I'm trying to reply to this one, but you've messed up your coding again.
As a DM I try and not say no. My first course of action is to try and say a modified yes.
Roughly the way I do it. "We said in 4e Roll the Dice or Say Yes. But it turned out saying Yessssss was more fun." - 13th Age (paraphrased).
There are a lot of things I like about 3E I was glad to see go the race limits, THACO, and no caps on spell damage,
The caps are still there;
fireball still caps at 10d6, and the race limits were a balancing factor that 3E did absolutely the right thing for - eliminated them by making humans a viable choice.
First of all we tend to not have an issue with a DM doing things that may not be in the rules or is against the rules if it is how things work in his world.
4e is Exception Based Design. This is expected. It doesn't bother with the trappings of 3e that indicate the other way.
We also don't have an issue with the DM nerfing abilities now and then and see it as just another challenge to overcome. Also we don't build optimized character just to have optimized characters there has to be a background or role playing reason for multiclassing or taking a PRC.
There's two problems with saying that. The first is you can justify anything with fluff. The second is to at least paraphrase LogicNinja, "A druid shouldn't take any PRCs that don't start with the letter 'P'. And end with 'lanar Shepherd'". Wizard 20, Cleric 20, Druid 20, Artificer 20. These will break your game if played well. Any prestige class on top of the wizard or cleric is just gravy. And as a rule Druids and Artificers
shouldn't take prestige classes.
Scry and fry has never happened all that often in any game I have played in. Why because of the size of the mirror required to scry if you are not a druid it not that portable.
Shrink Item. As normal in 3.X the answer to the limitations of magic is ... more magic.
Second it would really depend on who you were going to scry on if there are magic users involved it only makes sense to have protections up that either block scrying or alerts them to the fact that they have been scryed on. I am not saying we have not ever done we have it is a formidable tactic and we have NPCs do it to us.
That's why you don't do it to the casters but their faceless mooks and henchmen.
That's bull the game allows wizards to do other things to make choices to go nova at the drop of a hat. It is bad tactics to blow all your spells when you are in enemy territory because you should know that there is always the danger of having to face more danger later in the day and the idea that you can just hide for 24 hours is not necessary a good one that you will make no progress.
I've said how absurdly many spells a mid-high level wizard gets. Novaing at level 9 doesn't burn out all your spells. As for "Being in enemy territory", you memorise a handful of locations then teleport back home and come back the next morning. When you've run out of your literally dozens of spells.
Now you just assume that every wizard has both those spells. Our wizard had glitterdust which would have done jack against a creature that only had its tentacles not its head above water. Also the all spells were doing blow back. A glitterdust or slow would have bounced back and effected the caster as well.
The caster being blinded at the cost of the only bad guy being blinded is
not a problem. A 50% miss chance imposed on the bad guy means he's half as dangerous as he was. And easier to kill because his defences have been nerfed. Likewise Slow; the
Kraken slowed means it can no longer take full round attacks, cutting back from +28/+28, +23/+23/+23/+23/+23/+23 and a bite at +23 to one single attack at +28. You've just cut
at least two thirds of the threat off the kraken. The fact that the wizard now can either move
or cast a spell is, at this point, almost irrelevant. The wizard's done his job and then some - finishing the kraken can be left to the characters that specialise in doing damage.
And a wizard can only keep casting until they run out of spells and running out of hit points which wizards have less of stops a wizard the same as any other class. Yet with magical healing a fighter can go back to battle a wizard out pf spells is still out of spells.
You mean that a fighter can have a wand used on him, a wizard can use a wand?
I don't understood this argument at all a rogue does not pick locks all day he does a lot of other things as well the point is very simple his pick lock ability is not a limited resource which means he does have to make a choice between picking locks and being effective in combat.
Neither does the wizard. As mentioned he carries two scrolls of knock (costing a trivial amount) and the fighter carries a crow bar.
There are spells that the rogue can't save against nobody can any one caught in black evard is in for a bad day unless they have freedom of movement. I lost a character caught in one and it was by friendly fire our party wizard cast the damn thing. And glitterdust blinds everyone. so what why should the rogue be special in those cases. The point is I have seen for myself the rogue take little or no damage when the party has been hit with an area spell and maybe our DMs are dumb because they sure like to use them a lot.
Your DMs aren't dumb. They are smart. The spellcasters actually casting the AoE damage spells are dumb - this is a difference. Playing a spellcaster NPC as smart would make them a
very strong enemy.
