What would you say is the biggest problem with Wizards, Clerics, Druids, and other "Tier 1" Spellcasters?

[N'raac]

Risk assessment. Not absolute risk aversion. The two are not the same.

By definition, PC adventurers are pretty much the most reckless of wizards. They're the ones running around the countryside putting themselves in harm's way.

Its already been formally established that Wizard as PC has chosen a career/life path that puts him directly in the crosshairs of a habitat that is actively and aggressively attempting to extinguish his life; and he must strategically adapt to make sure that doesn't happen (as all organisms fundamentally do). Within that context, he must assess risk and all of the inevitable uncertainty that comes with being a human...except in this particular case he can short-circuit much of that uncertainty due to his nigh-omniscience (thank you powerful divinations and reconnaissance tools)...and then strategically determine the best course to achieve his sought end (which isn't averting 100 % risk if he is indeed a PC).

If we're applying evolutionary biology, it is noteworthy that some theories believe altruism is a survival trait. If my death allows two siblings, or eight (IIRC) cousins to survive, my genetic material has the same chance of being passed on. Regardless, people do take risks in the real world, and do not paralyze themselves with maximum paranoid planning.

Why wouldn't divine casters invest in Scribe Scroll? If you aren't going adventuring it is the single most useful feat a first level caster can have. I mean what are you going to get? Toughness? Weapon Focus?

Skill Focus to be so much better at those non-adventuring skills? Or perhaps they don't invest a feat at all, so much as have a natural aptitude (feats such as Magical Aptitude or Alertness, say)?

Take your strawman away please. I'm not one of these "Rope tricks shouldn't be followed" people. 8 hours of rest in a dungeon assuming someone has a clue where you are should be suicidal.

Rope Trick is a convenient example. But in a world where magic is universal, I would expect strategies for dealing with same have evolved. Trip wires won't always be on the ground if Flight is easy to come by, and flour on the floor in a guard area makes Invisible sneaking a lot more difficult, for example. Or just investing in a few (non-combatant) dogs. "There goes the $&#* chihuahua AGAIN! - probably nothing, but the manual says we've got to sweep for Invisible Flying Wizards again." And if the PC's are consistent with their adherence to PITA SOP's, would the villains not be similar?

Ah, you're going for the Single Upgraded Weapon approach. In which case treasure is all generic and all goes into a communal pot. At this point the question becomes "Is it better for the party to support the wizard and cleric's casting with 6000 GP worth of consumables, or to give the fighter +1 to hit and damage?" I'll go with the scrolls.

A communal pot does not follow from "fighter upgrades rather than sell and replace". If we stumble across a +2 Trident, I'd expect Fighter will swap in his +1 and take the 3,000 difference (6,000 value x 50% sale) as part of his share of the treasure. If not, he takes his share of the total loot and puts it towards the 6,000 gold he needs to upgrade. The communal pot would see all Warrior items go to the warrior types and all Arcane items to the Arcanist, etc., without regard to equitable division of treasure as a whole.

No. It's 7 or 8 out of the 20. Which is why I didn't. Conjuration's a damn good school, but not quite that good to specialise in unless you can get a few more spells which, under any normal game of 3.X that goes anywhere near the DMG advice you can.

Removal of Scroll Mart does go a long way to making specialization a much tougher choice, doesn't it? Maybe there's something to be learned from that.

Lots of locks is just obnoxious for the user. It's like these stupid password rules that end up with the password written down on a post it note beside the computer. Of course if some bright spark were to invent the "Triple lock" - three locks opened with a single turn of the key (thus requiring two castings of Knock) I wouldn't see this as remotely a bad thing. Of course the fact that as far as I am aware no 3.X supplement did this ever indicates things about the vision of the designers.

But, once again, if the Wizard will always take his "paranoid combat suite of spells" approach, sending simulacra to do his shopping for example, why would others not similarly take paranoid measures to frustrate magic being their downfall? Like 6 locks on every door (well, an odd number, I suppose, since Knock unlocks pairs) and manacles on the prisoner to boot.

Alternatively taking out the guards is done with Ghost Sound and Silent Image. Or using Fly to get past them. If they won't leave their post for distractions, and there's a decent setup, the rogue's absolutely stuffed (other than by bluffing).

