Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Majoru Oakheart" data-source="post: 5783810" data-attributes="member: 5143">Here's the deal.  They are wrong but they aren't wrong at the same time.  3e lets you make a character however you want.  However, it allows you to make a character that has a power level anywhere between 1 and 100.  Fighters and non-magical characters are capped at a relative power of 10.  Wizards and other casters are capped at 100.So, when a person makes a character, they can make a Wizard of power level 10.  They can purposefully choose poor spells and make character decisions to limit their power("I won't cast my big spell this combat, I'll let the rest of the party have their fun this time" or "I could prepare a spell that gives +1 to hit to the fighter and rogue or one that gives me +7 to hit and +5 damage, 2 extra attacks per round, and temporarily 40 more hitpoints...I'll take the first one").  And if they make these poor decisions, you won't notice how overpowered they are.  Because on an average round, they aren't doing anything extravagant.  And the one or two rounds a day where they outperform everyone else, people shrug and say "They are a wizard, they are supposed to be better than us."But in campaigns where players look at the rules and take the absolute best thing they are allowed....you have clerics, wizards, and druids who are performing at the near the 100 level.  I'm not saying that you are stupid.  I'm saying that people in a certain mindset don't even consider better options.  They don't think in terms of numbers.  So when looking at a choice between the above +1 to hit to 2 of their allies and much bigger bonuses for themselves, they think "I want to be a team player, I'll take the bonus to my allies."Other players look at the spells and thing "Wait, if I give them a +1 to hit, that's only a 5% chance of having any effect each round...maybe more if they get 5 attacks per round.  If they don't roll exactly 1 number below what they need to hit, my spell does nothing.  On the other hand +7 to hit is a 35% greater chance to hit, which, due to my poor bonus to hit in the first place has more effect statistically than giving it to someone who already had a better bonus.  And with the 2 extra attacks per round, it comes into effect 4 times, since I already had 2 attacks.  If I hit 4 times with the extra damage, I do way more damage than the Rogue would do if I gave the bonus to him.  I'll add the bonus to myself, because it is MUCH more effective.  And anything that is much for effective for me is better for the party."Not everyone thinks in the way that causes them to come to the second conclusion.  Some people are happy playing a 10 out of 100 Wizard, either because it never occurred to them to try for more or out of a sense of fairness for their DM or the other players.But my point is that if you have a game that everyone plays, you cannot expect all of the players to limit themselves to 1/10th of the power they are capable of simply out of a sense of fairness.  Not everyone has that sense.And the problem gets bigger when you consider the Fighters who aren't that concerned with power gaming their Fighters.  Then you get the fighters who are power level 3 or 4 out of 100.  And then the difference is seen to be even bigger.  As a quick example: A 11th level fighter who started with a 14 strength for roleplaying reasons and didn't add any points to his strength and whose DM never gave him more than a +1 weapon and who took roleplaying oriented feats and gear will have +14 to hit for 1d12+3 points of damage.  A 10th level fighter who started with a 20 str, added all his points in it, got a hold of a +6 stat enhancer and a +3 weapon and took feats to make himself better has +25 to hit for 1d12+16.  That means the first one has an average damage of 28.5 damage if they hit with all their attacks.  The second one has an average damage of 77.5....nearly 3 times as much.  And hits 55% more often.  Although, compare that to the 375 points of damage the Wizard does in the same round.Best to make the game force the casters to have a power of 10 out of 10 and then, when the rest of your group consists of people who are 4s or 5s out of 10, they don't feel nearly as left behind.</blockquote>

Verification