Casters vs. non-casters in your game.

[Jacob Marley]

In addition, there is the question of what the caster does with his power. If a spellcaster focuses on supporting his allies through buffing and etc, he's not likely to make anyone feel invalidated (Treantmonk and The Logic Ninja advocated this type of play) compared to someone who is not a team player and one-shots an epic level monster with the appropriate spell.

Treantmonk's Guide to Wizards: Being a God is my primary source for running wizards. In my experience, players of martial characters tend to enjoy being hasted and dimension stepped into optimal position. YMMV

I have also played the lone fighter in a group consisting of an optimized druid, wizard (transmutation), wizard (conjuration), and cleric. I have seen the level of power disparity between the fighter and Tier One. Note: I did so with my eyes wide open as I wanted to see just how weak a fighter would be in an otherwise optimized party.

The guys I play with understand the tier system and optimization. We also understand that it is fun to be in the spotlight but are mature enough to know to share it. To answer the OP, we are aware of the disparity between casters and non-casters; we just make a conscious effort to not let it be a problem during play.

 

[Scurvy_Platypus]

It has been my experience that single tough creatures are harder on fighters than on casters. What specific monsters are you thinking of?

I don't have a specific creature that I'm thinking of. Most recently, I'm reminded of a number of fights out of a Paizo Adventure Path though, where it was a single or very limited number of enemies, which were quite tough. It's distinctly possible that those were built explicitly as a "screw you" to casters; I don't know as I didn't bother going back to look at how they were built.

Single tough creatures certainly can be tougher on non-casters; some of those freaking grapple monsters that swallow characters spring to mind.

I do think that the issue of caster/non-caster disparity is more complicated than simply player competence and the nature of the power curve built into casters and non-casters at the system level. Monsters built as "screw you" to either casters _or_ melee, spells from either core, supplements, or 3rd party sources, source of a class... lots of stuff. Like I mentioned before, I've never seen a GM that allowed Tome of Battle; but they certainly allowed plenty of material from _other_ WotC books.

One thing that occurs to me in reading some of the anecdotes about how casters don't dominate... it can be sorta "swingy". Like, if you don't have a cleric in the group, Undead have the potential to really rip the party a new one; if a cleric is there, it's smooth sailing. Casters wind up being one of those things were they seem to either rock everything, or they get brutally smeared; there's not a whole lot of inbetween.

Non-casters tend to have a more mellow bit; where they get screwed is if you're talking something like Ability Damage/Ability drain, which can yank them down to nothing in a couple of rounds, or something like a "Swallow whole" attack.

I'm not sure if I'm quite explaining myself well or not...

Non-casters tend to be reliant on the whole Hit Point/Damage per Round thing. A fighter is going to do between X and Y damage per round, assuming they're capable of actually hitting the target. It's a fairly "predictable" sort of thing that can be kinda grindy.

Casters on the other hand bypass this. Sure, they've got nuke spells, but there's plenty of discussions kicking around on how going the DD (direct damage) route with a caster is the... inefficient I guess we'll call it... route.

As a side example, I've several friends who've played Star Wars Saga Edition; they universally agreed that the quick way to domination in the game was to go for Condition Track damage. It's another example of a design that's bypassing the usual armor/Hit Point mechanic and potentially short-circuiting fights.

At low levels, monsters tend to be bags of hit points relying on the Armor/Hit Point thing. As the levels increase, monsters start getting funky powers etc, as well as hit points and armor. Casters get the funky powers going along with them. Non-casters generally don't.

I think some of the problems GMs have with the caster/non-caster is related to whether or not they're deliberately trying to account for caster/non-caster divide. Explicitly looking to make things more difficult for the casters, in order to help tone them down.

It's not that it's impossible for non-casters to rock, at least if you listen to some of the stories (usually featuring some horrific Barbarian build), but the ease with which non-casters can contribute and that casters can be short-circuited.

Hmmm.... I'm not sure if I've gone off-topic here or not. Basically, my experience has been that non-casters tend to dominate and as a GM I've taken very explicit steps to curb it. I think other GMs don't always have problems because they've achieved a system mastery on par with players that make heavy use of casters. Those GMs that haven't are more likely to have issues and this gets further complicated by the play styles/goals of the group, as well as the sources being used for casters, non-casters, and the toys that each gets.

Oh and there's also the "don't be a jerk" thing. Some players try to play nice and ensure that their character doesn't dominate while others don't. The issue of character domination doesn't have to be strictly one PC outshining all the other PCs, it can also be one PC riding roughshod over a GM as well. *sigh* So.... yeah. Complicated to answer the issue really.

