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

[Jeff Wilder]

Charisma may be less important than demonstrated courage and ability.

Completely as an aside, I wouldn't have minded Pathfinder giving fighters a class ability granting +1/level on Charisma checks or Charisma-based skill checks related directly to combat or war.

You'd have someone bitching that "I don't want my fighter to be a charismatic leader," but the "surly warrior that says nothing but still influences the rank-and-file" is common enough that they could live with it.

 

[Mort]

Completely as an aside, I wouldn't have minded Pathfinder giving fighters a class ability granting +1/level on Charisma checks or Charisma-based skill checks related directly to combat or war.

You'd have someone bitching that "I don't want my fighter to be a charismatic leader," but the "surly warrior that says nothing but still influences the rank-and-file" is common enough that they could live with it.

That or give some options:

bonus to war related charisma checks (as you said) or
bonus to war related skills (constructing siege engines etc.) or
bonus to strategy related skills. etc.

or

Frankly, giving a bonus to all of those wouldn't unbalance things.

 

[JamesonCourage]

For anybody interested in houseruling in some Fighter changes to make them better leaders (more like OD&D, it looks like), you can make the following changes. It's purely optional, of course. I use some of the following rules in my homebrewed RPG, and I'll list some uses of the Leadership skill that will work alright in a 3.X game (which means leaving out the Mass Combat stuff, as all of that is specific to my RPG, as well as the uses that apply in a party setting).


The first is the Leadership skill. When it mentions Diplomacy, it's talking about a modified version of Giant In the Playground Games but that skill as written will work decently.

Leadership

Win Over Crowd
You can attempt to win over a crowd that has no allegiance to you. This usually involves a speech, which can take quite anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour. You may make a Leadership check against a crowd that is not already under your leadership. The DC is 15 + the average hit die of the crowd + the average Wisdom modifier of the crowd. If successful, they are considered 1 step more favorable on the Risk vs. Reward chart in Diplomacy for the encounter. This only applies to your next Diplomacy check, and only if you make the Diplomacy check to the crowd during or at the end of the speech.

Rally Followers
You can attempt to improve the way you are perceived by a crowd that has some allegiance to you. This usually involves a speech, which can take quite anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour. You may make a Leadership check against a crowd that is already under your leadership. The DC is 15 + the average hit die of the crowd + the average Wisdom modifier of the crowd. If successful, they are considered 1 step more favorable on the Relationship chart in Diplomacy for the encounter. This only applies to your next Diplomacy check, and only if you make the Diplomacy check to the crowd during or at the end of the speech.

I have a Tactics skill as well, but it has 3 uses for Mass Combat and 3 uses for a party-like scenario. Leadership has 2 uses for Mass Combat, as well as 1 use for a party-like scenario.

I'd suggest just adding Leadership and Diplomacy as a class skill for Fighters (or Barbarians, or whoever you feel is appropriate). Give them class abilities at whatever levels feel right:

Level 5: If you have 8 ranks in Leadership, you gain a bonus on Will saving throws against effects that would effect your mind while in battle equal to your class level.
Level 8: If you have 11 ranks in Leadership, you gain the effects of the Leadership feat, as well as a bonus on it equal to ½ your class level.
Level 11: If you have 14 ranks in Leadership, you gain a bonus to Leadership skill checks to Rally Followers equal to ½ your class level.
Level 14: If you have 17 ranks in Leadership, you gain a bonus to Leadership skill checks to Win Over Crowds equal to ½ your class level.
Level 17: If you have 20 ranks in Leadership, when using the Rally Crowd use, your followers are considered two steps in favor of you if you are successful on your Diplomacy check, rather than one step.
Level 20: If you have 23 ranks in Leadership, when using the Win Over Crowd use, the crowd is considered two steps in favor of you if you are successful on your Diplomacy check, rather than one step.

Is this a lot for free, just by investing in one skill? It sure is. It's nothing but a narrative power boost for Fighters. In the last 3.x game I ran, I had a cleric, a sorcerer, and a fighter, and none of them seemed to constantly outshine the rest of the party (in fact, while the players loved their characters, they were jealous of how the others could do certain things they couldn't, usually about an even amount of the time).

