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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mearls" data-source="post: 164390" data-attributes="member: 697">Re: Re: Re: Are Rogues Useless?NB: I was discussing how to make rogues useful in general and what I've seen them do in adventures. My comments weren't directed at you or a general rogues v. spellcasters discussion.But I'd agree that spellcasters have always been the most powerful classes at high levels. There's too many binary spells (ie, fail a save and you're out of a fight) in the game such as charm monster, polymorph other, and so on. A wizard who establishes line of sight to an unprepared enemy flat out wins the vast majority of the time. Once a wizard hits 8th or 9th level, he can afford the big wands he needs to make running out of spells an unlikely occurence. Given dispel magic's low range, it's rather easy for a caster to use fly to stay beyond range and drop spells on a static target.Of course, the other classes also get access to magic items. More importantly, they don't have to pay the steep gp price wizards have to pay in order to expand their spellbooks. Without that, a wizard is markedly worse than a sorcerer. So sure, a wizard can fly around invisible for an hour a day. If he's 6th-level he can pull that off for a total of 3 hours if he uses his slots on those two spells. He can resort to scrolls, though that saps his ability to buy other items. A 6th-level character should have 13,000 gp in items. At 375 gp per scroll, that's not a trivial sum. He could craft a wand of fireball or fly, by that would suck down almost his entire gp alotment, or half that should he drop the cast level down to 3.Meanwhile, the rouge drops 4000 gp into cloak and boots of elvenkind and can essentially turn invisible at will. Remember, Spot and Listen are not class skills for most classes.Don't underestimate the DMG's guidelines for character gp. Thus far they've been the biggest limiting power for my wizard character.SR is the big hurdle at high levels, especially when dealing with outsiders. Again, the binary nature of spells rears its head. A charm monster either fizzles against SR, is beaten by a save, or takes a monster completely out of commision. IMNSHO, that's the primary reason why the entire a natural 1 on a save always fails ruling is a bad idea for game balance. Since SR is rather hard to come by for PCs, the effectiveness of spellcasting classes against other classes is a bit magnified.Remember, the classes are balanced against each other in relation to the monsters they face at a given level. A 10th level wizard might waste a 10th level fighter under most circumstance, but that same fighter can wipe the floor with an outsider that could tear the wizard in half.IME, wizards are tremendously effective in short bursts. That effectiveness plummets as soon as a wizard shows up on the other side. If given time to prepare, arcane casters have a huge advantage. If attacking from surprise, rouges have a huge advantage. Clerics have staying power, while fighters tend to have the same effectiveness in a wide range of situations. I would say that arcane casters have the best rate of survivability should they survive an initial onslaught. Between dimension door, polymorph self, fly, and invisibility, it's hard to pin down a wizard who really wants to flee and has a chance to get off a few spells.</blockquote>

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