Will Wizards Still Lord it Up?

[FourthBear]

I believe that indeed the majority of published (and from what I've seen homebrewn) campaigns from 1e-3e have an overrepresentation of arcane spellcasters at the high and epic levels. This was justly infamous in the Forgotten Realms, where the distributions often felt to me like a caste system. You had warrior and thief types topping out around 9th, clerics around 14th and magic-users up in the stratosphere (16-30th quite common). I don't think there's too much of a puzzle as to why. How many times do we see PCs running to a high level fighter when the Big Bad comes to town?

1) The scope of influence for spellcasters is simply much higher than for non-spellcasters. I don't care how much of a sword-swinger you are, your class abilities simply can't affect the setting as much as an arch-mage with the power to open gates to other planes, teleport, create new creatures, et cetera.

2) The class abilities of magic-users simply kept increasing qualitatively at higher levels. In 1e and 2e, your fighter past 9th level didn't get much as he went up in levels. Your attack bonus went up and a little increase to hit points, but that was it. To represent a "high level" fighter, 9th level was quite sufficient. Once clerics gained 7th level spells, pretty much the same, a 14th level cleric could do pretty much everything a 25th level cleric could, just fewer times and a bit weaker. The arch-mage increased in power right up to 18th.

3) Source fantasy material often depicts the world-shakers as mages. How many ancient, lost empires do campaign worlds have that were dominated by cabals of high level thieves? About one for every one hundred lost empires noted for their mighty arcane might. Again, this goes back to point one. It's much easier to come up with plot hooks and concepts around ancient powerful magic gone awry than from some kind of ancient thief lore.

 

[Stalker0]

To my mind, high level should work like this:

Wizards are the masters of the world. They can move continents, travel across planes, have legions of minions. But if an equal level fighter decides enough is enough, they should tremble in their boots.

Wizards gain so many off combat powers that they get to do stuff all the time. Fighters fight, its what they do. But in that arena they should be the best. At equal levels, a fighter should beat a wizard in combat.

 

[Cadfan]

They should be evenly matched in battle. It seems that WOTC agrees with me on this.

The whole "wizards should be able to to kill you with a glance!" thing is lame anyways. It shouldn't be "wizards" who can kill you with a glance. It should be "wizards several levels higher than you."

Declaring that a wizard should be more powerful than a fighter of equal level violates the entire concept of "level."

 

[WyzardWhately]

To my mind, high level should work like this:

Wizards are the masters of the world. They can move continents, travel across planes, have legions of minions. But if an equal level fighter decides enough is enough, they should tremble in their boots.

Wizards gain so many off combat powers that they get to do stuff all the time. Fighters fight, its what they do. But in that arena they should be the best. At equal levels, a fighter should beat a wizard in combat.

I'm about as pro-wizard as you can get, and I agree with this, it's what I've been saying for years. If you want someone dead, you go to the guy who specializes in killing.

 

[FourthBear]

They should be evenly matched in battle. It seems that WOTC agrees with me on this.

The whole "wizards should be able to to kill you with a glance!" thing is lame anyways. It shouldn't be "wizards" who can kill you with a glance. It should be "wizards several levels higher than you."

Declaring that a wizard should be more powerful than a fighter of equal level violates the entire concept of "level."

I think as Stalker0 was implying, this still greatly favors the wizards, since out of battle they so completely outmatch the fighter. If they're equal in battle as well, that not very equitable. To date, D&D hasn't really worried too much about this, though.

 

[TerraDave]

Ahmm.

4th ed has a new lord and leader stamped with the classic king/lord/general mold:

The Warlord

Prepare to bow.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

Within D&D, there are two things that strike me as being strange and somewhat contradictory.

1) Due to literary expectations, it is taken for granted that a Wizard / Spell Caster type is simply more powerful than a fighter at the high end of the game. Many people prefer it this way.

2) Many players consider the optimal levels for playing D&D to be between levels 5 and 12 (with some variation for personal tastes). These are the levels at which Fighter types are generally very effective while Wizard types are just coming into their own.

If so many people like the idea of powerful wizards, why the hell do they stop playing before anyone really has them?

Getting back on topic, the thing that mostly balances out the Uber-Wizard to Useless Fighters at the higher levels is that if you stick to the common fantasy tropes, the Fighters generally are the ones who are kings. The ability to get thousands or millions of people to do as you direct pretty much balances out the non combat versatility of Wizards. The reason this does not become apparant in a D&D game is that no one who plays as a fighter is optimizing their character to rule a kingdom. There are plenty of items, like the Rod of Rulership, that are pretty useful to a Fighter type that a PC would almost never bother with simpley because it is just not as useful as a few more points on attack, ac, or damage.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Haffrung Helleyes]

Fighters need to be way better at defending against magic.

Actually, let me rephrase that. Fighters need to be really good at resisting magic that controls them. Compulsions, charms, etc. But they shouldn't necessarily be good at resisting magic that _fools_ them. So I would separate out saves vs. illusions and enchantments, and make fighters really good at defending against the latter.

Ken

 

[Doug McCrae]

We've been told that casters and non-casters will be more balanced in 4e. I really hope WotC can pull it off. It's very hard to do. By definition magic lets you do things which are impossible.

WyzardWhately's idea that fighters should own combat while wizard's own everything else is a good one, and retains the distinctiveness of each class. Personally I'm in favour of making every class a wizard, in the sense that they can all do magic, but that would be a massive departure from D&D's traditions.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

From a literary point of view, I think the idea of more prominent wizards makes sense. As others have said, they have the ability to change the world; power no fighter will ever have. Sure, a fighter can become a king and have worldy influence, but a wizard can have that level of influence, and more without all the hassle and overhead of armies, courtiers and the like.

From a mechanics point of view, that should not mean the wizard should be able to kick the butt of any fighter of similar level. There should be high level NPCs of all classes in the world, but not very many of them. There might be a few more wizards than fighters around since, if they decide to kill each other off, the wizard usually has more options to flee than the fighter if the fight isn't going well for him.