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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lord Zardoz" data-source="post: 4715197" data-attributes="member: 704">I think that the point in the interview is partly mis-stated.  As has been noted, the 3.5 edition melee types (Barbarians, Fighters, etc), can inflict some very impressive damage, and they are plenty durable.  If they are present, they will generally have a big impact on the fight, (not withstanding fights engineered to make them useless, such as flying monsters against melee types with not flight abilities.  While were at it, lets also concede that it is also possible to create combats that neutralize the players spell casting abilities to a great extent via spell resistance).Still, while it did mostly miss the point, it did not land far from the target.  while Fighters can impact an encounter, the total impact of a high level non spell casting character is nowhere near the same level as that of a primary spell caster.A well built Barbarian or Fighter with level appropriate equipment can take what was meant to be a challenging combat encounter and totally brutalize it, turning an epic fight into a cakewalk.  But the encounter will still happen, and the total disruption to the DM's plans is minimal unless he expected the villain to survive and escape.A well built Spell caster with well chosen spells can allow the entire party to circumvent entire dungeons (scry / buff / teleport).  It can make otherwise balanced opponents completely ineffective.  The cleric can take over the role of the primary front line fighter with a handfull of spells.  Finally, consider a well balanced party, the classic Fighter / Wizard / Rogue / Cleric combo, at about level 15.  If the player running the fighter cannot show up, chances are pretty good that the party can work around that players absence.  If the Cleric shows up, your probably going to have a problem with a complete lack of healing.  If the Wizard cannot make it, the fights will all be a great deal more difficult because threats that would have been trivially neutralized now must be dealt with more directly.If the absence of a given character class is that much easier to work around, than that player is simply not as relevant or important as the others.END COMMUNICATION</blockquote>

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