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

[Fifth Element]

IOW, despite the utter lack of it in my personal experience, my gut is telling me it's probably caused 50/50 split between mechanics & playstyle.

That's a fair statement, I think. The problem is clearly influenced by playstyle.

It's perfectly reasonable for the designers to address a problem that certain players with certain playstyles have with the rules, assuming that set of players is significant. They have to find a balance, of course, in order to not "hurt" the game from other players' perspectives. It's impossible to get it right for everyone.

 

[Fifth Element]

Because I don't believe that the problem is with D&D, nobody has demonstrated that the problem is with D&D

If someone says "I have a problem with D&D" and you respond with "the problem's with you, not D&D", that's not much of a conversation.

I could just as easily say that the problems you claim to have with 4E are actually all about you, and not about D&D. I could assume that you're wrong about your own gaming preferences, and assume any perceived problems lie within yourself, not the game system. That's what you seem to be doing here.

You have problems with 4E that many people don't. That doesn't mean you don't actually have problems with it. It just means you have different tastes in gaming, which shouldn't be too surprising.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

...but what I've seen in the complaints is so well detailed that I can see its one that is amply supported by the mechanics.

See, what I keep seeing is descriptions of the "problem" that assume absolutely unfettered access to every possible spell.

That's simply not how we have always played the game.

I can see how, if you play the game that way, things could become imbalanced. I can also see that it would then be tempting to advocate either (a) removing every possible spell that can combine to cause problems, or (b) give fighters unfettered access to some equivalent resource.

I am against both "solutions" to the "problem."

The problem I have with (a) is that it throws the baby (the wizard having access to truly spectacular magic, and I like that about D&D) out with the bathwater (the wizard being allowed to abuse that power by operating without limits).

The problem I have with (b) is that I like playing the guy who doesn't rely on truly spectacular magic. I'm not interested in being a fighter who can pick up a bridge and hit someone with it, or who can leap a quarter-mile at a time. (Or, to be more precise, I am often interested in being that kind of fighter; I enjoy Mutants & Masterminds.) I also really dislike "arms race" situations in RPGs.

This complaint is similar to the complaints about optimization, except that (IMO) optimization is a real, actual, in-play issue. Optimization can be a pain in the ass, and it can ruin the fun for some people. In our games, on the rare occasion it happens, the GM handles it by saying, "Uh, no," sometimes after having mistakenly allowing it.

For whatever reason, nobody in our games even attempts to create or run wizards in the way described in this thread. I don't know for sure why, or why it differs from optimization in that respect, but maybe at some level it simply comes down to respect for the other players' fun. I don't think it would succeed, if anybody did attempt it, but it hasn't happened.

Kamikaze Midget seems to assume that I'm talking about control by the GM, but I'm not. I'm talking about the playstyle of the entire group. If nothing else, this thread is valuable to me as insight into a certain type of player and GM that I am extremely grateful I don't experience locally.

So here's your fix to the "problem": Play with better people.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

If someone says "I have a problem with D&D" and you respond with "the problem's with you, not D&D", that's not much of a conversation.

No, it becomes "not much of a conversation" when the other side refuses to even consider the possibility that I'm correct.

I could just as easily say that the problems you claim to have with 4E are actually all about you, and not about D&D.

Uh, they are all about me. Can you find a post from me in the last year advocating that those folks who play 4E must make changes to the game that I insist on, because the game can't be fun for them as is?

If this discussion had been framed as, "I prefer my fantasy RPG to have warriors and wizards capable of doing pretty much the same stuff at the same power level," I never would have even bothered to chime in. Instead, it was, "Your D&D is broken and unfun, because wizards are awesome, unstoppable, gods!" (Starting, NFK, at 1st level, according to one post!)

 

[CuRoi]

I'm curious as to what you have in mind here.

In every version of D&D, both wizard spells and weapon attacks deal hit points of damage. So 4e is not special in this respect.

...

In every version of D&D, both wizards spells and ranged weapons have ranges specified in more-or-less the same fashion (feet in Basic, battlemap inches in AD&D 1st ed, yards (I seem to recall) in AD&D 2nd ed), feet again in 3E).

...

In 3E both physical attakcs and some spell attacks used to-hit rolls to determine whether or not damage was dealt.

Now I know you're pulling my leg! Yes, you've described the basics for a huge swath of RPGs in the above and those statements could apply to really any of them.

If you are rushing to the defense of whichever system you feel was affronted, keep in mind, its really unnecessary. I like and dislike both systems in some respects and I am only interested in discussing what each succeeded in doing and what each failed in doing on a constructive level.

The only significant departues I can see in 4e compared to earlier editions are (i) layout of class features/abilities, (ii) the encounter/daily structure (although even this is not really that different from 3E, where various Exceptional - which is to say non-supernatural - abilities, including some available to PCs, still had daily limits), and (iii) the granting of metagame powers to martial PCs in order to balance them differently against spell-using PCs.

I don't see at all, though, how this means that they all interact in the same way with the gameworld/story.