Just throwing those two uses out there for people, if they like them. My RPG runs classless, and I don't have to worry about a lot of stuff, but if it's narrative control that people are after, then the Leadership skill might at least go one step towards fixing it. You can only give it to Fighters, and you can make it Trained Only if you felt it fit better.

Because, in the end, play what you like

 

[Neonchameleon]

It says that it's balanced around the thing it specifically tells you NOT to do?

That sounds... highly implausible. I've just skimmed through the Encounters section of the 3.5 DMG again and I'm not seeing anything to back you up on this one.

From the SRD:
Challenge Rating

This shows the average level of a party of adventurers for which one creature would make an encounter of moderate difficulty.

In more detail, IIRC a CR equal to the party is meant to be the level of challenge that will make them expend 25% of their daily resources. It tells you not to do every fight like this because that gets tedious. It's bad DMing because it's boring. And that's why the DMG tells you not to do it. And it needs to do it because it is an easy trap as that's what the system is supposedly balanced around.

Or what is your belief in what CR means?

When you make ridiculous, non-factual claims like this, it makes it very difficult to discuss anything with you.

Given that you seem to want to define the meaning of words and phrases the way you want to rather than by their orthodox meanings (for instance you claim things to be spherical cows when people have observed and experienced them - spherical cows being theoretical constructs based on impossible simplifications), I'm not surprised you have problems discussing things.

(3) In general, the attitude from NeonChameleon seems to be, "All the fighter can do is fight!"

All the fighter can do is fight. And he can't even do that especially well. The part of fighting the fighter is good at is hitting people. Not controlling the battlefield. Not strategy. Not tactics. Not logistics. Not morale. Simply the mechanical motions involved in weapon meeting face.

Well... yeah. It's right there in the name of the class. If that's not what you want to be doing, then you should play a different class.

The Leverage RPG arrived from Amazon for me yesterday. You know the name of one of the classes in there? Hitter. He hits people and does it well as the name would apply. But, unlike the fighter, he's a professional at dealing with dangerous situations - and has things he has learned other than how to hit people. This is the approach I like. People with a good basic level of competence. And with stuff they've picked up along the way.

It's like he's got a screwdriver in his hand and he's caterwauling about how awesome nails are and how lousy the screwdriver is at pounding them.

It's like he's got a screwdriver - when everyone else has an entire toolkit involving screwdrivers, hammers, saws, etc. Yes, it's a nice ratchet screwdriver. Shinier than the bard's - and doesn't need to spend time on the charger unlike the wizard's electric screwdriver. Most people get a toolkit (for the moment we'll ignore that the monk's toolkit is unfinished and will give you splinters unless you wear heavy gloves). The fighter gets ... a screwdriver.

I'll start with a disclaimer that you may simply consider a dodge, but I do not. In a great game, everyone should have times to shine but there is no need whatsoever for everyone to shine equally at all times. If you play a fighter and want to be equal to a bard in social events then you are either being foolish, or you are setting up an interesting distinct challenge for your self.

But, you didn't say "equal to the bard", you just said better than a commoner.

I did. Because that to me is the heart of the problem. There are 36 skills (not counting subspecialties) in 3.X (Pathfinder has, to its credit, fewer). Fighters get 2+int mod skill points per level and a pathetic skill list.

D&D game are generally about conflict. I think we can agree with that. And generally, the idea of physical combat is near. You may be talking with enemies for whom a fight is potentially imminent.

And, pray tell, why would the fighter be more relevant than any other class here. After all, everyone can fight. And the rogue might even be able to give you advance warning.

You may be talking with allies about an upcoming fight.

Something the fighter isn't inherently good at.

You may be talking with a neutral third party about any variety of issues.

Issues outside axe meeting face? Would knowing about them be Int or Wis based? Either way there is no inherent reason within 3.X that the wizard and the cleric wouldn't be better at them than the fighter. (The fighter can't even take Profession (mercenary) as a class skill).

And in any case the fighter brings being a serious force in combat to the non-combat situations.

So does every other class. PC Bards are a serious force in combat. Not quite the force fighters are, but certainly not insignificant. (And if you're talking about it to potential allies, Inspire Courage may well add more than the fighter does).

I don't WANT fighters being implicitly good at non-fighting things. I don't consider arguing that they are not a meaningful point.