Again, magic is so common that Fly scrolls can be had in any thorpe. Given that, the world should recognize flight as pretty common, shouldn't it? This is a problem in every high magic setting (game and fiction) in that the world has not moved to react to the everyday availability of magic - it's hardly unique to 3rd Ed, or RPG's in general.

Most don't. I see no way this is out of line with a standard 3.X world. It's simply that the ones that don't adventure gain levels very slowly.

How do non -adventurers gain experience? Clearly they do. Traps have CR's. Isn't xp awarded for challenges overcome? nb: I usually post from work, with no books, and xp rules aren't part of the SRD. Isn't it a Challenge to scribe a scroll, run a business, etc.? The theory that NPC's gain levels only slowly over time seems challenged by the ready availability of masterwork items, as well as scrolls and other Crafted items. They gain xp fast enough that there are L17 casters out there scribing L9 scrolls they sell for 3,825 gp (losing 153 xp for each one they scribe) that are available in a lot of settlements.

It's not easy to gain levels with such a career choice. It's simply that non-adventuring wizards often die in their beds of old age. If we say it takes a human wizard who doesn't adventure five years to gain a level (and an elf much longer) we still don't have a problem.

If it takes 80 years to gain enough experience to scribe a 9th level scroll, where do all those 9th level scrolls come from? How many 100+ yo human wizards are there? 5th level scrolls only cost 1,125 gp - they're on shelves everywhere. But their scribes are all age 60+? How does that work?

The long-lived nonhuman issue is, of course, a broader issue. Even with a small fraction of Elven adventurers, they should have a host of 20th level (or even epic level) protectors. Dwarves aren't as long-lived, but their community mindset seems to lend itself to, say, 20 years of adventuring to return power to the community. How do those short-lived Orcs and Goblins compete? Some unwritten issue clearly allows them to.

Of course, a lot of genre tropes (not just in games, and not just in fantasy) don't hold up well when we pull pack the curtain and shine a bright light on them!

 

[Manbearcat]

@N'raac Please reread my post. For whatever reason, even after explaining it a second time, you're still conflating risk assessment and the accompanying determination that either the risk/reward paradigm is fubar or that it is reasonably assumed and thus the strategic planning to mitigate the assumed risk while attaining the sought end (whatever that end might be - fame, fortune, legacy, etc). I'm not talking about 100 % absolute risk aversion. I don't know why you're doing that. I'm talking about the actuarial science and speculation markets that creatures who "need/want stuff" involve themselves with in order to discern risk/reward. Evolutionary biology works off of the same principles (as I wrote above - the sought end there being survival and proliferation of genes/species). A Wizard has a "sought end" that supersedes 100 % absolute risk aversion the moment he adopts the career of "adventurer" in a world that actively wants to end his existence.

I don't know why we're still conflating actuarial science/evolutionary biology with 100 % risk aversion. Wizards with 100 % risk aversion are not adventurers. They toil in their towers and study arcane tomes (or teach, etc) until they are bones. Case closed. So lets not talk about them. I'm certainly not. I'm talking about adventuring wizards.

Risk assessment and assumption of risk/mitigation strategies to hedge risk is not a zero sum game. You don't just assume all risk (with no mitigation strategies) or assume none. And if you're an adventuring wizard, you're already in the game, so talking about risk aversion is nonsensical. You need/want something and you determine what risk to assume/when and how to minimize its chance for actualization or mitigate it when it manifests.

 

[Manbearcat]

double post argh

 

[Neonchameleon]

By definition, PC adventurers are pretty much the most reckless of wizards. They're the ones running around the countryside putting themselves in harm's way.

Pretty much. But there's a difference between "Who dares wins" and suicide by monster.

Skill Focus to be so much better at those non-adventuring skills?

W00t! Craft or Profession? The incomes on those are terrible compared to scrolls.

Or perhaps they don't invest a feat at all, so much as have a natural aptitude (feats such as Magical Aptitude or Alertness, say)?

In short you need to twist hard to avoid it.

Rope Trick is a convenient example. But in a world where magic is universal, I would expect strategies for dealing with same have evolved. Trip wires won't always be on the ground if Flight is easy to come by, and flour on the floor in a guard area makes Invisible sneaking a lot more difficult, for example. Or just investing in a few (non-combatant) dogs. "There goes the $&#* chihuahua AGAIN! - probably nothing, but the manual says we've got to sweep for Invisible Flying Wizards again." And if the PC's are consistent with their adherence to PITA SOP's, would the villains not be similar?