 

[Dandu]

Just a thought.

The classic example of something a monster that's explicitly designed as a "screw you" to casters is a golem since they have immunity to magic... but, it's only immune to spells that allow SR. Simply casting Grease, a first level spell, target's a golem's weak save (+2 for the Clay and Flesh Golem, +5 for the Iron Golem) and has a pretty good chance right off the bat of sending it sprawling on the ground. If the golem manages to keep from falling, it still has to make a DC 10 balance check to move off the grease. Given that golems have no ranks in the skill and a -1 Dex modifier, it has a 55% chance of not moving anywhere.

If your level 10 party is beset by a CR 10 Clay Golem, a spellcaster can just cast Grease on it and watch it slip and slide while the fighter has to slug it out with the monster. I call this contributing without slinging spells like the fighter swings his sword.

That may not be an entirely representative example, but the other CR 10 monsters I can find on the SRD tend to have crippling weaknesses in Ref and/or Will (Animated Objects, Hydras) or for things with decent Ref and Will saves (Dragons, Bebeliths, Formian Myrmarchs) you could get away with polymorphing the party rogue into a Hydra and siccing his 10 attacks per round each for 1d10 + 5+ 5d6 sneak attack damage form onto them and tossing out some party buffs like Haste and Enlarge Person.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

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?

In 34 years of gaming, I've never seen it in person.

Just looking at my current main gaming group- together since 1998- I can't say if its because of conscious effort or not, but everyone is playing the PC they want to the way they want to.

Personally, I play a lot of casters, but I design them to be consistent with the PC's own internal drives; they research and learn the spells that have elements that speak to them in particular. This means my PCs look a lot different from the "optimized" PCs you see on the boards. For example, I've only designed one caster in all these years who had Magic Missile on his list, and he was "specialized" in Force spells.

Contrast that to my buddy who nearly always plays Wizards- 80+% of his D&D characters are of that class. Up until his 4Ed cold-themed mage, you would find the spell list of his casters not only interchangeable from one to the other, but damn close to the lists you'll find online. Even so, though, he doesn't overshadow other players the way some might expect because of his playstyle. An old-school gamer like me, he always holds power in reserve, much like a RW military commander, because he knows spells are precious resources and often the key to victory. So instead of casting every round, he casts only enough to tip the combat irrevocably in the party's favor, then waits. This isn't out of some sense of letting others shine, but rather out of recognition that a serious challenge can arise at any moment...and if he's out of spells, "serious" could become "terminal."

 

[Axel]

I
An old-school gamer like me, he always holds power in reserve, much like a RW military commander, because he knows spells are precious resources and often the key to victory. So instead of casting every round, he casts only enough to tip the combat irrevocably in the party's favor, then waits. This isn't out of some sense of letting others shine, but rather out of recognition that a serious challenge can arise at any moment...and if he's out of spells, "serious" could become "terminal."

This, more than anything I read above, is my experience as well. An experienced caster doesn't metaphorically throw their spell-book at the enemy every encounter. Spells are like HP - to be carefully expended only as needed.

I have had a few different DMs in recent years. All are very experienced in the 3.0-3.5 mechanics. Some of the bigger levelling "tricks" they have used, which from reading the boards don't seem to be that common are:
- Having archers with rogue levels. They often ready actions to target the casters, both obvious (no armour or weapons) and demonstrated during the encounter.
- Putting spellcasters on the enemy's side. Makes a BIG difference, even if they're low level.
- Using non-combat encounters like traps 10' in from a doorway. Hilarious watching over-confident Wizards fall down a pit.

Incidentally, I have seen a party including 2 level 12 Clerics and a level 12 Wizard get split up because the casters couldn't get across a 15' pit trap in an AMF. The rogue and others all quite simply jumped across. The clerics both had heavy armour (only ones) while the Wizard had woeful physical stats. Enemies with big ranged weapons (trolls, from memory) down the far end. A win for the boys with heavy pointy things, that encounter!

 

[Jhaelen]

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.

I wouldn't exactly say casters are dominating play, it's just that you cannot do without them (at higher levels).

It's the utility spells that are the important thing here. Characters relying on mundane means simply lack the infinite toolkits that are available to spellcasters. Careful choice of magic items can help to cover many situations that would otherwise spell doom for non-spellcasters, but their availability is limited.

In terms of the ability to dish out damage, martial characters can be just as good as casters, at least if you're looking at several encounters and not 'nova' ability.

