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

[Neonchameleon]

Who?

Just to be clear, you seem to insist -- as do many other people -- on equating "balance" with "power." I disagree with that, but if that is your metric, I concede that the wizard can bring more power to bear.

What exactly does the fighter bring to bear? The ability to swing a sharpened piece of metal really effectively. That's it. He doesn't even have the endurance of a cleric; a cleric can heal himself. The fighter doesn't even bring skills for out of combat - he has fewer skill points than the wizard (assuming prime stats) and the ones he's good at (climb, jump, swim) are the easiest skills in the game to make irrelevant with magic. His other skills are Handle Animal, Intimidate, and Ride. It's the worst skill list in the game.

I'm with Diamond Cross, though: IMO, the classes are balanced fairly well for how the game is intended to be played.

A statement that to me is almost exactly analogous to "Railroad plots are great as long as the PCs willingly stick to the railroad." I play with a creative group - odd uses for spells, avoidance of combat matters as much as smacking people round the head with your sharpened bit of metal, and a lot of creativity comes into play.

Doesn't your next post say that you aren't interested in wizards are warriors being "symmetrically balanced"? But it's be "nice" if fighters can do knock? And charm person? And mind blank? And find the path? Seriously?

Knock is the goddamn Rogue's job. The Wizard shouldn't be better at dealing with the important locks than the Rogue. And shouldn't do it automatically. Personally I like the 4e approach - with prep time and at a cost the caster can use the Arcana skill on locks rather than thievery.

Mind Blank likewise. That should be a matter of force of will. Not "have wizard or die". Yes, wizards can counter scrying - but normally they do it in fiction with displays of brute magical force - the equivalent of throwing up chaff (which sticks out like a sore thumb).

Make a wizard and skin it as a fighter, man. Jesus.

A wizard won't cut it. A cleric on the other hand...

And there it is again: "power equals balance." If the wizard is fighting the fighter, maybe so. If the wizard and the fighter are for some reason competing against each other, maybe so.

Power is a significant part of balance.

But in a game where the DM actually, you know, exists, and creates challenges for both of them, "power" and "balance" aren't the same.

In a game where the DM is bending over backwards to create jobs for each PC rather than e.g. running a sandbox or a pre-published module, yes. I don't micromanage to create jobs for Aquaman. I set the PCs with situations based on what the bad guys want and how the PCs handle it is up to them.

I never see this argument being used against the cleric. It's only the wizard.

Clerics as a problem are actually worse. They can fight in melee and their magic is almost as strong as wizards. Druids ("I have class features stronger than your entire class") are worse still. Wizard is just used as shorthand for spellcaster.

I think one thing that makes the problem worse -as far as D&D goes- is the "5 minute work day." IMO, things are a little more balanced when the PCs need to be heroes at all times instead of only during a few encounters. One of the DMs I used to play with when I played 3.5 used villains who were more pro-active; attacking the party during rest hours happened. There were many times when the mighty wizard (or the cleric) were left with their fates in the hands of the party fighter.

Two words. Rope trick.

This isn't to say I believe 3.5 was perfect; I fully agree it had a few problems, but I think some of the problems were made worse not by the system but by the way in which people played the system.

Indeed. The core problem with 3.X is that if you played a wizard and played as an actually smart wizard within the setting you exposed those problems. It's like the Masquerade - but a Masquerade which in character you have every incentive to break, with all the pressure not to coming from out of character situations.

I've often made the comment to my friends that GURPS often feels more like a book whereas I feel that D&D 4E seems more like a movie.

I'll buy that Movie or TV series. And 4e pretty much explicitely runs on Holywood Physics.

My house rule for starting to cut wizards back in 3.x involves making the Bard the only primary caster. Because it seems to be a lot closer to mythological and fictional (protagonist) spellcasters than the wizard.

 

[Bluenose]

I'm with Diamond Cross, though: IMO, the classes are balanced fairly well for how the game is intended to be played.