The PCs are basically a crack commando unit always on the offensive and expecting trouble. You're suggesting precautions that massively get in the way, are bypassable as soon as they become common knowledge, and seriously annoy the people running them. If you run the chihuaha, the wizard or the thief is gleefully going to set it off as a distraction.

A communal pot does not follow from "fighter upgrades rather than sell and replace". If we stumble across a +2 Trident, I'd expect Fighter will swap in his +1 and take the 3,000 difference (6,000 value x 50% sale) as part of his share of the treasure. If not, he takes his share of the total loot and puts it towards the 6,000 gold he needs to upgrade. The communal pot would see all Warrior items go to the warrior types and all Arcane items to the Arcanist, etc., without regard to equitable division of treasure as a whole.

There are more ways than just yours of splitting loot. There's the textbook "Need or greed". In which the warrior only automatically gets the best sword if he's willing to turn in his current one. But the communal pot I'm thinking of pays people for the resources they expended (including rust-monster eaten swords) and then plans what would be best for the party.

Removal of Scroll Mart does go a long way to making specialization a much tougher choice, doesn't it? Maybe there's something to be learned from that.

It's not just the removal of Scroll Mart. What needed removing was the idea that any two wizards would possibly work together even to trade spells. I needed a total of one useful second level spell and one useful third that I couldn't get automatically. Because the world was ridiculously unrealistic to the point that no wizard would ever share any spells even to get some in return (note that this was explicit in older editions for NPC wizards) there was a problem.

If you make all wizards, by fiat, antisocial hermits who never share anything even when it benefits them then you have no problem. However the second you can do any trading in higher than first level spells the whole problem you are pointing out vanishes.

So, in order to make specialisation a tough choice we need to (a) completely burn the 3.X economy and (b) burn 3.X crafting. But (c) have NPC wizards not even able to act in their own best interest.

There are indeed two things to learn from this.
1: Gygax thought all this through 40 years ago. And it's only because the 3.X writers didn't understand what they were writing that it's a problem.
2: Vancian magic's effects on a gameworld are inherently ridiculous.

But, once again, if the Wizard will always take his "paranoid combat suite of spells" approach, sending simulacra to do his shopping for example,

He didn't send his simulacrum to do his shopping. He brought it with him to carry his bags. And at level 13 wizard? That he went shopping at all is the opposite of paranoid. At this level, the merchants should come to the PCs.

Again, magic is so common that Fly scrolls can be had in any thorpe. Given that, the world should recognize flight as pretty common, shouldn't it?

Once again, this is an example of the 3.0 designers not having a clue what they were doing. By the RAW there is IIRC a wizard in one thorp in four (although the most powerful caster is either the druid or the adept).

This is a problem in every high magic setting (game and fiction) in that the world has not moved to react to the everyday availability of magic - it's hardly unique to 3rd Ed, or RPG's in general.

*cough*Eberron*cough*

How do non -adventurers gain experience? Clearly they do. Traps have CR's. Isn't xp awarded for challenges overcome?

Yes, although the rules aren't explicit.

nb: I usually post from work, with no books, and xp rules aren't part of the SRD. Isn't it a Challenge to scribe a scroll, run a business, etc.?

Scribe a scroll: No. Run a business - if it's safe you gain very little XP.

The theory that NPC's gain levels only slowly over time seems challenged by the ready availability of masterwork items,

How so? If you need a 40 year old smith to get a masterwork suit of plate armour, where is the problem?

as well as scrolls and other Crafted items. They gain xp fast enough that there are L17 casters out there scribing L9 scrolls they sell for 3,825 gp (losing 153 xp for each one they scribe) that are available in a lot of settlements.

If you need to be a geriatric wizard to scribe such a scroll, where is the problem? Especially if no one ever casts one.

If it takes 80 years to gain enough experience to scribe a 9th level scroll, where do all those 9th level scrolls come from? How many 100+ yo human wizards are there? 5th level scrolls only cost 1,125 gp - they're on shelves everywhere. But their scribes are all age 60+? How does that work?

That scribing is an ancient and honourable profession practiced by the elderly. And where 9th level spells come from: Antiquity. No one casts them, instead saving them for complete crisis.