In my game, the first couple of rounds are usually spent trying to dispel the opposition's buffs and canceling or reducing the opponent's most powerful supernatural attacks. Once these are neutralized, it's back to whittling down the three-digit amounts of hit points.

It's a rare encounter that is actually decided by save-or-die abilities, since saving throws are so good that in most cases only a natural 1 results in failure.

 

[kimble]

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?

Yes. Story time:
-FR Campaign, The PCs: One cleric, one fighter, one rogue, one barbarian. The campaign ended around 12-13 lvl.
The cleric usually used his buffs (with divine metamagic to last for 24 hours), then fight the really tough monsters while we would fight the minions. Once the GM tried to put the cleric against a dragon, so the PC would have to run. He killed the dragon.

-Another FR Campaign, The PCs: A wizard, a ranger, a fighter, something else that I don´t remember.
The wizard would 'lock' the monsters with 2-3 spells, so we could kill them. Tough fights would consist of wizard flying, casting fireballs/lightning/etc. and having a really cool duel with the 'boss'. We killed the minions and waited for the duel to end.

-RL Campaign, The PCs: A cleric, a wizard, a fighter, a paladin and a rogue
I was the GM in this one. I always made the fights as tough as I could and went for the spellcaster. The non-caster had to hold the monsters, while the casters used everything they had to end the fight quickly. It worked, but I had to do a lot of work (rewrite entire monsters) so I could make this work and a lot of PCs died (none of the original group survived). The setting helped to diminish the spellcasters power while out of combat.

-Campaign, The PCs: Cleric (me), a fighter, a rogue (or ranger, I´m not sure), and someone else (barbarian?)
I did everything I could to NOT outshine the others. All my buffs, all my magic, was used to help the others PCs. Most of time, it worked. Untill a really tough fight, where I had to go 'auto-buff mode' and beat the crap out of the monsters.
Other players, later: "How you did that? Why you don´t do that more often?"
Me: ... (thinking: Because if I did, you would be my sidekicks. The comic kind.)

And that cleric was the most difficult PC I ever played. Because I had to study the others PCs, so I would know what they could do. Then, I would choose spells that wouldn´t outshine then.
And make less then optimal decisions, 'forget' that I had a spell that could solve a problem so another PC could try, etc.

 

[Mort]

Contrast that to my buddy who nearly always plays Wizards- 80+% of his D&D characters are of that class. Up until his 4Ed cold-themed mage, you would find the spell list of his casters not only interchangeable from one to the other, but damn close to the lists you'll find online. Even so, though, he doesn't overshadow other players the way some might expect because of his playstyle. An old-school gamer like me, he always holds power in reserve, much like a RW military commander, because he knows spells are precious resources and often the key to victory. So instead of casting every round, he casts only enough to tip the combat irrevocably in the party's favor, then waits. This isn't out of some sense of letting others shine, but rather out of recognition that a serious challenge can arise at any moment...and if he's out of spells, "serious" could become "terminal."

This seems like smart play to me. I actually have difficulty understanding the whole "we nova and then rest up. rinse..repeat" concept because a DM playing his villains with a lick of sense will, in short order, have them notice the pattern and exploit it. Meaning the wizard (and the group as a whole) will be caught flat footed and in a very bad position.

 

[Mort]

Yes. Story time:
-FR Campaign, The PCs: One cleric, one fighter, one rogue, one barbarian. The campaign ended around 12-13 lvl.
The cleric usually used his buffs (with divine metamagic to last for 24 hours), then fight the really tough monsters while we would fight the minions. Once the GM tried to put the cleric against a dragon, so the PC would have to run. He killed the dragon.

The Divine metamagic cleric bit had to be one of the most anti-climactic things I'd ever seen. When a player tried it (I was a player and not the DM in the game). First time he tried the whole 24 divine might bit - first combat first spell was a dispell magic - bye bye divine might. 2nd time - he puts it up and for the next day - we fight wave after wave of undead. As he'd used something like 7 turn attempts to fuel the divine metamagic, intead of being better off we were in a world of hurt. It became a bit of a standing joke how useless the combo ended up being.

 

[billd91]

In 30 years, I've seen disparities in character power but rarely seen it be a problem and only once from a caster. In that case, it was more of a question of the player since he tended to dominate the game play even if he wasn't playing a caster.

The main power disparities that I've seen that have left a character feeling a little behind involved monks, rogues, and 3.5 swashbucklers and all cases were entirely focused on combat. All 3 characters did much better in non-combat situations.