Concerning 3rd editions Wizard's being over powered.

[Dandu]

A couple of well timed 20's and the main villain that was supposed to be around another 10 levels before we could take him down, fell before sword. There are a lot of things that can derail a campaign well before the Wizards cast their first Wish spells.

I notice that derailing a campaign as a fighter involves good luck, whilst doing so as a wizard involve good spell selection.

Not even 9th level spells either. Some of the most powerful spells in the game are lower level ones. Freedom of Movement, Protection from Evil, Mind Blank, Polymorph and friends, Planar Binding, etc.

 

[ren1999]

Two options, you can lower the power of the character's spells
or you can raise the hit points and power of your monster.

I personally think it is ridiculous to roll 14 dice for anything so I always lower the power of spells to 1 to 3 dice. I also lower the hit points of the monsters so that encounters don't drag for lack of damage.

My Dungeons & Dragons Hybrid Game for Firefox and Chrome kira3696.tripod.com/CombatTracker.rar

 

[kitcik]

Two options, you can lower the power of the character's spells
or you can raise the hit points and power of your monster.

I personally think it is ridiculous to roll 14 dice for anything so I always lower the power of spells to 1 to 3 dice. I also lower the hit points of the monsters so that encounters don't drag for lack of damage.

My Dungeons & Dragons Hybrid Game for Firefox and Chrome kira3696.tripod.com/CombatTracker.rar

blasting spells are the least of your worries...

 

[Vegepygmy]

When waiting for other players to show up, my friend and I would duel each other to see who would win. Despite having an overpowered race, and dueling dozens of times, I failed to beat him even once. Our duels would go something like this:

-He'd cast defensively and summon fiendish girrallons.
-I'd engage and attack him, attempting to use stunning fist. After my attacks largely failed against his great armor class (magical plate armor and magical shield), he'd beat my stunning fist DC with his great Fortitude save, and make his concentration checks (which he pretty much couldn't fail).

Did you ever try grappling him? His magical plate and shield would be worthless against your touch attack to start the grapple, and no help in opposing your (likely superior) grapple check, and once grappled, he's not casting much of anything.

Honestly, if you were playing a monk and couldn't stop him from getting a 1-round casting time summoning spell off at least half the time, you were doing something really wrong.

-If, by some unlikely chance I did manage to disrupt his spell, he'd simply cast it again. Most of the time, however, round two meant that I'd lose half my hp to fiendish girallons.

How many summoning spells would he have prepared? Or could he spontaneously cast it? (Not that it'd matter, if you had him grappled.)

I know these "hypothetical arena battles" people do are of little to no relevance when discussing whether one class is better than another in actual play, but even for whatever limited value they do have, I usually see some variation of the above story, which just makes me suspect the player of the "inferior class" didn't know what he was doing.

(And spare me the freedom of movement rebuttal. There will always be some specific circumstance that can be used to "prove" how one ability trumps another -- just like grappling trumps magical plate and shield.)

 

[Dandu]

Did you ever try grappling him? His magical plate and shield would be worthless against your touch attack to start the grapple, and no help in opposing your (likely superior) grapple check, and once grappled, he's not casting much of anything.

It is entirely possible that the cleric's Strength modifier is greater than or equal to the +4 bonus that a monk gets from Improved Grapple, which means that the monk has to have a good Strength mod of his own to stand at an advantage. Given that the monk class also wants good Dex, Con, and Wis, it is possible that the monk just doesn't have enough in Strength to make grappling a feasible tactic.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Did you ever try grappling him? His magical plate and shield would be worthless against your touch attack to start the grapple, and no help in opposing your (likely superior) grapple check, and once grappled, he's not casting much of anything.

Honestly, if you were playing a monk and couldn't stop him from getting a 1-round casting time summoning spell off at least half the time, you were doing something really wrong.

How many summoning spells would he have prepared? Or could he spontaneously cast it? (Not that it'd matter, if you had him grappled.)

I know these "hypothetical arena battles" people do are of little to no relevance when discussing whether one class is better than another in actual play, but even for whatever limited value they do have, I usually see some variation of the above story, which just makes me suspect the player of the "inferior class" didn't know what he was doing.

(And spare me the freedom of movement rebuttal. There will always be some specific circumstance that can be used to "prove" how one ability trumps another -- just like grappling trumps magical plate and shield.)

Actually, he had a WAY better grapple check than I did. Not only was his strength higher than mine (he rolled well for stats) his armor had some kind of slick enchantment on it that gave him a huge bonus against being grappled (this armor was rolled by the book, completely at random).

As for summoning girralons, yeah, he could cast it a bunch of times. It was one of his favorite spells, so he made a point of memorizing it. 1d4+1 girallons is surprisingly effective against a lot more opponents than just party monks.

As for "hypothetical arena battles" did you miss the paragraph where I mentioned that arena play isn't the game per se and explained how it reflected in game too? The roper that killed my monk without any effort? The way the cleric withdrew, buffed, came back and soloed it without breaking a sweat? That wasn't hypothetical. It happened. And it was by no means the only time that sort of thing happened.