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

[Umbran]

The bard, and (of course) the wizard have means to do this outside of combat easily. The fighter has no such means, even though he really should be the leader of men (or at least have the potential).

Yeah, well, there's a strong argument that Conan's a big old Mary Sue, so maybe expecting a game that's supposed to have some niche protection built into it to perfectly represent him with a single class is not reasonable.

Or, maybe Conan's got some bard levels in there.

More importantly - any character could try to talk others into revolting with him. The Bard will probably be better at it, as he's probably put more points into his Charisma and relevant skills, but a fighter should most certainly have a chance.

If that's not sufficient, each character has a chance of getting his or her way by using his or her shtick. Last I checked, the class name was "fighter", not "shmoozer", and his shtick involves fighting. Funny thing, that.

 

[Mort]

Yeah, well, there's a strong argument that Conan's a big old Mary Sue, so maybe expecting a game that's supposed to have some niche protection built into it to perfectly represent him with a single class is not reasonable.

Or, maybe Conan's got some bard levels in there.

More importantly - any character could try to talk others into revolting with him. The Bard will probably be better at it, as he's probably put more points into his Charisma and relevant skills, but a fighter should most certainly have a chance.

If that's not sufficient, each character has a chance of getting his or her way by using his or her shtick. Last I checked, the class name was "fighter", not "shmoozer", and his shtick involves fighting. Funny thing, that.

Being a leader of men is not the same as a shmoozer - there's a pretty good tradition of it in the literature - and I was just putting the Conan example in more context. The point is, of the classes mentioned, the fighter is the least equiped to sway fighting men to his cause - there's something wrong with that.

As for the fighter being good at fighting -well ok, but the wizard's schtick is also good in a fight, as good as the fighters, and it's also good outside, far superior to the fighters - I think this argument falls short.

 

[Votan]

Yeah, well, there's a strong argument that Conan's a big old Mary Sue, so maybe expecting a game that's supposed to have some niche protection built into it to perfectly represent him with a single class is not reasonable.

Or, maybe Conan's got some bard levels in there.

More importantly - any character could try to talk others into revolting with him. The Bard will probably be better at it, as he's probably put more points into his Charisma and relevant skills, but a fighter should most certainly have a chance.

If that's not sufficient, each character has a chance of getting his or her way by using his or her shtick. Last I checked, the class name was "fighter", not "shmoozer", and his shtick involves fighting. Funny thing, that.

Fair enough. But leading soldiers seems to be related to fighting in a very direct way. In 3E terms, it is odd to model Genghis Khan or Alexander the Great as Fighter/Bard multi-class characters. Okay, neither really exist in a fantasy world . . . but the idea that a soldier might be good at leading armies or squads of mercenaries isn't a huge stretch.

It's also a very edition specific concern, go be fair. In AD&D the fighter naturally acquired men at arms who were loyal followers as a class feature. In 4E the leader of men niche is more warlord than Fighter but the skill and feat structure don't handicap the Fighter as much.

In war of the spider queen (books based on 3E), the subversives in the Drow city were delighted at how easy it was to dominate senior soldiers (due to the known weak will of fighters). The logical conclusion of this is that soldiers would never be placed in charge of anything - - - which would be a major change in the socio-political structure of many game worlds. Oddly, clerics turn out to be the best class for commanding troops, or maybe a druid or bard. A wizard would be weak at it but would be hard to dominate and could make a critical roll (with Moment of Prescience, perhaps the worst thought out spell in 3E).

 

[GSHamster]

Just going to back to combat mechanics, I wonder if the structure of the game as turn-based combat contributes to the disparity.

For example, imagine the game with the following changes:

1. No shift/5 foot step.
2. Casting a spell is a full-round action.
3. Anyone next to a casting character gets to make an attack roll that interrupts the cast if successful.

That right there would make casting a lot harder once the melee closes in.

 

[Votan]

Just going to back to combat mechanics, I wonder if the structure of the game as turn-based combat contributes to the disparity.

For example, imagine the game with the following changes:

1. No shift/5 foot step.
2. Casting a spell is a full-round action.
3. Anyone next to a casting character gets to make an attack roll that interrupts the cast if successful.

That right there would make casting a lot harder once the melee closes in.

That is very close to AD&D (where casting a spell in melee was for the brave or the reckless). In low levels, this really hurts the wizard but it helps preserve the role of the fighter even at the highest levels.

 

[pawsplay]

As far as 3e goes, a fighter can be a competent leader of men. With Leadership, Negotiator, and some cross-class skills, he can meet and beat routine DCs. Smart fighters, anyway, or at least, human ones. However, he is clearly far behind the bard or Cleric in such things, which is not ideal. It is true that in AD&D, the fighter attracted loyal fighting men in a way in which other classes simply could not. Fighters were imbedded in the social order, while wizards and thieves stood apart, and clerics had the loyalty of religious flocks rather than states.

