TheUltramark
First Post
someday, would someone explain this "balance' that everyone keeps screaming about.
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How is the Wizard vs Warrior Balance Problem Handled in Fantasy Literature?
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Eric Tolle
First Post
I think it might be helpful to go back and consider a couple of fantasy sources in this debate over balance:
Let's go back to the source for D&D magic: Spells from Jack Vance's "Dying Earth. This spells are powerful, no doubt, and they don't really follow any rhyme or reason. But they have the following characteristics in the stories I read:
1: Magic is an Ultimate. that is, magic overcomes whatever mundane obstacle is set before the mage- thge only thing that can MAYBE stop magic is magic. If the spell is a teleport spell, it teleports the mage to wherever he wants to go, whether on the Earth, or to a far star., An attack spell invariably kills the opponent unless another spell neutralizes it (I might allow a PC to survive, unconscious and critically wounded with the expenditure of something like a Fate or Hero point).
2. Magic is a limited tactical or strategic resource: That is, a really top of the line mage may be able to forceably impress on his mind up to six spells at a time; an average mage could do four, and a talented apprentice, two. "Memorizing" spells takes quite some time, at least half an hour per spell, and it appears that a mage must be well rested and calm. I may not limit it to 2-6 spells per day, but a mage right out of combat couldn't memorize spells.
3. Spells are rare. No mage alive can actually make a new spell- they are all relics from a golden age. There are at most a couple of hundred spells existing today, and no mage knows all of them. Getting taught a new spell would be the object of a major quest; finding a new spell would be an epic quest. And honestly, a good chunk of the spells should be interesting, but useless for an adventurer's purpose.
4. Spells are of dramatic utility. Funny how after pondering over their spellbooks, mages seem to only memorize spells that are exactly right for the situation. In game terms, I wouldn't even require players to say what spells their characters have memorized. They simply say which of their known spells they are casting, and it is assumed that they figured out what spell they would need.
5. Spells are flashy, loud, baroque and all in all very unsubtle. There's no simply "read minds" spell: if anything, it would involve a silver decanter with random thoughts spoken by a golem floating within, or something. Imagine the weirdness quotient of D&D spells pumped up to 11.,
The end result is one where mages have to hoard their use of spells, and use them at only the most crucial moments. Naturally there's a large need for mundane skills and accomplished wizards may also be accomplished politickers, swordsmen, or otherwise resourceful.
The thing is, I can't really think of how this might be applies to D&D directly- it sounds more like something I could apply to a different system.
Other literature/systems:
Avatar the Last Airbender: Magic is control of elemental forces, and casters can do highly impressive things in a limited area, from area effect fire or water blwsts, to flying. On the other hand, highly talented mundane warriors can regularly kick the asses of our magic users, to the point where they'd rather run than fight.
The Dresden Files: sniper rifle wins.
Witch World (Andre Norton): Magic can do some damn impressive things, ranging from mind control to rousing ancient gods. However, it takes intense eyes-closed-going-on-a-mental-journey levels of concentration and extended rituals to do anything at a distance. In combat, you're better off relying on swords, dart guns and lightning whips.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Again, magic is an ultimate, capable of rearranging the entire world. However spells are difficult to cast, have unforseen costs, and unless you've turned into a Big Bad for the season, take a long time to cast. In combat, better rely on your stabby friends and your running ability.
The Taltos series: magic has a lot of utility and combat value; teleporting to known locations is common. However there's a lot of counters to magic, and one of the biggest is that a lot of people know magic. Also, "No matter how subtle a wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style." And it's funny how many of the major magicians prefer to carry swords for combat.
The Laundry series (Charles Stross): magic is a highly useful branch of advanced mathematics, which seems to require the use of a variety of foci. While there is some improvisational element to it, advanced effects seem to require rituals...and then there's the whole sanity issue. It also seems that people with automatic weapons can easily take out a mage- at no time does our protagonist seem bulletproof. Bureaucracy and library research may be more important skills than magic.
Time Powers: you don't use magic; magic uses YOU.
The Steerswoman Series (Rot 13) Zntvp vf n fpvrapr. Yvgrenyyl whfg fpvrapr ybbxrq ng guebhtu n aba-fpvragvsvp jbeyqivrj.
