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

[Jeff Wilder]

it's a phenomenon that certainly exists, even if it missed me, personally.

It's a phenomenon that exists for some people. I also know people who claim that the rogue is overpowered.

I have seen nothing to convince me that what they are experiencing is a result of the game, rather than the result of how they're playing the game.

So D&D would benefit as a whole from having rules that helped warriors feel more like the warriors in fantasy literature, like how the spellcasters feel like spellcasters in fantasy literature already, I think.

My warriors do feel like the warriors in fantasy literature. They don't feel like the warriors of wuxia, but all I can say to that is "thank Christ; I hate wuxia."

It's not my personal crusade for my personal game. It's a crusade for a broader, more fun, more accepting game.

Which, oddly, would alienate at least half the people in this thread. That's so very accepting of you.

And I don't quite understand what value can be found in the model of "At level 1, your spellcaster is like unto a god, but your fighter is a lucky beet farmer."

And ... beautiful. At this point there's literally nothing to be gained by reading you any further in this thread.

 

[pawsplay]

By the time the first d20 is rolled, the fighter is already different from the turnip farmer.

Unless he is a turnip farmer. Then you are logically incorrect.

A PC isn't just some grunt trooper. They are a fantasy hero. Their kind has not been seen for years, will not be seen easily again, and will be spoken of in legends, simply by virtue of them being a fantasy hero.

I don't know about that. I played plenty of fighters who were fighters because they didn't qualify for any other class.

The difference between Random Soldier Boy and a fantasy hero is as immense as the gulf between a Gotham City five-oh, and Batman.

Not at 1st level, it isn't.

And it needs to be that way from the start if you're interesting in playing a fantasy hero. It certainly is that way from the start if you're a wizard or a cleric. The local priest cannot close wounds; the local potion-witch cannot will people to feel pain.

If he's not already different by the time he sets out, he is going to be eaten by that dragon, killed by that orc, and mutilated in his sleep by that goblin.

The problem with your argument is that at 1st level, the cleric or the wizard are equally vulnerable to being eaten by dragons, killed by orcs, and so forth. Being a cleric or a wizard is an unusual specialty, but it does not necessary relate to any level of heroism at all. In some fantasy worlds, the majority of priests are clerics, actually. Being a wizard or a cleric is not much different than being a US Marine, a computer hacker, or con artist. These are unusual talents, but those people are not necessarily legendary characters.

So, no, in many games 1st level characters are not destined heroes. Some of them are destined to be casualties in the first battle with orcs. Warrior and wizard alike. Wizards are not automatically characters of legend; some of them are chumps who can try to cast a fireball right before an orc puts an arrow in them in scene 1, reel 1.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Sometimes, you get to be a hero just by surviving what you shouldn't have; by doing something nobody in the world thought you could do, not even yourself.

That's the kind of hero you see in Deliverance, Aliens or in Westworld. The heroes were not the biggest, strongest, smartest or what have you, they were the ones who succeeded where others did not.

Or to put it another way, class & stats don't make the hero, ACTIONS do.

 

[Raven Crowking]

If I am using the secondary skills system in 1e AD&D, I have slightly better than a 6% chance of having a farmer/gardener background (slightly higher because on a roll of 86-00 I roll twice, and that chance could come up again on either roll, and I am too lazy to determine the exact odds of that happening).

I still await the answer to my question: Is anyone seriously suggesting that my 1st level fighter, with relatively average stats and 6 hp, and a secondary skill of farmer/gardener, cannot have "turnip farmer" as a background?

I mean, we've dismissed any ground-breaking statistical difference. My guy now has about a 5% better chance to hit targets, and nothing else better than Joe Farmer down the road could have.

Anyone still want to claim that my 5% chance elevates me to the superhuman? Anyone? Bueller?



RC

 

[Mort]

Sometimes, you get to be a hero just by surviving what you shouldn't have; by doing something nobody in the world thought you could do, not even yourself.

That's the kind of hero you see in Deliverance, Aliens or in Westworld. The heroes were not the biggest, strongest, smartest or what have you, they were the ones who succeeded where others did not.

Or to put it another way, class & stats don't make the hero, ACTIONS do.

I'm never sure how to feel about movie (or TV or novel) comparisons to RPGs. In the former, the writer (or director) having a tight reign on the plot and leading it exactly where it should go is considered a great thing. In an RPG this is usually considered the worst kind of offense. You want the players (through their characters) to be able to write their own story, to make themselves heroes. A good DM should set the possible paths, but too much interference (or even guidance) makes the attainment of the goal near meaningless.

