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

[Dannyalcatraz]

Note what you said here though - "forced to retreat". Not rest. Not replenish resources on their own. Again, if you're forced to retreat, then random encounters become moot because you've left the dungeon and re-entered civilization. The non-casters don't need to rest because resting does nothing for them.

Yes, "retreat," not "withdraw." As in, we retreat to find safer spot to rest than your point of deepest penetration...which is not necessarily out of the dungeon or wilderness. The alternative is to rest where you are clearly NOT safe, low on HP & ammo and get killed. In fact, full retreats to civilization are rare, and camping behind enemy lines is our norm once adventuring.

You'll have to refresh my memory I'm afraid on the fatigue rules

1Ed DMG p69: no hard & fast rules, just guidelines (at the tail end of rules for pursuit) for the DM to use his judgement, including such penalties as slowing movement. "Fatigue merely slows movement and reduces combat effectiveness. Exhaustion will generally require a day of complete rest to restore the exhausted creatures."

As you might expect, 3.5Ed codified this a mite.

3.5Ed DMG p300-301 as well as PHB p308:

Fatigued: tired to the point of impairment. A fatigued character can neither run nor charge and takes a -2 penalty to Strength and Dexterity. Doing anything that would normally cause fatigue causes the fatigued character to become exhausted. After 8 hours of complete rest, fatigued characters are no longer fatigued.

Exhausted: tired to the point of significant impairment. An exhausted character moves at half speed and takes a -6 penalty to Strength and Dexterity. After 1 hour of complete rest, an exhausted character becomes fatigued. A fatigued character becomes exhausted by doing something that would normally cause fatigue."

There are several things that can cause fatigue, most famously sleeping in armor (see Endurance feat), failing a Con check on a forced march and traveling in certain terrains (like high mountain passes).

 

[Hussar]

Yes, "retreat," not "withdraw." As in, we retreat to find safer spot to rest than your point of deepest penetration...which is not necessarily out of the dungeon or wilderness. The alternative is to rest where you are clearly NOT safe, low on HP & ammo and get killed. In fact, full retreats to civilization are rare, and camping behind enemy lines is our norm once adventuring.

But, at that point, you are being interrupted every hour by random encounters (1 in 6, every ten minutes) so you cannot actually get any rest. In fact, several posters in this thread have made a specific point that random encounters are a severe limiting factor to caster power.

If we can simply fall back and rest, then random encounters don't actually play much of a role in limiting casters.

But, for the non-casters, NONE of their resources are recovered by resting. Well, a handful of HP at best - about what you get from a single 1st level cleric spell. No ammo is recovered. What benefit is there to resting?

Fatigued: tired to the point of impairment. A fatigued character can neither run nor charge and takes a -2 penalty to Strength and Dexterity. Doing anything that would normally cause fatigue causes the fatigued character to become exhausted. After 8 hours of complete rest, fatigued characters are no longer fatigued.

What causes fatigue? Not resting does not actually CAUSE fatigue. There are a number of things that might cause fatigue - forced marches, swimming, spells, and environmental effects. But not sleeping for a day or two? Nope. No effect as per the rules.

And, let's be honest here, it is completely realistic that you could go several days on less than a full 8 hours of rest per day without seriously impacting your effectiveness.

The non-casters have no real reason to rest - they regain no resources.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

But, for the non-casters, NONE of their resources are recovered by resting. Well, a handful of HP at best - about what you get from a single 1st level cleric spell. No ammo is recovered. What benefit is there to resting?

What they gain is not taking ability damage due to fatigue or passing out (see below).

What causes fatigue? Not resting does not actually CAUSE fatigue. There are a number of things that might cause fatigue - forced marches, swimming, spells, and environmental effects. But not sleeping for a day or two? Nope. No effect as per the rules.

You're right and wrong. Technically, the DMG does not have hard and fast rules in simply staying awake.

However, it does say that exertion beyond 8 hours of walking can lead to fatigue. A couple of combats plus some travel? DM's discretion. (Ditto in other situations.) In addition, if you look at creature types & subtypes in the MM, they tell you which ones "need sleep" and which don't (most PC races do).