The long-lived nonhuman issue is, of course, a broader issue. Even with a small fraction of Elven adventurers, they should have a host of 20th level (or even epic level) protectors. Dwarves aren't as long-lived, but their community mindset seems to lend itself to, say, 20 years of adventuring to return power to the community. How do those short-lived Orcs and Goblins compete? Some unwritten issue clearly allows them to.

A starting elf adventurer is over 100 years old at first level. It takes them far more than 5 years to gain a level. Likewise dwarves. And as for the Orcs and Goblins, more of them behave like adventurers because they are in a much more violent society. Also the birth rate is so much higher - a goblin mother, like a human mother in the middle ages can easily have a dozen kids in twenty years. Elves and dwarves breed at little more than replacement rate.

Of course, a lot of genre tropes (not just in games, and not just in fantasy) don't hold up well when we pull pack the curtain and shine a bright light on them!

Indeed.

 

[Hussar]

And in none of those cases, has the group addressing the issues you indicate projected the attitude that those of us running the game happily have incompetent players, run deficient games, or otherwise made such dicks of themselves.

Complete . See the objections to powergaming on this very thread. The meme that "Powergamers are bad roleplayers" is a straight out ad hominem attack on people actually trying to understand the system - and it's nothing but pure dickery and projection about motivations. Although it was White Wolf rather than TSR or WotC that defended their incompetent game design by addressing people who understood it and used it as Rollplayers not Roleplayers.

Pretty much this.

Let's see, in this thread, I've seen people claim that there are no problems with the system, only problem players. Yet, you, billd91, have absolutely no problem with that claim. Yet, when I claim that perhaps the reason you and others don't see the problem is because your players are not terribly good at system mastery, suddenly I'm a jerk?

Look, again, if there was no problem with the balance between caster and non-caster, why has every single D&D game designer since Gygax tried to correct the balance?

 

[Hussar]

Rope Trick is a convenient example. But in a world where magic is universal, I would expect strategies for dealing with same have evolved. Trip wires won't always be on the ground if Flight is easy to come by, and flour on the floor in a guard area makes Invisible sneaking a lot more difficult, for example. Or just investing in a few (non-combatant) dogs. "There goes the $&#* chihuahua AGAIN! - probably nothing, but the manual says we've got to sweep for Invisible Flying Wizards again." And if the PC's are consistent with their adherence to PITA SOP's, would the villains not be similar?

You presume that every single adventure though is against intelligent, organized foes in a fixed, defensible location. Additionally, these are foes with considerable experience with magic.

This is not necessarily true.

Why would that pirate ship have any real experience with magic? How about those marauding wyverns that the town needs you to track down and kill? Or any other large, dangerous beastie that the party is asked to help against? Orcs or kobolds might have some knowledge of low level magic, they do have shamans after all. But, higher powered stuff? It's not like it gets seen all the time. It's the stuff of legend.

Sure, if you're heading into that Mind Flayer lair, I can totally see all sorts of magical defenses and whatnot. They are super geniuses after all and have loads of actual, direct knowledge of things magical.

But that tribe of ogres? Or trolls? Really?

 

[billd91]

Pretty much this.

Let's see, in this thread, I've seen people claim that there are no problems with the system, only problem players. Yet, you, billd91, have absolutely no problem with that claim. Yet, when I claim that perhaps the reason you and others don't see the problem is because your players are not terribly good at system mastery, suddenly I'm a jerk?

Look, again, if there was no problem with the balance between caster and non-caster, why has every single D&D game designer since Gygax tried to correct the balance?

Problem player? You bet. If a player is pushing the system and others aren't, then he's out of sync with the table. That's a problem player. He's with the wrong group. If everyone's on board with his style of play, then he's not a problem player. That's not making some unconditional blanket statement that players are incompetent if they're not playing the game with the kind of values you imply competent players must use. They may know their system mastery fine and simply reject particular styles of play.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Pretty much this.

Let's see, in this thread, I've seen people claim that there are no problems with the system, only problem players. Yet, you, billd91, have absolutely no problem with that claim. Yet, when I claim that perhaps the reason you and others don't see the problem is because your players are not terribly good at system mastery, suddenly I'm a jerk?

Look, again, if there was no problem with the balance between caster and non-caster, why has every single D&D game designer since Gygax tried to correct the balance?

