Class Balance - why?

[WheresMyD20]

I haven't played 1e at high levels, but I have played 2e and that's not a lot different. And there are certainly ways -- and somewhat trivial ways at that -- for a wizard to be almost immune to mundane attacks at that point. Spells can take the wizard beyond any effective attack range (fly and related spells), make it impossible for mundane characters to target the wizard (invisibility and related spells), make physical attacks ineffective (stoneskin, protection from normal missiles, etc.).

At 20th level, both fighters and M-Us have ways of dealing with mundane attacks. Fighters are so well armored and have so many hit points at that level that the vast majority of mundane attacks miss and those that hit have to chip away at a large hit point pool. A M-U needs powerful defensive magic to protect his 37 hit points (on average) and bad AC.

Invisibility is of limited usefulness in high-level 1e. There's a % chance based on level and Int that anyone can - without magical help - effectively see through invisibility (DMG p.60).

Stoneskin (which actually isn't part of base 1e - it's in Unearthed Arcana) is certainly useful, but not usually to the same degree as a fighter's armor and hit points. Protection from normal missiles is not very useful at 20th level - normal arrows and sling stones aren't commonly encountered at that level and usually don't pose much threat.

Fly is definitely useful - if the magic-user is outdoors. The rate of flying is only 12", which is the same as unencumbered ground speed - and half that if ascending, so it's not a particularly rapid escape or evasion.

Remember that a single area of effect attack like a fireball, lightning bolt, dragon's breath, etc. can often times kill a high level M-U even if he makes his saving throw. Fighters can usually weather a few of those.

All of this isn't to say that fighters are more powerful than M-U's at high levels in 1e or that they're even equal. The point is that fighters are still quite useful at high levels in 1e and M-U's aren't all-powerful. In 1e, there is room for both fighters and M-U's in a party and a party that is lacking either fighters or M-U's is usually in for a rough time. (Let's not even get into clerics who are quite vital too - you need a good mix of classes)

One of the great improvements from 2e to 3.x was that it made high-level play merely time-consuming for the DM and somewhat unbalanced (in favor of full casters, especially druids, wizards who weren't blasters, and clerics who weren't healers) instead of nearly completely unplayable.

There's where I'd have to disagree strongly. I played 1e and 3e at high levels and found 1e to be quite playable (we played at levels 20+ for literally years) and 3e to be terrible at those levels (the saving throw system in particular is a mess at high levels).

 

[Elf Witch]

But that's the thing. The player's won't find ways around my carefully crafted encounters if I don't let them. There is nothing left in 4e that allows a party to completely break anything I have planned.

Whereas the entire time I ran high level 3.5e it felt like a constant metagaming arms war. If I want them to have to talk to the bridgekeeper and convince him to let him pass...I needed:

The bridgekeeper to know magic enough to be able to ward the area against teleportation, flying, charm spells, the ability to shape the earth into a new bridge, the ability to create a bridge of force, and probably a number of other things I'm not even thinking of right now.

Why does the bridgekeeper know all these spells? Also, how did you either make them all permanent or make sure they were all active when the PCs show up? How can he cast that many spells in a day? Or do I just metagame and create a brand new spell called "Ward against players" that is a protection spell against all of them at the same time? If I make him a wizard in addition to whatever race and abilities I've already given him, it means that he now has more hitpoints, better saves, and a better CR, so if they PCs fight him, they'll lose. Maybe I wanted them to be able to win in a fight. Well, then he can't have any other abilities other than being a Wizard. And therefore, all the enemies end up being Wizards or friends with Wizards.

On the other hand, that exact same situation in 4e means I have to plan for...nothing. The PCs have no way across unless the bridgekeeper lets him(as long as the gap is wider than 50 feet). It's really nice to feel in control of a campaign.

Also, if you remove the Wizard and Cleric out of the party in 3.5e....then you don't really have to worry about them finding a way over either. It's the casters that are the problem.

And this scenario comes up with almost every hazard you use to try to hinder the party.

The first time a party realizes that if they have a basic description of the BBEG, they can scrye on him, find his location and teleport directly to him past any defenses he has set up and take him out directly. Then teleport out again is the first time you want to strangle someone and ban half the spells in the game to make it easier to run.

That first line right there that they won't find ways around the encounter unless you let them is imo a form of railroading.

As a player I don't want the DM to tell me I have to talk to the bridgekeeper if I don't want to, you know with that attitude the players can simply say we turn around and head back to town.

As a DM I deal with what happens when my players turn my perfectly planned and crafted encounters on their ear by not doing what I expected.

If 4E truly allows the DM that much power to railroad the players and take their free will away then there is another reason why I hope they get rid of that rule set.