Conclusions: the interesting thing is that nearly all of these literary systems have parallels in rpgs, though not necessarily D&D. So I think that looked at in terms of balance, it's not that difficult to imagine tweeking things so that magic may be powerful but more of a strategic/dramatic resource, while conventional skills and weapons may be more useful in the short term. Of course in that case, one of the important things to do would be to give mages something to do besides cast spells. I think that one of the classic limitations of D&D is that mages are so limited toward casting spells, with possibly a few knowledges tacked on. D&D mages are basically defined by the spells they know, while other mages in literature are defined by other traits. You really don't define Harry Dresdin or John Constantine by the name tpf the spells they cast, so why can't we do this in D&D?
Let's go back to the source for D&D magic: Spells from Jack Vance's "Dying Earth. This spells are powerful, no doubt, and they don't really follow any rhyme or reason. But they have the following characteristics in the stories I read:
1: Magic is an Ultimate. that is, magic overcomes whatever mundane obstacle is set before the mage- thge only thing that can MAYBE stop magic is magic. If the spell is a teleport spell, it teleports the mage to wherever he wants to go, whether on the Earth, or to a far star., An attack spell invariably kills the opponent unless another spell neutralizes it (I might allow a PC to survive, unconscious and critically wounded with the expenditure of something like a Fate or Hero point).
2. Magic is a limited tactical or strategic resource: That is, a really top of the line mage may be able to forceably impress on his mind up to six spells at a time; an average mage could do four, and a talented apprentice, two. "Memorizing" spells takes quite some time, at least half an hour per spell, and it appears that a mage must be well rested and calm. I may not limit it to 2-6 spells per day, but a mage right out of combat couldn't memorize spells.
3. Spells are rare. No mage alive can actually make a new spell- they are all relics from a golden age. There are at most a couple of hundred spells existing today, and no mage knows all of them. Getting taught a new spell would be the object of a major quest; finding a new spell would be an epic quest. And honestly, a good chunk of the spells should be interesting, but useless for an adventurer's purpose.
4. Spells are of dramatic utility. Funny how after pondering over their spellbooks, mages seem to only memorize spells that are exactly right for the situation. In game terms, I wouldn't even require players to say what spells their characters have memorized. They simply say which of their known spells they are casting, and it is assumed that they figured out what spell they would need.
5. Spells are flashy, loud, baroque and all in all very unsubtle. There's no simply "read minds" spell: if anything, it would involve a silver decanter with random thoughts spoken by a golem floating within, or something. Imagine the weirdness quotient of D&D spells pumped up to 11.,
The end result is one where mages have to hoard their use of spells, and use them at only the most crucial moments. Naturally there's a large need for mundane skills and accomplished wizards may also be accomplished politickers, swordsmen, or otherwise resourceful.
The thing is, I can't really think of how this might be applies to D&D directly- it sounds more like something I could apply to a different system.
Other literature/systems:
Avatar the Last Airbender: Magic is control of elemental forces, and casters can do highly impressive things in a limited area, from area effect fire or water blwsts, to flying. On the other hand, highly talented mundane warriors can regularly kick the asses of our magic users, to the point where they'd rather run than fight.
The Dresden Files: sniper rifle wins.
Witch World (Andre Norton): Magic can do some damn impressive things, ranging from mind control to rousing ancient gods. However, it takes intense eyes-closed-going-on-a-mental-journey levels of concentration and extended rituals to do anything at a distance. In combat, you're better off relying on swords, dart guns and lightning whips.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Again, magic is an ultimate, capable of rearranging the entire world. However spells are difficult to cast, have unforseen costs, and unless you've turned into a Big Bad for the season, take a long time to cast. In combat, better rely on your stabby friends and your running ability.
The Taltos series: magic has a lot of utility and combat value; teleporting to known locations is common. However there's a lot of counters to magic, and one of the biggest is that a lot of people know magic. Also, "No matter how subtle a wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style." And it's funny how many of the major magicians prefer to carry swords for combat.
The Laundry series (Charles Stross): magic is a highly useful branch of advanced mathematics, which seems to require the use of a variety of foci. While there is some improvisational element to it, advanced effects seem to require rituals...and then there's the whole sanity issue. It also seems that people with automatic weapons can easily take out a mage- at no time does our protagonist seem bulletproof. Bureaucracy and library research may be more important skills than magic.
Time Powers: you don't use magic; magic uses YOU.
The Steerswoman Series (Rot 13) Zntvp vf n fpvrapr. Yvgrenyyl whfg fpvrapr ybbxrq ng guebhtu n aba-fpvragvsvp jbeyqivrj.
