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Message: <blockquote data-quote="nogray" data-source="post: 5971000" data-attributes="member: 28028">Fighters only make choices only two times. At creation/leveling and in the moment. Wizards and clerics make choices three times. At creation/leveling, in the moment, and at the beginning of each day. That's a clear advantage for the caster. (Note that I consider gear acquisition part of leveling, whether the gear is chosen by the PC or the DM.)More times to make choices means more opportunities to adapt. More opportunities for adaptation means it is more likely that you have an appropriate resource that can be spent at the moment to solve (or make easier to solve) the challenge. That means more "power."Casters have limited spells per day and hit points. Fighters have only hit points. Sure, the fighter has more hit points, but the casters have spells per day to ablate, too. In fact, the purpose of several of those spells is to reduce incoming damage, whether relatively directly (spells that boost AC or give temporary hit points) or indirectly (by damaging enemies or removing them from play or consideration) or both at once.While it is inherently obvious that spells are limited in quantity, what is less obvious is whether that limit is meaningful. I tend to believe that not to be the case.The fact of encounters tends to be that many things are being spent. Casters are casting spells (some more judiciously than others) and the whole party (especially the fighters, if they are doing their jobs) is taking damage. All this talk of limited spells per day seems to ignore the fact that the fighter's hit points are limited, too, and they are likely (in most adventuring circumstances) to run out long before spells do. In fact, without a healer (i.e. a caster, usually), the fighter will run out within a scant few encounters, or even during a single encounter.In most of the resource-intensive situations I've experienced (from both sides of the screen), what prompted a withdrawal or rest was not the wizard running out of spells, but rather the healer. They will tend to spend a spell or two in combat, whether buffing or blasting or whatever other flavor they favor, then more spells in combat to heal whoever is taking damage, then (until they have wands or whatnot) more spells after combat to heal the group up to a reasonable level. No one wants to press on at half hit points when the healer is out of spells.There was also a point or two made in this thread about denial of gear or resting. The simple fact of the matter is that non-casters are generally more disadvantaged by this than are most casters.As to denial of rest, while it is true that can stymie a caster's ability to refresh spells (well, an arcane caster's, anyway), it also prevents a fighter from recovering their only resource -- hit points. It is also somewhat true that a caster (here, I am really thinking of wizards) can more easily provide a secure place of rest in the field.The spells for this range from Rope Trick, to Secure Shelter, and on to Mage's Magnificent Mansion. (The first and last of those are invisible to the normal world, while the middle will just be hard to enter without alerting the occupants. All can, theoretically, be dispelled, but a non-caster has no option for providing even near the level of security as those spells (absent gear that mimics them in some way).Wizards also provide a means of resting in relative comfort at a known safe-house via (possibly greater) teleport. Clerics can get in on that action with word of recall, too. In higher levels, two spell slots per day can virtually guarantee safe rest. While it is true that, possibly, the safe house is no longer safe (and this is a really unlikely event for a decently chosen safe house), it will be much safer than resting in the field (barring rest-places like the extradimensional ones, above).The caster at least has the option to have those spells and resources available, where the non-caster simply doesn't. Also, the spells mentioned (Rope Trick and Teleport, along with the others that are in the same category and are used at end-of-adventuring day to rest) won't be cast while in combat. There won't be an enemy immediately present to counter or dispel them, and following is only possible until the door is closed from the inside, or by some odd circumstances if teleportation is involved. (Okay, so the Rope Trick might, if detected at all, which requires some means to see invisibility, be dispelled, but it is still more secure than any fortification that a noncaster can provide.)To put it another way, it seems like your post is saying that the presence these options for safe recovery of spells, because they might under rare circumstances possibly be countered in some off-the-wall manner, are weaker than their absence. That is the opposite of true.The travel methods above are also great for dealing with equipment denial. Wizards, knowing that they are powerless without their spellbook, tend to also safeguard it through any number of means. A back-up spellbook is a pretty common part of an adventuring wizard's possible kit. It can be stored at a safe house, hidden on their person (with shrink item or the like), or otherwise secreted away.TL;DR: Casters tend to have more options, and options are power. Non-casters tend to have fewer options, and thus less power.</blockquote>

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