Throwing down the Tyranny of the Spellcaster.

[NewJeffCT]

None of the above. You don't nerf spellcasters, but you need to make other classes have more viable options at higher levels.

I've never really run into a problem with overpowered spellcasters in my games, but maybe I'm just a sucky DM. Sure, the high level wizard, cleric & psion had their shining moments in my game, but so did the high level dwarf fighter & goliath barbarian, as well as the human rogue and elf paladin.

 

[Li Shenron]

No need.

Instead of nerfing Wizards, make the others more interesting.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I believe only the first two -- Limiting Options and Limiting Power -- are really practical for a tabletop RPG where you want players of wizards and players of fighters to have fun.

I struggle to reconcile the phrase "limiting options and limiting power" with the word "fun". Isn't the fun of playing a spellcaster in pursuing power and having all kinds of crazy abilities? Isn't the fun of playing a fighter that you know you could have been a spellcaster but you chose to be a salt of the earth type who makes his living the hard way and carries scars because of it?

If magic is considerably less reliable than swinging a sword, it's not really an enjoyable experience; IME, players hate it when their characters' spells are constantly saved against / defeated by spell resistance / interrupted by an attack.

They don't hate it when ther attacks miss and their skill checks fail? Seems to me like spells are bizarrely out of place in their reliability, and it really should be exactly the opposite (out of place in their unreliability).

And increasing casting time (or making spells cost other resources beyond spell slots / daily or encounter power slots / spell points / etc.) just can't be done with spells that characters are expected to routinely use in combat (if you want to put big utility / buff magic into a 'rituals' subsystem that isn't normally used in combat, you can have longer casting times there).

Longer than 1 round casting times aren't feasible in combat? Why not? Seems like a fantasy trope to me, as well as a great balancing tool. Why should essentially every spell used in combat take six seconds or less to cast?

I've never really run into a problem with overpowered spellcasters in my games, but maybe I'm just a sucky DM. Sure, the high level wizard & psion had their shining moments in my game, but so did the high level dwarf fighter & goliath barbarian, as well as the human rogue and elf paladin.

Wouldn't that make you a good DM?

 

[mkill]

No. There is a problem here, and that is availability of magic. Traditionally D&D worlds have portrayed magic as something with a very high access cost. To be a wizard takes years of difficult study and practice while you learn to gargle the star spangled banner while bending your fingers into geomtrically imrpobable tangle and holding an image of impossible things in your head. To be a Sorcerer requires a skanky grandmother who was not picky about her sleeping companions. To be a Psionisist requires putting up with endless years of the other children taunting you for your premature baldness.

Irrelevant. Why? Even though the character needs to study for years to become a Wizard, the player simply needs to write "Wizard" on his character sheet. There is nothing "rare", "unique" or "limited" about class choice in an RPG, and there shouldn't be.

 

[Bluenose]

No. There is a problem here, and that is availability of magic. Traditionally D&D worlds have portrayed magic as something with a very high access cost. To be a wizard takes years of difficult study and practice while you learn to gargle the star spangled banner while bending your fingers into geomtrically imrpobable tangle and holding an image of impossible things in your head. To be a Sorcerer requires a skanky grandmother who was not picky about her sleeping companions. To be a Psionisist requires putting up with endless years of the other children taunting you for your premature baldness.

Of course, using a sword is so simple that anyone can pick one up and use it competently within seconds. Why all those warrior cultures wasted years of time on training when it's that simple is beyond understanding. It breaks all sense of verisimilitude that there's any training required to pick locks like a thief, or identify trail signs like a ranger.

 

[avin]

Irrelevant. Why? Even though the character needs to study for years to become a Wizard, the player simply needs to write "Wizard" on his character sheet. There is nothing "rare", "unique" or "limited" about class choice in an RPG, and there shouldn't be.

Good point.

I don't see, at least on my D&D games, Wizards describing which spell they are researching and for low long they study that... people seem just to level up and add spells on their sheet.

In game, in my D&D experience, Wizards have nothing special.

 

[drothgery]

I struggle to reconcile the phrase "limiting options and limiting power" with the word "fun". Isn't the fun of playing a spellcaster in pursuing power and having all kinds of crazy abilities? Isn't the fun of playing a fighter that you know you could have been a spellcaster but you chose to be a salt of the earth type who makes his living the hard way and carries scars because of it?

FWIW, I'd hit the fighter with a scope-limiting hammer as well; the general/tactician type, big weapon offense-oriented guy, non-woodsy archer, sword and shield guy, and light weapon/light armor guy are very different things. Overly broad classes are hard to balance, and bury players in too many options.

They don't hate it when ther attacks miss and their skill checks fail? Seems to me like spells are bizarrely out of place in their reliability, and it really should be exactly the opposite (out of place in their unreliability).

It's okay for spells to fail. It's not okay for spellcasting to fail significantly more often than 'hit the guy with a sword' fails. This turns playing the wizard into a game of 'mother may I' with the DM. Granted, I prefer 4e, and 4e spellcasters roll an attack roll with hit probabilities similar to non-casting classes when they cast combat spells rather than being significantly worse (pre-3e spellcasters, unoptimized 3e spellcasters) or significantly better (optimized 3e spellcasters).

