Class Balance - why?

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Mustrum, you are one of the people who I am talking about, drawing the discussion in a straw man direction.

Why not drop unproductive discussions about a literary character that has only the most tenuous relationships with d&d wizards?

You say that you are not familiar with fantasy? Why not do a little research on the work of Vance (an obvious first stop, surely), LeGuin and others? A quick google search will reveal dozens of mythical, legendary and literary examples which would be worth considering.

If you have a 1e DMG available why not check out the section in the back on inspirational reading?

That is where you'll find inspiration for d&d magic. Talk about that rather than rehash tired old arguments please.

Thanks

While I haven't read Vance, I have read about him.

What I read sounded interesting - but it still doesn't seem to have much to do with the D&D Wizard. The spellcasting in the Dying Earth books did not allow Wizards to prepare dozens of spells. They certainly had powerful, deadly spells, but not that many available to them at the same time.
They couldn't easily prepare themselves for every eventuality either, with these limtiations.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Except, this isn't really what goes down. Not at all!

What goes down, is that the party is lucky enough to have enough distance from a group of enemies, that the MU can get off his fireball, taking care of them, thus saving the Fighter's HP and the rest of the party's resources, so that on that next encounter, when they're face to face with enemies and there's no room for an Area Effect Spell, the Fighter's are still tough enough to handle the situation.

You're ONLY thinking about the math. Your example is totally disconnected from actual play.

If the party has acces to Cure Light Wound Wands, there is actually little reason to worry about the "toughness" of the Fighter over several encounters. Because he can be brought back to full health after every fight.

D&D 4 short rest mechanic basically made this a feature and not an accidental effect of magic item creation rules or magic item acquisition handling. But it introduced Healing Surges at the same time to limit all healing. Which made long-term resource management relevant to all classes and all party compositions, and at the same time decoupling healing for magic items or spells.

 

[Neonchameleon]

{Gandalf} doesn't do a lot of stuff we'd consider D&D wizardish... but that doesn't mean all of those capabilities are outside his ability. He uses some spells like fire seeds against goblins, fireball against wolves, he does something unknown that helps Bill the pony make it back to Tom Bombadil's place. We don't know he can't do a knock spell because the Hollin Gate may be resistant to any opening spell in any language.

In short "He doesn't do a lot of stuff we'd consider D&D wizardish". Which means that a D&D wizard would be a poor fit for Gandalf.

He also does stuff we'd consider not-wizardish. His voice is well known. When he fought the Balrog it was sword to sword. That is not D&D wizardish. It is almost the opposite of D&D wizardish.

If trying to model Gandalf in either 2e or 3e D&D there's a class to do it and one that does a respectable job. It isn't the wizard. It's the Bard. Jack of all trades, master of social skills, focus on illusion and communication - and ability to wield a sword.

As a result, we don't know how much he can't do versus chooses not to do.

And from a coldly pragmatic perspective this doesn't matter. All that matters is how he actually behaves.

It's more like he's owed a few favors and happens to call them in.

Once more I say Bard.

Mustrum, you are one of the people who I am talking about, drawing the discussion in a straw man direction.

Why not drop unproductive discussions about a literary character that has only the most tenuous relationships with d&d wizards?

You say that you are not familiar with fantasy? Why not do a little research on the work of Vance (an obvious first stop, surely), LeGuin and others? A quick google search will reveal dozens of mythical, legendary and literary examples which would be worth considering.

If you have a 1e DMG available why not check out the section in the back on inspirational reading?

That is where you'll find inspiration for d&d magic. Talk about that rather than rehash tired old arguments please.

1: Lord of the Rings is explicitely in Appendix N. Gandalf is almost certainly the most famous wizard in fantasy fiction with the possible exceptions of Harry Potter (who massively post-dates Appendix N) and Merlin (explicitely a Bard). So your argument is that we should be focussing on Appendix N is telling us that we should do what we are already doing and you are objecting to. Claiming that he has only the most tenuous connection to D&D wizards is problematic.

2: From Appendix N "The most immediate influences upon AD&D were probably de Camp & Pratt, R. E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, Jack Vance, H. P. Lovecraft, and A. Merritt".

We can and in the past have continued here too. I've not read all the listed authors, but "Vancian magic" is nothing like that of Jack Vance's spellcasters who can learn only half a dozen spells at a time and are generally all round competent. A better model for Jack Vance's heroes would be 4e martial heroes with Wizard dailies.