Conclusions: the interesting thing is that nearly all of these literary systems have parallels in rpgs, though not necessarily D&D. So I think that looked at in terms of balance, it's not that difficult to imagine tweeking things so that magic may be powerful but more of a strategic/dramatic resource, while conventional skills and weapons may be more useful in the short term. Of course in that case, one of the important things to do would be to give mages something to do besides cast spells. I think that one of the classic limitations of D&D is that mages are so limited toward casting spells, with possibly a few knowledges tacked on. D&D mages are basically defined by the spells they know, while other mages in literature are defined by other traits. You really don't define Harry Dresdin or John Constantine by the name tpf the spells they cast, so why can't we do this in D&D?
I'm going to addres this because I can't help myself, but I'll do it in spoilers:
1) If the event in question had happened at almost any earlier point in the book it would not have worked because of magic protection. Harry was wearing his duster early on - which provides protection. He was wearing impenetrable magical clothing for a good portion, which also provides protection.
2) Sure the rifle won, when it was used in the exact right place and the exact right time - at exactly when no magical protections were up (bet harry had wards at the house that could have prevented this very thing too).
So sure the rifle won, when magic was specifically taken away. Butcher takes extreme pains to catch Harry essentially with his pants down. Not that that's bad, it just is.
2) Sure the rifle won, when it was used in the exact right place and the exact right time - at exactly when no magical protections were up (bet harry had wards at the house that could have prevented this very thing too).
So sure the rifle won, when magic was specifically taken away. Butcher takes extreme pains to catch Harry essentially with his pants down. Not that that's bad, it just is.
On a non-spoiler note, am I imagining things, or did the book get delayed 2 months?
Likewise.
Funny, because on page 98, i wrote that, for me, magic "requires sometimes coloring outside the 4E lines"
For the record, here are the rules passages from the core 4e books on attacking objects:
PHB p 56:
A close burst power allows you to target creatures or objects
DMG pp 65-66:
Like characters, objects have hit points and defense scores (except for Will defense; see Object Immunities and Vulnerabilities, below).
An object’s AC, Fortitude, and Reflex defense depend entirely on its size. (As you can tell from the following table, it’s pretty easy to hit an object; so easy, in fact, that many DMs just skip the attack roll unless the situation is particularly dramatic.)
. . .
Usually, it doesn’t matter what kind of attack you make against an object: Damage is damage. . . you might rule that some kinds of damage are particularly effective against certain objects and grant the object vulnerability to that damage type. For example, a gauzy curtain or a pile of dry papers might have vulnerability 5 to fire because any spark is likely to destroy it.
An object’s AC, Fortitude, and Reflex defense depend entirely on its size. (As you can tell from the following table, it’s pretty easy to hit an object; so easy, in fact, that many DMs just skip the attack roll unless the situation is particularly dramatic.)
. . .
Usually, it doesn’t matter what kind of attack you make against an object: Damage is damage. . . you might rule that some kinds of damage are particularly effective against certain objects and grant the object vulnerability to that damage type. For example, a gauzy curtain or a pile of dry papers might have vulnerability 5 to fire because any spark is likely to destroy it.
How to reconcile this with the "targets creatures" text on many powers? I agree with LostSoul - there is no doubt that an axe can be used to "attack" a tree, or Burning Hands to "attack" a book. Where the GM's discretion comes into play is in resolving the power's effect other than damage - for example, Footwork Lure may not shift a tree even on a hit, and Icy Terrain may not knock a laboratory shelf prone, even if it does destroy all the alchemical samples on it by freezing them solid.
What sort of high adventure game are you playing where leaping over the garden hose requires playing a jump card!?
Raven Crowking
First Post
Ummm.....
And how is that not relying on a human agency (in this case, my own)?
Any time you say "The game is safe in assuming that the players know or can find out X" there is a reliance on human agency to determine what X is, and what the capabilities of X are.
Contrast to a video game, where a player cannot do anything the programmer did not predesign. Can I use the axe to chop? Well, only if the programmer thought you should when the game was written. System May I?
I was almost out of here when that "Mother May I" comment came up....specifically, the idea that relying on human agency is somehow a bad thing.
I disagree. I disagree a lot. My position is the opposite -- failure to rely on human agency is a really bad decision. It is as bad a decision as not giving that human agency some guidance as to how to be reliable.
RC
Raven Crowking
First Post
I think that you fully understood what I was saying.
The game is called Hypothetical Adventures! It specifies that you have to play a Jump Card to leap in the game, but fails to specify that the leap must be significant, etc. That is because HA! wants to minimize human agency (GM decision making)so that it never becomes a "Mother May I" game.
Remember, if someone wants to play in a Hypothetical Adventure, just say "HA!"