If the party is high enough to scry the BBEG should have the resources to block the scying also a wizard needs to be rather high level to teleport the entire party to teleport a party of four they have to be 18 level which is almost epic level at that level wizards should be able to do awesome stuff like that. At that level the BBEG can have things that block teleporting into his lair.

Most games don't usually go that high level Pazio Adventure Path for example stop at 15 level so if you use them a wizard is never going to be powerful enough to teleport the entire party.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Yes those spells let him raise his AC for as long as the spell lasts but it does not give him a lot of choices for martial weapon choices or the feats, hit points and BAB that fighters get. A wizard playing a front line fighter is doing so out of desperation not because they are good at it.

There is no way a wizard will ever match a martial character when it comes to going toe to toe or swing a weapon.

Actually, Tenser's Transformation does exactly that. But it's not really the strongest of the spells. That would probably be something like Shapechange: Elder Red Dragon. Who care about proficiencies and BAB when you have the Strength and natural weaponry to give the Tarrasque a run for his money?

As for using unseen servant he has to memorize it and then he uses it once then he has to cast it again a rogue can disarm traps all day long and not have to worry about running out and since an unseen servant only has a force of 20 pounds that is often not enough to set off pressure plate traps. Again it is a nice tool if the party does not have a rogue so know to accomplish what a rogue can do it takes two wizard spells and one cleric spell.

As for disintegrate lets look at that a wizard can cast it at 11 level he again has to memorize it he does not just get it free as a class ability. He has to hit and there is a save involved. Rogues get sneak attack at first level they can do as often as they are in a place to do it. They never run out of sneak attacks and by 11 level a rogue hit with a disintegrate who makes his save and takes no damage and this goes for every spell that has a save so basically as long he makes his save the wizard has a hard time hurting him with magic and when he fails a save he only takes half the damage.

As for niche protection I agree with that but so far nothing you have said has made the wizard better at things then the rogue.

Take invisibility yep pretty powerful which is why most rogues I know want the ability to on a magic item. Sure the wizard is the one who gets to cast it but the rogue is the one who can use it more effectively because move silently is class for them and a cross class for wizards. Just because you are invisible does not mean that you don't make any noise and that opponents don't get a listen check.

Again I don't see it as a gentleman agreement it is playing as a team member with the other players and making sure you are not doing anything to ruin their fun. What kind of people do you play with that you view not being a jerk is some kind of agreement that is not found at many gaming tables?

Knock is automatic while pick locks is not. That by itself makes the wizard a better rogue under plenty circumstances (such as when trying to make a hasty exit through a locked door). The wizard should never be a better rogue than the rogue.

My group is plenty polite. However, we've invited other players to our table, and joined plenty of other games where that did not turn out to be so, whether due to inexperience or plain old-fashioned competitiveness. It does happen, I have seen it. You can claim it's a player/DM problem, but considering I saw it happen multiple times in 3e, and never in 4e, I'm thinking that balance probably has a lot to do with it.

That isn't to say that they need to homogenize things as much as the initial 4e PHB did. I can see why some felt that was going too far. However, I firmly believe that you can have balanced, yet mechanically differentiated classes. I even postulated a rough sketch regarding how it might be done in an earlier post, but no one responded to that section of the post.

 

[SlyDoubt]

Don't a lot of these issues actually have to do with pacing?

This all reminds me of the discussion surrounding doing sandbox with 4E and how it's not at all designed that way. Likewise if you run 3E like a 4E adventure the wizard would be basically limitless at all times.

I think in some cases, depending on how the game is run, things start to equalize. When the more mundane classes like rogue and fighter and simply keep on truckin' no matter if they've had a full nights rest and time to memorize, things aren't as simple.

I'm by no means saying that's some kind of solution because it'd be absurd if it was. I'm just saying pacing is an important part of the discussion. Not just 1:1 power.

 

[Elf Witch]

You say manageable, I say trivialize. Two sides of the same coin.

If I were to ban / nerf every spell in 3e that I thought was problematic, it would involve a very significant percentage of the PHB. More work than I'm really willing to put into it in all honesty, which is a big part of the reason that we no longer play 3e. If it were one or two spells, I certainly wouldn't say that all casters are broken. The problem lies with a lot of spells, which is why it's a systemic problem rather than a simple matter of errata.

It's not about playing a character who goes out of his way to screw other characters over. It's about the inexperienced player, or the guy who simply doesn't care one way or the other, who is drawn to spells (like Invisibility) because they're very effective and end up doing so without outright intending to.

It's nice that you have an experienced group, however, that's no reason that inexperienced groups should have to blunder through trial and error. The system should have eliminated the worst of such offenders, have advice for the rest, and then groups only need to deal with issues that are unique to their own table.