Fritz Lieber's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser has a spellcasting protagonist (Mouse) who is in practice a 4e rogue or thief with ritual caster - and certainly not a classic D&D either multiclass character or character with two classes. REH's Conan stories have NPC magic only - or at least the ones I've read - and a very powerful warrior protagonist (shades of 4e). And mostly ritual at that. "Vancian magic" in no way resembles Lovecraftian eldritch tomes. The only de Camp I've read and recall off hand is Against the Fall of Night - no magic (on appendix N - but it's Harold Shea who's called out and again appears to bear little resemblance to "Vancian magic" as I don't believe that magic systems cross worlds). And I've not read the rest.

AD&D wizards are able to cast spells at the rate of characters in Harry Potter. They are their own entity entirely and bear IMO far less resemblance to most of the source material they themselves claim than 4e characters do. So which fantasy wizards should we be talking about?

 

[Plane Sailing]

1: Lord of the Rings is explicitely in Appendix N. Gandalf is almost certainly the most famous wizard in fantasy fiction with the possible exceptions of Harry Potter (who massively post-dates Appendix N) and Merlin (explicitely a Bard). So your argument is that we should be focussing on Appendix N is telling us that we should do what we are already doing and you are objecting to. Claiming that he has only the most tenuous connection to D&D wizards is problematic.

No, if you read me carefully you'll see that my argument is that there is little point in focussing on JUST ONE example of there original references when it would be so much more INTERESTING to have discussions about other examples (many of which have more compelling *wizard* references).

They are their own entity entirely and bear IMO far less resemblance to most of the source material they themselves claim than 4e characters do. So which fantasy wizards should we be talking about?

Also exactly my point. I'm not sure why you are asking me the very question that I'm posing - bit puzzled really.

I'm just thinking that it would be nice to get off the tired old 'Gandalf blah blah blah' treadmill as if that was the be-all and end-all of D&D and wizards, when it has always had only the most tangential connection.

And who would want to see a thread end up closed because it spiraled into the same well-drawn battlelines, when there are whole additional vistas of discussion which could usefully be had in areas which barely get touched?


Regards

 

[Arrowhawk]

When people such as myself argue against balance, we arent saying "dont make the fighter stronger" we are saying dont force them all into the exact same mold.

I realize this thread is reaching the end of its life expectancy, but I really wanted to belabor this point.

You can't have "balance" unless all the units are exactly the same. I said this before in a post about 10 pages back, but balance is a misnomer in an RPG. To have things balanced, you have to put them on a scale so they can reach equilibrium. It is nonsensical to talk about balancing spell casting with martial combat. The only way this works is if spell casting and martial combat are functionally indistinguishable and merely have different names.

Your very complaint (which I am sure is shared by many) that you want balance but don't want "EVERY CLASS into the same power structure" underscores the disconnect that runs rampant through this thread and discussion.

True balance is something that requires provable certainty. There is absolutely no way to "balance" the Knock spell with Two Weapon Fighting. You can't even balance TWF with Power Attack. To even argue such a balance is achieved or possible is nonsensical.

What you are all talking about is fairness, not balance. Is it fair to have a Wizard be able to do X while a Fighter can only do Y? That is the question you are all asking. As such, it has no right answer and that is why these discussions have no closure.

You cannot balance characters that do different things. They will only be balanced when they are indistinguishable metrically...and then you're simply all playing the same class with a different label.

 

[hanez]

I realize this thread is reaching the end of its life expectancy, but I really wanted to belabor this point.

You can't have "balance" unless all the units are exactly the same. I said this before in a post about 10 pages back, but balance is a misnomer in an RPG. To have things balanced, you have to put them on a scale so they can reach equilibrium. It is nonsensical to talk about balancing spell casting with martial combat. The only way this works is if spell casting and martial combat are functionally indistinguishable and merely have different names.

Your very complaint (which I am sure is shared by many) that you want balance but don't want "EVERY CLASS into the same power structure" underscores the disconnect that runs rampant through this thread and discussion.

True balance is something that requires provable certainty. There is absolutely no way to "balance" the Knock spell with Two Weapon Fighting. You can't even balance TWF with Power Attack. To even argue such a balance is achieved or possible is nonsensical.

