How is the Wizard vs Warrior Balance Problem Handled in Fantasy Literature?

[triqui]

I will agree that this could be a problem, especially in slower-playing games, such as 3e. OTOH, if you follow the guidelines in 3e, almost anyone can gain some form of non-detection device that should prevent your (B).

Which makes my point get back: if Magic is Powerful and Can do Anything is the norm, it permeates everything. EVERY PC and NPC *has* to be a magic user, use a magic user hireling, or buy magic items from a magic user just to be able to survive. Hence, you can't build a NPC Pirate that mistrust magic, or simply that ignores it. He *needs* to know *what* a scry spell is becouse he *needs* to have a non-detection device beforehand.

The first sentence is correct (but, as a reply to the meme that it takes magical GM handwaving to deal with the problem, it shouldn't). The second sentence is wrong. Consequences to using magic, and magic not simply solving the problem (but adding a layer of complexity/decision points) does make magic less gamebreaking.

When those consequences arise, yes. When they dont, no. Go back to my example: players might be a group of Robin Hood outlaws, so they might not care at all about their evidence been believed by the king. Once they know who killed the countess, they can act in consequence.

BTW, in your examples of the "real Dark Ages": In the feudal system, the Count is the vassal of the King, and owes him both allegiance and military duty. The King is always making sure that the Count cannot amass too much power, while at the same time making sure that the Count has power enough to fulfill his obligations. Again, rather like the mafia in The Godfather.

The Count's ambition is always to raise his own standard; the King knows this, and the Count knows that the King knows this.

Unless the Count is a problem to the King, though, it is never in the King's interests to take him out. For this reason, in the real Dark Ages, as in any place in the world right now where similar conditions apply, the Count really can and does get away with murder. He doesn't even have to hide it; he just has to avoid broadcasting too loudly so as to become a problem to the King.

Yet if the local Inquisitor point the Count with his finger and shouts "Devil-Whorshiper!!", the Count is hanged. And that does not address AT ALL the fact of magic divination being a plot buster. At *best* it might be a counter for *that* example. The Players might be investigating who killed the farmer's wife, and discover it was the farmer (who has 0 political power). The problem is that magic divination crush plots. That the plot *might* be built in a fashion that even with magic divinations, players need other actions, only means Magic *forces* the DM to build some plots instead of others. No other aspect of the game removes the narrative control from the narrator such as magic does.

I am not saying that people do not experience these sorts of problems; I am saying that people do not necessarily experience these sorts of problems. They are an artifact of the convergence of the ruleset and playstyle expectations, where the two do not harmonize.

But I'm not talking exclusivelly about games (and thus a ruleset). The OP was talking about fiction. In Fiction, if magic exist to a level where it can "do anything", then everything else is pointless. Why would I hire a (mundane) assasin to kill a king? The king is going to be ressurrected, and will have magical defenses to protect himself. Only a magical assasin (with something like soul-trap) can kill him. That's why on most fiction (bassically, any that's not D&D based like Elminster series are), magic is non-existant, is a plot device, or do minor non plot-busting and shortcut effects. Gandalf did not teleport to Mordor. Witch King does not teleport to Frodo. Thulsa Doom does not Teleport to Conan. They have powerful effects (like casting circle of protection) than Martial Characters can't do. But those effects do ^not^ become into plotbusting, and is not far beyond of what a Martial Character can do (Glorfindel can't cast "circle of protection against Balrogs", but killed one with a club and a dagger, so the effect, while vissually different, isn't mechanically unique. It does not put Wizards beyond Warriors, given same level. Glorfindel is on par with Gandalf)

Just to point: get to 3e rules. Add up the cost of a fleet of galleons, a bunch of camels, their sailors, drivers, some guards, and their food, for a couple of months. Now compare it with the cost of making a permanent "circle of teleport" from Florentia to China. And tell me why on hell would a rich florentian trader use any kind of mundane caravan to the Silk Road.

 

[Hussar]

Here's a few things.

(1) Your "pretty specific" alignment rules do not say "If you lie to protect a murder you KNOW is guilty, then you become Evil"). As a point of fact, they say nothing remotely close to that.

(2) The King has no way of knowing whether or not the clerics are actually casting the spell. It is entirely possible that they simply do not, and lie about that, because they do not want to know.

