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

[Hussar]

It's pretty simple. Knowledge Geography isn't needed to read a map, you would not require your PCs to have the skill to read a map, and the entire line of reasoning is about as questionable as possible.

And, honestly, I think we both know that.


RC

Then what is Kn Geography for then?

I would point out that Paizo disagrees with you here. In the Savage Tide AP, it requires Kn Geography checks to chart a course from point A to B. You then need Profession Sailor checks to actually follow the course.

I also believe that the WOTC book that deals with naval stuff, Stormwrack, uses the same rules. Someone with that book can look that up.

So, in 3ed D&D, you would actually be wrong here. Even looking at the d20 SRD, you find the following:

Difficult Terrain

Any character in forest, moor, hill, or mountain terrain may become lost if he or she moves away from a trail, road, stream, or other obvious path or track. Forests are especially dangerous because they obscure far-off landmarks and make it hard to see the sun or stars.
Table: Getting Lost Circumstance Survival
DC
Moor or hill, map 6
Mountain, map 8
Moor or hill, no map 10
Poor visibility 12
Mountain, no map 12
Forest 15
Chance to Get Lost

If conditions exist that make getting lost a possibility, the character leading the way must succeed on a Survival check or become lost. The difficulty of this check varies based on the terrain, the visibility conditions, and whether or not the character has a map of the area being traveled through. Refer to the table below and use the highest DC that applies.

A character with at least 5 ranks in Knowledge (geography) or Knowledge (local) pertaining to the area being traveled through gains a +2 bonus on this check.

Check once per hour (or portion of an hour) spent in local or overland movement to see if travelers have become lost. In the case of a party moving together, only the character leading the way makes the check.

By the book, I need to be making Survival checks as soon as I'm out of sight of land. And, again, our poor fighter doesn't get Survival as a class skill.

Actually, that is a myth. I mean, yeah, the navy was really really bad and a lot of pirates "choose" that as a lesser evil, but it was still a miserable life that few people with better options selected for themselves.

but whatever....


I see Prof: Sailor 5 ranks.

I also really hope that this line of thinking doesn't describe your DMing style.

Profession Sailor does not allow you to read a map according to the rules. Now, since we're bringing in DMing style, I changed the rules and allowed Profession Sailor to do much more than simply let me make xdx sp/time period, which is what the rules say.

But, thanks for the cheap shot. If you want to discuss BryonD&D, I'm more than willing to start a new thread, but, I thought we were actually discussing the rules and not what you think they are.

Wrong.

I said it was a poor example of Blackbeard.
It is a perfectly valid "pirate".

My bad. I meant to say Blackbeard.

Funny thing is, you can make a cleric or wizard Blackbeard very, very easily, without all the round the corner backflips it takes to make a fighter Blackbeard.

 

[billd91]

Funny thing is, you can make a cleric or wizard Blackbeard very, very easily, without all the round the corner backflips it takes to make a fighter Blackbeard.

There are no backflips necessary to make a fighter Blackbeard. The 1st level start isn't a bad start on him at all. You just have to figure he'd have a few more levels on him, probably a bit more natural charisma. The rest works pretty easily with skill points.

Trying to make him out of a spellcasting class and you have to somehow get rid of the spellcasting to make it credible.

 

[billd91]

By the book, I need to be making Survival checks as soon as I'm out of sight of land. And, again, our poor fighter doesn't get Survival as a class skill.

You realize this is why a captain has a good navigator, right? To have those particular skills. Same with having a quartermaster for handling day to day management and discipline. Cap'n Blackbeard doesn't have to be the best guy with any of those skills - he can can delegate.

 

[Hussar]

There are no backflips necessary to make a fighter Blackbeard. The 1st level start isn't a bad start on him at all. You just have to figure he'd have a few more levels on him, probably a bit more natural charisma. The rest works pretty easily with skill points.

Trying to make him out of a spellcasting class and you have to somehow get rid of the spellcasting to make it credible.

Thus, my point. The casters make a better Blackbeard than the class that SHOULD be a better Blackbeard. That's backward.

No, it really, really doesn't work easily with skill points. He can, at best, gain ONE rank in any cross class skill PER LEVEL. That's it. That's all he can do. Those ranks that you gave him at 1st level? Those are going to be virtually identical by 10th level. Just how high of a level should Blackbeard be? Even by 20th level, at best, he's got 10 more cross class skills.

Oh, sorry, 20, because you gave him an Int bonus. Let's see, we're spreading this across Profession Sailor, Knowledge Geography, Diplomacy, Sense Motive, and Balance. That's +4 to each of these skills by the time he's TENTH level.

Ooh, a +4 Sense Motive in your captain. Yeah, you're not going to get fleeced at every port. +4 Kn Geography (presuming we don't need the Survival checks) means he gets lost about 40% of the time. Or, put it another way, any time his navigator fails a check, he's not going to be able to help at all. At least with a +6 balance check, he's only falling overboard about half the time in rough weather as opposed to almost all the time.

Yeah, that's one famous pirate captain all right.

You realize this is why a captain has a good navigator, right? To have those particular skills. Same with having a quartermaster for handling day to day management and discipline. Cap'n Blackbeard doesn't have to be the best guy with any of those skills - he can can delegate.

Problem is, firstly, the Captain is expected to navigate, this is a basic skill of a captain, and, second, as a pirate, it's not like he's got a lot of choices in crew.

Sure, he doesn't have to be the best. But, there is a difference between being the best at it and being able to do it AT ALL.