What you are all talking about is fairness, not balance. Is it fair to have a Wizard be able to do X while a Fighter can only do Y? That is the question you are all asking. As such, it has no right answer and that is why these discussions have no closure.

You cannot balance characters that do different things. They will only be balanced when they are indistinguishable metrically...and then you're simply all playing the same class with a different label.

I agree with you. That is fine. Call it whatever you want. Personally I am perfectly happy with the balance (fairness) that has existed in the game from 1e to 3e. The kind of balance (fairness) that made D&D what it is today. For the sake of unity, I agree that the balance (fairness) should be increased to make all players happy. However I will not give the kind of balance that 4e introduced another shot. I tried it for a year, and for my group that was not dungeons and dragons.

 

[Elf Witch]

I wouldn't expect you to say that, but it'd be correct.



For far too long, D&D got by on being familiar, on sucking the way it always sucked, rather than making the big leap and actually becoming a better, modern game. The virulent rejection of die-hards to that leap is positively tragic. If the grognards win, they'll get the game they want, but it'll die with them.

So basically you are saying that we fans of earlier editions are to set in our ways and to foolish to recognize that we play the game wrong and it is going to be our fault that the game dies.

Thank you for letting me know this and that I and my group are just to stupid to release we are having fun wrong.

Well if that is so true please explain why Pathfinder is not dying and why if 4E was such a success with its innovated changes that so many grognards didn't like WOTC is ready to bring out a new edition?

 

[Elf Witch]

Well, that is a trail of woe, isn't it?

Goodness knows how many of us were frustrated with vancian magic back in the 70's, the fanzines were full of spell point systems, klutz systems and other mechanisms to allow wizards to cast more like the characters in our favourite literature but you know what? D&d never really changed.

Fact is, if you want to play a fantasy game that models a particular fictional world, you almost certainly don't choose d&d. You choose another rpg that is either directly customised to fit or a more generic one as a base.

However, there is now a huge back catalog of d&d based fiction - who is to say that newcomers to d&d won't have read that first? The fantasy fiction market has changed a lot in the last 40 years.

I am a huge fantasy fan have been since I read my first fantasy in 1976 which was the Narnia books. I did not read Tolkein until after the movies came out. I didn't go into DnD thinking Gandalf was the prime example of a wizard.

As much as I was a huge Arthurian fan I never saw Merlin as the DnD style wizard either mainly because the other classes really didn't mirror any of the people in the Arthurian legend very well.

I had read Vance and was oh yeah.

My son who was born in 1978 grew up on Dragonlance and David Eddings , Raymond Feist not Tolkein and he has never though that the wizards of DnD should mirror Gandalf.

Right now I am reading Jim Butcher's Codex Alera and the powerful furycrafters can fly , and throw fireballs, command powerful earth elementals.

To say that DnD wizards don't mirror most fantasy wizards because they don't look like Gandalf or Merlin is simply not true.

 

[Arrowhawk]

I agree with you. That is fine. Call it whatever you want. Personally I am perfectly happy with the balance (fairness) that has existed in the game from 1e to 3e. The kind of balance (fairness) that made D&D what it is today. For the sake of unity, I agree that the balance (fairness) should be increased to make all players happy. However I will not give the kind of balance that 4e introduced another shot. I tried it for a year, and for my group that was not dungeons and dragons.

I think we are on the same page. Apologies for singling out your post, but I think this notion of "balance" is a pandemic in the RPG community. So bare with me while I use your response to really highlight the problem.

It's really important to understand that there is no balance...none, unless we are all playing the same piece. Pawns on a chessboard are balanced. Nothing is else is balanced with Pawns. The reason it's important to drive this home is that it leads to the realization that 1e was NOT balanced. But more to the point, balance was not a design goal in 1e. But clearly it was a design goal in 4e. So as you've so astutely observed, in order to obtain equality, you sacrifice uniqueness and with that, meaningful choices.

5e cannot bring the groups together. With all due respect to Monte Cook, to suggest that all editions can be united is to make evident a fundamental lack of understanding on what makes each edition appealing to its player bases. 1e is not going to provide 4e players with a game that is fair and neither is 3.5. 4e is not going to provide 3.5 players with a game that provides the depth and consequence of choice.

 

[Charleois]

No BMX Bandits teaming up with Angel Summoners in my core rules please.