The first problem is that they aren't good at fighting things other than direct physical combat. The second problem is that they aren't even particularly good at that by the standards of other classes. If the classes were the Leverage array of Hitter/Hacker/Mastermind/Grifter/Thief with each having a separate role then I'd see your point. But in both 3.X and 4e, the role of every class is combat. By talking about fighters in the way you are you are saying that their only role is a role shared by every other class.

I specifically said that commoners, imo, have no implicit reason to improve in combat ability and every class should be commoners, except for where they get better as part of the class concept.

Here I strenuously disagree. In ten levels, a wizard who goes adventuring will probably have used his staff to defend himself from orcs, goblins, ogres, the occasional dragon, footpads, highwaymen, possibly a few demons, and much much more. If he isn't fitter, tougher, more battlewise, and generally better at hitting people over the head than a first level wizard, I want to know why. And that tenth level wizard is still less dangerous with a staff than a first level fighter. (Unless he's put some work into it). So the whole idea of wizards hitting people over the head with their staff never comes up in practice.

And this, I think brings us to the root cause of our disagreement. Your character concept starts with the word "Wizard". My character concept has the word "Adventuring" as the first word. So you get the Adventuring Wizard, the Adventuring Cleric, etc. Yes, there is no reason the average wizard shouldn't be a total klutz with no competence at all with a staff. He also probably sits in his tower, researching or writing heated exchanges and sending them via crystal ball to other wizards. Or possibly summoning succubi or watching them on crystal balls. For games of D&D he is also an NPC. As is the cleric who tends his flock and hasn't ever seen a weapon drawn in anger - indeed when he shows up everyone puts down the swords out of sheer embarrassment. Not at all the same thing as the cleric who goes into the crypt to face down the undead. And that is why I'm glad 4e PC classes are for PCs only.

Wizards who want to get better at actual fighting have ways to do that.

Wizards who don't want to get better at actual fighting should stay away from adventuring.

I disagree that you have covered all versions of Merlin that have been generally accepted. But I could also point to Pug and Thomas, or any vast number of D&D novels which are steadily consumed.

The exceptions that prove the rule. Fictional wizards who are like D&D wizards tend to be D&D derived.

The "pseudo-diceless" point is interesting. The tone I read into what you say there is negative on this.

There is if it's used too heavily. You end up with the "Shadowrun Decker" problem. Pseudo-diceless takes a lot of time and a lot of focal time if done heavily.

Yeah, pseudo diceless happens all the time. A commoner and a fighter may have exactly the same *game system quantified* skill in Intimidate. So they have the exact same chance of successfully intimidating an orc. But if they both threaten the orc with direct physical violence, then I probably won't even let the common roll.

For me it would depend how the commoner was played. Why does the commoner have an intimidate as high as the fighter? How does he specialise in intimidating people? I can see a musclebound thug (commoner) having more chance of intimidating people with physical violence than a debonair swashbuckler (fighter). On the other hand if the fighter is musclebound and the commoner is weedy, why the hell is he threatening the orc with direct violence? That's certainly a circumstance penalty.

 

[Banshee16]

So, ironically, the fighter no longer makes great sense as a leader of men in 3E (lacking many of the basic skills). Rogues, Bards and Clerics do much better in this (classically fighter based) role, the later two of which are much harder to control by an evil doer. And they are better judges of character and so forth.

Tomas, or King Arthur or Conan, as literary examples are quite capable of judging people, leading men or resisting mind affecting magic. I was concerned that the 3E fighter did these roles poorly.

While I don't necessarily agree with everything that has been said, I do agree with these points.

I suspect WotC went this way, as they were starting to crystalize the whole "striker, tank, etc." roles, and the game was intended for use for adventuring, going in dungeons and all that, and to give a fighter these social skills would mean they take away from the schtick that the cleric and bard have....even though fighters having those skills would make sense.

Similarly, we lost all the stuff about name levels and gaining a keep, and how high level play differs from low level play by being more political. Personally, I think D&D lost alot by having that aspect taken away. But likely it's been something that was harder to design for and run, hence, unnecessary.

With respect to the social skills conundrum, I got around it by using feats I found in Swashbuckling Adventures. Basically, they were talent feats where you could take a feat such as "Commander" that would add several skills to your class skill list....Diplomacy, Sense Motive, etc. You wouldn't have any ranks...it's just that from the point you took the feat, it was now a class skill.

