How is the Wizard vs Warrior Balance Problem Handled in Fantasy Literature?

[Fifth Element]

If you don't like basketball because you keep missing the basket, you're doing it wrong. You can either try to do it right, or you can try to do something else.

Or, you can change "it" to suit your preferences, depending on what you're talking about.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Or, you can change "it" to suit your preferences, depending on what you're talking about.

Did you just suggest making basketball more videogamey?

 

[Fifth Element]

Did you just suggest making basketball more videogamey?

What do you mean by videogamey?

 

[Raven Crowking]

Or, you can change "it" to suit your preferences, depending on what you're talking about.

Right. If you can't figure out how it works, but other people can, you are doing it wrong. If you can figure out how it works, but you just don't like it, you just don't like it.

If you don't like it, and you have a choice, do something else that you do like.

What "IT" is has nothing to do with the general principle!

Did you just suggest making basketball more videogamey?

What do you mean by videogamey?

Obviously, in this context, videogamey means like a football simulation.

Geez......!

 

[Fifth Element]

What "IT" is has nothing to do with the general principle!

Of course it does. Different things have different degrees of malleability in their rules, for instance. People don't "house rule" basketball, as a general rule, when they play it. On the other hand, good luck finding two groups who play D&D using the exact same set of rules and expectations.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Of course it does. Different things have different degrees of malleability in their rules, for instance. People don't "house rule" basketball, as a general rule, when they play it. On the other hand, good luck finding two groups who play D&D using the exact same set of rules and expectations.

So, if you can't figure out how to make D&D work (any edition), and other people can, you're not doing it wrong?!?!?

"I'm trying to paint a tree, but I just can't get it to come out the way everyone else in the class does. Well, instead of trying to better my painting, I'm just going to assume that I'm doing it right, and that something or someone else must be to blame for my failure."

(Shrug.)

Picasso wasn't "wrong" to paint the way he did, because he was getting the results he was after. Had he been attempting photorealism, and his procedure produced the same results, it would be the wrong procedure.

I really can't see where this is surprising, contentious, or hard to understand. Perhaps if you carefully explained your objection I might be able to?

EDIT: If it helps, think of it this way. You can make Skill Challenges work to achieve effect X; I cannot. Am I doing it right or am I doing it wrong?


RC

 

[NoWayJose]

Just musing here on this "Option C". What if the delineation between rituals and wizard powers was more blurry? What if anyone could theoretically do ritual magic, but wizards were much faster and better at it?

To put it in simplistic terms, everyone can get some 'magic points' towards casting magic, but wizards just get a lot more 'magic points'.

So you think of every class as a 'fighter' in terms of being capable in combat. A true fighter focuses exclusively on melee/ranged combat. A rogue is a 'fighter' who learns sneaky attacks. A cleric is a 'fighter' with divine focus. Like Gandalf with a sword, wizards are 'fighters' with an aptitude for magic and/or arcane learning background.

(For campaigns that aren't combat-oriented, you could swap some combat expertise with more scholarly or professional skills, to emulate a pirate captain or bookish mage).

Now you take all these different 'fighters', and you layer an optional magic/ritual system on top of that. A true fighter could know a minor combat spell, without having to multi-class. A thief could use a spell scroll. A wizard with arcane knowledge knows lots of better spells, boosted with implements, wands, etc.

I don't know how that would work out mechanically, but I think it's a more natural fit to the traditional fantasy literature.

I'm not sure if it makes any sense to anyone, if it's too vague. I'm just imagining gelling together magic and rituals to create a magic system that anyone potentially has access to, so it doesn't feel unfair that only wizards can do it, but it's much more versatile (as a nod to 3E) and wizards don't feel completely incompetent without it (as a nod to 4E).

(deafening silence) OK, then can someone please tell me what's wrong or problematic with this rough concept?


