Is Magic Gimped at High Levels?

[Darth Shoju]

I play a Barbarian 6, Fighter 13 and I've found that while I can certainly deal a significant amount of damage (especially if I crit), my HPs and damage only keep us in the fight; the spellcasters are the ones that make or break it.

A while ago we battled a kelvezu that had been sent to assassinate us. It toyed with us for a while, killing off our retainers and familiars one at a time until we finally managed to corner it. I never landed a single blow on it the whole fight. The battle was essentially a chess match between the demon and our wizard and cleric; a constant back-and-forth of buffing (flight, invisibility, true seeing), dispelling, and battlefield control (darkness). Finally our wizard landed a split-ray enervation followed by a disintegrate. The kelvezu failed its save and died. Game over.

There's also been several combats with undead or extra-planar creatures where our party cleric decided the whole thing with some turning or a holy word or banishment.

Are melee combatants better than previous editions? Yes. Are they better than high-level casters? Not in my experience.

 

[satori01]

Despite the use of the word gimped, I am not saying that Spells are worthless at high level. I said the Direct Damage spell does not scale as fast in terms of damage as well as Warriors do, and for that spell to work, often times the Magic Using character has to succeed on a succesion of rolls that a Warrior will not have to, (Saving Throw, SR etc).

The complaint that a Spell Caster has to make too many dice rolls for the same or lesser effect was brought by one of my players. The guy is a bit of a complainer, no he is a bit of a huge complainer, but as my 3 year long running campaign is reaching the 17/18 level, I see what he is taking about.

In high pressure circumstances, most tank classes just need to roll to hit, and most warriors are almost guaranteed to hit with their first 2 attacks. In the Disentergrate example, the Character had to deal with a Ranged Touch Attack, Concealment, Mirror Image, SR and Saving Throws.

That is a lot of extra chances to mitigate the damage a spell caster can inflict. Monsters do not get a chance to make a Saving Throw to reduce or negate a Scimitar's critical hit. Also at high levels what are the common big bad monster types: Outsiders & Dragons. What do they both have: Good Saves, really good saves.

Look at the spells that people tout as being super effective at high level: Holy Word: Not Direct Damage, Banishment: Not Direct Damage, Shapechange: Not Direct Damage, Disintegrate: Direct Damage, but such a huge amount of Dice to be rolled that lowish HP, Low Fort Save creatures will die.

Magic becomes more about either skirting the Hit Point mechanic, or battle field control, or spells that ignore spell resistance and offer no save, or multi effect spells that even if the damage portion is saved against still have some effect.

This means Spell Compendium and a lot of research on the part of the player is a must. It also means a large paradigm shift from 1e.

 

[satori01]

If warriors had save-or-die effects to whip out, or battlefield control effects, or eject!-eject!-EJECT! effects to save themselves and others, this might be a more meaningful complaint.

Spellcasters still simply rock da house at higher levels. And it is mostly the capabilities of high level spellcasters that end up radically altering the style of campaigns.

Keep in mind classes and D&D are not so divided between caster and non caster. Multi classing, PrC, and base classes with magical abilities are not uncommon.

The Eldritch Knight might have a Teleport spell ready. The Rogue might have a looted scroll of X, and the Use Magic Device ranks to use it at will.

Keep in mind, emotionally I am right there with those people denying that magic does not keep up with warriors. A couple of weeks ago in one of the Rules Forum threads on Warrior/Mage builds, I was arguing that sacrificing a 9th level spell slot to power Arcane Strike was madness, as the damage could not compare to the effect of the spell.

Plane Sailing kindly supplied some calculations from one of his Warrior/Mage builds, and I quite think I was wrong when looking at the damage output. Again Implosion has a Saving Throw, an enhanced Whirling Blade does not.

 

[wayne62682]

Gimped? I don't think so... I thought the general consensus was that magic is still more powerful than anything else, especially at high levels. Hence the large number of outcries that the Fighter sucks permeating the net.

 

[EyeontheMountain]

In high pressure circumstances, most tank classes just need to roll to hit, and most warriors are almost guaranteed to hit with their first 2 attacks. In the Disentergrate example, the Character had to deal with a Ranged Touch Attack, Concealment, Mirror Image, SR and Saving Throws.

That is a lot of extra chances to mitigate the damage a spell caster can inflict. .

