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

[pawsplay]

What confuses me here is why does superhuman mean that someone is no longer human?

Superhuman means "above human" or "more than human," so by definition, it is something outside the boundaries of the merely human.

Super means exceptional, great, wonderful, outright better. Superhuman means what it says on the box - better than human. Normal humans make superhuman efforts all the time, yet no one tries to claim they're no longer human.

Humans do NOT make superhuman efforts all the time, based on our working definition. They are human efforts. Extraordinary human efforts, sure, but human nonetheless. Sometimes someone might say superhuman, as a hyperbole.

To actually call those efforts superhuman requires a different sense of superhuman; in that case it would simply mean above ordinary human capability. If you allow that a woman defending her children from a grown cougar for four hours is superhuman, sure, I'll allow that Batman is superhuman. But that mother is still fully and only human, and so would Batman be. And she is not Beowulf.

Are people claiming that Spider-man isn't even human anymore? He's pretty obviously superhuman, I think we'd all agree there, but, not human at all? Really?

He's certainly less human. I wouldn't say he's not human at all, or inhuman, but he is certainly superhuman, and certainly not a normal human. I thought that Kirsten Dunst's idea of a weird The Fly-like sequel with half-spider-baby offspring was spot on.

I pointed out that our 1st level fighter, in any system, has abilities that no normal human can have - he can survive damage that will outright kill a D&D DEFINED normal human, he can have exceptional strength, which no normal human can have, he can gain xp (depending on system, some normal humans cannot gain xp). He actually has stats, which normal humans don't, (barring exceptional examples, which, by definition, are exceptional)(again, this is system dependent).

In all measurable ways, our 1st level fighter is outright betting in the D&D universe than a normal human (which is defined by the different systems as either being a 0 level human, or a 1st level commoner).

That's just not true. Under OD&D or AD&D he was likely identical in every respect to the local guard captain or a seasoned knight. He would only lack stats if he were defined as a 1 HD monster, but that is purely optional; NPCs can have any stats a PC has, and do. A certain percentage of the normal population are 1st level fighters; most editions of D&D will actually tell you how many.

So, while it's pedantically incorrect to say that Bond never loses, it's pretty damn close to the truth.

Is it pretty damned close to the truth that Dale Earnhart Sr. never crashes? What you are saying by "close to the truth" actually looks to me like, "not true." Things that are not true might indeed be very close to the truth, but that doesn't make them true, any more than my being similar in many important respects to a dog means that I chew rawhide.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

F1 is PERFECT for describing NPCs with only a modicum of training...and TSR did exactly that.

Sometimes. TSR was anything but consistent in the way that it characterized "normals" vs. heroes: the modules scattered characters with PC classes all over the place; the rulebooks, OTOH, emphasized the "specialness" of such characters.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Sometimes. TSR was anything but consistent in the way that it characterized "normals" vs. heroes: the modules scattered characters with PC classes all over the place; the rulebooks, OTOH, emphasized the "specialness" of such characters.

You mean rulebooks like the AD&D DMG I cited above?

The 2Ed DMG, pgs 104-117 avoids any real detail connecting job and class level, all while getting quite derailed about the broad spectrum of what you might find in a given job- but it leaves exact class & level to the DM. "Footman, Militia", for instance, are "townsfolk and peasants...fall(ing) somewhere between irregulars and light infantry in equipment and quality. However, in areas with a long standing tradition of military service, militia can be quite formidable."

By way of comparison, "irregulars" included "Viking Berserkers" and "Scottish Highlanders." So I looked in the Monstrous Compendium..."Berserkers" had 2 att/rd- something a 2Ed Warrior (of any class) normally didn't get until 13th level. IOW, the 2Ed DMG contemplates the existence of militiamen who can stand up to that...if the DM wants them to exist.

Furthermore, the MC also points out that NPC adventurers have all their salient info determined by class. They are not gimped merely because they are NPCs. And in some other categories, higher level NPCs (Lvl3+) are statted as "adventurers." Even slaves "may be of any class."

So having levels in a class does not make you special in these rulebooks. In fact, the rulebooks show why seemingly innocuous NPCs might have surprising abilities- the rules told the adventure designers this was perfectly fine.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Is it pretty damned close to the truth that Dale Earnhart Sr. never crashes?

