Casters vs Mundanes in your experience

[pemerton]

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.

I'm not sure that your confusion is entirely warranted.

At least as they operate at my table, these "gentlemen's agreements" are between the players, not the PCs - they operate at the metagame level.

A simple example from my 4e game: the player of the polearm fighter and I have an understanding that of two somewhat broken feats - one that lets him immobilise any marked target whom he hits with a basic attack using a two-handed weapon, and one other one that gives him forced move on OAs (which with his Rushing Cleats and Polearm Momentum would mean his OAs knock foes prone) - he will only take one.

At the PC build level, this sort of thing is fairly straightforward, I think. It's sort of an abbreviated or ad hoc form of houseruling by consensus.

But it can even work at the action resolution level.

In Rolemaster, for example, there is a type of scrying guard that creates a false image when the target is scried upon. One of the players in my RM game worked out that the PCs could use this to send messages to one another - set up false images of holding a sign with the relevant message, and then use a scrying spell to get the image. I can't remember excatly what the scrying spell to be used was, but it was something lower level (and therefore easier/cheaper to cast) than long range telepathy.

We thought about looking for ways to change the wording of the scrying guard to rule out this use of it, but nothing straightforward suggested itself. So everyone at the table just reached an agreement that they wouldn't do this sort of thing, and that scrying guards would continue to be used simply to guard against scrying.

Where gentlemen's agreements can't work, in my view, is when they would have to go to the very core of a PC's abilities and functions. Because at that point they would require the player to hold back when playing his/her PC, not just to avoid some marginal exploit, but just at that point where the PC should be firing on all cylinders.

 

[Minigiant]

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.

I agree completely. 3.5 is my favorite after some tweaking. I just hope 5E/DDN reduces all the banning, house ruling, "gentlemen contracts", and player self nerfing at the start that other editions. I KNOW there will be some but I prefer 5E/DDN to be the least.

 

[Neonchameleon]

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.

I am assuming you are actualy playing by the rules as written. The rules that say that the wizard gets two free spells he can cast at each level - of the choice of the wizard. I am further assuming that the wizard can choose which spells to prepare. If assuming that you are not further house-ruling the game to nerf the wizards is where things go wrong, then possibly they are.

Are you playing 3.5 by the rules? Does the wizard have any reason to expect combat that day? If the answer to both is yes, then I am assuming absolutely nothing except that the wizard is not stupid. (And in the teleport example I specifically stated that the wizard was spending the night - the wizard, not the DM, gets to choose which spells the wizard memorises).

You are assuming that the dice favors the caster and the intended targets don't make their saves.

No. I'm assuming that the dice aren't extreme. This is what the paper-scissors-stone I'm talking about is about. Looking at a set of level 1 pregens, the halfling rogue starts off with Reflex +8 and Fort and Will +2. The dwarf fighter, meanwhile, starts off at fort +5, ref + 2, will +0. The swings for picking the right save to attack are massive and only get greater at higher levels as the rogue focusses on dex and gains +1 to ref every two levels while he gains +1 to his other saves every three.

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.

Either he's taking the risk - assuming that the fighter's fort or the cleric's will will stand it to get an extra couple of bad guys (not a bad guess - the cleric's will is one of the few things that scales faster than the caster's DCs) or he's not taking quite the entire team of specialist mageslayers down. Merely turning several of them into chumps.

Are all the other guys nice and neatly lumped together so that you catch them all.

You don't need to catch them all. You just need to be able to turn this into a defeat in detail. A mopping up excercise for the rest of the party who get to fight the mageslayers more or less one at a time.

Is there a wizard on the other side using great dispel magic.

Oh, I do hope there is! I like having someone to laugh at.

Seriously, Greater Dispel Magic is a bad choice to use in combat except against buffers. The reason is that it only has a 50% chance of countering the spell it's used against (caster level check). A wizard just as strong as I am spent just as much effort as I did in order to only half-counter me. At a tactical level, this is an excellent trade. And depending on the initiative order I very possibly ruined the turns of the people I cast at as well.

