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

[Mort]

FYI, I chose Hypnotism, partially because I would have assumed that Essentials applies the latest in lessons learned. Both Beginning of the End and Hussar have commented that 4E is an evolving game, so I looked at one example of the latest in the evolution of magic powers.


But these questions DO seem to come up, as have been mentioned beforehand. ^{[error: missing footnotes]}

Your game clearly involves out-of-the-box thinking, which is wonderful, but is it the norm for 4E gamers?

It certainly is the norm in my 4e game. And page 42 is left open on the table (or it was in early play, now I think the concepts are ingrained and the charts are on the DM screen) as a constant reminder that you are not simply a collection of the powers on your sheet!

 

[NoWayJose]

It certainly is the norm in my 4e game. And page 42 is left open on the table (or it was in early play, now I think the concepts are ingrained and the charts are on the DM screen) as a constant reminder that you are not simply a collection of the powers on your sheet!

I agree that the philosophy behind page 42 is very well-intentioned: we don't need a rule for everything, too complex and not fun, so improvise a little!

However, I don't believe that page 42 is the answer to life, the universe, and everything. It wasn't designed to handle game-changers, like rules for a nuclear bomb or introducing the magical equivalent of the Internet to the world of Dark Sun.

Thus magic rears its ugly head with questions like 'what happens when lightning bolt hits water?', 'can a ray target an object?' (before the official addendum) and 'why can I only hypnotize him to do 1 of 2 things?'. Previous editions of D&D avoided or addressed these kinds of questions with various degrees of success. The philosophy of 4E is to pointedly avoid these narrative questions and offload them to the DM/player to fill in the blanks ^{For God's sake, we don't really need reference footnotes for this one, do we?}.

So what happens when designers ignore the larger implications of spells like Hypnotism? Sweep them under the rug of page 42? Well, as per above¹, I think you'll end up with lots of gremlins under the rug just waiting to spring out and unbalance your warrior vs wizards.

For that reason, I can't agree with pemerton's solution of using page 42 to fix the questions that I posed. ²

1. Last paragraph of http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...ndled-fantasy-literature-104.html#post5540121
2. http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...ndled-fantasy-literature-103.html#post5539325

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Gee, I missed a lot over the weekend.

On human agency for smoothing out resolution, you guys already have discussed that it is a double-edged sword, but I don't think anyone has addressed exactly just how much so. Rather than tackle it head on, let me make an unsupported assumption (too generalized for purposes of illustration).

There are two types of DMs (and players to a lesser extent):

1. Those that already know how things work, to a certain degree, and thus fit the rules into that.

2. Those that rely on the rules to tell them how things work, and thus fit reality into that.

The example was an axe, because we assume that everyone knows how an axe works. Maybe they do, but I'm not so sure given the repeated incidents of reports of teenagers that don't know that hamburger comes from cows. I know some of these people have never used an axe, and if they have even seen one, it was probably in a bad horror movie (held inexpertly). We can quibble about the depths of ignorance on axes, and I doubt many interested in gaming are that dense. Still, you've got people that think a war axe looks like the illustration in a gaming book, is held like human warrior in the picture holds it, and is a great tool for cutting down a tree. It isn't, though, because the handle is too short. (I know this because I have cut down trees with an axe, BTW.)

Thus are born the idea that katanas are inherently superior, and the oft-repeated request to chop through a 2" thick solid oak, bound door with a sword, without damaging the weapon. Most of us know there are limits to what a sword can do to a door (pretty severe ones if we are at all realistic). If we allow it, we allow it because the particular game we are running is ok with it--it's a highly magical sword, it's only mere wood, why not? Or some such.

And this is nothing compared to what magic can do. Magic that tunnels through dirt or even granite, leaving a (safe) passage? Magic that changes shape, and what powers and skills go with it?

The problem with the "tool" idea of explaining gaming, though, is that you cannot explain all possible tools in a way that will get through some of those mental blocks that think that cows and hamburger have no relation. Or you can to a certain extent, but the game can't teach you about reality, and how the game differs from it. At best, it can try to convey to you what the reality of the game world is, in a consistent manner, and hope that your own slant on how this differs from the reality in your head will not cause too much trouble.

That is, it is not reasonable to ask a game to tell you how weapons would really work, and then also tell you how they work in the game. Frequently, the game authors themselves don't really know, because the game is based on ... film, literature, etc.

All our theoretical game could do on this question, if it wanted to be brutally honest, is have a several passages supporting this kind of thought: "Here are some weapons. Some of them might be useful in other ways. Depending upon how fantastical you want to make the world, some of the real limits might not even apply. We aren't going to tell you if a war axe is good for chopping down a tree, or if a magic sword can cut through a door, or if you can tie a rope to an arrow and shoot in a way that it can be climbed. That is up to you to decide. If you want to be more realistic about it, you'll need to educate yourself."