Welp.

 

[I'm A Banana]

.....ooookay...

Except this is patently untrue unless you ignore the actual stuff printed in various sources....F1 is PERFECT for describing NPCs with only a modicum of training...and TSR did exactly that.

The first level fighter is not perfect for describing an NPC with only a modicum of training. Actually, the first level fighter is a horrible way to describe an NPC with a modicum of training, I think.

First of all, designers more skilled than I have already found this to be a problem and came up with solutions for it. This is part of the reason for NPC classes in 3e. Warriors and Commoners, not FIGHTERS. Fighters are special. Not unique, if you go according to 3e's town generation engine (which is a sort of kludge to determine this sort of thing), but certainly special. 4e STILL makes Fighters special, because anything that is not a PC is either statless, or a monster. In 4e, the NPC with only a modicum of training is not even worthy of monster stats most of the time. If the F1 PC wants to kill some NPC, they pretty much get to. Don't even need to roll, really. So the problem was seen and has been addressed in a few different ways.

Secondly, this is just generally not a good way to describe such an NPC. D&D, as a role-playing game of fantasy heroism, has fantasy heroes as player characters (or else it is not a very good fantasy hero RPG). If some nameless militia member can equal your skill, you, my friend, are not a fantasy hero.

Thirdly, mechanically, representing an NPC and a PC identically is problematic from a gameplay perspective. A player needs more in-play options than an individual DM's plaything to feel engaged. Similarly, DMs need to be able to whip up and run a militia member more easily than a PC fighter can be generated, because there will be a lot more of them.

Fourth, it doesn't actually matter what happened in the early days of TSR. "Daughter" can be reinterpreted as Com1 or a Level 1 Minion or not given stats or whatever. The idea is to provide the rules that best give you the experience you're looking for in the game. Presuming that you want to be a fantasy hero when you play a heroic fantasy game like D&D, using the same rules to represent a player's fantasy hero and some random soldier is not going to give you the experience of playing a fantasy hero.

1) The AD&D DMG lets NPC fighters have all the same advantages as PC fighters- whether an NPC actually GETS those strength adjustments is left to the DM.

But was that the best design? I'd argue no, it wasn't.

2) There are THOUSANDS of F1s populating the militias of every city and regions listed in various sources, to be called up from the local townships to support the "real" armed forces. What about the hordes of REAL military, the bulk of whom of are F1s with serious gear like horses, chain & lances? Are you calling these tens of thousands of militiamen & regular army "Fantasy Heroes?"

They don't have to be F1s. They can be Com1s. War1s. Level 1 Minions. Unstatted entities because their stats never affect the gameplay of fantasy heroism that you're presumably interested in playing if you're picking up D&D. In a game of heroic fantasy, horses, chainmail, and lances are not "serious gear," they are basic expectations that the fantasy hero then goes out and does better at than all those tens of thousands militia members and regular grunts, because they are a fantasy hero.

3) Then what about F1s like "Daughter?" How in the hell is the young laborer with a level of fighter a "Fantasy Hero?" There is NOTHING in her description that says she's an adventurer of any kind.

You seem to be under the assumption that the writers under TSR decided to slap fighter levels on laborers because it was objectively the best way to model a laborer.

I don't know who "Daughter" is, but a young laborer shouldn't have a level of fighter unless they're a fantasy hero, because fighter levels are for PC's, who are fantasy heroes, because D&D is a game of heroic fantasy roleplaying. NPC's can be challenges for those heroes (in which case they need some stats, but not necessarily or desirably equivalent PC stats) or scenery (in which case, they don't need stats).

The best way to model a laborer is generally not to bother wasting page space modeling them unless they're going to challenge the PC's. And in that case, they should probably be weak and easily defeated, since being trumped by some goon off the street instantly makes you not fantasy hero material.

In the cases where PC classes are given to random basic mundane NPC's, this is a mistake.

Unless you're not playing heroic fantasy.

In which case, no one gets to be Batman, no one gets to be Merlin, no one gets to be Conan, no one gets to be James Bond, no one gets to go into ancient dungeons and slay wicked dragons.