Just in case, again, to avoid offending anyone, I am not making a qualitative statement here. One way is not necessarily better and one way may work better for one group of people than another. I do feel though that each tends to more support a different style of play, thus the big raging inconsolable debate people keep having.

By story, I am not referring just to "flavor text" of an attack. A Fighter can push back a foe with his shield while a Wizard pushes back a foe with thunder or something. Or in 3.5 a Wizard can stun a foe by waggling fingers while a monk can punch them in the head for the same effect. What I am referring to are the underlying assumptions of how these characters have arrived at, exercise, and deploy these powers whcih consequently is a part of the underlying story.

In one version, IMO, Swords and Sorcery are very different things at this level, in the other the line is not so clear.

In 3.5, it is more clear that the Spellcaster is engaging in a studied art for which there are clear means of practice that define it as specifically NOT being a martial concept. You study spells, they belong to schools, these spells can persist and be analyzed with various other spells, many can be utilized in a number of creative ways whether inside or outside combat, there is an internal strategy to use of these spells that does tend to exclude martial classes, the spells are by definition not like persistent feats which you can use at will - they are specifically "fire and forget". Spellcasting in 3.5, for better or for worse, is more clearly a realm of its own mechanically and what is required of a caster to interact with the game world.

For 4e, "Powers" are a broad description of what everyone can do. There is less feel for a solid difference between say a magic missile and an arrow fired from a bow - both do all the things you mentioned (attack rolls - which were not the norm for 2e/3e DnD spellcasters; damage; possible special conditions; the same usage rate and limitations; the same actions to exercise these abilities, etc. etc.) All classes now, for better or for worse, utilize one uniform system in order to accomplish their effects. The biggest separation is the flavor text and the class "role" that helps define how these effects interact with the game world.

Again, is it a problem or an EVIL thing? No. Its just a very plain difference and consequently, IMO, it has an effect on how these characters will interact on a story level and even what the story will require of each.

Whether you find one way more mechanically sound or more mechanically pleasing is a moot point IMO. Ive come to the conclusion that all the raging debate on mechanics is just a smokescreen for the underlying issue. The real debate, from what I can see, rests at how these things fundamentally interact with the imagined world around them. Some people just -want- spellcasters to be a classification unto themselves who do happen to have abilities that are more...supernatural let's call it (don't read too much into this)...than a fighter's tactical command of the battlefield.

I personally, IMO, have found that I prefer the solid separation of the two concepts and it supports the way I tell stories best.

 

[CuRoi]

And

IOW, despite the utter lack of it in my personal experience, my gut is telling me it's probably caused 50/50 split between mechanics & playstyle.

I would agree here. I seem to have encountered this less than most in my games as well. But I intentionally run low magic campaigns and I also mainly (and have always) used only SRD material. I've houseruled the spell or two that stresses the system, but for the most part casters don't completely outshine melee classes nor do I hear complaints. Everyone gets to interact with the combats and the story on a pretty equal level. Sure wizards can sometimes wiggle their fingers and change the landscape of things with a single spell, but I've had fighters cause the surrender of entire groups of monsters through sheer terrifying displays of combat prowess or change the course of a story by handily defeating enemy commanders on the field of battle in single combat. Its not always about the mechanics really whether Wizards or Warriors are balanced, but the DM giving the players the opportunities to do monumental things.

The games where I have seen the biggest mechanical power disparity develop usually include every sourcebook available, severe cherry picking of abilities/feats/monsters and players using some sort of ultra-heroic stat generation from the start coupled with gratuitous magical gear. These all of course assume a DM that has willingly (or unknowingly) put things on full throttle as their play style. IMO, in those siutations, the system does buckle severely under the stress, and class disparity will increase in magnitude, but some people enjoy playing that way!

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Re: This comment

IOW, despite the utter lack of it in my personal experience, my gut is telling me it's probably caused 50/50 split between mechanics & playstyle.

Several posters have pointed out one of the key playstyle sources of the problem, IMHO, namely cherry-picking all the best spells.* I think I mentioned it in this thread that we always used the spell rarity/randomizer rules as written in 1Ed-2Ed, and pointed out it's a decent sim of the way people learn things, esp. if they are self-taught or their learning depends on independent research.

But some think it's stupid to sim that way.

I'm forced to wonder, though, what is the statistical correlation between those who don't use some sort of spell rarity and those who see über-wizards?

In a related note, there is also the idea of building PCs who are meta "optimized" and PCs who are more organic.

Even though I play a lot of PCs with spellcasting ability, I never have a PC with all the top spells, even in games with all the limiters off. This is not because I want to ensure I don't overshadow the game, but rather because I try to assemble the PCs spell list according to that PC's personality. IOW, I always ask "What spells would this guy be interested in learning?" Note- this does not preclude designing a PC with an optimized spell-list, just makes it unlikely that all my spellcasters will have that same list.

To illustrate: my PC who was based in Indiana Jones had levels in Wiz, but wasn't optimized for combat. He had a couple of offensive spells, sure, but his list focused on information gathering, navigating caves & buried habitations and the like. He was a Diviner. I retired that PC when both of the guys playing divine casters left the group, leaving a void in the "medic" role, and replaced him with a Geomancer. That PCs arcane spells are predominantly "naturey."

