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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8255929" data-attributes="member: 82106">Yeah he is. With any reasonable ability score assumptions, 1st level M.U. less than 5 hit points, AC10. 1 attack per round, 1d6 damage (staff, the best weapon), THAC0 21. 1st level Fighter AVERAGE of 5.5 hit points, frequently more (CON is a good stat), AC4 (or possibly even 3 with good gold roll or on 2nd delve). 1 attack per round, 1d10 damage (usually with a bonus for STR), more if attacking large creatures, or if you ditch the shield. THAC0 20 (reasonable chance of a +1 bonus too).The AC is the critical part. An Orc needs a 9 to hit an M.U. and its AVERAGE damage is almost 2x the average hit points of said M.U. The MU can only hit the orc on a 16, and on average it will take 2 hits to kill. The orc needs a 15 (maybe 16) to hit the fighter, and on average requires 2 hits to kill. The fighter hits on a 15 as well and on average kills in one strike. The probability of an M.U. beating an orc is maybe 20%, at best. The fighter has about a 75% chance of winning that fight, straight up. Any rational wizard will simply run from melee, unless pinned in a corner and forced to fight, or possible if it is mop-up and the rest of the party is also taking shots at the same target. Of course tossing darts is a bit of another story, but given the low damage, short range, and poor chances of hitting, it is likely it will only meaningfully contribute to victory a small percentage of the time. You might manage to kill kobolds now and then, or even a goblin, but that's about it. Anyway, were we to assume that Magic Users DO have some significant marginal combat ability, that just makes the XP tables even MORE off as a balancing mechanism than they already appear to be.Given the XP rules for 1e I don't know why anyone would assume that. As long as they participate at all, they will get a share. Clerics are pretty solid melee guys, they can wade in, and probably should unless there's some spell casting they need to do. Either way, they should always be getting XP. Thieves... Well, they have missile weapons, lol. Obviously they will also get pressed into battle, and the idea of setting up a backstab of a singular monster as a tactic is certainly a good idea. Personally I was always pretty generous with the backstab rules, feeling that the idea should really be "if the situation is at all conducive, you probably should get one shot per melee." In any case, even if you discount backstab entirely, it is hard to see these classes as likely to get less XP. Especially if you give any out for "doing your class thing" (I know that was more official in 2e, but it was pretty common in 1e as well).Except I wouldn't say that. I mean, the problem with gauging Magic Users is, what spell do they have? An MU with Sleep is REALLY effective! That is pretty much an 'I Win Button' at level 1. Spells like Burning Hands, Enlarge, Charm Person, Friends, Hold Portal, Pro From Evil, all pretty effective directly in combat (MM is pretty Meh, but also works, as do Shocking Grasp and Push sometimes). Sure, you could have a worthless M.U. who has just some utility spells, but even those could be pretty powerful in an exploration/RP sense. Anyway, I'm not saying MU is better or worse at level 1, but baseline they are all fairly close. Then you add a level, and the MU basically doubles in power, and again going to 3rd, and then realistically again going to 5th. Plus he's likely gaining entries in his spell book all along, which are huge increments of added power that aren't even accounted for in the progression.Right, but my argument is just that the bumps for MU come way too soon relative to their power increase. Thieves should probably bump a bit sooner, Magic Users and (possibly even more so) Clerics get them way too soon. I'm just using fighters as a baseline, but of course you might also argue they could be tweaked downwards.Yeah, we are just obviously not rating spells the same. IME they are really the key to the game, even at lower levels. Because they can package a huge advantage into a sudden single action they tend to be 'leverageable' to a degree that just doesn't exist for non-caster abilities (at least any we are discussing here). Yes, a party in the levels 1-4 range can probably live without a Magic User, they won't really want to, and it isn't making the party stronger, for sure.I noted that fighters probably have AC2 after 'their first delve'. Anyway, I'm assigning ZERO melee value to Magic Users, and considering fighters to be '100%' of a melee character in essence. At that standard, a cleric is at least 75% of a melee character (they will have the same AC as fighters, why not, 80% of the hit points, and 70% of the base damage output). Thieves are really the ones that are dinked, they have a crummy AC which they cannot improve, only 60% of the hit points of a fighter (less than enough at level 1 to survive a level 1 monster attack) and their special abilities are effectively worthless (yeah, you can try to use them, some could pan out now and then, but many of them are too risky to even use). Anyway, AC2 vs 4 for the fighter isn't changing a lot.Exactly! And people were arguing that the XP tables reflect that. My argument is A) they don't reflect it very well at lower levels, and B) (which I didn't really develop) they are UTTERLY BONKERS WRONG at higher levels. If XP charts per class was intended to balance classes, it is one of the most miserable failures ever. It would actually be better overall if there was a single unified XP chart IMHO. It would have been simpler and worked just as well. If at that point some classes seemed weak and progressing slowly, then by gosh they should have been beefed up! THAT would be game design. lol.</blockquote>

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