You could maybe get an archeology degree and grab a government grant and take a long trip to delve into an old ruin and get an infection and die several years later? But if that's what D&D has been trying to be all these years, it is continuing to suck hard at being that.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The first level fighter is not perfect for describing an NPC with only a modicum of training. Actually, the first level fighter is a horrible way to describe an NPC with a modicum of training, I think.

That's your opinion; obviously, others disagree.

First of all, designers more skilled than I have already found this to be a problem and came up with solutions for it.

And designers more skilled than either of us have also, by definition, found this NOT to be a problem.

This is part of the reason for NPC classes in 3e. Warriors and Commoners, not FIGHTERS. Fighters are special. Not unique, if you go according to 3e's town generation engine (which is a sort of kludge to determine this sort of thing), but certainly special.

Haven't really gone looking through my 3.X stuff, but I wouldn't be surprised to find "commoners" with Fighter levels. However, while I have supplements galore, I don't have much in the way of 3.X adventures, so I'll have to leave that to someone else.

4e STILL makes Fighters special, because anything that is not a PC is either statless, or a monster. In 4e, the NPC with only a modicum of training is not even worthy of monster stats most of the time. If the F1 PC wants to kill some NPC, they pretty much get to. Don't even need to roll, really. So the problem was seen and has been addressed in a few different ways.

4Ed does make PCs more special, that is true.

Secondly, this is just generally not a good way to describe such an NPC. D&D, as a role-playing game of fantasy heroism, has fantasy heroes as player characters (or else it is not a very good fantasy hero RPG). If some nameless militia member can equal your skill, you, my friend, are not a fantasy hero.

Just because someone can kick your ass fresh out of training doesn't mean they'll always be able to kick your ass if you continue to train.

In addition, it makes perfect sense for someone in a strife-ridden area to have some skill at fighting, maybe even a lot. Look at Israel. By law, every Israeli citizen (except Arabs) over 18 must serve in the military- 3 years for men, 2 for women, longer if you become some kind of specialist, like a sniper (like Dr. Ruth). IOW, the entire adult population of Israel has gone through basic training and some specialization. In D&D terms, that means every doggone Israeli is at least F1 in 1ED/2Ed terms.

Thirdly, mechanically, representing an NPC and a PC identically is problematic from a gameplay perspective.

To you, but again, others may not feel as you do. I certainly don't. I didn't have a problem with that from either side of the DMs screen.

Fourth, it doesn't actually matter what happened in the early days of TSR.

That wasn't exactly from the "early days"- that was from the omnibus version of "Queen of the Demonweb."

Besides, it most certainly DOES matter when people are using absolutes describing the way D&D "never" or "always" handled NPCs.

"Daughter" can be reinterpreted as Com1 or a Level 1 Minion or not given stats or whatever.

Sure, if you want to change things to fit your vision of how the game should be run.

But was that the best design? I'd argue no, it wasn't.

Your milage obviously varied.

They don't have to be F1s. They can be Com1s. War1s. Level 1 Minions.

But the fact remains that they- "peasants" and "townsfolk" WERE F1s, so saying D&D didn't have commoners with PC class levels is simply untrue. And it follows from that that saying the assumption of heroism starts at Level 1 and is hardwired into the game is also untrue.

In a game of heroic fantasy, horses, chainmail, and lances are not "serious gear,"

In a game where the best equipped fighter in the party may lack 2 of the three of those at the same level because he can't afford it- and neither can the party as a whole- I think "serious gear" is exactly the phrase I'd use. It also indicates that "Mr. Fantasy Hero" still has some growing to do before he can start patting himself on the back.

At level one, he's still just an Ordinary Joe in terms of combat capability. And if he thinks otherwise, he may find himself to be a Dead Joe.

You seem to be under the assumption that the writers under TSR decided to slap fighter levels on laborers because it was objectively the best way to model a laborer.

No- as I pointed out, they actually have rules for making "laborers" without class levels as well. According to the rules of AD&D, the categories of "laborer" and "fighter" are not mutually exclusive.

I don't know who "Daughter" is, but a young laborer shouldn't have a level of fighter unless they're a fantasy hero, because fighter levels are for PC's, who are fantasy heroes, because D&D is a game of heroic fantasy roleplaying. NPC's can be challenges for those heroes (in which case they need some stats, but not necessarily or desirably equivalent PC stats) or scenery (in which case, they don't need stats).

