9/Shadowlord3 of the party tries to find traps with a +13 mod on his search.

Again, why not just have more solid rules in the first place? Or tiers of play? Not like 4th edition, but more akin to how some superhero games make a breakdown between street level heroes, and cosmic heroes, with classes assigned to different tiers. So a DM could say "lets run a heroic tier campagin", and you'd have your fighters, rogues, and adepts, or an epic campaign with clerics, druids, wizards and (buffed up) tome of battle/exalted "martial" classes.

Firstly let me say that your DM is nice if you have never had to worry about the enemy attacking you in the night disturbing your rest, nor being pressed to move on by some urgent matter even though ideally you'd wish to stop and begin the morrow. It may not happen every bloody day, but its more than realistic to happen.

Yeah, how unrealistic to be able to retreat from a dungeon, or to rest. I forgot, Mordenkain leveled from 1 to 20 without even stopping to take a leak. Resting was common. Consider this... theres a second level spell that CREATES AN EXTRADIMENSIONAL POCKET. If you asked most people to figure out which was a higher level spell from the description, rope trick or lightning bolt, the one that opens a hole in reality would probably rank higher to most. Its low level specifically to let you have a chance to rest in hostile territory. Yes, some adventures are time senstitive, but the dm will have to structure it specifically if the majority are.

 

[Barastrondo]

Thanks for the clarification. I'll agree with the 4e's suggestion.

Say you're new to a longer term group and they're level 8-10 or so in 2e (can't comment on 1e, only played from 2e forward). You start at level 1. Is that fun? Basically, you're there but I fail to see this being fun as you either die in 1 hit, can't hit the enemy, or fire off your 1 magic missile of the day and then go back to using your sling...

Also, after a while, many players just get fatigued with 1st level. "Ugh, can't we start a new game at 5th level or so? I'm sick of starting over with goblins every time." From a meta context, you have players who have "earned" the right to play higher-level characters because they've put lots of time and effort in the low-level trenches, and are resistant to doing it again because it "didn't count" for the campaign they're about to begin. Games that have better parity at any experience level simply work better for campaigns that begin with veteran characters.

(This is also one of the problems certain prestige classes manifested. The idea that a prestige class could be more powerful than the class itself because you "paid for it" by playing levels 1-5 with weaker feats or skills fell down the first time someone created a 6th-level character from scratch and got the prestige class.)

The trouble with requiring people to play X amount of time before they get the good stuff is that time is one of the most precious resources we have. Take the player who's spent 30 man-sessions leveling three different characters for three different abortive campaigns to level 5. As far as he's concerned, he's invested 30 sessions in levels 1-5 and is very ready for 6+, despite it being a new campaign. I think it's only realistic to assume that he has a point.

 

[Ariosto]

Say you're new to a longer term group and they're level 8-10 or so in 2e (can't comment on 1e, only played from 2e forward). You start at level 1.

If that's a rule in 2e, then there's another problem (there are a few, IMO) with 2e. It is most definitely not the rule in 1st ed. Advanced D&D.

If you're new to D&D, then you should get the same chance as your "elders" to play the low levels and have the fun of discovering things for yourself. If you're an old hand, and you still find it fun to cover that familiar ground, then more power to you.

Integrating experienced players -- even if, for whatever reason, they are not bringing in higher-level characters from prior play -- is another matter.

I guess I have a different definition of fun than you do.

That may well be. However, there is nothing whatsoever to the point when -- as you admit -- you do not know what you are talking about. ("can't comment on 1e, only played from 2e forward")

Your guesses as to most things in the world will tend to be more accurate if they are reasonably derived from actual evidence.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

You know, no matter how "well designed" (whatever that means) a car, a bad driver will remain a bad driver, and drive it sooner or later into a ditch, a wall, off a cliff or whatnot. No matter what kind of car you choose, being a decent driver is a requirement to handling it properly. It's not like the car drives itself... yet. So you might as well pick the car that fits your tastes best, and enjoy the hell out of it, instead of bitching about the cars you did not pick in the first place.

A good driver with a good car drives better than a good driver in a bad car. Shuffling the onus on the end user (DM) to avoid having to take the time to design a more a more solid system doesnt seem like a good idea to me.

Moreover, this is pretty much a discussion on the narrative power afforded casters in various editions, and systems, as well as how the classic fantasy RPG doesnt really follow how wizards are portayed in classic fantasy literature, myth, etc.

 

[Odhanan]

And wizards cant have friends becaaaaaause?

Because you're a magic user, and if you can indeed have retinues, they will be of a different nature (notice for instance the Followers for Upper Level Characters in the First Ed DMG p. 16-17, which does not list magic users).

Any of those things that the fighter can do that arent covered by the rules, the wizard can ALSO do, and still have spells.