It is part of the game and at least in some spells there are saves you get hit with a rogue sneak attack there are no saves against the damage that does or the fighters sword. You don't hear people whining about being hit by a weapon.
Of course you don't. If you are getting hit by a weapon, your problem is you got into reach. And weapons
don't bypass the hit point mechanism.
also in a lot of games it is impossible to cast an area spell once you are in melee without danger of hitting your party members.
This is why, despite alowing spell resistance,
Slow is the fourth of the big low-ish level AoE debuffs. It can be fired into melee
selectively. It's not a burst attack, it's a "Target: 1 creature per level" and it's a save not a to hit. Firing into melee means you might accidently hit the wrong person, but with no to hit roll this isn't an issue.
The wizard had no idea he was going to be in a duel he was just plunked down with half his spells used up and missing hit points?
He was on full hit points and out shopping. Spells memorised but none up. He also had a Solar Simulacrum to carry his shopping for him.
How was this played with two players of equal ability playing one of each and rolling dice? If this is some universal truth then why do wizards die in games at the hands of fighters if wizards are the only class playing why then does anyone bother playing anything else. If people hate this style of play why are people still playing 3.5 and playing Pathfinder plus the older editions?
First, this isn't a serious problem in older editions.The wizard gets fewer spells. Debuffs are harder to get through than direct damage. Spell preparation took longer. There was a soft cap in the game at level 9. With weapon specialisation the fighter was genuinely mighty - and could shrug off spells at high level. Weapons did more damage as a matter of course at higher levels - that was one of the purposes behind large creatures taking extra damage.
As for 3.5, there are things to recommend it - and 4e made a lot of good design decisions but
never explained them. If you don't have a tactical mind it can work well enough for everyone at the table. And if you're an out and out munchkin (I'm not saying all 3.X players are merely that some are and they tend to hate 4e because it is fairly well balanced), 3.X is as much a playground as Exalted.
So what it is a team game everyone working together to weakened the bad guys and bring him down. Again I ask why does it matter if the wizard who has magic can take down a fighter in a duel that is not how the game is played.
Because winning a duel is the thing fighters are
supposed to be good at. The only thing. They have literally no strategic resources as a class, unlike any of the casters. Their skills generally suck unlike the rogue. They can't take out whole armies - they don't have much area of effect and can't heal themselves. What they
should be able to do is take on the biggest and meanest enemies and kill them. It should be the fighter going toe to toe with the dragon or wrestling with the Tarrasque. On the other hand, the wizard even more than the rogue is the party squishy. They are all about the strategic resources and trickery - they should be
terrible at dueling because they are strong everywhere else (including on the army destruction front).
In a game that fighter can can spend money on items that level the playing field
The cost of a single +1 sword: 2300GP. The cost of a single +2 sword: 8300 GP.
The cost of
one hundred level one scrolls: 2500GP. The cost of twenty level 3 scrolls: 7500 GP. (Remember that unlike the fighter the wizard can make scrolls for half this). The fighter needs to spend their money on magic weapons and armour which is
expensive - and ultimately will be upgraded so they are effectively consumable. The wizard doesn't need a sword. (And before you say Bracers of Defence, I'm going to say +1 Mithral Twilight Chain Shirt. ASF: 0%. ACP: 0. Total cost: 5250GP).
And the only reason the level 20 fighter was in the duel at all was three quarters of a million GP on equipment.
So fraking what yes with the right combo of spells and tools you can do a reasonable job of the rogue at picking locks of course you can't do it as well as for those magic locks a crowbar will work but what if the door is made of stone or some harder surface it is going to take more time and make noise. With the right combo of wands and potions you can get by without a healer the same with a wizard, fighter a good game design should allow other ways to accomplish things without requiring that you can't succeed at the game with that class present. But you know what does rogue skills the best a rogue and no argument is going to change my mind on that.
OK. You've made up your mind that picking locks with a skill failure beats picking locks without. But how do you get by without the
wizard. You don't need a healer if you have neough potions. You don't need the fighter - the Cleric or Druid can tank. But who can replace the wizard? This is the other problem.
The DMs I play with would rather have the freedom to ban certain things from certain campaigns not be locked in having a game so rigidly designed and balanced as 4E that a lot of that freedom is lost. Which is what several have told me as the reason why they have left 4E and either gone back to 3.5 or Pathfinder for some games.