(3) It is also possible that the cleric's freaking GOD wants them to protect the Count, because the Count is integral to his own plans (unknowable to mortals) or because he also talked to the Count, and told the Count to commit the murder.

(4) If protecting a murderer that you KNOW is guilty makes one Evil, then I am guessing that most PCs are evil.

(5) In fact, an argument can be made that, if the clerics believe that the Count was justified and/or necessary to the stability of the kingdom (i.e., a necessary evil), that they are obligated to lie. Likewise, if the clerics know that telling the truth condemns the Count to death, and actions directly leading to the death of another (sanctity of life and all that being a Good trait) are forbidden by their religion.

(6) The clerics, of course, could simply be Neutral.

Sigh. Ok, I'll admit that I make mistakes with the 1e rules when I make the mistake of trying to discuss them. Mostly because I'm going from memory and don't have the books. But, there's no excuse for this when the d20 SRD is online during this conversation.

1. The cleric does not need to change alignment to lose spells.

2. I never said that protecting a murderer would change your alignment.

3. A cleric of a LG diety cannot be Neutral.

4. It specifically says that if the cleric violates the ethos of the god in question, he loses his ability to cast spells. I'm not really sure how protecting a murderer that your god has told you is a murderer is not a violation of ethos of either Heironeous or Pelor, you pick, it doesn't really matter.

Although, it is fair enough to say that Divination has a failure chance. I did have that mixed up with Commune, my bad.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Sigh. Ok, I'll admit that I make mistakes with the 1e rules when I make the mistake of trying to discuss them. Mostly because I'm going from memory and don't have the books.

Happens all the time, to me as well. I try to include a disclaimer whenever I think about it, so that folks know not to trust my memory. But it means a lot to me that you are willing to say it. (<---please note, not snark!)

Clearly, both you and triqui (and, I am sure, others) have had problems with these issues. I (and, I am sure, others) have not. Your problems are real. Changing the ruleset to remove them is not only a good solution, it is the best solution I know of. I change rulesets to make them more comfortable to my playstyle, too.

But just as your problems are real, the lack of problems others experience is also real. It depends on both the material, and your approach to the material.

And there is no such thing as an objectively better approach (although some material may be objectively better for your approach than other material).

I am very sorry if it seems I am implying otherwise.

You may be amused to know that, back in the 3e era, before I had substantially rewritten anything and, later, when I was first starting to consider how to do so, I advocated turning certain spells into rituals, increasing casting time, and/or allowing certain spells to be learned first as rituals and only later as spells. I am not diametrically opposed to 4e's take on this.

EDIT: Oh, and I wasn't aware that the cleric's god was specified as to ethos and/or alignment. I obviously missed that, or forgot.

RC

 

[Argyle King]

There was a system for that in 2nd Ed. in Players Option. It was the Channeling system. Basically, it relied on spell points instead of slots. When you cast spells, you had to roll a save to avoid becoming fatigued.

It worked pretty well...made spellcasting very difficult and it became a choice. Yes, you could rip off a powerful spell...but you might be reduced to half movement for the next hour and have a -4 to hit anything.

3E had something similar, but simplified. It was in Monte Cook's 20 best d20 articles or whatever. A book that came out maybe 5 years back. Characters have to roll a spellcraft check to cast spells successfully. If they succeed, it goes off, but if it fails, they become fatigued. If they fail a second time, they become exhausted. I think the way it was structured was that you could keep casting spells of a level......more than you normally could by using vancian spellcasting. However...every time you cast a spell of the same level, the DC to avoid become exhausted goes up....so eventually you *will* fail.

Systems like that tend to prevent wizards from casting spells indefinitely. They have to be more choosy.

Banshee

Unfortunately, I never got to experience 2e. I grew up in a small rural town during the 'D&D is causing suicide and devil worship' era. I actually remember saving money to buy it from Toys 'R Us only to go in the next day and be told 'sorry, we're not allowed to sell it anymore.' It's a shame too; even if I were to find I didn't like the mechanics, I've come to find -from reading a friend's books- that I enjoy the style of the fluff and various other things of that nature. Sadly, the friend who has the books says he'll never go back to Thac0 again.

