Casters vs Mundanes in your experience

[Starbuck_II]

Conan's villainous sorcerers too were corrupt, they made bargains with eldritch beings who made them insane. The male channelers in the Wheel of Time would slowly go mad whenever they touched The Source (at least until Rand cleansed the male half...).

Not true of all casters in Conan's world. He relys on friendly Wizards/Druids all the time.
It is only the Clerics he has issues with (those who worship Set mostly).

 

[Dour-n-Taciturn]

True, not all of them, but the antagonists were, the one's that were a threat. The allied magic users would bow in and out of the story as cameo roles; the villains tended to linger.

 

[Minigiant]

And it continues with teleporting half a mile above Mount Doom (flying) with the Ring attached to a loaded distance arbalest. And then casting True Strike as you dive down to make sure you shoot the ring into the volcano.

I've did that once. Punishment to the DM for copying a quest arc straight from the book.

So he sicced a dragon on my wizard. I then casted some spell or two and it fell in the volcano.

 

[Steely_Dan]

1) That and two quid will buy you a coffee.

2) Now if D&D were to actually have negative consequences for casting spells (either CoC style sanity loss or WFRP style blowback) then there would be something in it. But for all practical purposes a fifth level wizard is more powerful than Gandalf because they have almost no limits.

1) That didn't quite work, and in London that would be one crap cup of coffee.

2) There is no point comparing a D&D wizard to Gandalf (so Jr High), or any class to any LotR character (JRR was not writing the story thinking of how the Fellowship would equate to D&D power levels), that's like comparing any D&D class next to a unique outsider/extra-planar being/plot device.

 

[LostSoul]

In my experience...

1st 3E campaign. We moved over from 2E. It was a low-magic world, so there weren't many NPC magic-users. The Wizard pretty much had only the 2 spells per level. Once the Wizard (who took a level of Fighter at level 5) got Fly and Improved Invisibility, I had to change the game world to keep up.

In the 2nd longest campaign we played, I remember all the fights being very difficult. My ranger/fighter died at level 8, so I brought in a 7th-level Wizard (since we didn't have one). After that, all the fights were too easy. The only time that PC came close to dying was when he spent his Dimension Door, didn't cast Arcane Sight, and got trapped in Evard's Black Tentacles from an invisible wizard.

A few other short-lived low-level campaigns never saw the casters dominate.

In my current 3.5 game I am playing a fighter/magic-user (Fighter 2/Wizard 5/Spellsword 1/Abjurant Champion 5/Eldritch Knight 4). I can't say that he dominates since it's a two-PC game, but there's no way he'd have been able to accomplish as much if he were just a fighter.

 

[Elf Witch]

And it continues with teleporting half a mile above Mount Doom (flying) with the Ring attached to a loaded distance arbalest. And then casting True Strike as you dive down to make sure you shoot the ring into the volcano.



That and two quid will buy you a coffee. Now if D&D were to actually have negative consequences for casting spells (either CoC style sanity loss or WFRP style blowback) then there would be something in it. But for all practical purposes a fifth level wizard is more powerful than Gandalf because they have almost no limits.



And this confuses me from a RP perspective. If my PC genuinely considers they are being threatened by an overwhelming force intent on something nasty and potentially apocalyptic, they aren't going to want to play nice.



No they can't. They can shrug off anti-reflex spells like Fireball or Grease. Reflex spells are normally the least important ones. Sure they're protected from Fireball. But not even slightly protected from debilitating AoEs that attack Will like Glitterdust, ones that attack Fort like Stinking Cloud, or oddballs like Evard's Black Tentacles. All of which are AoE conjurations that ignore spell resitance and completely ruin the victim's day.

Trying to match defences against a high level wizard is like trying to play paper-scissors-stone. And not being allowed to change your choice for the second turn when your opponent can - plus having more tells than Rossini. (You've also eliminated the way of getting seriously high saves - excessive multiclassing).



OK. Let's test that idea. From books, Frodo can reach at least the Seen Casually level. That gives him an 88% chance of making the teleport accurately. However Frodo didn't prepare two teleports (one in, one out) but (as I explicitely mentioned) three. The orcs have a grand total of six seconds before Frodo simply teleports again. Can they kill Frodo in one round when they really weren't expecting him to be there? Unlikely. Frodo's chance of missing with both teleports (that includes mishaps that actually end in the right place) is 1.44% With any sort of scrying mirror so he can see where he's going, Frodo has a >94% chance of teleporting accurately. I don't think Frodo really needs Greater Teleport. Do you?



How much loot do they carry? Because the problem facing the wizard is that Evard's Black Tentacles is not the only spell. Freedom of Movement does no more than Spell Resistance to stop Glitterdust or Stinking Cloud.

