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

[korjik]

I think that the time frame for completing a combat, especially as levels increase, was/is a major disincentive for some folks. And then there was a WotC web column that suggested dropping wandering encounters.

I think the actual argument that Hussar is talking about is "IF you choose not to use wandering encounters, THEN there is little reason for the characters not to go nova." It doesn't presuppose the IF part of the statement, and offers a solution as well: "IF you use random encounters (i.e., if the characters cannot predict an ability to restore all used resources between encounters), THEN the characters are likely to hold something in reserve (i.e., not nova)."


RC

Which is just silly. You dont need random encounters to keep players from going nova, all you need is to let them know that trying to rest without taking out the bad guys ability to retaliate is going to get the camp attacked.

Now before anyone pulls out the old, tired list of all the foolproof ways of keeping that from happening, please realize that the bad guys should know all those tricks too, and should know the ways around them.

Nova was never a rules issue.

 

[Fifth Element]

A D&D fighter This I'll grant.

I guess the qualifier "fighter from fiction not based on D&D..." needs to be added.

 

[Neonchameleon]

As soon as this happens, the GM needs to adjust encounters so that every encounter is designed to potentially use up the party's total strategic resources, lest every encounter otherwise become trivial. This means that the fights have to last long enough to use those resources (leading to long, grindy combats) and that they have to be all roughly the same in terms of challenge (leading to long, boring, grindy combats).

Hold right there. Long grindy combats are an antidote to a different problem. Long grindy combats are an antidote to combat being Russian Roulette decided on a mere couple of die rolls due to having minimal hit points and dying in one hit. And then replacing the deceased Knuckles-22 with Knuckles-23.

Length and grind of the combat is about risk. Grindy combats are almost risk-free and that's the problem. Strategic resource management and recovery is a different issue entirely. And frankly I like having more than d4 hit points and dying in a hit off a random die roll.

but if that was the cost of resolving the warrior vs. wizard "problem" (which has never been a problem for me), it is a cost I am entirely unwilling to pay!

You, so far as I can tell, seem to take the other approach. Fighters hit people. Wizards cast spells and handle strategic resources, but are only truly effective in combat from ambush. Different parts of the game for different characters. Which can work or can suck. But neither your problem nor your solution is what you seem to say it is. (IMO the biggest mistake made in 3.X is fitting spells into something easily cast in six seconds. I like the Ritual Casting method of 4e where rituals take a minute or more to cast.)

 

[Raven Crowking]

Which is just silly.

Perhaps, but equally true, it is a problem which has been mentioned by several people here and elsewhere.....and the root cause is obvious: No need for strategic resource management.

You could, of course, design a game in which "going nova" for every combat was the expected norm, by severely reducing strategic resource management, for example, coupled with knife-edged "encounter balance", and long grindy combats, as described above.

Or, you could make strategice resource management meaningful.

I imagine that there are people who will prefer both solutions.


RC

 

[Neonchameleon]

As I said in my previous comment, grindy combat is little to do with strategic resource management. It's more to do with combat lethality. You can have strategic resource management and encounter balance. Or indeed a system where the strategic resource was which combat to end fifteen rounds early (or avoid).

 

[Stormonu]

I imagine that there are people who will prefer both solutions.


RC

Quite possibly, within the same game. That would be interesting to seen done.

 

[fanboy2000]

...strategic resource management....strategic resources...strategic resources ...strategic resource...I am presuming a game that deals in strategic resource management...strategic decision that makes play interesting, to me.

Luke: You told me that wizard's didn't dominate the game!

Obi-Wan: Wizards don't dominate the game if you play it as a strategic resource management game. So what I told you was true, from a certain play style.

Luke: A certain play style!

Obi-Wan: Luke, you're going to find out that a great many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own play style.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Or, you could make strategice resource management meaningful.

I imagine that there are people who will prefer both solutions.


RC

I prefer both, provided that it is a conscious design decision from the very beginning, and then that design is implemented fairly well. Those are bigger caveats than they first appear.

For example, part of this whole original topic as it plays out in 3.* implementation is that gestalt rules were tacked onto 3E instead of built in from the beginning. (Not blaming anyone here, since the goals of gestalt are not the goals of the original design. But changing goals midstream has its own problems.)

If I'm playing 3E at all, I'm playing with some kind of limited gestalt. Take the basic gestalt framework, and then knock off some of the sheer power that it gives. Because there are very few characters that you can't get at least a decent representation of using gestalt, and if I'm playing with D&D Lego (which 3E is), then I want to make detailed characters. All the limits of the fighter become moot* when paired in a gestalt, and the advantages of the wizard (and even moreso the cleric and druid) are muted. (You can get an almost GURPS-like slew of options in 3E gestalt by simply saying that everyone has "side 1" of a gestalt which is always single-classed, and "side 2" of a gestalt which can never take the same class twice in a row.)