The opposite is also true for me if I had to change everything I find that makes 4 unplayable for my group I would find it more work then I want do.

You realize that if it was a fact that most people find 3E magic to be over powered and unplayable Pathfinder would not be doing so well.

The argument about the newbie and inexperienced player does not hold any water we were all inexperienced and new to the game at one time. And all the old editions have these kind of spells in them and so for 30 yeas we managed to play with them.

Over the years my group has had plenty of newbies in it our current game as a person who had never played before not RPGs or video games she is playing a sorcerer and she has not had an issue with any of this. She did take improved invisibility as one of her spells known and sometimes she cast it on herself but she but more often she cats it on the rest of us when we need to all be sneaky.

Sure she looked at knocked and we explained to her why for a sorcerer with a rogue in the party is really is a waste of a slot.

DMs need to guide new players no matter what class they play and that means pointing out spell choices and other choices.


Here is what I have gotten from this thread wizards should not be allowed to have any spells that might infringe on another class so no buffs, or spells to raise their ACs because that puts them in competition with the fighter.

They should not be allowed to have knock or spider climb or invisibility because that infringes on the rogue.

They should not have the ability to kill someone outright with a spell even if that spell has a save because that is not fair to the martial characters.

They should not have any spell that circumvents what a DM has planned even if that requires the wizard to be almost epic level.

They shouldn't have charm person because that takes away from the classes that have diplomacy. I guess using that logic they should not have domination either.

I am not sure what wizards should be allowed to do. Though I have often read that they should be bards because that is closer to Gandalf.

I really hope that WOTC realizes that not all people want such a neutered wizard that we want magic to be basically the way it has always been before 4E. Not saying that some tweaks are not needed magic item creation comes to mind.

And while I have no issue with a dial to turn magic down to 4E levels they need a dial to turn it up to older editions. If they don't have that I am not sure how many of us who didn't make the switch are going to be interest it is not like we don't have an in print game we can play.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Remember that a single area of effect attack like a fireball, lightning bolt, dragon's breath, etc. can often times kill a high level M-U even if he makes his saving throw. Fighters can usually weather a few of those.

Remember also, that fireballs, lightning bolts, et al aren't capped at 10 hd in 1e. A 20 die fireball will get the wizard out of the air pretty quickly.

 

[Elf Witch]

Actually, Tenser's Transformation does exactly that. But it's not really the strongest of the spells. That would probably be something like Shapechange: Elder Red Dragon. Who care about proficiencies and BAB when you have the Strength and natural weaponry to give the Tarrasque a run for his money?



Knock is automatic while pick locks is not. That by itself makes the wizard a better rogue under plenty circumstances (such as when trying to make a hasty exit through a locked door). The wizard should never be a better rogue than the rogue.

My group is plenty polite. However, we've invited other players to our table, and joined plenty of other games where that did not turn out to be so, whether due to inexperience or plain old-fashioned competitiveness. It does happen, I have seen it. You can claim it's a player/DM problem, but considering I saw it happen multiple times in 3e, and never in 4e, I'm thinking that balance probably has a lot to do with it.

That isn't to say that they need to homogenize things as much as the initial 4e PHB did. I can see why some felt that was going too far. However, I firmly believe that you can have balanced, yet mechanically differentiated classes. I even postulated a rough sketch regarding how it might be done in an earlier post, but no one responded to that section of the post.

Shapechange s a druid spell not a wizard spell. And I find druids have the potential to be far more game breaking then any wizard.

Like I said a simple fix for knock is make a noisy spell or give it a longer casting time.

But I wonder how many players would answer this if being chased by a red dragon about to eat you would you rather the rogue pick the lock of the door between you and safety or would you rather the wizard pull out their emergency scroll of knock and use it ?

HMM death but at least this one time the rogue feet were not stepped on or a chance to live. I just texted the player playing our party rogue and his answer was are you crazy get that door open now.

I would rather have the freedom to deal with rude players by out of game methods then have things nerfed because it might be abused by rude players.

I want to make one thing clear that I don't think that you liking 4E and its playstyle is in any way wrong.

But can you also understand how annoying it gets to hear over and over the 3E magic is broken? 4E players don't like hearing it called a WOW clone well 3E players don't realy like hearing it called wizards and muggles.

I think a lot of this comes down to how you like magic in your game. I like powerful magic and spells that allow casters to do things that make the adventure easier for the rest of the party. I want spells like knock and find traps in my game because it gives me away to deal with not having a rogue other then just unlocking all the doors and having no traps. Or having to run a NPC rogue.