Now you're putting the horse before the cart. You're superimposing your view of the game over the actual rules.

The best way to model a laborer is generally not to bother wasting page space modeling them unless they're going to challenge the PC's.

They didn't. She has a quick paragraph that notes she's a F1.

And in that case, they should probably be weak and easily defeated, since being trumped by some goon off the street instantly makes you not fantasy hero material.

If this is so, how do you reconcile this with protagonists who actually DO get caught off guard. Even Bats spent time bound by ropes, after all.

In the cases where PC classes are given to random basic mundane NPC's, this is a mistake.

In your worldview, perhaps. Not to me.

That Joe Thug has a level or 2 in a PC class isn't particularly surprising- it means he's got skill. Wouldn't you expect even a beginning legbreaker or assassin for the guild might have some skills besides plowing? It just makes it the sweeter when he goes down. Even 4Ed recognizes this in the sense that minions are glass cannons. If you don't take them down, they WILL kick your ass.

Unless you're not playing heroic fantasy.

PLEASE. Samwise was a gardner before he joined the Company of the Ring.

He's heroic because he walked right out of the Shire with virtually nothing and survived the same tests as mighty wizards and warriors. And what would have happened if he hadn't? While he's a supporting character in many ways, in others, he's not just a support, he's the spine.

Not bad for a hobbit without so much as a +1 pruning shear for most of the story...

 

[Sepulchrave II]

You mean rulebooks like the AD&D DMG I cited above?

That is rather glib. See page 35:

Human and half-orc characters suitable for level advancement are found at a ratio of 1 in 100

Or page 30:

Note that regular soldiers are 0 level men-at-arms with 4-7 hit points each.

A sergeant is a first level fighter (p.31).

The level title of an F1 is Veteran.

Is the idea of a first level fighter as a gnarly old veteran, maybe once a sergeant, so bizarre? The fact that a 1st level PC fighter starts at age 15 +1d4 years makes them kind of special to me. It would make them exceptional - they begin with skills equal to the gnarly old veteran. Do they possess some natural genius?

As I stated previously, there was no consistent portrayal. My impression from the 1E PHB and DMG was that - in the context of the game world - characters with class levels were assumed to be "special." It was also my impression that the published modules did not bear this out, any more than they bore out the warnings about giving out too much loot.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Consider a classic hero: Jeanne D'Arc. A true fantasy hero who was literally a farm girl one day and a Paladin 1 the next- all she had to do was say "Yes, Lord."

Yet this is the very kind of hero some say cannot be supported by D&D's rules; that the game has hardwired against such a possibility.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

Consider a classic hero: Jeanne D'Arc. A true fantasy hero who was literally a farm girl one day and a Paladin 1 the next- all she had to do was say "Yes, lord."

Yet this is the very kind of hero some say cannot be supported by D&D's rules; that the game has hardwired against such a possibility.

I don't understand. Joan starts the game at age 18 as a 1st level Paladin. There is no "before;" she has some backstory about being a farm girl and having visions.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Just because someone can kick your ass fresh out of training doesn't mean they'll always be able to kick your ass if you continue to train.

In addition, it makes perfect sense for someone in a strife-ridden area to have some skill at fighting, maybe even a lot. Look at Israel. By law, every Israeli citizen (except Arabs) over 18 must serve in the military- 3 years for men, 2 for women, longer if you become some kind of specialist, like a sniper (like Dr. Ruth). IOW, the entire adult population of Israel has gone through basic training and some specialization. In D&D terms, that means every doggone Israeli is at least F1 in 1ED/2Ed terms.

There are ways to model combat experience that don't make you a fantasy hero. These things are explicitly for NPC's, since PC's are assumed to be fantasy heroes.

Things like the Commoner and the Warrior were invented and given levels -- to reflect the continuum between someone mostly untrained (Commoner 1) and someone with some pretty extensive actual training (Warrior 3).

Or, in 4e terms, the difference between an unstatted NPC, a Level 1 Minion and a Level 3 Standard (or even Elite or Solo).

But Real Life military training is not analogous or useful, since Real Life doesn't involve dragons or +1 swords or wizards. We've already clearly made the case that fantasy heroes are not Real People. Israeli citizens don't exist in D&D terms, no wealthy lunatic can be Batman, Hitler doesn't get an alignment, and marines don't get levels in anything because the real world doesn't work like that.

