Casters vs. non-casters in your game.

[Mort]

As the previous discussion on this has 1) gotten a bit heated 2) gotten way to long and meandering - I'm starting a new thread with the additional requirement being - personal experience only no "well in theory x" or "I’ve heard y" so:

In your game do you find (or have you in the past found) casters significantly stepping on the toes of/and or dominating the play over non-casters. This question applies to both in and out of combat play. If this is happening currently, how so? If this was in the past but is not now, what changes have you made? If it is not happening at all, is it because of conscious effort or has the imbalance simply not occurred and therefore has never been a worry?

Note that this is primarily a "fun" issue and not a power level issue at heart. If everyone at the table is having a blast, the game is going correctly - the question is - is anything actively being done to promote the fun - or is it just happening naturally?

I'm curious because this is one of those issues that some groups see lots of, some groups see a little of, and some groups see not at all.

 

[Guest 85555]

As the previous discussion on this has 1) gotten a bit heated 2) gotten way to long and meandering - I'm starting a new thread with the additional requirement being - personal experience only no "well in theory x" or "I’ve heard y" so:

In your game do you find (or have you in the past found) casters significantly stepping on the toes of/and or dominating the play over non-casters. This question applies to both in and out of combat play. If this is happening currently, how so? If this was in the past but is not now, what changes have you made? If it is not happening at all, is it because of conscious effort or has the imbalance simply not occurred and therefore has never been a worry?

I am currently playing 2E and haven't had this problem. Before I played 3E and didn't have it (though I did have problems with overly optimized builds---but the issues with those didn't have to do with spell casting). To address the build issue, I basically limited my 3E game to the DMG, PHB and Monster Manual. After that I believe we had no further issues. If more had come up, I would just have addressed them.

The issues of casters being problematic has simply never come up as a major issue in games I've run.

 

[amerigoV]

I have seen casters that could not hit there own butt with a fireball and barbarians that dominate the field. I have seen casters "win" single handedly and a fighter than had no concept about tanking. I've seen a gnome Druid outshine everyone else. I have seen rogues take over a session. I have seen a bard win more loot for the group with a negotiation about a recovered dwarven complex than what we recovered in the complex itself.

My conclusion: Superior players results in superior play. If you are getting "out shown", look in the mirror for the problem.

 

[Mort]

I have seen casters that could not hit there own butt with a fireball and barbarians that dominate the field. I have seen casters "win" single handedly and a fighter than had no concept about tanking. I've seen a gnome Druid outshine everyone else. I have seen rogues take over a session. I have seen a bard win more loot for the group with a negotiation about a recovered dwarven complex than what we recovered in the complex itself.

My conclusion: Superior players results in superior play. If you are getting "out shown", look in the mirror for the problem.

I have also seen extremely effective barbarians. And The bard in the last 3.5 campaign I DMd was downright scary effective (both in and out of combat, though the bard, as part of that effectiveness, ensured combats the group did not want rarely occured). One thing I have never seen in 3.0/3.5 (though I did see it in 2nd eddition) was a rogue that outshone other party members.

I certainly think superior play is a large factor - but the tools you are given to play with matter as well (wizard players, for example, seem to have their characters gain in power exponentially once they realise invocation/evocation is usually the least effective solution to most problems).

 

[fba827]

i will say that i've seen casters dominate in certain editions after a certain level point.
however, overall, i think it has as much to do with build choices/customization asit does with class choice (aka you could make a caster who isn't dominating in or out of combat compared to the fighter, depending on the choices that both the caster's player and fighter's player make... did you take all physical skills and no knowledge or social ones, when you asked the wizard to reward you with a magic item, did you pick one that only focused extensively on increasing your attack rate rather than some other utility which you were otherwise lacking, and so on...)

but i say all this with a caveat... if your party is "stable" (i.e. low PC turnover rates) it is okay to specialize in some combat or noncombat area if you think your allies can handle the areas you aren't specialized in. But if you do this, then don't be complaining when the ally is able to do things better than you in that area/field.