Or, put it another way, why on earth would I vote to make Blackbeard my captain when the navigator can do everything Blackbeard can do, PLUS he can navigate?

 

[Stormonu]

Perhaps Blackbeard is not the best example; there's a good chance he'd be a mix fighter/rogue anyway (which is, I imagine, a good bit of this argument). Certainly, several of the skills he need would qualify as more "roguish" in nature.

A more "pure" example of a fighter to test might be the likes of Beowulf, King Arthur, Charlemange, Roland, Achilles and similar characters. Can even these live up the expectation of "fighter" without having to dip into other classes to express their out-of-combat skills or abilities?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Why should "magic" be the only method built into any class to trancend normalcy?

Because, by definition, magic is what allows the rules of normalcy to be bent or broken. If you're not using magic of some kind, normalcy defines your limitations.

For example allow an option for rogues to build a network of informants as they go up in level, and/or give fighters some kind of mythic renown score that may provide aid - even in a foreign land.

It doesn't have to be a mechanical feature- I can do that in any RPG with roleplay- but in some, it IS a mechanical feature.

In 3e spellcasting power is quite a bit more immediate gratification than ability to buy stuff. The mage can do all the stuff himself - usually in 6 seconds or less. If there were more constraints placed on magic - well then there would not be this argument (as has been mentioned repeatedly 3e took many of the constraints of prior edditions away).

Nothing wrong with putting the restraints back in or using the ones still extant to the fullest.

Essentially, going with your analogy, the classes are "equal" well except the fact that by mid-high levels some have 1000x the gold of the other classes (but we'll pretend that makes no difference).

And were I playing in a game where wealth = power and I wasn't playing an aristocrat, I wouldn't be complaining that my PC didn't have money. After all, it was my decision to play something besides an aristocrat.

If that PC's lack of wealth bugged me, I'd find a way to increase my $$$, play aristocrat PCs, or play something else.

And on another note: what exactly is wrong with giving high level fighters "mythic" options beyond "I hit it pretty hard?" Options could be "leader of men" or "mythic combatant" or "slayer of beasts"

Nothing is wrong with that. Some games do that. D&D doesn't.

So your options are:

1. Play a different game
2. Play differently within the game
3. HR things in your game to make them what you want

I say that because there isn't much point in playing a game that makes you unhappy.

 

[pawsplay]

Um. That isn't Edward Teach. That's Roger the Cabin Boy. First level fighters have no more BAB or hit points than second level rogues; they simply aren't that good at fighting.

You are correct. This is Edward Teach, the sketchy Jamaican sailor. He won't be Captain Blackbeard for a few more levels.

And he's not going to scale well at all - he has feat bonusses to diplomacy, profession, and sense motive. He's more or less capped on these cross class skills. And for another skill Roger is lacking, Use Rope. A pirate captain with only a 50% chance of tying a firm knot?

I believe we'll be taking 10 there.

(Plus a balance of +2 is going to make him a joke on a ship with a rolling and slippery deck).

Are you implying that a competent sailor walks around with three or more ranks of Balance? What is this, a pirate circus ship?

Really, what's to scale? His diplomacy and sense motive only need a couple of more ranks to be consistently useful. Probably, Profession (sailor) should keep going up, at least for a while. What scales is full BAB, d10s for hit dice, Power Attack, Cleave, Improved Initiative, Point Blank Shot, etc. That is the point. His Diplomacy, Sense Motive, and Profession check totals only have to be high enough to make routine DCs. He is never going to be epically Diplomatic, detecting lies by Rakshasa assassins, or sailing his ship between Scylla and Charybis. You are thinking of maybe Sinband, the Rogue pirate. This is Edward, the Fighter pirate. He kills people. He'll keep his Intimidate maxed out and sprinkle skill ranks here and there as he sees fit.

 

[pawsplay]

Then what is Kn Geography for then?

NOT needing a map. It's a common misconception that Knowledge skills have useful applications. For instance, some people think Knowledge (arcana) would help you research ancient sorcerers, and that Knowledge (geography) would help you read a map. This is incorrect. Knowledge skills do just one thing:

Answering a question within your field of study has a DC of 10 (for really easy questions), 15 (for basic questions), or 20 to 30 (for really tough questions).

In many cases, you can use this skill to identify monsters and their special powers or vulnerabilities. In general, the DC of such a check equals 10 + the monster’s HD. A successful check allows you to remember a bit of useful information about that monster.

For every 5 points by which your check result exceeds the DC, you recall another piece of useful information.

Hence, actual ranks in Knowledge (geography) are useful for that +2 bonus, but you don't actually make a geography check to read a map. Apparently, Survival is used for that, since the Survival DC varies as to whether you have one. It does not vary as to whether you make a Knowledge (geography) check.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say you've never read any Napoleonic sea fiction, have you, pawsplay?

Because if you had, you wouldn't be asking "Are you implying that a competent sailor walks around with three or more ranks of Balance? What is this, a pirate circus ship?"

 

[pawsplay]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say you've never read any Napoleonic sea fiction, have you, pawsplay?

Sadly, I have read little. Most of my knowledge in the area comes from reading NON-fiction books about the Age of Sail, including a big stack of books on pirates I read in high school for my history report on the Age of Piracy.

Because if you had, you wouldn't be asking "Are you implying that a competent sailor walks around with three or more ranks of Balance? What is this, a pirate circus ship?"

So, here's my challenge to you. Stat me Blackbeard's crew. 2nd level human warriors.