Ah, don't mind @
Dualazi, he was just trying to troll me.
(It was he who misrepresented me by his quote "dying for the important members of the team" which he made up himself. A quote more accurate to my position would be something like "taking a beating - but certainly not necessarily dying - for the other, equally important, members of the team".)
Cheers
Contrary to popular belief, opposing opinions aren't actually trolling. Everyone takes HP damage sooner or later, and all classes have some method of negating or avoiding it, so taking damage isn't something special the fighter can do. Since HP is most likely the usual cause of death, then you are explicitly asking that player to take a greater risk of it. If the fighter dies holding off the baddie and the group wins, it's a Pyrrhic victory but still a victory. If the mage dies, then the fighter dies too since he can't hurt it, or at best flees the area. Either way it's a loss, and most definitely outs the group as having unequal value among its members.
This, ultimately is my problem with your example and with the potential design flaws of previous editions where having a +X weapons was a requirement, is that those situations are much rarer for casters due to their flexibility. If their target is magic immune, they can summon allies to fight it. They can buff the fighters of the group, and contribute by proxy. They can shape terrain and walls to stall. Hell, with spells like stoneskin and mirror image, they can be the tanks if they want! Hobbling the fighter for novelty is a bad decision in my opinion because he simply doesn't have the flexibility that a wizard does to contribute while at a disadvantage. The only scenario I can think of where this wouldn't be the case would be some odd-ball scenario where the fighter's magic weapons and armor are still active but the wizard is completely unable to cast anything, at which point I wouldn't be surprised if the wizard player just sat out that session.
There are a lot of design philosophies that have lent themselves to this since since 2nd edition. 3rd had the assumed wealth by level, so you could reasonably assume to be able to damage enemies around your level, and could overcome the flat value to at least deal some damage. 4th needed magic item bonuses for math reasons, but didn't have the same damage reductions in place outside of epic level foes. 5th has the rare creature with true normal immunity, but much more common is resistance, and even the ones that require magic only require +1. All of these show a movement away from game features that have binary pass/fail checks on weapon attacks, and I personally believe that situations like the one described in this thread were a contributing factor to these designs.
[MENTION=15700]Sacrosanct[/MENTION] - Probably should have quoted the rest of what I said then, since my complaint had nothing to do with 1st level play of any edition. The scenario is not about the wizard running out spells at low level and having the fighter do most of the lifting, it's about one class or the other being unable to contribute in a meaningful way*. Even at first level, those sleep spells can be very useful, and the slings still deal damage, yes? The only way it would be comparable is if wizards could only take HP damage at low levels and not make any attacks of their own.
*If you really think getting punched in the face while your allies get to do stuff is meaningful, that's fine and if your group enjoys it, got for it. We would have to agree to disagree though.