Do the AD&D rules set out the way the game is intended to be played? Because I don't think many people are going to claim that the balance between classes is the same in 1e/2e/BECM as it is in 3e. Massive nerfing of everyone's saving throws, increased spell availability, easier magic item crafting, ability to cast spells after being hit, a skill system intended to reduce the participation of certain classes in non-combat situations - no doubt others can add to that list, but in general it amounts to giving more nice things to spellcasters and taking them away from non-spellcasters. And yet if the 3e way is how classes are supposed to be balanced, then earlier editions simply got it wrong.

I think believability in fantasy settings is grossly overrated. Tolkien's Middle Earth is not remotely believable. The Shire has material living standards comparable to 18th or early 19th century England, although the latter was a centre of world commerce and productiong and the former is a small, autarkic community. Gondor appears to have material living standards and economic power at least comparable to the major European kingdoms of the high mediaeval period, without any sort of comprable economic base. Where are the villages and towns that support Minas Tirith (they certainly don't seem to be passed through during the Ride of the Rohirrim)?

The economic base for Gondor appears to be in the coastal provinces to the south of the city, which is one area which we don't see much of in the books. Quite a few of the contingents of troops that defend Gondor come from that area.

 

[BryonD]

And yet if the 3e way is how classes are supposed to be balanced, then earlier editions simply got it wrong.

I don't think earlier editions "got it wrong". But I do think that a lot of modern games learned a lot from the experiences of older games, and early versions of D&D being the clear prime pioneer.

If you want to compare them on equal footing and use the most negative possible spin, then yeah, for modern gaming they "got it wrong". But it really is a loaded unfair way of saying it on more than one level. First, they were massively "right" for their time. And second, "wrong" is really very much the wrong word. Clearly there are many people who still absolutely love the older editions and for them they are the pinnacle of "right". That's cool. But if instead of asking the question : "What is the right or wrong way to have fun?" you instead ask "Which is the right way to appeal to a larger modern audience?", then 3E is "more right" and older editions are "more wrong".

 

[BryonD]

I think believability in fantasy settings is grossly overrated. Tolkien's Middle Earth is not remotely believable. The Shire has material living standards comparable to 18th or early 19th century England, although the latter was a centre of world commerce and productiong and the former is a small, autarkic community. Gondor appears to have material living standards and economic power at least comparable to the major European kingdoms of the high mediaeval period, without any sort of comprable economic base. Where are the villages and towns that support Minas Tirith (they certainly don't seem to be passed through during the Ride of the Rohirrim)?

Exactly the same sorts of points can be made about REH's Hyborian Age, which is a self-conscious pastiche of various times and places intended solely to provide an evocative backdrop for the Conan stories.

I think there is nothing wrong with handwaving. In a game system which includes spells like Continual Light, all it needs is an understanding at the table that no one will push the boundaries that might make the handwaving fail to do its job. (Much like the understanding that no one will theorise too hard about the dungeon's ecology, or the Underdark's impossible economy - how is the Vault of the Drow richer than any surface city given its such economically umpromising geography? - or about where and how often their PCs go to the toilet.)

I absolutely agree with this.

In very simple terms, players sit down around the table wanting to experience a stereotype fantasy world. (and even an against the grain anti-stereotype is just another stereotype for this point).

There are boundary conditions that everyone who is actually seeking to make the game fun tend to reflexively adhere to.

That isn't to say that thinking real hard about ecology can't be a fun thing of its own. And you can also look at Order of the Stick as an unrelenting parody of the mechanical implications of 3E. But 3E fans I know all think OotS is funny as hell. We love it, and then we turn around and sit at our table and accept our boundary conditions, experience immersion in the desired setting and have a blast.

 

[BryonD]

I am reminded of the old debates about how many chickens you could buy in a small town. Back when 3E was the current edition, that discussion would come up every so often. Some people would really have issues with it, but the bulk of the conversation was just about how absurd it was. It was funny. But it was a bunch of 3E fans talking about wonkiness when you get outside of boundary conditions. The bottom line was we all still played 3E and this was big debate online without having any impact on the actual game.