*Indeed, the fighter is one of the things that has to be reined in with gestalt, and this is not surprising.

But almost all of the problems that stem from RAW gestalt tie into what has been referenced earlier. You can advocate that the fighter is "merely a fighter". He fights. He gets a few bones thrown his way for characterization, but they are always substandard. Or you can say that the fighter is supposed to be a good way (or at least a decent option) for representing a host of "fighting" characters from fantasy media, and thus the class should contain elements that make that possible when played as a single class.

The problem with 3E is that it tries to split the middle on that issue. It can't be split well. If you go the second choice, and say that every class is supposed to be able to represent something with character depth and/or reskinning, you can do something like 4E. 4E is almost rabidly opposed to multiclassing in some ways. Or you can do something like 1E. There are many possibilities for making single classes viable, and they will all have strengths and weaknesses depending upon what else you want to favor or discourage.

Or you can go the 3E gestalt route, and say that classes are building blocks. Building blocks, by definition, are often small slices of the whole. Design seriously for gestalt, and you will cut out single classes as viable options. As just one example, the fighter (or fighting alternatives) would be a lot more impressive in such a hypothetical system if the casters didn't get so much base attack and hit points. Caster keep those things to remain viable as single classes.

To a lesser extent, this applies to multiclassing as well, and explains why the fighter is as relatively weak as he is in base 3E. The implementation decisions that keeps the fighter from being a veritable treasure of cherry picking goodness in the original multiclassing are the exact same things that keep him subpar as a single-class. And while you can play around the edges to compensate, if you want, by giving the fighter more abilities at higher level, this is explosed by RAW gestalt rules as a multi-classing kludge rather than a real fix. (Though in the context of straight 3E, probably a very effective kludge, and thus worth considering if you don't intend to redesign a gestalt-centric system from the ground up.)

 

[Raven Crowking]

Luke: You told me that wizard's didn't dominate the game!

Sadly, I have XPed you too recently to do so again for this bit of dah funny!

I prefer both, provided that it is a conscious design decision from the very beginning, and then that design is implemented fairly well. Those are bigger caveats than they first appear.

No, that makes perfect sense to me.

The problem with 3E is that it tries to split the middle on that issue.

You know what? I think that I agree with you here.

I'll go you a step further:

I have no interest in running a 4e game. BUT, if I was given the option between playing in a 4e game or a 3e game, where both were run by folks I knew were excellent GMs, and I couldn't say "both", I am leaning right now toward giving 4e another shot.

But if both GMs were merely "good" (or worse), I would choose 3e. Simply put, 3e has better adventures.


RC

 

[pawsplay]

Stupid meathead, granted. I'd have said Barbarian from memory. And didn't he have a tangle with the gods?

Is the one who wounds Aphrodite? Can't remember.

Aristocrat rather than fighter IMO. Yes, he could fight well. But so can other classes. And Boromir wasn't centred on fighting to the exclusion of all else. Which fighters ... pretty much are. Boromir was persuasive (not quite good enough for Frodo backed by the ring).

So... he fails to persuade the circle, fails to persuade/Bluff Frodo, fails a couple of Will saves, then dies after killing a ridiculous number of orcs. Sounds like a fighter to me. He is nominally an "aristocrat," from a land where political acumen means fighting off weekly raids by wild riders. I don't see him do anything more than is suggested by a few ranks of cross-class skills, even if he were low-level--which he is not. Based on the body count, he had to be at least 6th level, possibly higher if you think he took a bad crit early in the fight.

Too much of a leader. This requires skills not on the fighters' list. And precious few things that being a fighter helps with. Remember that in a world where third level is average, a third level fighter stands out - but only has the BAB of a fourth level bard.

Blackbeard was not known for his skilled personnel managment. He was a leader, but not a skilled leader. In a pinch, he relied on Intimidate.

She's a down the line Paladin. I can make a case for Aura of Good, for Divine Grace, for Aura of Courage, and even for Lay on Hands happening very early on (through the medallion). I can see the case for a Prestige Paladin who started out as a fighter.

Indeed, since the first book has her exhibiting zero supernatural abilities of her own. She is explicitly a soldier, who later, after having gained considerable skill, has an epiphany and is given the option of training as a paladin. She certainly does not have Aura of Courage, and indeed suffers from considerable doubt in herself as a fighter.