The difference between 4e and Pathfinder in terms of rigidity is minimal. I can do loads in 4e I can't do in PF.
No you are again very wrong we did not stop if we were out of healing spells and potions and were at full hit points we kept going on. What would make us stop sooner than planned was the threat of dying because we were badly injured and did not have the ability to fix that.
In short you stopped when the
Cleric ran out of spells.
If we don't need Open Locks, why do we need Knock. The Rogue should focus on a different skill, and the Wizard on a different spell.
Open locks is occasionally useful. Useful enough for the wizard to have a scroll of knock or two in the back of a spellbook (150GP each) for the rare things the crowbar can't deal with. If the Rogue doesn't have Open Lock he can't do it - but the wizard can spend minimal resources to be able to do it
often enough.
So what's the spell load of those Wizards going up against an L20 fighter?
Flight, Greater Mirror Image, a pet Solar Simulacrum, I can't remember the rest of it. There are several ways.
I mean the 15 minute work day that has been griped about through much of this thread. Is that, like the Knock/Open Lock issue, not relevant after all?
The problem is
Cite, please. I see nothing in the description of Emanation which suggests a cloak or hat block it.
You need to block line of effect. At that point it becomes an argument about what sort of materials block line of effect. And then keep that to hand. If you're arguing it has to be metal, line the hat with steel/wear a helmet - or play games with Shrink Object and throwing the object onto the crossbow bolt. (Alternatively picking up the crossbow bolt and firing it back).
Silence is an obvious and well known spell. There are answers within the fiction.
Of course, once they're gone, they're gone and you spend money to make some more. How much money did you spend at 1st - 6th level? If the Wizard spends all his cash on consumables, and the Warrior spends all of his on permanent items (an extreme case), then the wizard will have significantly less wealth than the Warrior, whether because the Wizard has 19k less what he's used up, or because the Warrior has 19k plus everything the wizard used up.
Objection! The Warrior's permanents are effectively consumables. A warrior isn't normally still using the +1 sword he found at level 1 by the time he reaches level 16.
I mean, I think it's kind of illustrative when the solution to "Rogues are useless" is "well, let them pretend to be Wizards"
This.
Look, I see it like this. The first major player supplement AD&D got was the Unearthed Arcana. The AD&D UA effectively doubled the offensive output of fighters and rangers. The Fighters went from a single attack per round at 1st level with a melee weapon to 3/2 per round with +3 to hit and damage. And that's not even close to the offensive output of paladins.
Now, do you think they did this because fighters were a top tier class that was more powerful than other classes? Or was it perhaps the recognition, even in the early 80's, that the non-caster classes needed a lot more oomph to keep up with the casters.
We've Gygax's own words on these boards that it was for balance purposes (and the Cavalier and Barbarian were intended to be balanced with the casters).
The 3 fighter types, cleric, wizard, thief archtypal party was freaking deadly because your fighter types could obliterate just about anything. Heck, they were so good that this is why the casters got bumped so much in 3e. It was to bring them up to par with the fighter types.
Bring them up to par
at low levels. Linear fighter quadratic wizard
always existed. It's just that they crossed at level 7 or so in a game soft-capped at level 10. In 3.X the question is whether they cross at level 1 or level 3.
My main concern with this is that it makes it more likely that the wizard, rather than the rogue, will get the glory of busting through the crucial door. Whereas that's generally the shctick that the rogue player is angling for.
This. (And everything else you just wrote).
That's fair.
This topic is really about player-oriented rules; the magical classes. Your perspective also incorporates a broader paradigm that includes DM rules and guidelines; XP, rewards, encounter design, campaign design, etc. Those are the "incentives". And indeed, in D&D (some versions surely more than others), those mechanical incentives don't mesh with the fictional characters. I guess I just never used those rules.
My approach is to build a game around the players and their characters, and certain stylistic choices that I make. The goals, the rewards, and the challenges before them, are all to some extent functions of the players' capabilities. Thus, my incentives do (I hope) encourage the players to play well but not trash the world in the process. If I used a published adventure, or if I built encounters using challenge rating, handed out experience based on the tables, and matched the treasure guidelines in the process, I'd likely have very different experiences.
So my assumption here is that those DM rules don't really count; they're "soft rules" that many people modify or ignore. I don't really consider them much in this context. But if you're saying they incentivize the players to abuse their side of the rules, I don't disagree.
Mine is that those rules are
worse than useless. They actively make the game worse.