In that vein, you want any character to at least have the potential to be a hero (the scale can certainly vary with the campaign, and obviously I'm talking about heroic games here, not horror etc.). If the DM makes sure the fighter (or the rogue etc.) has the same potential as the wizard (or cleric etc.) and can attain the same heights (I'm not necessarily talking power level here) I think I'm ok with that - I know my players are.

 

[Hussar]

If I am using the secondary skills system in 1e AD&D, I have slightly better than a 6% chance of having a farmer/gardener background (slightly higher because on a roll of 86-00 I roll twice, and that chance could come up again on either roll, and I am too lazy to determine the exact odds of that happening).

I still await the answer to my question: Is anyone seriously suggesting that my 1st level fighter, with relatively average stats and 6 hp, and a secondary skill of farmer/gardener, cannot have "turnip farmer" as a background?

I mean, we've dismissed any ground-breaking statistical difference. My guy now has about a 5% better chance to hit targets, and nothing else better than Joe Farmer down the road could have.

Anyone still want to claim that my 5% chance elevates me to the superhuman? Anyone? Bueller?



RC

Again, the goalposts shift.

No one, at least not me, is saying you can't have Turnip Farmer as a background. What is being said is that once you have F1, you are, by virtue of having a PC class, measurably better than any other normal turnip farmer.

Because, let's not forget, the second you slap on that PC level, you now have an Elite array, not a normal array. That right there makes you measurably better than any other turnip farmer.

In earlier editions, the Turnip Farmer isn't a F1. Sure, the F1 could, as part of his background, be a F1, but, somewhere between being a Turnip Farmer and being a Fighter 1, something had to happen (like having your parents brutally murdered and spending years on intensive training) that turned you from Turnip Farmer INTO F1.

 

[Ultimatecalibur]

Dude- what ARE you smoking? "Pretty Big" doesn't start until you're hitting the mid-teens in stats.

I'M a Str 14 in D&D terms, I'm 5'7", 250, and I don't do the kinds of things my big relatives on the farm in Covington do*. My first cousin Kev is just a shade over 6'2" and has a bench of 400lbs. (We're both 43 years old, btw.) You know what he does? He's a trucker.

I didn't even start at Nose Guard on the football team at my private school (total team size, just under 40 guys). Our average lineman weighed 180lbs, and the guy in front of me benched 300lbs at age 18, 5'7" 175. I didn't get that beefy a bench until my junior year of college. One guy on our team was pressured to play because of his size. He had no talent, but he was big. I lined up against him one day. He threw me 5 feet. For the record, there were running backs at public schools bigger than most of our linemen.

And my kind of strength wouldn't cut it in college ball. College linemen routinely average nearly 400lb bench presses, and the linebackers are in the low-300s. NFL linemen? Guards and Tackles: 535 lbs, Center: 500 lbs, a typical DE: 440 lbs and your MLBs and OLBs: 370 lbs.

Fighting men do NOT have the monopoly on being big hunks of humanity. Not even in D&D.




* I'm not even the strongest guy in my game group.

No one said that Fighters are the only ones who can have 17 strength. He just said that 17 is more than "Pretty Big", its near world record competitor.

Danny I'm going to call you on that 14. I think you are closer to a 12 at most. You may be 250lbs but that does not mean you can get to much more out of your muscles than the average person of your weight.

Most ability of a persons to lift comes from training, practice and weight rather than natural ability. While I was in the U.S. Army (was in Armor so there was a lot of heavy stuff), I'm 5'2", started at a weight of 140lbs and had practically no strength based training and could barely bench the same, by the height of my time in the army a year and a half in to my contract I was 160lbs and max benching ~200 and I wasn't really focusing my training on that (I was more of a runner and was getting 2 miles in less than 6:30). I would only give myself a 10 strength. Another solider I knew started at roughly the same point as I did but focused on weight training and was able to hit ~240 at 170 lbs.

Scot Mendelson is probably the best example of someone with an 18 strength. He is a pro-powerlifter who can bench 715lbs unequipped or 1030lbs with a bench shirt and he is only 275lbs.

Using that and I remember someone did the math and proved that Olympic Long jump Medalists were ~5th level experts in 3.5. A +14 bonus in "bench pressing" allows someone to bench ~2.6 times their own weight or ~3.7 with a top of the line item (+6? bonus to the check).*

*If you want to argue against these numbers using the lifting numbers from the d20srd, remember that you said the population demographics were bad.