 

[Mallus]

Put it this way... in the last 3e campaign I ran, spell-based superheroics became the dominant mode of play. We ended up with four full-progression casters. I pity the fool who didn't play a spell caster.

Actually, my friend playing the non-caster wasn't a fool. He played a well-optimized archer who was a little like Green Arrow, if Green Arrow used a fully automatic bazooka. It was a role he enjoyed, but there was no doubt the character had a much narrower range of options, in just about every conceivable situation.

He also got a kick out of playing the sole ethical person in the group, but that's neither here no there in a mechanics debate.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Nope.

The "15 minute adventuring day" never happened, IME, for starters - yes, despite it being oh so popular an arpatubes mantra. So, limited spells were (and are still) actually limited. That's one thing. Next, with some systems (e.g., 3e) I actually did rearrange various things, including the rate of spell accumulation, Fighter abilities, etc. But this is because I prefer [full] casters to be up against it, which further contributes to my general preference for "low magic", to some degree. I like even my "high magic" settings to have some "low magic" qualities, if that makes any sense!

And, perhaps most importantly, tactics have never been restricted to spellcasters, in games I've played/run. Not even favouring them. In fact, the casting of spells has often inflicted somewhat of a restriction in "battlefield" tactics, ironically enough. This, due to casting time, needing to stay put to cast properly, being by default more vulnerable, and so on.

 

[Mort]

Nope.

The "15 minute adventuring day" never happened, IME, for starters - yes, despite it being oh so popular an arpatubes mantra. So, limited spells were (and are still) actually limited. That's one thing. Next, with some systems (e.g., 3e) I actually did rearrange various things, including the rate of spell accumulation, Fighter abilities, etc. But this is because I prefer [full] casters to be up against it, which further contributes to my general preference for "low magic", to some degree. I like even my "high magic" settings to have some "low magic" qualities, if that makes any sense!

And, perhaps most importantly, tactics have never been restricted to spellcasters, in games I've played/run. Not even favouring them. In fact, the casting of spells has often inflicted somewhat of a restriction in "battlefield" tactics, ironically enough. This, due to casting time, needing to stay put to cast properly, being by default more vulnerable, and so on.

One thing I have not seen is "the 15 minute adventuring day". When I DMed the pacing was such that such a tactic would never work for the group - it wasn't even brought up. When I was a player, we conserved our resources enough that the "15 minute day" never seemed necessary.

 

[ThirdWizard]

I had a horrible time of it. I played a fighter who was inferior to a druid's summon powers. As in "Step back fighter, I'm going to summon an ape! Haha, you can go sit this one out now!" *sigh* Then the druid would cast cool spells and shape change, and I would wonder why I showed up to the game.

 

[Sunseeker]

In your game do you find (or have you in the past found) casters significantly stepping on the toes of/and or dominating the play over non-casters. This question applies to both in and out of combat play. If this is happening currently, how so? If this was in the past but is not now, what changes have you made? If it is not happening at all, is it because of conscious effort or has the imbalance simply not occurred and therefore has never been a worry?

No, now mind you all my games are 4th ed, so this may be a lesser issue here, but generally everyone is having a good time and this is due to allowing players to play it as a tactical game is meant to, by coordinating with other players. People in my groups can pull some really messed up stuff on the NPCs because they coordinate this. Casters blast people around into places that benefit other players, they grant bonuses to hit or negatives to defenses.

Non-casters then jump in to take advantage of these openings, the defenders become unbeatable walls and the rogue stuns like crazy while the mage blasts from afar.

The only time there is toe-stepping is if people start forcing players to make certain moves. When player moves start limiting other player moves, it can damage game fun, but this is rare. Most of the time I find casters and non-casters work together very well, and it's only when an overzealous player takes something too far that toes get stepped on.

But then that's a player issue, not a caster/non-caster issue.