Edit: Any student of older fantasy literature can tell you that this question predates fantasy roleplaying. It is not entirely inaccurate to say that fantasy writers also divided into those same two camps: Those that studied fencing or other weapons so that their characters could act in plausible ways, and those that didn't care. There were some sharp words exchanged about it.

 

[NoWayJose]

That is, it is not reasonable to ask a game to tell you how weapons would really work, and then also tell you how they work in the game. Frequently, the game authors themselves don't really know, because the game is based on ... film, literature, etc.

We all have different tolerance limits, but most people don't let the hard truth get in the way of their entertainment. In movies, we see the action hero calmly walking away from a massive explosion behind him. In real-life, he'd be blown away by the concussion, right?

But I get your point. If D&D doesn't explicitly allow a war axe to cut wood, then either they don't want to spell out a rule for everything or they know that war axes != wood axe. On the other hand, if D&D explicitly allows a war axe to do equal damage to wood, then either they don't know anything about war axes or they know but don't care about the realism.

All our theoretical game could do on this question, if it wanted to be brutally honest, is have a several passages supporting this kind of thought: "Here are some weapons. Some of them might be useful in other ways. Depending upon how fantastical you want to make the world, some of the real limits might not even apply. We aren't going to tell you if a war axe is good for chopping down a tree, or if a magic sword can cut through a door, or if you can tie a rope to an arrow and shoot in a way that it can be climbed. That is up to you to decide. If you want to be more realistic about it, you'll need to educate yourself."

You know what would be cool? You have the core crunch rules compendium. Then you publish the Encyclopedia of D&D, which talks about all that wonderful stuff about war axes and katanas like you mentioned. An entry on the war axe outlines the real-life and possible fantasy applications. A section on lightning spells describes real-life electricity compared to what magical electricity might be like. Lots of thought and research though required. Doubt such a thing would ever get published. I'd buy it for sure though. Would be a wonderful coffee-table book, and useful for any fantasy game system.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

You know what would be cool? You have the core crunch rules compendium. Then you publish the Encyclopedia of D&D, which talks about all that wonderful stuff about war axes and katanas like you mentioned. An entry on the war axe outlines the real-life and possible fantasy applications. A section on lightning spells describes real-life electricity compared to what magical electricity might be like. Lots of thought and research though required. Doubt such a thing would ever get published. I'd buy it for sure though. Would be a wonderful coffee-table book, and useful for any fantasy game system.

Books, plural--though you are right, it would be wonderful. I remember trying to use the Encyclopedia Britannica for the real-world side. I read roughly a third of it in my teenage years. It was useful, but oh so frustratingly limited. Check out the mining entries, for example--long on modern information, very short on ancient or medieval mining techniques.

 

[LostSoul]

So what happens when designers ignore the larger implications of spells like Hypnotism? Sweep them under the rug of page 42? Well, as per above¹, I think you'll end up with lots of gremlins under the rug just waiting to spring out and unbalance your warrior vs wizards.

On the "constantly updating 4E" front, there was a recent Dragon article that added the big thing I felt page 42 was missing - conditions.

"I throw sand in his eye! DM, what happens?"

Here's what they've come up with:

Epic Standard: Dominate, stun, or petrify
Paragon Standard or Epic Move: Blind, daze, immobilize, restrain, or weaken
Heroic Standard, Paragon Move, or Epic Minor: Grant combat advantage, allow a mark, or penalize a defense by up to –2
Heroic Move, or Paragon and Epic Minor: Avoid intervening obstacles during a move; grant concealment and/or cover; knock prone; push, pull, or slide enemy up to 4 squares; deafen; or deal level-appropriate ongoing damage
Heroic, Paragon, and Epic Minor: Add a damage type to an attack or allow a 1-square shift​

The article is here: Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (Tutorial: Terrain Powers) It's free.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Um....Hussar.....the OP's question pertains to literature.

In case this was not clear.....In literature (or, at least, the literature I am interested in emulating in my own games) magic is limited by several factors. Rarity, difficulty of use, conditions of use, being of limited use or usable at limited times and/or places, and being dangerous to the user are high among the factors that allow authors to allow fighter-type heroes (such as Conan) to overcome sorcerers and the like.

These types of limitations are easier to model in a game using broad-based balance than they are to model in a game using knife-edge balance. That is not to say that any game necessarily achieves this, but merely that a broad-based balance is more conducive to doing so.

There are passages of Robert E. Howard's writing that seem as though saving throws, for instance, were modelled directly on them. Likewise, several D&D spells seem to spring directly from Howard's typewriter.

 

[NoWayJose]

The article is here: Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (Tutorial: Terrain Powers) It's free.

Hey, that 'wrecan' guy is familiar... funny he got his own article on wizards.com. Like the "Your Gritty Antihero and You" article, this POV comes from a guest writer outside WoTC, which is a shame. And I think the article looks too long and wordy which is probably why I didn't read it before. I DO like the sample terrain powers at the bottom, some of them are quite inspiring and indicative of what 4E can do.

Anyhoo, I feel as if I've been (trying to) monopolize this thread lately, so I'll take a breather for a while (if I make my Will save). Thanks to everyone again for all the new info I've learned.