Anyway, I agree. It does cause a caster to be more choosy. As I said in my previous post, it makes casting become a tactical choice. Do I want to use my uber spell right now? What I like about how GURPPS handles it (and D&D 2e from what you've told me) is that it doesn't cripple me either. It may hinder me, but it doesn't completely prevent me from doing other things. I'd suggest reading over how GURPS handles it sometime; even if you never plan to run the game, I've found that their books tend to be good reads; eye openers as to how things can work differently, and excellent sources of information. As it pertains to the current conversation, the second reason applies.

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As for the skill challenge conversation going on. All of the same things you could do with 3rd Edition divination and such could be actually done easier in 4th Edition by just using a ritual. The kicker is that I don't even need to be a wizard to cast a ritual in 4E.

It is somewhat true that the original skill challenge math often made it pretty hard to succeed in a challenge. On the other hand, the new math makes it too easy (IMO.) There have been times when I could roll low single digits and still succeed at a check. I agree that the groups I've played with normally ask around the table for who has the best check.

 

[Mort]

Narrative control, I feel, should either not be in the hands of a class at all (the 4e solution), or it should be in the hands of EVERY class (no D&D has used this solution).

Actually the martial classes in 4e do have a limited form of narrative control. Many of the fighter, ranger, rogue dayllies are just extensions of their at-wills that do more damage (or extension of an at-will with a special effect). Brute stirke, for example, is just an at will but "I hit it much harder" and split the tree is twin strike that does more damage. The easiest way to explain that is by saying the player is excersising some narrative control over the combat as to when more damage and/or effects can be done. It's one reason I have no problem with martial daylies (it's basically just an alternative to giving the player tokens, fate points etc.)

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

if Magic is Powerful and Can do Anything is the norm, it permeates everything. EVERY PC and NPC *has* to be a magic user, use a magic user hireling, or buy magic items from a magic user just to be able to survive

Piers Anthony's Xanth setting would disagree with you slightly. In it nearly everyone has magic, but one of the first protagonists in the series had none. He was so amagical that spells could not affect him. That did not stop him from being affected by magical creatures, however...

 

[Mort]

Piers Anthony's Xanth setting would disagree with you slightly. In it nearly everyone has magic, but one of the first protagonists in the series had none. He was so amagical that spells could not affect him. That did not stop him from being affected by magical creatures, however...

This is not exactly accurate. Bink's talent actively protects him from being harmed by magic in any way, this generaly does include threats from the magical effects of creatures (and since in Xanth almost every creature is magical this is huge). In Knight Mare the talent is elaborated upon (from the first 3 books) to show that generally it does protect even against magical creatures - it's one weakness is if there is no direct harm to Bink it will not protect him (ex. he was transported somewhere with no food so might starve to death but the transportation was not harmful).

Bink is not anti-magic; he can use magic just fine and does on any number of occasions (again active protection, if it's in any way harmful it won't work but beneficial stuff works just fine): In a profoundly magical land, when you can use magic against people and they cannot use it against you it is a very big advantage.

I think Xanth actually demonstrates the dominance of those with superior magic. While everyone has a magic talent, most are "create a colored spot on any surface" variety (essentially cantrip level). Those that have great talent (called "magician caliber") such as polymorph at will, full control over the dead, polymorph other at will, etc. Are generally the rulers of the land.

 

[triqui]

Piers Anthony's Xanth setting would disagree with you slightly. In it nearly everyone has magic, but one of the first protagonists in the series had none. He was so amagical that spells could not affect him. That did not stop him from being affected by magical creatures, however...

To quote the Incredibles arch villain "if every body is especial, then nobody is". Thats balance too.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I didn't say Bink couldn't use magic, just that magic itself would not affect him.

As for creatures, protection from their magical effects is all well & good, but a dragon still has big freaking claws & teeth. That's one of those situations where some protection is about as useless as none at all.

On the whole, he much resembles a typical D&D fighter- with no magic of his own (beyond his aforementioned protection), he has to depend upon the magic supplied by others when magic is required.

 

[Fifth Element]

On the whole, he much resembles a typical D&D fighter- with no magic of his own (beyond his aforementioned protection), he has to depend upon the magic supplied by others when magic is required.

I daresay a typical D&D fighter is not immune to the effects of magic. Fighters don't get spell resistance as they level. That would be a very significant benefit that puts him beyond the typical fighter in the game.