To be honest, Attack, Concelament and Mirror Image affect the mage just as much as the spellcaster. And he has far fewere ways to trump them. For the above a simple Assay spell resitance and true seeing negates, not mitigates, but totally negates 3 in almost all situations. Choose a nice orb spell and the SR and save are also totally negated. After all, who really cares if you target makes its save against an Orb spell?

Mages and spellcasters rule high levels, I wish it were not so but it is.

 

[XO]

Nerfed

3.5 Magic is nerfed...

I'm about to open a gigantic can of worms, based on what former players have said....

"I run a tank because I don't want to bust my neural paths when playing a game" (more or less accurate as a quote, but effectively accurate in thrust).

More people want to invest less time in their rpg.
Thinking is an unpopular sport.
Magic got gimped because tanks whine a lot.
EverQuest had a lot of <moan, whine> "He can do that and I can't, therefore, you MUST remove that ability from him"

The true believers (people like Monte Cook) of the "let it roll" and "go for it" magic are gone.

We're left with the dregs (sorry for anyone who actually does know what they're doing at WotC), and accountants are in the driver's seat.

Why would anyone be bothered by a Magic Missile that does 10d4 when cast by a 19th level mage? The average damage is 25. SR could be in play. A Shield spell would block it. The entire concept of scaling to caster level has essentially died an ugly death through early caps. Yet, damage output for tanks scales nicely...

A Fireball only occupies a 40' diameter, IF you can get it centered at a "ground zero" of choice. That is not always possible.

High magic is difficult to control. Society's freakish concern with total control tends to overflow into our favorite game.

If you can severely damage targets by dropping things on them, any manipulation of great weight / mass becomes dangerous. Earlier edition players wil lrecognize the usefulness of Fly with multiple Tenser's Floating Disc and tons of stones falling onto the castle walls from above. "Can't have that!" so make Disc incapable of leaving a short distance off the ground. Also making the utility spell fail when swimming because a control freak wants to avoid intelligent play.

In a High Magic setting, mages rule (at high levels)!
In a Low Magic setting, they scale from holding their own to being utterly useless.
The cost of "ruling" requires reading, and applying brainpower, and a flexible DM.

Typical outcome of a mage versus fighter challenge (presume a judged contest):

low level: mage dies
mid level: fighter dies or loses on "decision"
high level: fighter is sent to Valhalla, do not pass Go, do not collect $200, and mage is most likely not even scratched

My 2¢...

 

[rgard]

3.5 Magic is nerfed...

I'm about to open a gigantic can of worms, based on what former players have said....

"I run a tank because I don't want to bust my neural paths when playing a game" (more or less accurate as a quote, but effectively accurate in thrust).

More people want to invest less time in their rpg.
Thinking is an unpopular sport.
Magic got gimped because tanks whine a lot.
EverQuest had a lot of <moan, whine> "He can do that and I can't, therefore, you MUST remove that ability from him"

The true believers (people like Monte Cook) of the "let it roll" and "go for it" magic are gone.

We're left with the dregs (sorry for anyone who actually does know what they're doing at WotC), and accountants are in the driver's seat.

Why would anyone be bothered by a Magic Missile that does 10d4 when cast by a 19th level mage? The average damage is 25. SR could be in play. A Shield spell would block it. The entire concept of scaling to caster level has essentially died an ugly death through early caps. Yet, damage output for tanks scales nicely...

A Fireball only occupies a 40' diameter, IF you can get it centered at a "ground zero" of choice. That is not always possible.

High magic is difficult to control. Society's freakish concern with total control tends to overflow into our favorite game.

If you can severely damage targets by dropping things on them, any manipulation of great weight / mass becomes dangerous. Earlier edition players wil lrecognize the usefulness of Fly with multiple Tenser's Floating Disc and tons of stones falling onto the castle walls from above. "Can't have that!" so make Disc incapable of leaving a short distance off the ground. Also making the utility spell fail when swimming because a control freak wants to avoid intelligent play.

In a High Magic setting, mages rule (at high levels)!
In a Low Magic setting, they scale from holding their own to being utterly useless.
The cost of "ruling" requires reading, and applying brainpower, and a flexible DM.

Typical outcome of a mage versus fighter challenge (presume a judged contest):

low level: mage dies
mid level: fighter dies or loses on "decision"
high level: fighter is sent to Valhalla, do not pass Go, do not collect $200, and mage is most likely not even scratched

My 2¢...

Yes, I can see truth in what you say. That said, I'll play a mage over a fighter in any low, medium or high magic setting. That's just personal preference...and my character can run faster than the fighter in plate mail!

Thanks,
Rich