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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Arrowhawk" data-source="post: 5670968" data-attributes="member: 6679551">I think this is a lot of it...but I also think it's quite a bit more complex/nuanced. First,  Monte Cook has an article where he talks about what their intent in 3e was with regards to spell casters.  Monte identifies the problem was that mages did very little early on and then became really powerful later.  Monte's goal was to make spell casters more even in their power progression and certainly more useful earlier on.  The gist of the article is that Monte pats himself on the back for opening up spell casters in 3e.  He never acknowledges that their is a problem at higher level. Second, and this is a more complex perspective, we as people and DM's don't really understand what a world with spell casting would be like.  D&D...all additions...are basically our historical settings with "magic" thrown on top.  Our world..our reality, doesn't have magic.  We have no real way to know what the world would really be like with magic.   We don't know how it would permeate everyday lives.   The authors of source books attempt to address this to some extent, but they can only imagine so much.   To give you an analogy, consider electricity.  Around 1870, the first light bulb was invented.  Now look at our society.  In less than 150 years, electicity has transformed out society in ways Benjamin Franklin would never have imagined.  You would not be reading this very passage I am writing without harnessing the power of electricity.  Electricity is limited by physics....imagine what we would be doing if we had "magic" at our disposal?  So you see the fundamental problem is that the world of D&D as imagined by us as players and authors of source material is undoubtedly incongruous with what society would really be like if "magic" really existed. To put a finer point on it, D&D only considers one side of magic, that from the point of view of the adventurer.  This view is myopic and leaves DM's with very little tools that would naturally have evolved to contend with spell casting individuals.  Consider the 1st level Wizard spell Mage Armor or Shield. It would be so easy for Fighters to obtain simple armor enchanted with those spells if every 1st level Wizard could cast them.  Same with True Strike and Enlarge person.  Laborers around town would constantly be using Enlarge person to lift heavy objects.    Another point, if Deities really existed, and they got their power from the numbers of worshipers...they would be playing a much much much bigger role in controlling the proliferation and power attainable by spell casters who might contend with them.  Go read the Odyssey.  There are number of times when Greek Gods actually take an active part in the story.  Read the Illiad, the gods are specifically affecting the outcomes of battles.   In short, the world would be much different than D&D source books paint it out.  Remember, the "magic" that exists in D&D is a fabrication.  It doesn't represent any real world example of how "magic" would really work, because there is no such thing as magic.   So "magic" is really just a game mechanic that has to serve two masters:  1)  the notion of what "magic" is in a fantasy game; and 2) a mechanic that is supposed to facilitate spell casting classes.   Should we really be surprised "magic" doesn't lead to fair or equitable outcomes at all stages of the game? Finally, and I've said this before and it is underscored by  NEXxREX, DM's generally don't have as much experience with high magic as they do with combat.   I'll wager that most campaigns that start out at level 1, don't make it past level 10.  So while many DM's experience and contend with lots of fighting, they deal with a very small level of inventive and complex magic use.  As such, I would imagine DM's are unprepared for the magical consequences of a campaign that starts at level 10.  But yeah, if you stop and think about it, it's pretty easy for authors to introduce any number of new spells that probably have little testing to determine their impact on the game.</blockquote>

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