And my Mage-brute Adragon Von Basten has a fetish for electrical spells due to his blue-dragon heritage...even to the point of only using Energy subbed versions of standard spells.






* Although it's also clearly not the entirety of it: I've been gaming with one particular guy since 1985 now who plays Wizards 85% of the time. And even though his PCs spellbooks always look like the optimized lists you see online, he still does not dominate the game, because he does not cast spells each and every round...for a very good reason.

 

[Neonchameleon]

See, what I keep seeing is descriptions of the "problem" that assume absolutely unfettered access to every possible spell.

That isn't what I see. What I see is a game where the wizard gets to pick two spells per level and a lot of spells are significantly unbalancing, even (or perhaps especially) in the PHB. Just off the top of my head, at second level Alter Self is a scary, scary good spell and Glitterdust is a fight ender (if you can't kill someone with three rounds of blindness you aren't trying). You don't need absolute free choice - just some choice and some ability to pick your spells. And I've yet to see a DM put serious bans on non-polymorph core spells.

The problem I have with (a) is that it throws the baby (the wizard having access to truly spectacular magic, and I like that about D&D)

The issue is one of level here. What can everyone else do while the wizard is tossing spectacular spells around? (1e solved it by giving the fighter a castle and the thief a guild, 4e solves it by making spectacular magic cost time and resources).

out with the bathwater (the wizard being allowed to abuse that power by operating without limits).

Or even trivialising the limits.

The problem I have with (b) is that I like playing the guy who doesn't rely on truly spectacular magic.

Tell me when the 4e fighter gets truly spectacular magic. Rather than being somewhere around James Bond level

I also really dislike "arms race" situations in RPGs.

And in my experience the only two RPGs with bigger arms races than 3.X are Exalted and Rifts.

This complaint is similar to the complaints about optimization, except that (IMO) optimization is a real, actual, in-play issue. Optimization can be a pain in the ass, and it can ruin the fun for some people.

And a complete lack of optimisation indicates that you are not actually interested in roleplaying. You are meant to be roleplaying characters who routinely fight for their lives. If you don't make IC optimisation choices (equipment for instance - metachoices like feat and build are another matter) you are roleplaying someone who's about as concerned with their life, the lives of their friends, and the lives of those they are protecting as they would be if they were going on a schoolgirl's picnic.

And yes, logistics can be a pain in the ass and they are tedious. Which is one of many reasons I dislike high level 3.X - there are too many edges to gain and too much detail in the unfun part of the game. But a part that IC you know keeps you alive longer and therefore you do to an extent if you are staying in character.

So here's your fix to the "problem": Play with better people.

The problem is that your so-called "better people" are people who have been together a long time, have a shared and unwritten code of conduct, and know each others' gaming likes and dislikes. A group like that is good - but not everyone is lucky enough to have one and you need luck to find one (I have the fortune to have done so I think).

 

[Raven Crowking]

Tell me when the 4e fighter gets truly spectacular magic. Rather than being somewhere around James Bond level

When Bond faces an army of mooks, he requires......his own army of mooks. A common climactic-scene Bond trope.

When Bond faces an enemy in an entrenched position.....he needs to figure out how to deal with it. They don't all run out just because he asks them to!

So, no, the 4e fighter is better than Bond. (Mind you, in 1e terms, Bond is only about a 5th level fighter tops, based on the extra attacks he gets on mooks in the movies).


RC

 

[Mort]

Re: This comment


Several posters have pointed out one of the key playstyle sources of the problem, IMHO, namely cherry-picking all the best spells.* I think I mentioned it in this thread that we always used the spell rarity/randomizer rules as written in 1Ed-2Ed, and pointed out it's a decent sim of the way people learn things, esp. if they are self-taught or their learning depends on independent research.

But some think it's stupid to sim that way.

I'm forced to wonder, though, what is the statistical correlation between those who don't use some sort of spell rarity and those who see über-wizards?

I'm sure that's part of it. For example, allow unfettered use of the the Spell Compendium in your game? Prepare for a massive ramp up in power. One problem here is with only a few exceptions (Book of 9 Swords, Players Handbook II that I can think of) the power creep for wizards greatly exceeded the power creep for fighters, so allowing access to "all books" is much more beneficial to the wizard.

Another part is player mentality to scrolls, wands etc, especially with easy spell access. I've noticed games where the wizard's player has time and/inclination to scribe scrolls and craft wands greatly increase their power level.

Also DM attitude to skills vs. magic. I've seen more than a few DMs greatly limit skill use by "real world" limitations (even though 1/2 the time they have no idea of actual real world limitations) but at the same time never say a word re: magic because, well, it's "magic." Easy example: never a word with the spell knock, yet all sorts of minuses and nitpicking with the rogue picking a lock. Same with invisibility vs. hide, move silently (stealth) etc. I think a more permissive attitude toward skills (especially really high skills) mitigates this considerably. For example, the fighter intimidating an army - this is a great use of intimidate. Too few DMs allow it as it "rubs them the wrong way" etc., yet have no problems with fear/mass charm etc.