And on the very page where the DMG says it has no rules for trying to stay awake, they provide a guideline in the form of describing it as an ability check:

3.5 DMG p 33
...staying awake might be a Constitution check (DC12, +4 for every previous night without sleep), with an elf character gaining a +2 bonus on her check because an elf is only giving up 4 hours of trance instead of 8 hours of sleep.

IOW, simply going without sleep is not without consequences. Personally, had I written that section, I would have wedded this to the fatigue rules already in place elsewairs- failing that check means you pass out (you have failed to stay awake), and that sounds a lot like being fatigued or exhausted- but they didn't.

So I wouldn't be surprised if a DM said you were fatigued if you skipped needed sleep, because it's left to DM's discretion.

 

[Hussar]

Sigh, let me try this again.

DannyA, what resources are non-casters regaining when they rest. At best, they are being punished, possibly, for not resting. But, AFAIK, they actually regain no resources for resting.

Unlike the casters, which regain resources when they rest.

Wandering monsters are not in the game to prevent non-casters from resting. They are there to prevent casters from resting in order to limit caster power.

 

[Dandu]

In addition to regaining HP after resting, ability damage is also recovered.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Sigh, let me try this again.

You can "sigh & try" all you want: I...don't...agree.

Not being fatigued IS a benefit (and to date, I haven't seen a DM who didn't use some kind of fatigue rule). Regaining HP- even slowly- and healing ability damage is a benefit. Hell, depending on circumstances, taking some downtime to craft an arrow or scrounge some rocks for your sling is a benefit.

IMHO, wandering monsters and other random encounters are not in the game solely for caster-screwing. They affect all party members.

 

[Hussar]

Going 3.5 on this, because 1e and 2e, ability score damage is fairly rare, and AFAIK, not healable,

With a full night’s rest, a character heals 1 hit per 2 character levels (minimum 1 hit per night). If he undergoes complete bed rest for 24 hours, he heals a number of hits equal to his character level. Any significant interruption during the rest period prevents the character from healing that night.

On a rest, you get less hit points than a single 1st level cleric spell, unless you do absolutely nothing for 24 hours, in which cast you get about what you get from a 1st level cleric spell.

OTOH, you do get 1 point of ability damage back per day. Granted, the cleric is returning 2-5 points to you by 3rd level, but, hey, it all helps right?

To be honest, we almost never ran into fatigue rules, for the simple reason that groups invariably rested as soon as the cleric ran out of juice. Doing anything else was suicidal considering how lethal 3.5 D&D combat is.

And, every group I've ever played with since AD&D days did exactly the same thing. When the cleric ran out of cure light wounds, you stop for the night.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

To be honest, we almost never ran into fatigue rules, for the simple reason that groups invariably rested as soon as the cleric ran out of juice. Doing anything else was suicidal considering how lethal 3.5 D&D combat is.

Well, then as now, from 1Ed to 3.5Ed, clerical healing was never our "We gotta stop!" button, so clearly, our experiences varied. And no, we didn't find this particularly "suicidal."

And as for not encountering the fatigue rules, I can only ask "Why not?" Didn't your guys try to go through high mountain passes or any of the things that can trigger it? Did all of your 3.5Ed PCs take Endurance so they could sleep in armor? Or did most of the DMs simply not use the rules?

 

[Fifth Element]

Not being fatigued IS a benefit (and to date, I haven't seen a DM who didn't use some kind of fatigue rule). Regaining HP- even slowly- and healing ability damage is a benefit.

I wonder if Hussar's point is really: what benefit do the non-casters get that the casters do not also get?

Casters would be subject to fatigue just as the non-casters would, and ability damage, and hit point loss. So they get those benefits as well.

Edit: With respect DMs who doesn't use fatigue: Hi, nice to meet you. I'm a DM who doesn't use fatigue. Too fiddly for me and my group, so we just hand-wave it.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I wonder if Hussar's point is really: what benefit do the non-casters get that the casters do not also get?

Well, if we're talking fatigue, Str and Dex penalties are generally not going to be as big a deal for casters as it will be for non-casters. Damage output and accuracy, ACs, Initiative rolls, Ref saves and (more important for low-level PCs) encumbrance will all be affected negatively. Some feats may not be usable if the PCs no longer meet the ability score prereqs.