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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zardnaar" data-source="post: 6561370" data-attributes="member: 6716779">Due to 3E though people have been over stating the martial vs caster disparity. It was not nearly as bad in AD&D and they also had various restrictions. To be fair AD&D did have god wizards at higher level but they were glass cannons and most people did not play high level games in any event and it also took a long time to get there. Clerics and Druids lacked level 8 and 9 spells as well.  The disparity did exist but most people probably did not see it due to not actually getting to those levels. And even if you did a wizard could be level 16 the thief would be level 20 and the cleric would be level 18 along with the fighter IIRC. A level 20 thief can one shot a level 16 wizard. I had a 5th level party beat a level 18 wizard in 2E. They were not supposed to fight the NPC but they did and they got lucky with a dispel magic (rolled a 20) and he was flying. I had a level 18 wizard get killed by a pack of trolls as they had a shamen with dispel magic. That was that PCs 1st death via clone spells.  Due tot he way initiative worked the wizard would need to be prepped for combat and even with spells like stone skin up they would get pelted with darts from 6 PCs (bigger parties in AD&D). A single point of damage in the round before their turn interrupted their spell as well. Haste and wish could also kill you in 2 ways via the ageing and via a system shock roll. You could not spam buff spells as most of them did not exist or only granted a +1 bonus. BECMI lacked a lot of the problem spell combos as they did not have that many spells and the broken ones were more like things such as uncapped fireballs so a 24th level BECMI wizard got to deal 24d6 damage with a fireball spell. You could not cast wish at all in BECMI until you got to level 36 and had an 18 int and an 18 wisdom. Druids did not exist in BECMI until they were added as an optional class later in the line and the mystic class (monk basically) was also in a similar boat. BECMI started to go off the rails after level 14 or so or if you let in AD&D spells. Stoneskin and Greater Invisibility did not exist. You also did not get level 9 spells until level 21 and BECMI xp tables were better than AD&D as the wizard was always behind in xp unlike AD&D which had weird xp tables. Level 7 Cleric spells in the Rules CyclopediaEarthquakeHoly WordRaise Dead Fully*Restore*SurvivalTravelWishWizardry Most of which are non combat.Level 7 Druid Spells (Druids also shared the Cleric Spells)Creeping DoomMetal to WoodSummon Elemental Weather ControlLevel 9 Wizard Spells.ContingencyCreate Any MonsterGate*HealImmunityMazeMeteor SwarmPower Word KillPrismatic WallShapechangeSurvivalTimestopWish In addition there were limits as to how many spells you could know. TSR Era Druids were also not that good at what became wildshaping. The 5E land Druid is more faithful to the original Druids as opposed to 3E or the Moon Druid. Wildshaping was for scouting not combat as a wolf was about the best form you could take- at level 7. 2E is probably my favourite D&D edition, BECMI is probably the best designed D&D they ever made. It actually works up to around level 15 or so before massive problems start to kick in. 5E gets around 2-4 levels over 3.5 before problems start to crop up.</blockquote>

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