Choose a profession/background/theme

A. 'Hero', default theme, you get standard starting hp/healing surges/proficiencies, allows for 'normal' combat difficuly at low levels

Fighter Hero: In your youth, you were trained in standard melee skills
Natural Hero: You had an idyllic ordinary youth, and when thrust into your first adventure, you quickly pick up on the necessary combat skills through luck or destiny

B. for advanced players and less combat-oriented campaigns only, more starting skills, less hp/surges, higher combat difficulty at low levels

Pirate: Know sailng, rope use, map reading, etc.
Scholar: Knowledge skills, reading and writing, parchment and ink for starting equipment, etc.
etc.


Choose a class and race

(the usual, except includes proficiencies in various forms of magic)


Gaining a level

(the usual, except option to discover or learn magic powers., ie minor combat charms, divine prayers, wizard scrolls, etc. as per racial- or class- magical proficiencies)

 

[Fifth Element]

I really can't see where this is surprising, contentious, or hard to understand. Perhaps if you carefully explained your objection I might be able to?

My objection is to someone posting "3E doesn't work for me because of this, and therefore to play 3E I would change it to that way" and getting the response "You only have that problem because you're not playing 3E right" and "If your DM was any good you wouldn't have that problem."

Which did, in fact, happen earlier in this thread.

 

[GSHamster]

I think a lot of these issues would go away if some of the "leader of men" kit was moved into the next version of the fighter.

Not general Diplomacy, but specifically leadership. I'm not sure how much that would step on the toes of the warlord, but it would give fighters a little more purpose than they have now.

It would also make it more natural to stat up generals or sergeants or other military ranks as fighters, which makes a lot of sense to me.

 

[Raven Crowking]

My objection is to someone posting "3E doesn't work for me because of this, and therefore to play 3E I would change it to that way" and getting the response "You only have that problem because you're not playing 3E right" and "If your DM was any good you wouldn't have that problem."

Which did, in fact, happen earlier in this thread.

But, part of that is true as a point of fact.

IF you wanted to play 3e in a certain way, THEN you wouldn't experience those problems. BUT, since the IF is invalid, so is the concluding THEN. BECAUSE you don't want to play D&D "this way", you continue to experience the problem. You do not want to play D&D "this way", presumably, because you would then experience another (and, IMHO, more serious) problem: Playing a game that you are not enjoying, or are enjoying less than a game tailored better to your needs.

Luckily for you, there are several versions of "D&D", one of which might just be right for you!

The objection I would have is to the statement, "If your DM was any good you wouldn't have that problem." If one said, instead, "If your DM was a good match for the ruleset, you wouldn't have that problem" my objection would vanish. This is because the second statement is qualified as "good" within a particularly narrow subset of all "goodness".

And, of course, in this case "wrong" would simply be "In a manner that doesn't cater to the strengths of the ruleset or shore up its weaknesses". You could also define it as "In a manner that exacerbates problems with the ruleset" or "In a manner that produces an inferior, or unfun, result."

As an easy example of this principle in action, I had until recently a very negative view of skill challenges. My viewpoint was wrong -- I was looking at skill challenges in a manner that exacerbated problems with them and produced an inferior, unfun, result. But that is not the only possible viewpoint, and I accept that, when another viewpoint produces a superior result to my own, my viewpoint must be wrong.

(I don't think that the official materials I've read incorporate, or point to, anything other than that wrong viewpoint, but I may be wrong in that as well.)

Even after I adopted a better viewpoint of skill challenges, I still think that, for me, the tradeoff in using skill challenges outweighs the benefits of the mechanics.

What does that tell me? Along with many other indicators, it tells me that I am wrong for 4e, and that 4e is wrong for me. If I am wise, it also tells me that I might one day become aware of an even more superior viewpoint, wherein the benefits 4e offers do outweigh the costs. I may well prove to be wrong that 4e is wrong for me!

And there's nothing wrong with that. Our viewpoints should evolve as our experiences do.....lest we stagnate.

IMHO. YMMV.


RC