Stormonu
NeoGrognard
A lot of 3E's issues (as much as I loved the game at the time) was that though it was a clean-up of older editions, there were still a great many things people weren't yet ready to get rid of that ultimately unbalanced the game. Things the designers over the years have called "proud nails" and "sacred cows" - things I'd call "compatibility with older material".
I'm guilty of wanting to keep those items in the game, and the quadratic power of wizards was inadvertently one of them - the idea spellcasters start off weak but in the end game wield world-rocking power. The thing was, while 3E cleaned and streamlined a lot of things for the better, they also took away a lot of the restraints and power checks those classes had as well, in the guise of making things more "fun". Looking back, it was like watching the scene between Mace & Palapatine in Revenge of the Sith; unfettered by checks and balances, the wizard blew the martial out the window screaming "Ultimate Power" as he did so (damn you Anikan/Monte!)!
Luckily, 5E has seemed to find some parity between compatibility and balance, though it's not perfect. We've been shown a better path, but there's still a lot of work to be done to get rid of the martial glass ceiling.
I'm guilty of wanting to keep those items in the game, and the quadratic power of wizards was inadvertently one of them - the idea spellcasters start off weak but in the end game wield world-rocking power. The thing was, while 3E cleaned and streamlined a lot of things for the better, they also took away a lot of the restraints and power checks those classes had as well, in the guise of making things more "fun". Looking back, it was like watching the scene between Mace & Palapatine in Revenge of the Sith; unfettered by checks and balances, the wizard blew the martial out the window screaming "Ultimate Power" as he did so (damn you Anikan/Monte!)!
Luckily, 5E has seemed to find some parity between compatibility and balance, though it's not perfect. We've been shown a better path, but there's still a lot of work to be done to get rid of the martial glass ceiling.