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Fighters vs. Spellcasters (a case for fighters.)
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<blockquote data-quote="(Psi)SeveredHead" data-source="post: 6186033" data-attributes="member: 1165"><p>Usually fighter versus wizard debates involve either PCs (who can depend on each other) or NPCs versus PCs (in which case societal aspects fall away; evil wizards aren't likely to be tolerated in a good-hearted magocracy).</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I picture wizards sort of like arrogant merchants. You might not like them, but they can withhold services that no one else can provide. Tick off the merchants and they can cut off everything from luxuries to food (depending on who their customers are). Tick off the wizards and they can cut off your services, and pretty soon the boycott organizers will be charmed and/or interrogated.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>That's true. At 1st-level fighters are generally one of the strongest classes. After a point, though, even the wizard can survive being surprised, sometimes, whereas the fighter is less likely to survive it (due to being frozen by magic in round one). Very high-level wizards can use spells such as Contingency to make surviving being surprised more likely, an option the fighter doesn't have.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>That pyramid isn't much different for fighters. The thing is, most "fighters" are in fact warriors. You can't tell if someone is a warrior or fighter just by looking. In a "warrior versus mage" conflict, there's a lot more warriors, but in a "fighter versus wizard" conflict, there could be the same number.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>On a battlefield, the common soldiers are mainly warriors, the aristocrats/knights are fighters. Knights trained from the age of seven with daggers, and to be a knight you needed a warhorse, armor, and at least one weapon. (Most knights had a lance, sword, and favored weapon that's better for going through armor, so an axe or hammer.) Very few commoners could afford that outlay, and in the Middle Ages you had to provide your own gear or pledge yourself to a lord, who could afford to <em>lightly</em> arm you. Compared to knights, most freemen warriors started as teenagers or young adults, and simply had less formal training.</p><p></p><p>So in short... training a fighter is expensive. Even 1st-level freeman adventurers can barely afford all their gear (and they start with a load of money, same as a wizard).</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>That's a pretty funny way of looking at it. The inability to use all of your spells at once is good for game balance, and it's not like fighters can put all their attacks in one day in one round. The lack of spell endurance is mitigated by the ability to create magic items (including magical traps that fighters can't deal with). A wizard participating in a battle should first Scry, then try long-term spells such as Planar Binding, saving attack spells for when opportunities emerge. (Don't Fireball the peasants, Fireball the command group!)</p><p></p><p>The best way to outsmart a cabal of wizards is to have a good Bluff score. The wizard probably won't be able to Scry your tactical meeting, but they can charm and interrogate anyone who knows what was said there, so hold a fake one and feed misinformation to the mages. (This means you need to Bluff your own guys.) Of course, there's a limit to just how much of that you can do. If you say you're using horses but are buying bridles for griffons, it's kind of obvious.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>As I mentioned earlier, most of the complaints about mage > fighter involve adventuring groups. Adventurers move outside society. Just like villains. The people in town X might not like wizards, but it's more important whether they like or dislike adventurers, and whether they like or dislike Baron Evil and his cabal of evil warriors <em>and</em> mages.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="(Psi)SeveredHead, post: 6186033, member: 1165"] Usually fighter versus wizard debates involve either PCs (who can depend on each other) or NPCs versus PCs (in which case societal aspects fall away; evil wizards aren't likely to be tolerated in a good-hearted magocracy). I picture wizards sort of like arrogant merchants. You might not like them, but they can withhold services that no one else can provide. Tick off the merchants and they can cut off everything from luxuries to food (depending on who their customers are). Tick off the wizards and they can cut off your services, and pretty soon the boycott organizers will be charmed and/or interrogated. That's true. At 1st-level fighters are generally one of the strongest classes. After a point, though, even the wizard can survive being surprised, sometimes, whereas the fighter is less likely to survive it (due to being frozen by magic in round one). Very high-level wizards can use spells such as Contingency to make surviving being surprised more likely, an option the fighter doesn't have. That pyramid isn't much different for fighters. The thing is, most "fighters" are in fact warriors. You can't tell if someone is a warrior or fighter just by looking. In a "warrior versus mage" conflict, there's a lot more warriors, but in a "fighter versus wizard" conflict, there could be the same number. On a battlefield, the common soldiers are mainly warriors, the aristocrats/knights are fighters. Knights trained from the age of seven with daggers, and to be a knight you needed a warhorse, armor, and at least one weapon. (Most knights had a lance, sword, and favored weapon that's better for going through armor, so an axe or hammer.) Very few commoners could afford that outlay, and in the Middle Ages you had to provide your own gear or pledge yourself to a lord, who could afford to [i]lightly[/i] arm you. Compared to knights, most freemen warriors started as teenagers or young adults, and simply had less formal training. So in short... training a fighter is expensive. Even 1st-level freeman adventurers can barely afford all their gear (and they start with a load of money, same as a wizard). That's a pretty funny way of looking at it. The inability to use all of your spells at once is good for game balance, and it's not like fighters can put all their attacks in one day in one round. The lack of spell endurance is mitigated by the ability to create magic items (including magical traps that fighters can't deal with). A wizard participating in a battle should first Scry, then try long-term spells such as Planar Binding, saving attack spells for when opportunities emerge. (Don't Fireball the peasants, Fireball the command group!) The best way to outsmart a cabal of wizards is to have a good Bluff score. The wizard probably won't be able to Scry your tactical meeting, but they can charm and interrogate anyone who knows what was said there, so hold a fake one and feed misinformation to the mages. (This means you need to Bluff your own guys.) Of course, there's a limit to just how much of that you can do. If you say you're using horses but are buying bridles for griffons, it's kind of obvious. As I mentioned earlier, most of the complaints about mage > fighter involve adventuring groups. Adventurers move outside society. Just like villains. The people in town X might not like wizards, but it's more important whether they like or dislike adventurers, and whether they like or dislike Baron Evil and his cabal of evil warriors [i]and[/i] mages. [/QUOTE]
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