Nowadays I find people trying to point out things like this and actually trying to use it as evidence that 3E was never a simulation. The disconnect is so stark that there is no way to really even progress with the conversation.


I recall debating whether or not celestial great white sharks would ambush attack celestial sea lions for dinner, and whether or not the sea lions minded. Absurdity. But great fun.

I recall the great thread about how many house cats would be needed to slay a great wyrm red dragon. First you need enough to build a giant pyramid of cats. Then suicide cats fling themselves from the top onto the dragon for 20d6 damage. Then you have to multiply by 20 because the other 19 failed their dragonfear save.....

 

[Raven Crowking]

Do the AD&D rules set out the way the game is intended to be played?

1e PHB has quite a bit of advice as to how the game should be approached by a player; 1e DMG has quite a bit of advice as to how the game should be approached by a DM.

 

[Diamond Cross]

My house rule for starting to cut wizards back in 3.x involves making the Bard the only primary caster. Because it seems to be a lot closer to mythological and fictional (protagonist) spellcasters than the wizard.

Gandalf and Merlin were not singing cowboys.

 

[Hussar]

Nobody has convinced me that the "problem" is the rules set. The problem is deliberate misuse of the rules set, apparently combined with permissiveness from the other players and GM.
/snip

(BTW, none of my protests against changing the game should be taken as implicit claims that there's nothing wrong with the game, or with certain aspects of spellcasting. Glitterdust is a broken spell. If it is used exactly as intended, on its own, without any search for ways to abuse it, it is too powerful. There are many other examples.)

Catching up on this thread, and this one stuck out for me.

Don't you see a bit of a contradiction here? "There's no problem with the ruleset" vs "There are many other examples of problems with the ruleset"?

If there weren't any problems with the ruleset, shouldn't there be, well, no problems with the ruleset and not a shopping list of problems? Particularly when all the problems come from the same source - spells and the magic system?

 

[Hussar]

I think there is nothing wrong with handwaving. In a game system which includes spells like Continual Light, all it needs is an understanding at the table that no one will push the boundaries that might make the handwaving fail to do its job. (Much like the understanding that no one will theorise too hard about the dungeon's ecology, or the Underdark's impossible economy - how is the Vault of the Drow richer than any surface city given its such economically umpromising geography? - or about where and how often their PCs go to the toilet.)

Once the game makes the setting another element in the game that the PCs are expected to use alongside (or as part of) the mechanics, then I agree that things change. This is part of why I'm not a big fan of domain-type rules, at least of the classic AD&D/Expert variety. They suddenly make sociology and economics matter to the game, bringing an end to the handwaving and encouraging players to break the gameworld in all the ways that you (Hussar) are talking abou

Yeah, I can see that. And, to be fair, we certainly played that way. By and large, most of these things were just handwaved away as much as possible.

However, I do find it rather refreshing to play a version of D&D where I don't have to do that quite so much. It doesn't actually take that many changes to make the D&D magic system not have so much of an impact on world building really - just remove a lot of the permanent effects, particularly at low levels.

 

[BryonD]

However, I do find it rather refreshing to play a version of D&D where I don't have to do that quite so much. It doesn't actually take that many changes to make the D&D magic system not have so much of an impact on world building really - just remove a lot of the permanent effects, particularly at low levels.

Yep.
If you want to play thta kind of setting, then D&D as written is not optimized for your preference.

I'll only speak for 3E, but there are certainly numerous options for moding it into something that does work. E6 is the most obvious. Others exist.

As a kid I loved Wahoo stuff. During my late teens and very much through my early 20s I found I was deeply interested in much lower magic type gaming. Through my 30s and up to now I find that I still appreciate and enjoy the low magic stuff, but I'm back to wahoo as the default go-to.