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Message: <blockquote data-quote="swrushing" data-source="post: 1346606" data-attributes="member: 14140">my game ran for three years and had a sor and a wiz. i have seen and played in other games with them. As usual, the balance will depend heavily on the Gm and the campaign. The balanceable elements are, IMX: Reactivity favors sorcerer while proactivity favors wiz. Specifically if the game is event driven with the NPCs initiating most of the action and the players reacting a lot (invasion campaigns for instance) the sorcerer gets the nod. His selection of (presumably) pragmatic spells always at the ready and ability to hammer the one or two needed for the setup will prove potent. By contrast, if the campaign is more proactive, where the PCs dictate the pacing and can take plenty of time for preparation as well as in and out and back in again type runs, the wizard's prep and plan ability will get the top billing. Free money and time favors the wiz while less money and limited free time favors the sor. The wizards largest draw on time and money is feeding the spellbook. in order to have a drastic advantage in spells know he needs time and money to make it all happen. So, if your campaign fits the "module then rest" model where the players head off to a specific short run task and then have "all the time they want" between "adventures" and rarely have surprise starts that interrupt their time and efforts, the wiz will grow greatly in power. this is particularly true if the sorcerer or other players really aren't allowed to do things. The wizard has a built in "convert downtime to power" mechanic in his class, so if (as i have seen often) this is about the only "beneficial activity done in downtime" the Gm allows this will benefit the wizard above others greatly. By contrast, if know safe free downtime is rarer, money is tight, or if everyone is allowed to parley their capabilities in "downtime" for benefit (sorcerer and clerics and such might be making magic items or making contacts while fighters and such might be taking short "jobs" for Xp or money or even favors) then it evens out more. If their is practically no downtime at all, even excluding short and unpredicatble lulls, the wizard will drop below the others in performance. Indestructable, unlosable equipment and gear campaigns favors the wiz while campaigns with real chance  of loss or destruction of possessions favors the sor. While it came as a surprise to me, there are campaigns where the very notion of potential real lose of equipment is an impossibility, something that wont ever happen and you wont ever have to worry about it, do exist. These make the chance of wizard spellbook loss a non-issue and negate that built-in class balance aspect. if a wizard never loses his spellbook(s), knows they are safe andn never has to replace them, then he fares much better than in a campaign where the chance and the reality of their loss exists. In my game, the risk encouraged the wizard to spend yet again more time and more money to keep multiple spellbooks and some copies here and there so that he would not lose everything at once. When the party's camp got raided while they were exploring, he lost a couple spell books and something like 1/3 to 1/2 his spells but because of his precautions and backups, he did not lose the whole set.These are the main things i have seen set the balance in play in specific campaigns. IMO, class balance is meaningless without specific campaign considerations anyway. Its really not going to matter how "balanced" the classes are in a mythical "neutral setting" no one ever plays. Its much more important for the classes to be "balanceable in play" in specific campaigns actually ran and for that they just need to have aspects that favor them and aspects that disfavor them and a Gm who knows the difference.As an aside, i do not mention item creation as a boon for sor/wiz. thats because i saw it balance itself out in play. The wizard can certainly get more feats to make items but since time and money are being diverted into his spellbook, he has less resourcs to actually use them. (Taking multiple feats for this basically means the list of things you do not have time or money to do grows larger.) While the sor will likely have fewer feats, thus limited in the types of items he can make, he has more time and more money to make items. if he takes the wands feat and has similar access to found/bought scrolls, he can do real well by comparison in the item department. if he cannot gain access to found/bought scrolls, then the wizard, likewise limited, cannot gain new spells as quickly as people like to imagine them doing so.My vote was leave them as is. Heck, i prefer 3.0 sor. i really dislike the unexplained forgetfulness-on-demand which allows a 3.5 sor to suddenly forget how to use a spell.</blockquote>

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