Published rules favor casters?

[Rackhir]

I would agree that casters are inherently more powerful at higher levels, just simply because of the range of spells they can cast. You can move vast distances in an instant, cause massive amounts of damage, change your shape and features, alter-reality, etc... In short they can be effective in a far wider range of circumstances than fighter types can.

Melee/non-caster types generally have a far more limited range of what they can do period. Most of them have few knowledge skills, non-combat feats and limited non-combat skills. They fight and perhaps have one or two skills at which they are effective.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Based on the original post...

Spellcasters generally have fewer hit points due to their lower hit dice and terrible combat ability.

Plus they're magic.

Most spells are designed for arcane spell users. Divine ones often don't get nearly as many spells or concepts. Wizards are just 'cooler'.

Based on that, yes, it would seem that new rules can favor the spellcaster but... they're not necessarily overpowered.

I always chuckle when someone mentions a mage duel because that usually means the mage who cast the first spell.

1st level it's sleep.

5th level it's fireball.

20th level it's meteor swarm.

Winner take all!

 

[Fingol]

I think it's all down to the DM and the type of game he runs. He controls the treasure and the number of rounds of fighting in a day. It would be interesting to see who runs out of what resource first if a DM firstly bumped up the number of rounds of fighting a day and secondly made a real effort to reduce the treasure 'found'. Would it be the fighters types and their hit points, the clerics and their mobile hit point reserves, or the wizard types and their frappy spells? I am picking that after a while clerics start saving what spells they can for healing fighter types, wizards will likely not open every fight with chucking a big offensive spell into a room as soon as the door opens. They will want their fighters to move in first, they will want to wait and see if the fighters can handle it. Would there be more of an emphasis to hoard treasure to buy healing scrolls and potions?

I think that the DM by making a few small changes of how hard he pushes the group the balance of 'power' will shift quickly. The DM can force the group to behave in a manner that ensures that the fighters are kept healthy and that the spellcasters keep/ hog their spells for applying pressure in a very tactical sense. Waiting until that one spell would swing the fight around, to make sure that fighters do not get flanked, and to counter/ dispel spells the enemy might throw at the fighters.

How many games out there have groups hit several times a night while in enemy territory? We played the banewarrens recently and we always popped back up into the city after one or two fights, we went back to our favorite inn and relaxed the rest of the day. In that set up the spellcasters were more powerful. However I have seen other scenarios where spellcasters were not.

Where are the monsters with high SR? I have seen wizards get rather hecked off when none of their top rank spells 'go off'. I have seen the fighters smile and wade in hacking and slashing shouting for the clerics to get behind them and heal them and to "bless" their weapons. Relegating both the divine and arcane spellcasters to very much support roles. Again? Definitely for the cleric.

And fighters have options; they can decide to go for one large weapon or two little ones. They can choose to bring a bow. They can be 'given' items that don't have spell triggers. If anything 3rd has made more magical items and hence options available to them. Would DMs let their fighters pack expeditious retreat potions? There must be lots of players of fighters out there that have smarter ideas.

 

[sfedi]

I think it's all down to the DM and the type of game he runs. He controls the treasure and the number of rounds of fighting in a day.

Why is the DM´s responsibility?

It´s the NPC´s responsibility.

If you are fighting against a spell casting enemy, one of the most effective tactics is to make them waste spells.
For example, making an attack, let the enemies buff, and then get out.
And come back later. So they waste their spells.

That´s something a decent CR creature can do.

 

[Darkness]

I have a house rule that says "in order to learn a new cleric spell, you must remove one of the existing spells from your spell list." This sets a hard limit of how many spells the cleric can choose while preparing spells, and it makes the player make some tough choices. This has gone a long way to helping maintain balance.

I use spontaneous divine casters (UA). Meaning, clerics don't know many more spells than a sorcerer and can't learn a new one unless levelling up and gaining new spells known (or swapping out existing ones).

 

[Fingol]

Why is the DM´s responsibility?

It´s the NPC´s responsibility.

If you are fighting against a spell casting enemy, one of the most effective tactics is to make them waste spells.
For example, making an attack, let the enemies buff, and then get out.
And come back later. So they waste their spells.

That´s something a decent CR creature can do.

Yep NPCs and decent or otherwise CR monsters have a life all of their own independent of the DM. When the lights go out, the dice are packed away, the players go back to their hobbit holes and the DM goes back to his she devil, the NPCs continue to walk around looking up. However when they now look up they go: "Hey notice how we can see the ceiling instead of half a dozen faces leering at us?" Followed by a quick: Yeah lets get the PCs. We outnumber them, and their players aren't there to guide their actions. Unlike them we don't need a face hovering above us to be clever."

The evil NPCs then suddenly grow half a brain and use hit and run tactics, and they suddenly target one member of the PCs at a time. Isolating him and taking him down before moving on to the next one. And who knows what evil plots they come up with, we certainly will not as we are not there to witness these spectacular phenomena. Which is too bad, as most DMs might have learned something from these cunning, decent, but evil CR monsters.

 

[S'mon]

Divine casters as written don't work (IMO) since they get automatic access to _all_ spells. Hence all divine casting IMC is spontaneous from a limited list. With wizards, they still have to locate or research the spell, so not a big problem IMO.

 

[sfedi]

Yep NPCs and decent or otherwise CR monsters have a life all of their own independent of the DM. When the lights go out, the dice are packed away, the players go back to their hobbit holes and the DM goes back to his she devil, the NPCs continue to walk around looking up. However when they now look up they go: "Hey notice how we can see the ceiling instead of half a dozen faces leering at us?" Followed by a quick: Yeah lets get the PCs. We outnumber them, and their players aren't there to guide their actions. Unlike them we don't need a face hovering above us to be clever."

The evil NPCs then suddenly grow half a brain and use hit and run tactics, and they suddenly target one member of the PCs at a time. Isolating him and taking him down before moving on to the next one. And who knows what evil plots they come up with, we certainly will not as we are not there to witness these spectacular phenomena. Which is too bad, as most DMs might have learned something from these cunning, decent, but evil CR monsters.

Hahahahahahahahahahah!!!!

Brilliant!

Just it case I didn't get my point accorss...

What I meant is that you don't need to metagame as DM.
You can just roleplay each NPC appropiately (sp?) and you should be fine.

 

[Ibram]

maybe not all casters, but divine casters do have an advantage (knowing ALL the spells for a given level makes them incredibly flexable, even if you dont give them access to all the divine spells in a new book).

Making Divine casters learn their spells like a wizard goes a long way to balancing this out.

 

[Fingol]

Hahahahahahahahahahah!!!!

Brilliant!

Just it case I didn't get my point accorss...

What I meant is that you don't need to metagame as DM.
You can just roleplay each NPC appropiately (sp?) and you should be fine.

You're right, but I don't think it hurts the game if DMs metagame.