I sometimes want wizards to scry and I like having teleport in the game because it speeds up the ability of the party to get someplace in a hurry.

I don't think 3E is perfect I don't like item creation rules or metamagic. I don't like that fighters have nothing fun to do outside of combat. I hate the grapple rules and the turn rules I have been playing 3 since it came out and I can't keep them straight.

I think evasion should never get powerful enough not to take any damage from a spell unless it is available for all classes to take as a feat.

I think paladin should be a prestige class.

So there are imo lots of room for improvement unfortunately 4E didn't improve most of what my issues were except a big one it made DMing easier and made prep time go faster.

 

[Aldarc]

You realize that if it was a fact that most people find 3E magic to be over powered and unplayable Pathfinder would not be doing so well.

Can you prove this assertion? This is fairly terrible reasoning unless you can provide a direct causal relationship between the success of PF and the balance of the magic system. This reasoning also fails to take into account all the other issues of 4E's release, the 4E system, 3E players, etc. that are not magic-system related at all. People may be happier to play a more familiar Vancian system than 4E's regardless of PF's balance. Ever thought of that?

 

[pemerton]

Shapechange s a druid spell not a wizard spell.

It's a 9th level wizard spell in AD&D, and I'm pretty sure is there at the same level in 3E.

At high levels, 1e M-U's have very few hit points. They are very fragile. At 20th level they have 37 on average and 75 with max Con and max rolls. On top of that, magic resistance and good saving throws mean that many of their attacks either fail completely or do reduced damage.

For a 20th level 1st ed AD&D magic-user, all magic resistance values are reduced by 45% (+/1 5% per level below/above 11th - see the MM's definition of MR). So in fact a 20th level MU won't see that many of their attacks fail due to magic resistance.

But I agree with your broader point, that high level 1st ed AD&D is not as unbalanced as 3E at those levels.

And again, how will a new player identify these issues? It's all well and good to say that Knock and Invisibility and whatnot shouldn't be used if there's a rogue in the party, but why don't the books says so? Why is every option and ability given to the wizard without any word of warning? This is not how you make a good game.

I think this is an artefact of RPG books (or, at least, player's books) being written in a type of simulationist mode, in which metagame discussion - other than the minimum necessary to explain the mechanics - is to be kept out.

You see the same thing in the 4e MM: all the discussion of the creatures is from an ingame perspective, with no discussion from the metagame point of view of how a GM should make use of these story elements.

I'm hoping that D&Dnext will be a bit more modern and sophisticated in this respect, but I'm not holding my breath!

 

[pemerton]

I have a player who makes useless characters in every game. This is his thing, I understand that. I don't expect the system to accomodate this kind of player.

But 4e does! via the lazy warlord.

I like that 4E really emphasized roles in the party, but why do all roles have to be balanced all the time? Just because a wizard or rouge can perform "shock and awe" type actions in and out of combat, does that make the fighter's role all that less important? Tanks are needed, and believe it or not some people actually enjoy that aspect. And when the cleric and wizard are out of spells and the rouge is almost dead from 2 moderate hits, who is going to be left standing to save the day?

I don't follow this. Classes in 4e do different things. The fighter in my game doesn't do signficant damage, for example - he is a melee polearm controller. He stops things in their tracks and drops them prone. (He's actually a better controller than the wizard most of the time! The wizard in my game is built as a scholar, with not much more than the bare minimum of combat ability.)

When the difference between characters of the same 'role' becomes basically "do you like shiny armor or silky robes?" something is terribly wrong. That's what 4E did. Functionally they're all so similar there's no real interest to any class.

I'm curious as to what play experience this is based on. Even at first level, Flaming Sphere plays pretty differently from Brute Strike, Icy Terrain plays pretty differently from Passing Attack, and Thunderwave plays noticeably differently from Tide of Iron.

In other words, this:

When I played a wizard I could summon spheres of burning flame and cause explosions of freezing cold at a distance. I could even turn my enemies into frogs.

When I played a fighter I got in the face of my enemies, smashed their faces with my big massive sword, forced them to face me or be smashed in the face again.

Not to mention that the two classes have different skill lists, and wizards have cantrips and rituals.

These were guys who never came with the char updated and just wanted to have fun and say "I jump on the dragons head and stab him in the eye!!".

How would you resolve this is in AD&D? 2nd ed AD&D? 3E? 4e?

I have no idea how to handle it in either edition of AD&D. And I don't know 3E well enough (either the jump rules or the "occupying another creature's space" rules). In 4e I would treat it as an Athletics or Acrobatics check to gain combat advantage at the risk of taking damage from falling/being squashed (DCs and damage based on the page 42 charts, as errata-ed).