Here's one: the big dumb warrior who's only good for his fighting and physical skills.
I disagree. I believe what needs to die is that the fighter or barbarian
must be the big dumb warrior rather than that the fighter can be. Big dumb warriors can be fun to play.
What I am saying is that Yes, magic is powerful. But that's the way I LIKE it in my games. IMHO YMMV TT&LNI. But even if magic IS powerful, it does have limitations. It is up to the DM to enforce those limitations. If they don't, then characters using magic can run amuck.
The trouble is it's a lot more than "enforce those limitations" that's needed in 3.X (AD&D it's not so clear). What's needed is to impose further limits like anti-magic fields.
If a DM wanted to, he could really screwover the spell casters.
If a DM wants he can screw over any character in the game, no questions asked. That you actually need to do so for balance and fairness is evidence that the game was badly designed.
But at the same time the players shouldn't assume that they will always have all the time and money and opportunity to do what they plan. And If a DM lets them do that, then he is asking for trouble.
A wand of Cure Light Wounds takes 1 day and 375gp to make, and changes campaigns. You seem to be indicating that a DM who ever gives the PCs a day to rest and repair or gives them enough money to be able to buy non-magical plate armour is asking for trouble. At that point it's a system failing. Now me, I don't see anything wrong with the odd week or month off to help prevent PTSD in the characters. (There isn't much time when the rubber meets the road, granted. But there is time between apocalyptic threats).
Sorry, but no they won't.
Most spells in 3e have an effective casting time of 0, in that the casting both starts and resolves on the caster's initiative with extremely limited opportunity to interrupt.
By that argument full round attacks take no time at all either. You're confusing the map with the territory here. Spells in 3e normally have a casting time of 1 standard action. If we make it 10 standard actions (5 would do) then things get interesting. The wizard can have all except one standard action of the casting of
one spell performed, and gets this spell in the opening round to set the battle. And after that it's cold steel that controls the outcome of the fight (give or take people taken down by the wizard). Yet this way wizard spells can still be extremely powerful (as e.g. MoxieFu wants) without making the fighters irrelevant.
Actually, I do agree with Lanefan. I'm just not sure how to implement the idea that your character goes from Competent Guy with a Lumpy Metal Thing to Legendary Guy!
4e Essentials Knight and Slayer seem to keep up without being more than guys with lumpy metal things.
The 3e Book of 9 Swords went too far, again IMO. Too many special effects. There were abilities that had your fighter bursting into flames, running down field, leaving a wall of fire behind you. Yeah, very cool, but a bit over the top for what I wanted. Some of the schools were less flashy, but, it still was a difficult line to walk.
IIRC, a warblade with Tiger Claw, Iron Heart, and White Raven schools would be fine (if you took the pogo stick away from Tiger Claw). Most of the absurd schools were the property of the Swordsage - and part of his shtick was that sort of nonsense. (The other absurd school was, of course, the Crusader's "I'm a paladin who actually works" Devoted Spirit school).
Honestly, from what I've seen, 4e does a nice job here, at least at heroic levels. The fighters and fighter types don't get a lot of Special Effects happy abilities. Most of them are explainable (or at least close to explainable if you don't look too closely and perhaps cross your eyes) most of the time.
The bad one here is Come And Get It. Which is always brought up and for a reason... But I seriously see no reason why you can't port the Essentials fighter backward.