So basically your counter to the wizard here is to add an equally powerful wizard on the other side - who then only uses inferior tactics to neutralise the wizard. And this backing a team of specialist mage-slayers designed to counter spells? And my wizard is still pulling his weight against them? This isn't exactly helping the case that casters aren't overpowered, you realise?

Maybe the other side got the initiative and cast time stop and set up a nice little nasty surprise for the party caster.

Maybe they did. happens. Here's a hint: If it's going to screw anyone rather than just the wizard it's not outlining the wizard's weaknesses. It does however outline a wizard's strengths - if the wizard survives the first round he can bail with Teleport or even Time Stop right back at the other caster. No one else can (except possibly the cleric).

There is a random element to the game that can completely change the outcome.

Of course there is. The difference is that a well played spellcaster brings a d8 (at least) to a d6 game, and gets a few reroll tokens.

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.

And now we're in an arms race. Your ancient red dragon either needs to cover the volcano and be at home at the time or to be able to catch Frodo in the eighteen seconds between him popping invisibly to over Mount Doom, true striking and firing the arbalest, and teleporting away.

And the thing is that the DM is the one that looks ridiculous here. He's just created an ancient red dragon out of thin air to foil what is a reasonable use of resources on the character sheet. An ancient red dragon who could probably munch the whole party. (And no, Anticipate Teleport won't work. I'm a long way away). I'm playing rough with the bad guys - and the DM has just created an ancient dragon out of nowhere to deal with a 9th level party - and that will almost certainly fail. The fighter isn't even in the same game.

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.

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.

Time Stop? Summon Monster?

 

[Neonchameleon]

I'm not sure that your confusion is entirely warranted.

At least as they operate at my table, these "gentlemen's agreements" are between the players, not the PCs - they operate at the metagame level.

...

At the PC build level, this sort of thing is fairly straightforward, I think. It's sort of an abbreviated or ad hoc form of houseruling by consensus.

I have no problem with this.

One of the players in my RM game worked out that the PCs could use this to send messages to one another - set up false images of holding a sign with the relevant message, and then use a scrying spell to get the image. I can't remember excatly what the scrying spell to be used was, but it was something lower level (and therefore easier/cheaper to cast) than long range telepathy.

This I'd simply allow tbh. It's two spells vs one - and signalling vs telepathy. But again, I can see this working either way.

Where gentlemen's agreements can't work, in my view, is when they would have to go to the very core of a PC's abilities and functions. Because at that point they would require the player to hold back when playing his/her PC, not just to avoid some marginal exploit, but just at that point where the PC should be firing on all cylinders.

And in D&D, one of the wizard's abilities and functions is to be able to pick up spells within the game world and choose which spells to prepare. You can ban things at a metagame level. But the way a wizard should work involves exploiting his spells and being prepared for either a range of bad guys or taking the initiative and preparing exactly the right combination of spells to do something really impressive and unpleasant to the bad guy's plans.

 

[pemerton]

in D&D, one of the wizard's abilities and functions is to be able to pick up spells within the game world and choose which spells to prepare. You can ban things at a metagame level. But the way a wizard should work involves exploiting his spells and being prepared for either a range of bad guys or taking the initiative and preparing exactly the right combination of spells to do something really impressive and unpleasant to the bad guy's plans.

Once you set up gentlemen's agreements that the wizard will have only a modest spellbook, and will take only one of each spell, and . . . etc, the game starts to look familiar to me!

 

[Crazy Jerome]

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?

I control for excessive powergaming in my game using pretty much the techniques you outlined in your post following the quoted one.

I think "minmax" is as much about attitude as the results for a lot of people. I know it is for me. My simple prescription of, "any mechanic that the players push hard, I get to have the NPCs push back with," enforced carefully, is what allows the players to enforce a reasonable degree of power amongst themselves.