Fantasy Craft handles this pretty well. First of all, their version of the fighter, the Soldier, gets medium Fort and high Will, making him a good bit pluckier. Further, they have two leader-type classes, Captain, and Noble, which could be used either as a foundation to, or an addition to, Soldier levels. Lastly, there are origin options and feats that can make people skills more accessible to the fighter. Additionally, Holdings and Contacts can bind impressed armsmen to the fighter, even if he's not much of a "people person" in general.

Pathfinder, despite some fairly minor changes, does much better than 3.5 for the landed fighter! Cross-class skills mean nothing more than losing a +3 bonus to the skill, and feats such as Skill Focus and Negotiator offer some scaling benefits.

 

[Umbran]

The point is, of the classes mentioned, the fighter is the least equiped to sway fighting men to his cause - there's something wrong with that.

Fair enough. But leading soldiers seems to be related to fighting in a very direct way.

I am not at all sure that the ability to swing a sword well is particularly related to the ability to lead men in battle. Sure, being a good fighter will earn you some respect from other warriors, but beyond that, the skills are not particularly related. In the real world, the tactical knowhow and the charisma are not borne of being good at wielding a weapon, are they?

Sure, genre fiction has many characters who are good at fighting and also at leading men. But why do you want to insist that these individuals need to be represented with single-classed fighters in the game?

In a game without classes, if you want to be good at leading, you have to spend your points on something other than the mechanics of fighting. Why should D&D be any different?

 

[Votan]

I am not at all sure that the ability to swing a sword well is particularly related to the ability to lead men in battle. Sure, being a good fighter will earn you some respect from other warriors, but beyond that, the skills are not particularly related. In the real world, the tactical knowhow and the charisma are not borne of being good at wielding a weapon, are they?

Sure, genre fiction has many characters who are good at fighting and also at leading men. But why do you want to insist that these individuals need to be represented with single-classed fighters in the game?

In a game without classes, if you want to be good at leading, you have to spend your points on something other than the mechanics of fighting. Why should D&D be any different?

This is a good point.

But I think genre fiction is a good place to look for ways that these classes can be balanced with the game world. I think that the general sense I get is that the fighter has a very sparse set of out of combat options but doesn't dominate in combat. Ending up as rulers or leaders is a nice way to bring this balance back (and was the classic AD&D approach).

In a sense, does the class model martial artist (obsessive focus on fighting) or soldier (where leadership and tactics would be part of the training). Given the monk, I usually assumed the latter (but valid alternate interpretations of the class exist). My personal break point was in that set of FR novels where they made the weak will save of high levels fighters a plot point (which seemed to just break with historical archetypes).

That being said, I think the fighter (and Barbarian, to a lesser extent) is a uniquely weak element of high level 3.X D&D. The class works fine, even at high levels, in 1E, 2E and 4E. More interestingly, 1/2E and 4E each solve this issue in very different (and equally valid) ways.

 

[Ultimatecalibur]

Looking back at things the Fighter/Fighting-Man lost a lot of power in the transition from 2e to 3.x.

Warning the following data is from memory

In 2e the best AC was -10 and primarily the domain of rare/unique creatures such as the Tarrasque or Fighters outfitted in +5 Full plate and +5 Shields. non-magical Full Plate with Shield was AC 0.

A Fighter had a starting Thac0 of 20 that decreased by 1 per level and gained .5 attacks per round every 6 levels that used the Fighters full attack bonus. Specialization in a melee weapon granted +1 to hit, +2 damage and .5 attacks.

At level 10 a Fighter with a Str of 9 (minimum Fighter strength; no penalty) had a Thac0 of 11 that allowed him to hit an opponent in non-magical Full Plate and Shield with a random non-magical weapon 50% of the time with 3 attacks every 2 rounds. Equipped with a +3 weapon that he is specialized in and a Belt of Hill Giant Strength (set Str to 19) the same Fighter would have an effective Thac0 of 4 and could hit AC -10 30% of the time with 2 attacks per round dealing a minimum of 12 damage per hit. Considering that creature hp rarely went over 100 that is a lot of damage.

I don't have an "average" 3.x Fighter build on hand, but I think that the 3.x Fighter ends up relatively weaker even with all the customization.

 

[pawsplay]

I am not at all sure that the ability to swing a sword well is particularly related to the ability to lead men in battle. Sure, being a good fighter will earn you some respect from other warriors, but beyond that, the skills are not particularly related. In the real world, the tactical knowhow and the charisma are not borne of being good at wielding a weapon, are they?

Charisma may be less important than demonstrated courage and ability. Fighting men want someone they can stand beside... perhaps even behind. Charisma may be useful for leading armies and founding dynasties, not so much for convincing someone to follow you into the south of France.

Tactical knowhow *is* related to being able to swing a sword well. If you don't have both tactics and physical ability, you are not going to survive to 3rd level.

Being a general officer is a different skill from being a fencer, but being a fighter isn't a different skill from either; it encompasses and requires both. Musashi was renowned, not because he was Mr. Popular, but because if you were on his side, you won and lived, and if you were on the other side, you lost and died.