A Ring of Freedom of Movement (the sure defence against Evard's Black Tentacles - or Solid Fog which I can use to replace Evard's Tentacles to neutralise your monks for a few turns, whatever their saving throws) costs 40,000 GP. And it's not going to do a thing about the other three spells in my AoE arsenal.

You need a full spectrum of counters - I have more than one spell prepared.

Here is the problem where these discussions go off the rail You are assuming the wizard has all these spells memorized or has them on scrolls. You are assuming that the dice favors the caster and the intended targets don't make their saves. You are assuming a lot. What else is going on while the wizard is casting these spells is his party in range to get trapped by the spell. Are all the other guys nice and neatly lumped together so that you catch them all.

Is there a wizard on the other side using great dispel magic. Maybe the other side got the initiative and cast time stop and set up a nice little nasty surprise for the party caster. There is a random element to the game that can completely change the outcome.

I started playing in 1978 that was 34 years ago and one thing I can say with absolute confidence is that no plans works in action like it did on paper.

I have in real life gaming with some pretty clever players thwarted the casters many a time and sometimes they have completely wiped the floor with my NPCs. But there has never been a combat that was a guaranteed win or one where only the casters mattered. Not in 34 years of playing this game.

As for Frodo okay he has flying beast I have an ancient red dragon who lives in the volcano there is always a way for the DM to win if he wants. Oh and Frodo can scry but Sauron has put up anti scrying magic.

I have said this in a lot of threads if a DM feels that a spell is impossible to work with take it out of your game or modify it.

In my games I tend to make teleport dangerous and unpredictable all the time. I still use the 3.0 scry rules where if you want to be able to scry you need to have ranks in it to make it work plus an item. Sure they can max out scry but then what are they giving up to max that out.

My big issue with how magic works in 3E is how metamagic and cheap creation of magic items can really make the casters have to many resources. I don't allow quickened spells I don't allow anything that might allow more than one spell a round. And I keep an eye on the items that allow a caster more spells or slots. And I strictly enforce the the use up higher spell slots where metamagic is concerned.


I don't allow the feat that allows a druid in wild shape to cast spells unless they are in a form that has vocal chords and has hands like say a primate to do the gestures. I also enforce the rule that they have to have knowledge of an animal to be able to wild shape ,knowledge that comes from actually seeing how the animal moves.


These fixes have made my games run a whole lot smoother without completely changing the game the way 4E did.

The thing about playing nice is this I never expect my players to play nice with the bad guys but with each other. And that means don't play your character in a way that totally sucks the fun out of the game for another player.

This is not real life so while in real life maybe it makes more tactical sense for the wizard to carry wands of knock but we are playing a game and if there is a player who is a rogue who has made him to be the one to open doors then I don't want to see a player playing the wizard stepping all over him with knock. Having a scroll of knock for an emergency is one thing. Taking over the rogue job is another.

Knock belongs in the game for parties who don't have any way to open locks other then bashing doors down.

 

[slobster]

A lot of stuff.

It sounds like your game is a lot of fun, that's great. You've managed to find solutions to the sorts of problems we are talking about that work for your group. But I for one would prefer a system that works like this from the beginning, as opposed to requiring a lot of houseruling and a lot of experience so that everyone can have fun.

An unbalanced system isn't a dealbreaker for me, I've had years of fun with 3.5 and it has serious flaws in that area. But a lot of that fun was despite its problems, not because of them. I would like to see these class balance problems fixed if I'm going to switch to a new edition.

 

[Elf Witch]

It sounds like your game is a lot of fun, that's great. You've managed to find solutions to the sorts of problems we are talking about that work for your group. But I for one would prefer a system that works like this from the beginning, as opposed to requiring a lot of houseruling and a lot of experience so that everyone can have fun.

An unbalanced system isn't a rulebreaker for me, I've had years of fun with 3.5 and it has serious flaws in that area. But a lot of that fun was despite its problems, not because of them. I would like to see these class balance problems fixed if I'm going to switch to a new edition.

So would I which is why I am hoping 5E can deliver the game flavor I like without me having to do all the house ruling.

I like a lot of things about 3E there are a few things I like about 4E. I would really love to have what I like about 3E but have some of the issue fixed.

 

[MacMathan]

Looks like about 2.5 to 1 in terms of people having experienced the issue so far.

I always like to see what other people experience at their tables as it varies so widely.

 

[pemerton]

I read a statement like that and understand that the DM decides in advance how the victory is going to be won. To me as a DM that's anathema. The players decide how they are going to win.

Agreed.

I'm strongly of the view that the class disparity issue is a bigger one for those groups who thing that player protagonism is important, and who therefore don't like ad hoc GM nerfs/vetos. I read "no minmaxers in my game", for example, and wonder how that can work: how is the GM controlling the players' building of their PCs?