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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 6197848" data-attributes="member: 22779">At the end of the day, I just want the mechanics to work, out of the box, with as little input from me as the GM.  And, let's be fair here, 3e does do exactly that, within a fairly broad band of levels.  By and large, the caster divide isn't all that much of an issue until double digit levels.  No one really bitches about 5th level wizards, at least, not seriously.  It's not until you get into the high levels that this really becomes a real issue.  So, for most groups, this never becomes an issue.  I feel fairly confident in saying that the majority of groups out there play from 1st to 12th level and rarely beyond.  I mean, Wicht, Ahn and N'raac, what percentage of your games go beyond 12th level?  10%?  20?  I'd say that most groups fall into that range.For at least one piece of evidence, I'd point to 3e PrC's.  There's a reason that you don't see a splatbook of PrC's that require 12th level characters to start.  That's a recipe for a splat that's going to sit on the store shelves for a long time.  The vast majority of PrC's start at about 6th level, meaning that you get to progress most if not all the way through the PrC by the time the campaign ends.  Works quite well.The point about charming the chamberlain isn't that the player wants an auto success.  That's not the issue.  The problem is, the non-caster has one option for getting past the chamberlain (at least one that has any chance of success, I suppose he could try to kill his way to the top <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />) and that's diplomacy.  The casters get everything the non-casters get, plus they get the option of spells.And the same is true for virtually every single aspect of the game.  There's very little the fighter or thief can do that the casters flat out cannot while there are a host of things the cleric and wizard can do that the fighter or thief simply never can.  Damage?  Hey, I've got lots of damaging spells plus Save or Die spells that are even better.  Exploration?  Your thief cannot possibly compete with my Arcane Eye and various divinations.  That's the basic issue for me.  The presence of so many of the spells in the caster's spell lists are game changing.  As the levels progress, the game changes further and further, while, the non-casters are largely playing the same game from day 1.  I mean, what can a 20th level fighter do that a 1st level fighter can't?  Granted the 20th level fighter does it loads better, but, at the end of the day, that's the same character all the way along.  Meanwhile, the casters are playing entirely different games depending on the level of the campaign.</blockquote>

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