Simple and elegant. You want a fighter who's a leader of men? Take the feat, and now you can start putting skill points into your new class skills on a 1 for 1 basis, and you max would be char lvl +3, instead of char lvl +3/2.

Banshee

 

[BryonD]

I did. Because that to me is the heart of the problem. There are 36 skills (not counting subspecialties) in 3.X (Pathfinder has, to its credit, fewer). Fighters get 2+int mod skill points per level and a pathetic skill list.

Again, you declaration of "a problem" is at an impasse with the fact that my games don't have a problem. The difference is that can't seem to see the difference between your problem and a problem implicit to the system.

The fighter has the skills a fighter needs in order to be *a fighter*.

And, pray tell, why would the fighter be more relevant than any other class here. After all, everyone can fight. And the rogue might even be able to give you advance warning.

Now you are just playing silly word games. The fighter's capacity at martial skill applied to a fight is quite valuable, and fun to boot.

Issues outside axe meeting face? Would knowing about them be Int or Wis based? Either way there is no inherent reason within 3.X that the wizard and the cleric wouldn't be better at them than the fighter. (The fighter can't even take Profession (mercenary) as a class skill).

Um, I'm trying to play by your rules here. You said "compare to commoner". It seems you now find the need to move the goal posts.

So does every other class. PC Bards are a serious force in combat. Not quite the force fighters are, but certainly not insignificant. (And if you're talking about it to potential allies, Inspire Courage may well add more than the fighter does).

And again with the moving of goal posts. I didn't say anyone was "insignificant". By this standard a fighter is not the force bards are in a debate, but they can easily be constructed to be far from insignificant.

The first problem is that they aren't good at fighting things other than direct physical combat. The second problem is that they aren't even particularly good at that by the standards of other classes. If the classes were the Leverage array of Hitter/Hacker/Mastermind/Grifter/Thief with each having a separate role then I'd see your point. But in both 3.X and 4e, the role of every class is combat. By talking about fighters in the way you are you are saying that their only role is a role shared by every other class.

Funny, I don't know any serious 3E fans who agree with this assessment. Certainly other classes also carry their weight. But I think your anti-3E bias is undermining the integrity of your position.

Here I strenuously disagree. In ten levels, a wizard who goes adventuring will probably have used his staff to defend himself from orcs, goblins, ogres, the occasional dragon, footpads, highwaymen, possibly a few demons, and much much more. If he isn't fitter, tougher, more battlewise, and generally better at hitting people over the head than a first level wizard, I want to know why. And that tenth level wizard is still less dangerous with a staff than a first level fighter. (Unless he's put some work into it). So the whole idea of wizards hitting people over the head with their staff never comes up in practice.

Yep. We disagree.

And this, I think brings us to the root cause of our disagreement. Your character concept starts with the word "Wizard". My character concept has the word "Adventuring" as the first word. So you get the Adventuring Wizard, the Adventuring Cleric, etc. Yes, there is no reason the average wizard shouldn't be a total klutz with no competence at all with a staff. He also probably sits in his tower, researching or writing heated exchanges and sending them via crystal ball to other wizards. Or possibly summoning succubi or watching them on crystal balls. For games of D&D he is also an NPC. As is the cleric who tends his flock and hasn't ever seen a weapon drawn in anger - indeed when he shows up everyone puts down the swords out of sheer embarrassment. Not at all the same thing as the cleric who goes into the crypt to face down the undead. And that is why I'm glad 4e PC classes are for PCs only.

Yep. And that is why Andy Collins made the comments he made about class design. And that narrow minded perspective on what what characters are is part of the reason 4E lost so much of the D&D fan base.

My way allows the concepts you describe. Your system demands them.

Wizards who don't want to get better at actual fighting should stay away from adventuring.

Heh, funny how BAB wasn't "actual fighting" when you try to claim bard and rogues equal to fighters, but you turn on a dime here.

There is if it's used too heavily. You end up with the "Shadowrun Decker" problem. Pseudo-diceless takes a lot of time and a lot of focal time if done heavily.

And it is awesome when done well and a game that doesn't go there enough end up falling well short of the ultimate potential.

