Magic Users too Tough??

[Lonely Tylenol]

Hey,

I've been playing DND for years now (arround 10) and one thing has always bugged me, but now more than ever.

Are Magic Users too Tough?

-&- on a related note:

Is the game TOO Magic Dependant?

Too answer both these questions take a 10th level Fighter (NO Magic Items) and pitch him against a 10th Level Magic User (Only allowed magic Items he himself created), then get back to me.

So, you're saying, take a guy and give him a pointed stick, and then take another guy, and give him a howitzer, but only if he built it himself (and we'll assume he's a munitions engineer with a lot of money and howitzer parts laying around), and have them fight each other, and if the guy with the howitzer wins, the game is unbalanced?

Okay, I've got one. Put a fighter and a wizard together, both naked, in a dark 10x10 foot room. Somewhere on the floor of the room there's a six-inch rusty nail. Who wins? Does the answer tell us whether the game is unbalanced?

Okay, another one. Encase the fighter and the wizard in two blocks of lead with only their heads exposed. Fill their mouths with fire ants and sew them shut. Then drop them into a volcano. Who wins? Does the answer tell us whether the game is unbalanced?

Interestingly, in my last example, the fighter probably wins. Or at least dies second. Which is what's important, right?

 

[Sigurd]

What I don't understand in this 'arguement' is that both fighter and wizard can contribute to the party in different ways.

I'm thinking especially of Wizard (a class that has been near-hobbled imho) whose flexibility, item creation, and investigation skills can be of huge benefit to a party doing things that fighter types don't typically make time for.

Yes they are very powerful, especially if the player is inventive and organized but then so are fighters. A wizard makes use of magic, clues, and setting the way a fighter makes use of terrain, facing and combat mechanics.

I like the idea that a party member is not the servant of a god like a cleric. I don't trust gods.

I find it sad that so many of the buff spells and new magic in general went to benifit the cleric and not the wizard in 3rd ED.

In comparison to a fighter, the same mage that casts a super powerful spell does so in his underwear with one third the hit points of the fighter. His spells are powerful but he really needs his friends.

Sigurd

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

It actually takes a standard action.



I don't know. That depends a lot on the DM.
Fighters can be a lot more than just human shields for the spellcasters.

We are currently playing the City of the Spider Queen, a quite combat-heavy campaign, and the fighters (actually a paladin, a fighter, and a barbarian) were or still are (not the barbarian, who died and got replaced) very effective and useful. We are now 14th~16th level.

Bye
Thanee

When we ran through that module (well, the first part...the group broke up after that) our warmage had the damndest time being useful. All he could do was throw Orb spells at single opponents because he couldn't manage to beat spell resistance, and everything seems to have spell resistance in that module. Actually, our MVP was the cleric of Horus-Re with that funky undead-kicking prestige class that gives him a bunch of greater turning. After that it was the basher, the other basher, and the shadowdancer.

 

[Krelios]

I saw a fighter 15 using only a non-magical spiked chain beat a wizard of equal level without any trouble. Granted he kept either tripping the wizard, grappling him, or reading an action to hit him when he tried to cast and he was incredibly beefy (str 22 I believe) but the wizard was smart and had a spell for any occasion. The fight really came down to a contest of Hit Dice, which the Fighter wins.

The two statements in bold are inherently contradictory. A smart wizard with a spell for any occassion does not get caught in a contest of Hit Dice. Wizard prepared for encounter > Fighter every time.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Crow Caller, take a look at Iron Heroes or D20 Modern.

 

[Faradon]

Wow... after reading most of these responses it seems that I play in and run far different games than most of you out there.

Some of you must run games where spell casters always get a full compliment of spells before every encounter, know who they are going up against, never get surprised (or caught flat footed), etc.

Most of the spell-casters on our gaming tables seem to think they are underpowered because fighters and rogues can deal out a good amount of damage non-stop, round after round.

Now, I'm not saying that spell-casters are underpowered... but I am saying that if you are noticing that one type of class is constantly "outclassing" the others, then perhaps it is the style in which you run the game that might be looked at.

If all these wizards are taking double empowered fireballs they are going to blow through their spell lists pretty quick in 1-2 fights... Have a night where they can't get their spells back and that wizard is now running on empty for a day and a half (still useful to the party as he's sure to have wands / scrolls, etc.) Or perhaps throw in creatures with a decent spell resistance / saving throws.

Above and beyond all of this, the more powerful characters grow, the greater the attention from higher level bad guys that they attract… play your NPC bad-guys with the super genius intellect to the extent they can be played… they do scrying and research too.

As far as a “duel” goes… the character classes are not balanced for 1v1 duels, they were never meant to be. They are balanced in the context of fighting the antagonists of the game as a group.

Each character should have their time to shine, and a good DM will make sure that happens.

 

[kenobi65]

I strongly suggest you check out Iron Heroes, a d20 game that makes the characters tougher and magic items much more rare (and usually cursed, at that).

Indeed. It really sounds like you're in violent disagreement with one of the underlying assumptions behind 3E/3.5....that a PC's wealth gets largely used on building up his equipment. regardless of class.

Given that, your hypothetical combat between the non-magically-equipped fighter and the wizard is flawed from the outset. In 3E, of course the fighter's gonna lose, because you're intentionally hobbled him (and not hobbled the wizard similarly).

 

[Nail]

I smell a troll.

 

[Storm Raven]

How does this "not work by the rules?"

He cast the Spell, the Ogre failed it's save and dropped "Dead" then he Coup de Graced it. Where is the error in this? If there is one I would love to know, there's only one Ogre left in town

A command to "die" causes the subject to fake death, from the text of the spell. He is not actually dead, or even unconscious. He merely fakes death. I would say that makes him "not helpless".

 

[andargor]

I smell a troll.

I smell a troll-caller.

Do you have NetSmell(tm) installed, BTW?

Andargor