What do you mean "every single game designer since Gygax"? Gygax himself produced classes in Unearthed Arcana to correct the balance.

And [MENTION=3400]billd91[/MENTION], the problem isn't just the player being out of synch with the table. It's that D&D 3.X is busted enough that that player can never be in synch with such a game.

 

[Hussar]

Problem player? You bet. If a player is pushing the system and others aren't, then he's out of sync with the table. That's a problem player. He's with the wrong group. If everyone's on board with his style of play, then he's not a problem player. That's not making some unconditional blanket statement that players are incompetent if they're not playing the game with the kind of values you imply competent players must use. They may know their system mastery fine and simply reject particular styles of play.

Oh please.

Using base class abilities is "pushing the system"?

Again, we're not talking about the player who's cherry picking from a bunch of different sources. Fair enough, he's a problem. I think we all agree about this.

But a wizard player who uses Scribe Scroll should not be considered "pushing the system". A wizard player who uses "Craft Wand" should not be considered "pushing the system". A caster who actually knows what his spells can do and does that, should not be considered "pushing the system".

Heck, once upon a time, "creative use of spells" was considered a GOOD thing. One of the criticisms of 4e is that you are not allowed to do that supposedly. The idea that you can push beyond the basic use of a spell has a very long tradition in D&D. There are numerous Dragon articles on exactly that going all the way back to when there was a "The" in the name.

Yet, for some reason, using basic, Caster 101 ideas, is now "pushing the system".

Granted, it's true that if a cleric only uses healing, and a wizard only uses direct damage spells, there would be no balance issue. Not exactly what I'd call a competently played character though.

Ok, let's recap shall we? In the form of a question. If there were no problems with caster/non-caster balance in 3e, why is every single variant caster WEAKER than the core 3 casters? Without fail, every single variant caster - Warlock, War Wizard, Favoured Soul, Shadowcaster etc - is weaker, and often considerably weaker, than the core 3 casters. Yet, virtually every single variant non-caster is STRONGER than the PHB non-casters. The vast majority ramp the power of non-casters upward.

Why is that? Is it because of problem players? Or is it a recognition of a known issue?

 

[billd91]

Oh please.

Using base class abilities is "pushing the system"?

Again, we're not talking about the player who's cherry picking from a bunch of different sources. Fair enough, he's a problem. I think we all agree about this.

But a wizard player who uses Scribe Scroll should not be considered "pushing the system". A wizard player who uses "Craft Wand" should not be considered "pushing the system". A caster who actually knows what his spells can do and does that, should not be considered "pushing the system".

Heck, once upon a time, "creative use of spells" was considered a GOOD thing. One of the criticisms of 4e is that you are not allowed to do that supposedly. The idea that you can push beyond the basic use of a spell has a very long tradition in D&D. There are numerous Dragon articles on exactly that going all the way back to when there was a "The" in the name.

Yet, for some reason, using basic, Caster 101 ideas, is now "pushing the system".

But this isn't about using a class ability. Your implied use was about pushing a class ability, pointing out just how many a caster could afford if they decided to pursue that strategy. Well, not everybody uses that class ability to the same degree because they don't feel the need to pursue that strategy - and your claim was that they were incompetent. That's pretty insulting.

Granted, it's true that if a cleric only uses healing, and a wizard only uses direct damage spells, there would be no balance issue. Not exactly what I'd call a competently played character though.

Ok, let's recap shall we? In the form of a question. If there were no problems with caster/non-caster balance in 3e, why is every single variant caster WEAKER than the core 3 casters? Without fail, every single variant caster - Warlock, War Wizard, Favoured Soul, Shadowcaster etc - is weaker, and often considerably weaker, than the core 3 casters. Yet, virtually every single variant non-caster is STRONGER than the PHB non-casters. The vast majority ramp the power of non-casters upward.

Why is that? Is it because of problem players? Or is it a recognition of a known issue?

To use your flawed terms, perhaps those caster players were all incompetent. Frankly, I've seen a warlock played in a pretty abusive manner with his various invocations (how a wizard can be considered too powerful with his ability to use invisibility for limited durations yet the warlock not with his virtually unlimited ability is beyond me). And line those wizard-killing constructs and other magic resistant opponents up because the war wizard eats them for breakfast.