 

[pemerton]

The philosophy of 4E is to pointedly avoid these narrative questions and offload them to the DM/player to fill in the blanks

Much as was the case with original D&D, or B/X.

I don't believe that page 42 is the answer to life, the universe, and everything.

<snip>

Thus magic rears its ugly head with questions like 'what happens when lightning bolt hits water?', 'can a ray target an object?' (before the official addendum) and 'why can I only hypnotize him to do 1 of 2 things?'. Previous editions of D&D avoided or addressed these kinds of questions with various degrees of success.

Basic/Expert didn't address them. It left it as an exercise for the players/GMs. Generally, B/X is lauded as a terrific, open-ended, imagination-inspiring game.

4e doesn't address them expressly, either. But it does have a bit more detail. It has the text I quoted upthread from PHB p 10 (and other similar text scattered throughout the PHB) which says that PCs can do whatever a powerful fantasy action hero can do. And it has DMG p 42, plus the two-or-so page discussion around pp 64ff of how to damage objects.

Now if someone (not necessarily you, but I've certainly seen it suggested) is trying to tell me that 4e is therefore a radical departure from B/X, and that it kills imaginative play whereas B/X fosters it, they're going to have to point to something more than the "target: creature" line in the power descriptions.

What if many other players and DM read any power mechanics and simply assume that's all they can do with it? That's not a one-sided question -- many people, including myself, read a rule in a rulebook and assume it's the rule, period, whether we personally agree with it or not, especially (as you've pointed out) when the rule is written so succinctly.

These would be the same people who, when playing B/X, assumed that a fireball could not do anything other than damage creatures? Were there really very many such people? (And would they continue to think this even after reading the suggesion in the DMG about paper being vulnerable to fire damage?)

My question was not so much how 4E *can* or *should* play out, but how *does* it play out in most games? It's the latter experience that informs a majority consensus, which I think is important to recognize whether one is discussing wizard spells or any other topic. So I didn't mean to ask a one-sided question.

Fair enough. I've got no idea what the norm is. My impression on these boards is that much of the criticism of 4e being creativity-stifling, "dissociated", etc comes from those who don't play it (LostSoul being the most obvious exception to this) but that impression could of course be biased by my own interests!

So what happens when designers ignore the larger implications of spells like Hypnotism? Sweep them under the rug of page 42?

<snip>

I think you'll end up with lots of gremlins under the rug just waiting to spring out and unbalance your warrior vs wizards.

So I still wonder how many players actively refer to page 42 for alternatives? And of those players that do argue that they should do more with Hypnotism and other powers, how many DMs are in the same mindspace?

<snip>

I believe that Hypnotism Essentials is an at-will attack power (someone please correct me if I'm wrong). If some DMs allow Hypnotism to be used more believably as some indicated they would ^{[error: missing footnotes]}, then arguably, you have a very powerful tool that can upset all sorts of balance issues, no? Can Hypnotism be used endlessly at-will outside of combat? If yes, that can be seriously unbalancing. If not, what's the fictional justification for that? Lots of questions, leading me to believe that, for the sake of balance, the designers did not truly intend spells like Hypnotism to be used beyond 'attack or slide up to 3 squares'. If that's true, then the page 42 option may introduce its own problems and then we're back to square one

This issue - the benefit that spellcasters have in open-ended action resolution - came up a while ago on one of my actual play threads (I think this one).

Part of my response then was that 4e martial PCs get various metagame-style powers to compensate. Obviously the GM also has to be mindful. In the case of hypnotism, presumably it could be used to make a guard wander away from his/her post (3 square slide), to stab someone (melee basic attack), perhaps to pocket something (maybe not much more sophisticated than a melee basic attack). It couldn't be used to make someone say anything very complex (more sophisticated than a melee basic attack).

Useful? Yes. Signicantly more powerful than (for example) the Suggestion cantrip? I don't think so. Unbalanced? I'm not sure. I'd have to see it in play. But my initial intuition is No, because it is clearly not versatile or powerful enough to substitute for training in Diplomacy.

 

[Hussar]

Which all helps prove my point, Hussar, which was that random encounters were just as hard on noncasters- more of their resources are harder to replenish. The more random encounters, the more likely the party is going to be forced to retreat.

Oh yeah- you didn't cover fatigue in your point by point.

Note what you said here though - "forced to retreat". Not rest. Not replenish resources on their own. Again, if you're forced to retreat, then random encounters become moot because you've left the dungeon and re-entered civilization. The non-casters don't need to rest because resting does nothing for them.

You'll have to refresh my memory I'm afraid on the fatigue rules. IIRC, in AD&D, it was 2 turns after any combat that you were assumed to be resting. Beyond that, I don't recall any fatigue rules. 3e doesn't have any fatigue rules for not resting at all. In fact, I do recall an OOTS cartoon from Dragon which specifically mentions this.

So, what fatigue rules necessitate the group to rest for 8 hours?