RC
On the whole GM/human agency thing, I think I'm somewhere in between KM and RC. (And I'm not sure about LostSoul.) I think that human interpretive agency is important for a RPG. At least in my game, it's not just the GM but the players as well who have an important role in this - in that they are able to propose interpretations/options, and the GM is under some sort of onus to take them seriously.
Where my greater proximity to KM comes in is that I think different systems can do a better or worse job of (i) providing players with the tools with which to frame their interpretations and options, and (ii) providing GMs with the tools to properly discharge the onus that falls on them.
It's probably fairly obvious that I think 4e does a pretty good job in relation to (i) and a very good job in relation to (ii). I think Rolemaster does at least as good a job in relation to (i), but quite a poor job in relation to (ii) - in a lot of contexts a GM has nothing to fall back on but some very generic Difficulty descriptors and a very generic Static Action table. I think Basic D&D and AD&D rely a lot more on social contract and understood table context, than on the published rulebooks, when it comes both to (i) and (ii). For example, there is really very little in either Gygax's PHB - for a player - or DMG - for a GM - that would encourage me as GM to set up a scenario like White Plume Mountain or Tomb of Horrors, nor supply me as player with the sort of framework I need for tackling it. The contrast between these classic AD&D scenarios, and scenarios like D1-3 which, while written for AD&D could be ported with conception mostly preserved into a wide range of other fantasy systems, is to me pretty stark. (Ghost Tower of Inverness is probably midway between S1&2 and D1-3 in the extent to which the published rules/guidelines for encounter/scenario design and action resolution bear significantly on the way the module is actually built and meant to be played.)
Where my greater proximity to KM comes in is that I think different systems can do a better or worse job of (i) providing players with the tools with which to frame their interpretations and options, and (ii) providing GMs with the tools to properly discharge the onus that falls on them.
It's probably fairly obvious that I think 4e does a pretty good job in relation to (i) and a very good job in relation to (ii). I think Rolemaster does at least as good a job in relation to (i), but quite a poor job in relation to (ii) - in a lot of contexts a GM has nothing to fall back on but some very generic Difficulty descriptors and a very generic Static Action table. I think Basic D&D and AD&D rely a lot more on social contract and understood table context, than on the published rulebooks, when it comes both to (i) and (ii). For example, there is really very little in either Gygax's PHB - for a player - or DMG - for a GM - that would encourage me as GM to set up a scenario like White Plume Mountain or Tomb of Horrors, nor supply me as player with the sort of framework I need for tackling it. The contrast between these classic AD&D scenarios, and scenarios like D1-3 which, while written for AD&D could be ported with conception mostly preserved into a wide range of other fantasy systems, is to me pretty stark. (Ghost Tower of Inverness is probably midway between S1&2 and D1-3 in the extent to which the published rules/guidelines for encounter/scenario design and action resolution bear significantly on the way the module is actually built and meant to be played.)
Hussar
Legend
And, to be fair, any game that stated what you just said and left it at that would be a bad game. However, that's a pretty extreme position really. Most games would have, somewhere in the rules, the idea that A. Mechanics only kick in when there is some sort of conflict (see the size/space rules in 3e D&D for a good example of this - your size (medium=5 foot cube) only applies during combat) and B. General mechanics for dealing with stuff that doesn't really need the flashy stuff to resolve (such as Take 10 for example).
There is a danger in hypotheticals of getting too far away from what we should be talking about.
Raven Crowking
First Post
There's nothing in this that I disagree with at all.
I was just reading through Wik's thread on epic level D&D, and the degree to which the player-presented rules interfere with his ability to frame events. Whose interpretation determines whether an ooze can be tripped? The GM's or the system's or the player's?
It seems that the more a system is balanced on a knife's edge, the more the system gets to make those decisions. "System May I say oozes cannot be tripped?" "No, you may not, or you nerf the fighter! What seems like a small change to you can actually tip a very fine balance."
I personally prefer systems with a broader base of support, where that level of fine balance isn't needed in order to make the game work. I like GMs to make calls. I like it when bad things happen unexpectedly...and the PCs win anyway!
I do not like games that seem "tactical" on the outside, but which eventually become "We stunlock the monsters" followed by a flurry of coups de grace, without any real chance of failure, combat after combat after combat. Which seems to be where Wik's epic game lives these days.
I also think that a broader base of support allows for a wider variety of characters that are still "balanced" within the context of the whole system.
To answer the OP, warriors and wizards are balanced by the warrior's powers being "always on", while the wizard's powers require the correct timing, a lot of luck or forethought, and are often dangerous to the user as well as to the target. You can model this in a broad-base support game; I have yet to see it modeled well in a knife-edge balance game.
RC
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