Plus, that has the added advantage of letting the players dictate the lines. I find this far more democratic. The players dictate the lines. As DM, it is my job to enforce those lines, not set them. As "moderator" it is my job to express those lines, to make sure that everyone is one the same page. As the guy at the table who is most interested in mechanical interactions, it is my job to think about this stuff. I see those as three separate hats. In our group, I wear the last one nearly all the time, the "moderator" hat when no one else grabs it, and the DM hat when I'm the DM (albelit, most of the time).

And I certainly agree with your later point that enforcement on character build versus group rules up front versus in play decisions are all different. We like some careful enforcement on the first two so that we don't need it on the last one. Trying to run any game as Elf Witch has outlined drives me bonkers. I don't want to ride herd during play. I'd rather spend energy beforehand house ruling such issues out of the game, so that my energy during play is directed at things I value more. Perhaps part of this is because as our group has gotten older, play time is precious while prep time is as much as I care to devote?

 

[Stalker0]

And the thing is that the DM is the one that looks ridiculous here. He's just created an ancient red dragon out of thin air to foil what is a reasonable use of resources on the character sheet.

This is one of the issues that I have seen. Not that the DM necessarily has to create a "ridiculous" counter, but the DM ALWAYS has to have a counter.

The problem I have seen in the past, especially with specialized casters, is their trick is so good that it forces the DM to play the game a certain way.


An example, we once had your classic enchanter in the group. Charms, Dominates, the works.

Every encounter, either the enchanter would acquire a new group of allies for the next encounter....or the DM would counter him to the point where he could nothing in the fight.

Again, the key here is we aren't talking about winning a single fight. What made the enchanter so deadly was that he could exponentially increase the parties power. Every enemy became an ally unless the DM hard countered him.

And sure, while countering a party member is a great tactic once in a while, if you are forced to do it continuously, then its a problem.

 

[Stalker0]

Plus, that has the added advantage of letting the players dictate the lines. I find this far more democratic. The players dictate the lines.

The Democracy breaks however when its one player dictating the line. If you have one player who is "minmaxed" in a party where the rest are not, where is the line then?

Too shallow and the game goes to easy mode. Too hard and the rest of the party can't keep up.

 

[Elf Witch]

I am assuming you are actualy playing by the rules as written. The rules that say that the wizard gets two free spells he can cast at each level - of the choice of the wizard. I am further assuming that the wizard can choose which spells to prepare. If assuming that you are not further house-ruling the game to nerf the wizards is where things go wrong, then possibly they are.

Are you playing 3.5 by the rules? Does the wizard have any reason to expect combat that day? If the answer to both is yes, then I am assuming absolutely nothing except that the wizard is not stupid. (And in the teleport example I specifically stated that the wizard was spending the night - the wizard, not the DM, gets to choose which spells the wizard memorises).



No. I'm assuming that the dice aren't extreme. This is what the paper-scissors-stone I'm talking about is about. Looking at a set of level 1 pregens, the halfling rogue starts off with Reflex +8 and Fort and Will +2. The dwarf fighter, meanwhile, starts off at fort +5, ref + 2, will +0. The swings for picking the right save to attack are massive and only get greater at higher levels as the rogue focusses on dex and gains +1 to ref every two levels while he gains +1 to his other saves every three.



Either he's taking the risk - assuming that the fighter's fort or the cleric's will will stand it to get an extra couple of bad guys (not a bad guess - the cleric's will is one of the few things that scales faster than the caster's DCs) or he's not taking quite the entire team of specialist mageslayers down. Merely turning several of them into chumps.



You don't need to catch them all. You just need to be able to turn this into a defeat in detail. A mopping up excercise for the rest of the party who get to fight the mageslayers more or less one at a time.



Oh, I do hope there is! I like having someone to laugh at.

Seriously, Greater Dispel Magic is a bad choice to use in combat except against buffers. The reason is that it only has a 50% chance of countering the spell it's used against (caster level check). A wizard just as strong as I am spent just as much effort as I did in order to only half-counter me. At a tactical level, this is an excellent trade. And depending on the initiative order I very possibly ruined the turns of the people I cast at as well.

