I remain completely baffled by many peoples' complete inability/refusal to so much as contemplate the possibility of DnD Next's Wizard's offense and defense being outclassed by DnD Next's Fighter/Barbarian's offense and defense. Can someone explain why normally reasonable posters like Hussar fall into this trap?
Flying Fighters and Other Stories of Dependence, Independence and Interdependence
- Thread starter Underman
- Start date
I remain completely baffled by many peoples' complete inability/refusal to so much as contemplate the possibility of DnD Next's Wizard's offense and defense being outclassed by DnD Next's Fighter/Barbarian's offense and defense. Can someone explain why normally reasonable posters like Hussar fall into this trap?
Black Knight Irios
Explorer
Even so I'm hoping that the Fighter (and other non-casters) will outclass the Wizard in certain fields of expertise I still fear - remember they promised Vancian casting - that said Vancian casting will put those that have access to it beyond the scope of capability of those that don't have access to it i.e. Vancian casters will dominate the game again.
And I wouldn't call that assumption pessimistic but rather realistic given the facts I/we have seen/experienced in previous editions especially 3.x.
Tony Vargas
Legend
Past performance is no guarantee. Just because Vancian casting was always broken before, and isn't being implemented in a particularly different fashion this time doesn't mean...
...OK, yeah, it prettymuch does mean it's going to be broken again.
Ultimately, I suppose, this is just a marketing issue. WotC has analyzed the demand for D&D and concluded that they want to sell to people who don't want a version of the game that features any sort of class balance. People who don't want Vancian casters that are wildly overpowered at higher levels just need to find different games - quite possibly games without classes and levels, at all - because D&D is not being made for them. There aren't enough of them, or they don't buy enough books, or they don't make enough noise or whatever: they're not a desireable market.
I am also baffled by this. Also, the wizard may be versatile but is squishy, and can easily die if no fighters are engaging opponents at the forefront. The wizard is dependent on others' defensive and attritional capabilities.
Also, at least in this thread, I feel alienated from the concern about rules that allow "outclassing" or "stepping on each other's toes". This implies that you're upset with your fellow player/PC because they do something that you should be in charge of. I think that's the opposite of interdependency, in which you're watcing each others' backs. It may be a subtle difference but an important one.
In one case, it's a superhero team of alpha males/females teamed together for the sake of convenience and beating the odds. In the other, heroes are humanly imperfectly incomplete parts that complement each other to make an awesome fighting/exploring/socializing machine.
Mustrum_Ridcully
Legend
They made enough noise to give us D&D 4th Edition. It's just this time the pendulum swings the opposite direction.
But we haven't seen high levle spellcaster yet. Maybe they are far more limited then we expect. Currently, my expectation is that it will work as in past editions where a 10th level caster will have access to 4-5 spell levels (I've heard some talk the max level is only level 7?), and has multiple slots per spell level.
But maybe they do something else, and instead, people do not get new spell slots beyond level 3 or 5 or whatever? Instead, some slots just can fit higher level spells. So a endgame caster will only have 12 spells or so, unlike the 36+ a high level 3.x spellcaster was guaranteed. This would make it very hard to bring all the utlity spells to bear, and load up a lot of offensive spells as well.
Again the problem is that people do not see interdependence. They see that the Fighter needs the Wizard to do his stuff, but not tha the Wizard needs the fighter for anything. That is where you may disagree, but people have gameplay experience that suggests otherwise.
They have seen people playing min/maxed Wizards that didn't need a Fighter to kill enemies, even against creatures with spell resistance and decent saving throws. They have seen Wizards that could cast Knock to open Locks and used other spells to deal with magical traps. They have seen Fighters die to a random save or death effect that some NPC caster or monster used and the only way to avoid that was if the Cleric had cast the right spell, making him highly dependent on the Cleric. But the same Cleric with that spell and another spell could match the Fighter's offensive combat prowess as well.
But we've also seen all-martial parties in 4E that worked as a team and kill the opposition without needing some spellcaster to save their ass. And we've seen mixed parties where Fighters and Wizards cooperated and coordinated with each other to become more effective then they could be alone.
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Perhaps it's because I've tended to roleplay at low to mid levels, and others had more sessions at mid to high levels with a prevalence of min/maxing and broken spells or spell combos.
As you wrote above, the power balance issues are hopefully being addressed in D&DN. Whereas the 3e fighter vs wizard is a thousand thousand dead horses beaten to death. I thought it would be nice to frame the broader concept such that 'fighter should do everything the wizard can just in different ways' is put in a different light.
Yes. People have experience in 3e that suggests otherwise. Any vaguely competently made 3e Cleric or Wizard (or Druid, or Sorcerer etc...) would outclass a Fighter. But that wasn't the case in 1e/2e. Why do you insist on assuming that if DnD Next's Fighter is non-Vancian, then we must have a return to 3e's (as opposed to 1e's) power structure? Even if you simply refuse to consider that 3e's power structure may not accurately represent that of the previous editions, why do you still simply refuse to consider that the power structure could be changed? It certainly is possible. After all, we could simply remove all combat spells from the spell lists. I wouldn't suggest such an extreme measure, but it shows that something is possible.
Experience with the playtest characters? The Fighter can be pretty superfluous in that group, which doesn't suggest that the class is going to be particularly necessary.
Black Knight Irios
Explorer
I'm not saying that I insist that the Wizard of 5E will be the Wizard of 3.x - but what I say is, if it turns out that the 5E Wizard = 3.x than I fear Fighters and all not so magical characters get shafted again.
Again, I do not insist - I just fear.
I dearly hope you are a singularity with that experience...
Mustrum_Ridcully
Legend
I am not refusing the possiblity, but I have yet to see a clear indicator that this is what is happening. The Devs already decided they won't fix the imbalances of the 15 minute adventure day mechanically. That was a problem I know from 3E, and it is strongly related to spellcasting. What exactly gives you hope they address the issue of caster balance? I am already seeing its rearing its ugly head, with a Cleric spell that lets the Cleric cast as well as a Fighter for an hour. Fits right into 15 minute adventuring day and spellcasters being able to do what a Fighter can. The Next Wizard also has fly. So far, the spell levels we see him having access to suggest that he will continue to gain new spell slots and spell levels over time, meaning the higher level spellcastesr will go, the more spell slots they can use for utility spells without compromising on combat ability.
I am just not as optimistic as before, and I base my assumptions on the playtest material. It's all Beta, so it could all be different in the end. But I do not thing my position is that unreasaonble. And I wish to address and bring up this topic now to avoid that it is still a problem in Next.