For me it would depend how the commoner was played. Why does the commoner have an intimidate as high as the fighter? How does he specialise in intimidating people? I can see a musclebound thug (commoner) having more chance of intimidating people with physical violence than a debonair swashbuckler (fighter). On the other hand if the fighter is musclebound and the commoner is weedy, why the hell is he threatening the orc with direct violence? That's certainly a circumstance penalty.

Certainly, and you can build commoners to match what you want. Buy, yet again, you are using double standards and moving goal posts from your own argument.

Bottom line, it is clear you love 4E and don't get what you want from 3E.
If I sit here and list off all the crap I find in 4E that makes the game less satisfactory than numerous other games out there, I doubt you are going to be very swayed.

Well, the same thing applies here. If you tell me this happened to you, then fine, I believe you. But when you foolishly extrapolate that it also has to happen to everyone else, you are simply wrong.

 

[Mort]

Again, you declaration of "a problem" is at an impasse with the fact that my games don't have a problem. The difference is that can't seem to see the difference between your problem and a problem implicit to the system.

The fighter has the skills a fighter needs in order to be *a fighter*.

Really? 2 skill points per level is enough to cover it? Fighters are already stat dependant so it's unlikely you will have much over that for most builds (maybe an extra 1 or 2 if you are going for an expertise build, but the rules punish you for it).

Now you are just playing silly word games. The fighter's capacity at martial skill applied to a fight is quite valuable, and fun to boot.

From many of your posts You really, really hate it when others declare broad generalisations as fact. Perhaps you should stop doing it? What martial skill do fighters have other than "I hit it hard?" It would actually be a nice add-on rule if fighters could (or could at least take feats) to provide tactical bonuses to those around them.

Funny, I don't know any serious 3E fans who agree with this assessment. Certainly other classes also carry their weight. But I think your anti-3E bias is undermining the integrity of your position.

I'm sorry but this statement is utter BS (and again doing exactly what you say you hate). Many 3e fans love the system but hate the implementation of the fighter (and acknowledge it as a weak class). Some of us like the Bo9S as what "fighters should be." Others, who don't like the wuxia angle of the Bo9S like the add ons in Players Handbook II with the fighters feats that finally, finally don't suck. Pathfinder also recognised some of the weaknesses and has several feats to try and patch them. I frankly don't think pathfinder goes far enough but I (and my players) love the Bo9S so we actually have no problem there. I would gladly play in another 3e game (not DM though, I don't have the time to do it as properly as I like and like I used to, but that's a different complaint) and to suggest I somehow hate 3e because I dislike the implementation of the fighter class is ludicrous.

Certainly, and you can build commoners to match what you want. Buy, yet again, you are using double standards and moving goal posts from your own argument.

His argument is "fighter implementation is flawed and weak compared to the other classes." You have yet to actually refute the argument in any meaningful way.

Bottom line, it is clear you love 4E and don't get what you want from 3E. If I sit here and list off all the crap I find in 4E that makes the game less satisfactory than numerous other games out there, I doubt you are going to be very swayed..

Again with this weird belief that if you thinks wizards are overpowered or think the fighter is underpowered you don't like 3e. There are easy ways to fix both of these beliefs right within the system, but that doesn't mean you can't hold the belief and expound it when called for on a message board.

Well, the same thing applies here. If you tell me this happened to you, then fine, I believe you. But when you foolishly extrapolate that it also has to happen to everyone else, you are simply wrong.

You don't have to extrapolate to everyone, or even most, you just have to show that it happens often enough to be an issue worthy of discussion. And to reiterate "You don't like fighter or wizard implementaion... move to 4e" is silly (move to 4e if you like 4e - pretty simple really) how about "if you don't like wizard or fighter implementation in 3e but like 3e... try one of the many variants available in 3e.

 

[Hussar]

/snip

3e has shifted things slightly toward casters (clerics with full casting, wizards with easy access to scroll) yet the fighter remains viable. The problem is not raw power, but what in Shadowrun is called the "decker problem." The decker is basically a computer hacker, and while he is doing his thing, it's possible other characters may be left "standing guard." The wizard's ready access to knock, dispel magic, and fly mean that adventures can, and therefore do, make use of obstacles such as difficult to open doors (which only a wizard or a concentrated rogue is likely to be able to handle), magical traps and barriers, trange monsters, and physical chasms and other barriers. If the wizard weren't there, the fighter would just do something different, but since they are there, the fighter "stands guard" while the wizard casts a spell. While almost all characters have something to do, most turns, in most fights, not everyone is equipped for specialized obstacles.

