How powerful should magic be?

[jasin]

In looking at a conversion of the SW Saga rules, something cool emerges.

At low and mid levels, spellcasters can affect warriors (and each other), but at high levels, their Defenses are too high. The only thing that scales as fast as Defenses is BAB. So sure, a 20th level mage can destroy an army -- but a 20th level warrior can kill that mage.

But the mage cannot kill the warrior?

To me, that seems as clearly wrong as the obverse.

 

[Irda Ranger]

Restricting abilities to NPCs really, really annoys me.

Yeah, well at my table I believe two things:

1. Demons in the campaign world have magical power, and they can lend it to you if you meet their price.

2. No evil PC's.

You'll notice that the above are incompatible with PC's having demon-granted abilities. It's not that they can't in a game-physics sense, it's just they have to find a different DM if they do.

 

[Nifft]

But the mage cannot kill the warrior?

To me, that seems as clearly wrong as the obverse.

The mage cannot easily kill the warrior with a single direct-damage effect, nor with a single insta-kill effect.

The mage can control the environment, though. The mage can summon help. And the mage can most likely escape -- just so long as he's not being hampered by another mage.

Cheers, -- N

 

[WhatGravitas]

In looking at a conversion of the SW Saga rules, something cool emerges.

At low and mid levels, spellcasters can affect warriors (and each other), but at high levels, their Defenses are too high. The only thing that scales as fast as Defenses is BAB. So sure, a 20th level mage can destroy an army -- but a 20th level warrior can kill that mage.

I kinda like that effect.

Cheers, -- N

Uh, that's neat. Magic should be very powerful, especially on a grand scale - the effect you describe allows that without ripping apart the wizard-vs.-fighter balance within a party.

But the mage cannot kill the warrior?

To me, that seems as clearly wrong as the obverse.

Erm... the mage cannot beat the fighter - but can raise an energy wall, dimension door away, just not kill him. That's fine with me, because it encourages teamwork and gives powerful fighters a niche: Spellcaster killer, while the mages get the role of crowd controller.

For the IH Dread Sorcerer: I like it in Iron Heroes, it fits the game. But in D&D, NPC-only stuff is really annoying - D&D operates on a different premise than IH. I don't mind monster abilities, but I mind stuff that NPCs of the same race as the PC get, while it is totally barred from the PCs. In D&D, PCs are 'special' enough to become grand players on the same level as their opponents.

Cheers, LT.

 

[jasin]

The mage cannot easily kill the warrior with a single direct-damage effect, nor with a single insta-kill effect.

OK, I agree that's a good thing.

The mage can control the environment, though. The mage can summon help. And the mage can most likely escape -- just so long as he's not being hampered by another mage.

You know, this describes pretty closely the way I find myself playing my 3.5 wizard.

Granted, we're mostly going up against monsters and not equal-level fighters, but the enemies' defenses against magic tend to be good enough that it seems to me that my most powerful abilities are the option to call in a kickass servant with planar binding and superior mobility through overland flight, dimension door and teleport.

 

[Nifft]

You know, this describes pretty closely the way I find myself playing my 3.5 wizard.

Granted, we're mostly going up against monsters and not equal-level fighters, but the enemies' defenses against magic tend to be good enough that it seems to me that my most powerful abilities are the option to call in a kickass servant with planar binding and superior mobility through overland flight, dimension door and teleport.

Yep yep yep. Between energy resistance, SR, and the saves of an Outsider or Dragon, you're looking at an uphill fight against any high CR foe.

But the flip side doesn't work. The party's warrior isn't able to out-tough the BBEG Necromancer's spells.

High Defenses just give the party what their foes have had all along -- and make high-level human NPCs into appropriate challenges without also making them insane sources of loot.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Howndawg]

Generally, spellcasters should be able to do things that non-spellcasters cannot do, like fly, turn invisible, and kill 1000 goblins at once. Warriors' greatest strength is their endurance and their spontaneity. They don't need to be as well prepared and they last longer. Both of them are equally effective at killing, however, they just do it different ways.

The rules of fiction, however, do not always suit the rules of gaming. If a wizard is not well-prepared, he can be useless. And if the spellcasters insist on running back to town every time their spells start getting low, the advantage of the warriors starts to disappear. Thus balancing them can be a difficult act.

Hopefully 4e will do a good job at doing this without destroying the feel of individual classes.

Howndawg

 

[jasin]

But the flip side doesn't work. The party's warrior isn't able to out-tough the BBEG Necromancer's spells.

We use mass conviction, so that's not quite true.

But yes, there's something of a dilemma there: either there's a significant chance that the necromancer will take out the party fighter with a single finger of death, which sucks for the fighter; or there isn't a significant chance, in which case the necromancer is just some guy hoping you'll roll a 1 before you kill him, which sucks for the necromancer, and the fighter (i.e. the fighter's player who, presumably, wants an interesting fight).

D&D needs fewer save negates spells. Make it so that even when the fighter saves against against a dominate or finger of death, something happens: lesser effect, move down along the condition track... that way, you avoid the situation where the evil necromancer either did absolutely nothing for the last 3 rounds, or someone is dead.

 

[Kraydak]

Yeah, well at my table I believe two things:

1. Demons in the campaign world have magical power, and they can lend it to you if you meet their price.

2. No evil PC's.

You'll notice that the above are incompatible with PC's having demon-granted abilities. It's not that they can't in a game-physics sense, it's just they have to find a different DM if they do.

And I see that as the difference between an NPC only class (Dread Sorceror) and a PRC with the req: aligment, any evil. Note that IH does *not* have the assumption of good aligned PCs built in...

D&D, being designed to cater to a broad range of fantasy worlds, genres, and party alignments, should go the later route. A horror game with the threat of corruption, should go the former route.

 

[Kraydak]

The rules of fiction, however, do not always suit the rules of gaming. If a wizard is not well-prepared, he can be useless. And if the spellcasters insist on running back to town every time their spells start getting low, the advantage of the warriors starts to disappear. Thus balancing them can be a difficult act.
Howndawg

The fighter's supposed ability to not run out of spells is illusory. They do. Its just that they are *marked* on the cleric's sheet.

Fighters burn hp to do damage. Clerics burn spell slots to heal the hp. As it takes 2 people to run, you hope that the conversion of spell slots to damage is more efficient than a wizard's, but, like all things, it ends up by being situationally dependant. The main advantage is that against opponents with low offense (mooks), the ability to delay the spell casting until downtime allows the fighter/cleric team to make combat effective use of low level spells, which a wizard can't. Wands of CLW+Fighters vs. mooks FTW! If the opponents have high offense though, at high levels, the cleric needs to burn Heals. And those *do* run out. Depressingly fast. And no spontaneous casting either. And its not like anyone cares who waded through the weenies, anyways. Sigh. Poor "never gets tired" fighter.