This is about the heroic fantasy genre, and how best to evoke the feel of heroic fantasy.

Batman and James Bond and Conan the Barbarian and Odysseus and Achilles and Hercules and a level 1 D&D fighter are all better than Real People, because that evokes the feel of heroic fantasy, that is part of what heroic fantasy is about: being better than Real People.

Besides, it most certainly DOES matter when people are using absolutes describing the way D&D "never" or "always" handled NPCs.

This was never meant in a literal absolute sense, as far as I can tell. It was meant in the sense of "When I play D&D, I expect this to be the case." The argument is not frickin' exegetical. This is not an extensively researched pissing contest where we measure who is right by the amount of rules they can cite. This is people talking casually about something they are kind of passionate about, and what they would like to see.

I'd like to see warriors and wizards on par like they are in fantasy narratives, which is the genre D&D also works in.

That has nothing to do with Israeli military training or specific NPC's in old adventures, as far as I can tell.

But the fact remains that they- "peasants" and "townsfolk" WERE F1s, so saying D&D didn't have commoners with PC class levels is simply untrue. And it follows from that that saying the assumption of heroism starts at Level 1 and is hardwired into the game is also untrue.

You're mixing your tenses. If you're playing that specific 1e module, perhaps not. OR, perhaps that particular 1e module's offhand reference is wrong. Or maybe you ignore it because you think irrelevant or stupid anyway. You can't extrapolate from a limited example like that, or even if you had 100 examples, because the facts don't matter, people's expectations do.

Perhaps that was part of the problem, after all: that fighters were like commoners, and wizards were not.

These useless citations don't tell us what we should do going forward. If we want a game that reflects heroic fantasy, we should do away with laborers with fighter levels oh look we already did that, guess that problem is solved.

If you want to play a game where every laborer is a trained combatant, every hero the equal of a laborer, I don't understand what you're gaining. I don't know what would be appealing about that, if you want to play a game of heroic fantasy. It sounds more like a game of "Laborers & Militia Members." Which is valid, but not what I imagine D&D to be.

According to the rules of AD&D, the categories of "laborer" and "fighter" are not mutually exclusive.

Those rules are not divinely inspired writ. They can be wrong, mistaken, dumb, weird, awkward, and unhelpful. Such as by giving peasants fighter levels, or using fighter levels to model Normal People combat ability.

Samwise was a gardner before he joined the Company of the Ring.

But he wasn't a gardner in the Real World.

And he was always heroic. To not be affected by the One Ring? That is a level of power unmatched by any other character in that world. And he was basically born that way. Samwise is above and beyond, unique and exceptional, specially, significantly powerful. He couldn't slay a dragon or rule an empire or kill superman, but, then, LotR's heroism was of a different flavor than D&D's, Conan's, or Batman's.

That is both because he is a fantasy hero, and why he is a fantasy hero.

Consider a classic hero: Jeanne D'Arc. A true fantasy hero who was literally a farm girl one day and a Paladin 1 the next- all she had to do was say "Yes, lord."

Yet this is the very kind of hero some say cannot be supported by D&D's rules; that the game has hardwired against such a possibility.

Jeanne is hardly a classic hero. For one, she is an Actual Person who is considered to have done miraculous things in the name of an Actual God with Actual Miracle Powers. Actually.

This is not Batman or Samwise at all. This is not fantasy fiction. This is History and Religion of the Real World.

If you're considering Batman and Jeanne D'Arc on the same continuum, the problems here are more deeply fundamental. Conflating the two is possibly even insulting, depending on one's personal faith and calibration.

You could still, of course, play a character inspired by Jeanne D'Arc. In your backstory, you were a farmgirl, then you said "Yes, God" and became a Paladin, and now you and your Celestial Warhorse ride around saving France from dragons and goblins and demons and devils and the like while healing disease with a touch. Maybe your military victories are part of your backstory, maybe they are still to come, but you're killing monsters, so there's that.

This would pretty much be how you'd play any character inspired by some actual historical figure.

George Washington is a Chaotic Good barbarian/warlord with a Con of 20.

He was none of these things in real life, since in real life, he wasn't a fantasy hero, no matter how awesome I think he is.