OTOH, give the fighter the Leadership feat and an adamantine mace, and he becomes an effective problem-solver, too, in the wizard mode. Now, when the party comes upon a locked door, the party "stands guard" while the fighter smashes it to pieces, and when they need to sneak past enemies, his sorcerer cohort casts invisibility.

The solution to the problem of casters overshadowing non-casters is to give the non-caster nearly equal casting abilities (cohorts are typically only a level or two behind the PC) to the caster. I'm not sure this is actually solving the issue.

Short answer, yes. Even stacks of 1st level scrolls are a significant expense until very high levels.

Umm, what? A 1st level scroll costs TWELVE gp. Oh, sorry, 12.5 gp. I can buy a HUNDRED scrolls for just a bit more than it takes a 5th level caster to make a +1 sword. Exactly how big is your stack?

Absolutely.

And it had a real secondary effect in making combats last longer than necessary, IMHO. 3e is not my "perfect system"!



I don't endorse that viewpoint.



1. You should not have to.
2. Yes. BUT (a) not everyone experienced those problems where (1) is concerned, and (b) there are many ways of doing this; the 4e way is not objectively better than the 1e way. I prefer the 1e way, myself.

In this case, the 1e and 4e approach is the same - limit what impact the caster can have on the game world by removing virtually all the problematic spells from play (or never adding them in the first place as the case may be) and making fighter types able to hold their own quite well without having a caster buff the heck out of them.

You should not have to.

If the interaction between your playstyle and a ruleset creates these problems, pick (or create) a different ruleset!



RC

Or, simply adjust the ruleset so that the problem goes away. Isn't that probably the grandest tradition in D&D? Isn't that the basic point of things like E6 and BFRPG?

 

[Hussar]

While I don't necessarily agree with everything that has been said, I do agree with these points.

I suspect WotC went this way, as they were starting to crystalize the whole "striker, tank, etc." roles, and the game was intended for use for adventuring, going in dungeons and all that, and to give a fighter these social skills would mean they take away from the schtick that the cleric and bard have....even though fighters having those skills would make sense.

Wait... what? They crystalized roles for characters back in 1998 in preparation for a game that wouldn't begin development for a decade?

Similarly, we lost all the stuff about name levels and gaining a keep, and how high level play differs from low level play by being more political. Personally, I think D&D lost alot by having that aspect taken away. But likely it's been something that was harder to design for and run, hence, unnecessary.

I'm a bit foggy, but, did fighters gain followers in 2e? I did a bit of checking and I know the name level stuff disappeared in 2e. But, I cannot recall if there were follower rules in 2e.

The problem was IMO, that the shift from dungeon crawling to economics was too large for most groups. And, there were some serious gaps in the mechanics for exactly how you were supposed to mechanically model running a kingdom or fief.

The rules had fifteen different ways for killing a goblin but were very sparse on the ground on things like taxation and crop growing - basic stuff you really need to know if you actually want to play Run the Fief.




With respect to the social skills conundrum, I got around it by using feats I found in Swashbuckling Adventures. Basically, they were talent feats where you could take a feat such as "Commander" that would add several skills to your class skill list....Diplomacy, Sense Motive, etc. You wouldn't have any ranks...it's just that from the point you took the feat, it was now a class skill.

Simple and elegant. You want a fighter who's a leader of men? Take the feat, and now you can start putting skill points into your new class skills on a 1 for 1 basis, and you max would be char lvl +3, instead of char lvl +3/2.

Banshee[/QUOTE]

 

[pawsplay]

The solution to the problem of casters overshadowing non-casters is to give the non-caster nearly equal casting abilities (cohorts are typically only a level or two behind the PC) to the caster. I'm not sure this is actually solving the issue.

That was a for-instance. The cohort could be a rogue, or heck, another fighter. The followers should be warriors.

Umm, what? A 1st level scroll costs TWELVE gp. Oh, sorry, 12.5 gp. I can buy a HUNDRED scrolls for just a bit more than it takes a 5th level caster to make a +1 sword. Exactly how big is your stack?

I was thinking about a hundred. 1250 gp is real money until you get well into the teen levels.