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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 8869867" data-attributes="member: 18">Yes, there is an objective issue, so let's keep this polite like last time:It creates a huge, long-lasting disparity in terms of contribution to the group, and only the Wizard's player has any say in that. It's not consensual. There's no buy-in. There's no veto.This is the crux of the problem. There three phases to it:1) Wizards, in earlier editions of D&D are an extremely weak compared to both other PCs and even monsters at lower levels (really increasingly "coming online" from 3rd to 5th, but particularly 5th).They have low HP, low AC, no damage output to speak of, no cantrips (barring some stuff most people sadly ignored), and their spells are rapidly expended and a lot of them are quite weak.So it's almost like you're saying "I want you guys to play my babysitter, whilst I'm just sort of along for the ride. Oh and btw you have no choice in the matter unless you're so mean you just let me die.". If everyone got a vote on that, maybe that'd be fine, but that sure as hell didn't happen in that era. Even in real friend-groups, you're essentially deciding to be virtually a freeloader for a few levels at least.2) From 5th to about 8th level, Wizards are increasingly strong, but fit into the group fairly well, and aren't outrageous compared to other PCs.3) But from 9th onwards, Wizards start becoming so powerful (remember Clerics didn't have the same spells progression as Wizards back then, and had a spell selection even more pointed towards support than they do now, esp. as you needed a Cleric to heal everyone - which is a whole other problem!*), that the rest of the group decreases in importance, and particularly suddenly goes from being serious bodyguards for the Wizard, to being almost his "minions", because the Wizard can solve most serious combat encounters better than them, and also can do vastly more out of combat.This obviously impacts how much fun people have. Generally speaking, people don't enjoy being completely outshone. It's particularly bad if the Wizard is anyone but the most kind, generous, spotlight-avoiding player possible, and I can't speak for everyone, but my experience is that most people who were keen to play single-class Wizards, were the exact opposite of that. Only CN Thieves and LG Paladins seemed to attract more "personality issues" players. Not all were of course, but a significant chunk. And generally the nicest people ended up playing Clerics or the like.Anyway, I digress. This means that whilst Fighter, Clerics, Thieves and really most other classes are fairly even in power (I mean to a reasonable degree, and looking at XP rather than precise level), Wizards are out-of-whack except for a pretty brief window of levels. First much weaker than the rest, then increasingly outrageously stronger, to the point where they're basically gods and everyone else is just a a mere mortal.Which again, wasn't what people signed up for, generally-speaking. It's not even what people expected, certainly in 2E and beyond, because the very notion of the way Wizards progressed wasn't expressed. I know I didn't fully "get it" until I'd played D&D for like 5 years maybe?Most PCs didn't have great progression after L10. Clerics got some more spells, but not that much. Everyone potentially got fortresses etc. but in practice most groups weren't as into that as one might expect - hence them vanishing from 3E and beyond. Ironically in my experience, Wizards were by far the keenest on the "base" idea. But anyway, point is, they still got major progression every other level, which was pretty wild in comparison, and created another significant fun-disparity.So objectively we can say that the fact that Wizards are not something the group makes decisions on (certainly not formally, nor are they encouraged to by the game), combined with the fact the Wizards go from deadweight, to equals, to significantly stronger or even godlike in comparison, isn't a good design, and doesn't produce good results, particularly in terms of creating a fun game where everyone feels like they contribute. It's something people have moaned about on and off certainly since 2E (and I assume far longer).Now, to be clear, you can do what D&D did with Wizards, and get something consensual and interesting. Ars Magica demonstrates this. But it does this by having people have multiple PCs, and not forcing anyone to basically be the minion of the Wizard.EDIT - I'd further add that the issues with this design are strongly evidenced by the struggle, for over 20 years, that WotC has had to rectify the issue, and the fact that in the two most recent editions, they did (for the most part - full casters are still more powerful than other 5E PCs, but it's so much less of an issue. Also the "dead weight" issue is entirely resolved.)* = So this was another objective design issue with earlier editions. Natural healing was extremely slow, generally speaking. But if a Cleric was even pumping Cure Light Wounds and similar into people, what could have been weeks of rest would quickly become days, maybe even just a day. The trouble is, this made Clerics into what was later described in MMORPGs as "healbot", a character who essentially did nothing with their power but cast heals and maybe buffs to support the other players. This was a pretty boring way to play for most people, and certainly lead to a lot of attempts to convince someone, anyone, to "play the Cleric", or to find a way around that necessity. This issue continued into 3E, but was totally resolved by 4E and 5E.</blockquote>

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