If you're trying to act like you are a mercenary leader as a wizard most of the time in the campaign, you are going to earn way less XP than the fighter acting as a mercenary leader, because in one case, one character is actually playing according to his character archetype, while the other is not (See First Ed DMG, "Gaining Experience Levels," p. 86).

 

[SKyOdin]

I think there is something that can be done to potentially solve this problem other than taking away narrative power from the wizard: give fighters a comparable source of narrative power that is distinct in its quality. The answer is that dumb, brute force can become a source of Deus Ex Machina if it comes in a sufficient quantity.

Look at mythological heroes such as Heracles or Thor. If Heracles needed to clean out a massive stable in a day, he just used his ludicrous strength to redirect a river. If Thor had business with the Midgard Serpent, he just whipped out his fishing pole. If Thor wanted to lower sea levels, he just started drinking (though this one wasn't intentional on his part). One of the best examples of Deus Ex Machina through brute superhuman strength comes from the Ramayana, where Hanuman jumps from Sri Lanka to the Himaleyas to find a mountain where healing herbs grow, then uproots the entire mountain and carries it back to Sri Lanka in a single leap, successfully bringing needed medicine to his friends.

If D&D Fighters could smash through solid stone walls with a punch, run for days on end without rest, leap hundreds of feet in a single bound, or dig canyons with their bare hands, then there would be greater parity between them and Wizards in terms of narrative power. There is even a strong basis for this kind of power in myth and legend. Unfortunatly, D&D fans have traditionally balked at giving Fighters anything resembling superhuman capabilities. There is a strange idea that even Epic level Fighters who can go toe-to-toe with Balors and Elder Dragons should fundamentally resemble mundane humans.

 

[Odhanan]

Moreover, this is pretty much a discussion on the narrative power afforded casters in various editions

I chose deliberately to leave that part of the conversation alone, because I do not believe there is such a thing as a "narrative" in a role playing game, nor should there be. To put it simply, RPGs do not tell "stories."

You're welcome to believe they do.

I'm just reacting to the factually wrong accounts and interpretations that are perpetuated in this thread. As I said, it's okay to wonder and dig deeper, but don't be surprised if one makes a whole series of assumptions ignoring a whole lot of context and that's being pointed out right back. From there one can either persevere with factually wrong information, or choose to dig even deeper on his or her own. That's a prerogative we all happen to share.

 

[Sorrowdusk]

I chose deliberately to leave that part of the conversation alone, because I do not believe there is such a thing as a "narrative" in a role playing game, nor should there be. To put it simply, RPGs do not tell "stories."

You're welcome to believe they do.

I've heard "collaborative storytelling" used just about all my RPing life, but I'll say its an interesting point.

As for the role of the wizard-to satisfy the mundanes, in combat I would see him ideally as being crowd control Notice here how the magician incinerates the oncomming charge, and yet he still has an assload of Fighters and Knights behind him because he knows he would never be able to clean up the broken ranks by himself. The individual soldier can fight how many targets? Just one at a time. Therefore, let the wizards strength be killing large numbers (see note*) at a time, or debuffing/debilitating them making the melees job easier. (Color Spray, Slow, Glitterdust, Evard's Black Tentacles)
http://img708.imageshack.us/img708/9898/fullwalloffire.jpg

Out of combat, he should definitely have some divinations, and other neat "tricks". Flying, invisibilty, and other stuff should still be around somewhere its what mages do. ONE thing thats interesting to me is a Spell Point system rather than Slots/Day or Encounter/Daily/At will.

Consider this-with slots per day, at some point the wiz inevitable has at LEAST 4 spells in everyslot. Instead, make higher level spells cost more points. So if he uses up a bunch of little stuff he might not be able to get off any big stuff at all, and if he uses big stuff he might only get off 1 or 2 leaving him with only low stuff and no middle spells. Using 1 *BIG spell in this case means losing MORE than ONLY the big spell because you dont have as many/any points for many middle ranks spells left over. Now it becomes resource management, and how you want to splurge or conserve your points.

Any spells that provide significant so called "narrative control" would still exist, they would just be bumped up in point value accordingly.

How do you guys think Psionics compare to regular spellcasters?
Thoughts?

 

[Ariosto]

Look at mythological heroes such as Heracles or Thor.

Look at Dungeons & Beavers, or Champions, or Exalted, or HeroQuest, or...

It's a wild idea, but how about folks go and play whichever games they actually like instead of insisting that someone else's game has to get stuffed into some mold?

You are never going all to agree on the perfect fantasy game! Stop trying to homogenize the hobby! It's a good thing that we have different games from which to choose!

 

[M.L. Martin]

You are never going all to agree on the perfect fantasy game! Stop trying to homogenize the hobby! It's a good thing that we have different games from which to choose!

Can we at least try to cut D&D down to size so something better can take its place as the default intro game and 800-lb. gorilla of the hobby?