So basically your counter to the wizard here is to add an equally powerful wizard on the other side - who then only uses inferior tactics to neutralise the wizard. And this backing a team of specialist mage-slayers designed to counter spells? And my wizard is still pulling his weight against them? This isn't exactly helping the case that casters aren't overpowered, you realise?



Maybe they did. happens. Here's a hint: If it's going to screw anyone rather than just the wizard it's not outlining the wizard's weaknesses. It does however outline a wizard's strengths - if the wizard survives the first round he can bail with Teleport or even Time Stop right back at the other caster. No one else can (except possibly the cleric).



Of course there is. The difference is that a well played spellcaster brings a d8 (at least) to a d6 game, and gets a few reroll tokens.



And now we're in an arms race. Your ancient red dragon either needs to cover the volcano and be at home at the time or to be able to catch Frodo in the eighteen seconds between him popping invisibly to over Mount Doom, true striking and firing the arbalest, and teleporting away.

And the thing is that the DM is the one that looks ridiculous here. He's just created an ancient red dragon out of thin air to foil what is a reasonable use of resources on the character sheet. An ancient red dragon who could probably munch the whole party. (And no, Anticipate Teleport won't work. I'm a long way away). I'm playing rough with the bad guys - and the DM has just created an ancient dragon out of nowhere to deal with a 9th level party - and that will almost certainly fail. The fighter isn't even in the same game.

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.



Time Stop? Summon Monster?

You missed the point and that is how do you know that wizard always has the rights spells memorized for every given circumstances. That is where all this I cast this and I win arguments fail. If the wizard didn't memorize evard black tentacles that or glitterdust and memorized something else instead then your examples fail.

Even if the wizard is expecting combat it does not mean he has the rights spells memorized so he gets an automatic win.

The way you are talking I don't know why we are still playing this game or why everyone in the party does not play a wizard because according to you there is no way to challenge them and why bother playing anything else because you can't contribute. Why bother DMing just say oh hello wizard I can't beat you here is your XP for your automatic win.

But high level DnD is an arm race the only way to avoid that is stop every character from gaining levels as long as DnD is a level based game it will always be an arm race.

I really get sick of the Frodo example first of all it is not a game it is a novel and the story was the journey more than the destination.

If you want to create a Frodo type story then you have to look at the resources of your party maybe that type a game is not going to be as satisfying if played at higher levels.

High level DnD is about a party of four defeating entire armies and tackling gods where fighters rival Conan and mages throw around powerful magics. If you don't want this kind of play you need to reconsider it as a level based game or have a way to modify the power levels at those levels.

So greater dispel is not a I win and mathematically it works out to 50% but here again random factors play into it. I have seen the person casting it just wipe the floor and wipe out almost all the effects and I have also seem it completely and utterly fail. So again you don't know until you are at the table actually throwing the dice.



What about summon monster you don't cast it and another spell in a round. You cast it and it shows up on your next turn it is now in play and you can cast another spell but that is not casting two spells in one round. The spells does not require the caster to maintain concentration on it. Time stop also does not let you cast more than one spell a round.

 

[bloodtide]

I never really got the whole 'mundane vs magic' thing, as it does not happen in my games. I guess it's just one of them things for the 'pew pew number crunching' types that just live to say ''I didz 120deesz damage--I rock!''

I've never seen a good 'all powerful wizard' that 'makes the game no fun for mundanes'. The people that make the claim never seem to want to stat out said awesome wizard. They just throw the 'wizards are too powerful bomb' and then run away. They just don't have the time to show the character sheet, so we are just left with all the vagueness. So many examples are along the lines of 'well if the wizard has spell X or feat Y then they can do X', and that does not even count the examples of where people 'read a word the way they want to' or 'read between the lines' or just outright cheat.

Though I do run an ultra high level magic game, so maybe that balances it out. So when a wizard goes all ''pew pew I knock open every door in the castle'' I can just say ''Sorry all the doors are made from anti-knockism''.