Longer than 1 round casting times aren't feasible in combat? Why not? Seems like a fantasy trope to me, as well as a great balancing tool. Why should essentially every spell used in combat take six seconds or less to cast?

Because if this is not the case, players are sitting around doing nothing for a round or more sometimes. Sitting around doing nothing sucks, even if the math of the system says the payoff is worth it (this is also true with highly unreliable magic; yes, if you're completely dispassionate and logical at the table you might well realize the payoff is worth it, but most people will get frustrated and give up first).

 

[Andor]

Of course, using a sword is so simple that anyone can pick one up and use it competently within seconds. Why all those warrior cultures wasted years of time on training when it's that simple is beyond understanding. It breaks all sense of verisimilitude that there's any training required to pick locks like a thief, or identify trail signs like a ranger.

No actually, that's my whole point. The wizard has studied for years to cast his spells. The fighter has studied for years to build his strength, speed, stamina and skill. The ranger has spent years learning herb-lore and tracking skill and sharpening his skill with a bow.

None of them have had time to learn what the other guy knows. So no, the high level fighter does not throw fire balls or fly. Likewise the high level wizard cannot fend off 6 angry orcs with axes. And neither of them can track a pack of nomads across desert hardpan or through a swamp.

If magic is accessable enough that you can pick it up while doing something else then there should not be any such thing as a mundane class. And indeed, historically there isn't. While magic does not have any great functional track record in our world a Knight still sat in holy vigil over his arms before being knighted, seeking supernatural favor in battle. A Samurai would perfrom the ritual of the bow before shooting and would not loot fallen enemies to obey Shinto strictures against touching the dead. Warriors everywhere and everywhen carry talismans and lucky charms. "There are no athiests in foxholes."

But D&D traditionally has a hard line between magic using and mundane classes. This is based on the literary conventions of the sword and sorcery genre where usually wizards are bad guys who got their power by making dark pacts or delving into unhealthy and forbidden lore. In these books magic is not easy or convenient or widely practiced.

And if we are to retain that traditional divide between magic-folk and muggles, then the muggles don't get to do magic. Ask your wizard buddy for a buff spell or a magic item? Sure. Leap 40 feet into the air or throw a guy across a room? Not so much.

Yes this kind of stuff happens in wuxia. No, it's not mundane there. Monks are monks. They use chi, harness chakra, achieve daoist enlightenment and write magical scrolls! They are the perfect model for how you have a magic using martial character because that's what they are within their own mythology.

Now could you explain monks, wizards and knights all existing in the same world? Maybe. If Iron is as anti-magical as legend would have it, that could explain everything. Knights don't use chakra and chi because giving it up is the price they pay for walking around in suits of anti-magic material.

At any rate my point is not that fighter have to suck, it's that you either have to limit them to physics, or quit pretending that they are mundane characters. I'm actually perfectly fine with leaving the whole adventureing muggle concept behind, but it's not what D&D had traditionally been. It's far closer to Earthdawn.

All I'm asking is that whatever they can do explain it! Maybe Kord grants blessings to anyone who has slain enough foes with a sword to gain favor in his eyes, and that's why high level fighters can do the impossible. I could make this stuff up all day long.

But if you have a magicless character he should not be able to do anything you or I could not do.

If a character does have magic, then I want it to be magic damnit! It should be weird and wonderfull and maybe dangerous. It should be subtle and spectacular by turns. If it's rare it should be hard, and if it's easy it should be everywhere.

It really is not that hard to make rules which portray an internally sensible world.

 

[Elf Witch]

None of the above. You don't nerf spellcasters, but you need to make other classes have more viable options at higher levels.

I've never really run into a problem with overpowered spellcasters in my games, but maybe I'm just a sucky DM. Sure, the high level wizard & psion had their shining moments in my game, but so did the high level dwarf fighter & goliath barbarian, as well as the human rogue and elf paladin.

I guess I am a sucky DM too and played with sucky DMs because I have never seen overpowered spellcasters ruling the table and making every one not a spellcaster their torch bearer.

I do think that some classes did more options especially at higher levels. That is what needs to be fixed not nerfing spellcasters.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I chose the limitation on spell selection, reliability, and resource cost.

Selection: choosing which spells to prepare for an adventure should be an important decision. This important part of magical balance should not be rendered meaningless through the availability of cheap,and plentiful wands and scrolls of whatever spell is desired. Choosing to prepare the knock spell or not becomes a no-brainer if you can just pick up an easy wand loaded with 50 of them.

Reliability: casting magic in combat should be somewhat risky. This important balance factor was trivialized in 3E and thus caster dominance began to grow.

Likewise, not all magical effects need to work flawlessly. Teleport should be very risky if traveling to a location that has not been visited personally.

Resource Cost: the old maxim of the easily obtainable being held in contempt applies here. Magic should always have a cost, however small.
Truly unlimited at-will magic, should be reserved for deities and other beings of such power. Anything that can be done literally all day long without cost or effort will quickly become mundane.

In my own B/X expansion material, magic users have access to lesser powers and cantrip style magic. The mage has 1 power point per point of intelligence to spend per day on these powers. The powers have a variable cost (1 to 4 or so) depending on what they do.

The magic user can thus, do magical things beyond the 1 spell per day to start but no magical power however slight, is truly unlimited.