 

[Raven Crowking]

No one, at least not me, is saying you can't have Turnip Farmer as a background.

Cool. At last, we are getting somewhere.

What is being said is that once you have F1, you are, by virtue of having a PC class, measurably better than any other normal turnip farmer.

Because, let's not forget, the second you slap on that PC level, you now have an Elite array, not a normal array. That right there makes you measurably better than any other turnip farmer.

Um...No.

Having a PC class doesn't require, in any edition 1st to 3rd, that you have an Elite array. If you think I am wrong, please specify where in any of those editions it says that. AFAICT, all of those editions allow for the creation of PCs by rolling the dice, and taking what you get. So, if that's what you've got...........Can we call it a day yet?

In earlier editions, the Turnip Farmer isn't a F1. Sure, the F1 could, as part of his background, be a F1, but, somewhere between being a Turnip Farmer and being a Fighter 1, something had to happen (like having your parents brutally murdered and spending years on intensive training) that turned you from Turnip Farmer INTO F1.

Again, I'm just spitballing here, but the thing that was being argued about was whether or not any F1 could have been a turnip farmer the day before his adventuring career began. Remember that? Just off the turnip truck? Heck, someone even questioned whether or not our F1 could be a normal human of any sort.

So, again, I am playing in a 1e AD&D game, not using the UA. My DM says roll 3d6, in order, no re-rolls. I roll all average stats, 6 hp, and a secondary skill of farmer/gardener.

In 1e, an average 0-lvl commoner has average stats, can use weapons, and can wear armour. A 0-lvl commoner with a physical background has 1-8 hit points, and therefore can match me. We've dismissed any ground-breaking statistical difference. My guy now has about a 5% better chance to hit targets, and nothing else better than Joe Farmer down the road could have.

But, hold on! Let's give me a poor Strength, to eliminate that 5%. And lets say I rolled 1 hit point. Certainly things that could happen making a 1e AD&D character.

Now Joe Farmer is statistically superior to me. Moreover, since I have proficiency with only four weapons, and Joe Farmer is assumed to be proficient with any weapon in his statblock, he is a better fighter than me to boot.

Am I still superhuman? Am I still too good to be a turnip farmer? Really?


RC

 

[Mort]

Again, the goalposts shift.

No one, at least not me, is saying you can't have Turnip Farmer as a background. What is being said is that once you have F1, you are, by virtue of having a PC class, measurably better than any other normal turnip farmer.

Because, let's not forget, the second you slap on that PC level, you now have an Elite array, not a normal array. That right there makes you measurably better than any other turnip farmer.

In earlier editions, the Turnip Farmer isn't a F1. Sure, the F1 could, as part of his background, be a F1, but, somewhere between being a Turnip Farmer and being a Fighter 1, something had to happen (like having your parents brutally murdered and spending years on intensive training) that turned you from Turnip Farmer INTO F1.

Isn't this a bit needlessly semantic?
What if you're a turnip farmer, start adventuring as an F1 (you got your training through a turnip farming montage, maybe the plucking motion is perfect for gutting people) but fully intend to go back to turnip farming. When you retire (as a fighter 20+ no less) you go back to turnip farming (with a profession 23+ farming (specialty: turnips) no less!), by choice because who's going to stop you.

Yes, you're the biggest baddest turnip farmer who ever lived and woe to the goblin or coyote that steps foot on your farm - but to you the fighter 1-20 was a means for you to get back to turnip farming (the big bad prevented you in some way).

So ok, not "just a turnip farmer" but how much into semantics do we want to get?

On the other side though: I don't think anyone is really claiming that an F1 is in anyway superhuman; they are claiming the F1 (and I think specifically the PC F1) is supperior from a narrative perspective - from the potential inherrant for greatness, which really is what PCs do aspire for. Then again there have been so many posts in this thread that maybe I simply missed that tangent.

But to yank it back to at least near the OP intent. In literature the fighter and the wizard if they are both protaganists can be equal if the writer paints them as equals from a narrative point of view. In an RPG this falls to the DM, the trick, and the role the system might play, is to make sure it doesn't look forced.

 

[Raven Crowking]

On the other side though: I don't think anyone is really claiming that an F1 is in anyway superhuman

Maybe not any more (I can only hope!), but if you look upthread, you can see this point argued for more than you probably care to read.

And, AFAICT, none of the folks who were arguing that our F1 is always superhuman, by sheer province of being an F1, has retracted that statement in any way, shape, or form.

But maybe I missed those concessions. Crom, I hope so. Because that way, at least, they were somewhere made.



RC