Signup
Welcome to... Canonfire! World of GreyhawK
Features
Postcards from the Flanaess
Adventures
in Greyhawk
Cities of
Oerth
Deadly
Denizens
Jason Zavoda Presents
The Gord Novels
Greyhawk Wiki
#greytalk
JOIN THE CHAT
ON DISCORD
    Canonfire :: View topic - Why Are Spellcasters Arbitrarily Class Balanced?
    Canonfire Forum Index -> The Backalley
    Why Are Spellcasters Arbitrarily Class Balanced?
    Author Message
    Apprentice Greytalker

    Joined: Mar 16, 2007
    Posts: 58


    Send private message
    Sat Jan 19, 2008 4:36 pm  
    Why Are Spellcasters Arbitrarily Class Balanced?

    8)

    This question has always bugged me in gaming in general. All types of games seem to want to maintain an arbitrary balance between classes and skill sets that is completely disregarding that someone with spells will usually kill someone without them!!

    It's a fact period. Wink

    The fact is that mages and clerics should smash the other classes at higher levels unless they too have magic.

    An arbitrary decision was made wtih the lesser classes of fighters and thieves that tries to maintain some weakly defended policy to balance out the power of spells and magic.

    For those of you about to roll into a rant about game balance, there is absolutely no basis for this argument.

    The keeping of game balance that many profess, can easilly be maintained with spells in the mix, but to allow the weaker classes to achieve anything close to spell users is needlessly arbitrary.

    Fighters and thieves have very useful skill sets, but at higher levels these classes cannot and shouln NOT keep up with mages and clerics.

    We have all heard this one, "Nothing in life is fair", usually from a parent or authority figure. Since by extension the fantasy world is a rendering of a real world in a fantasy setting this nothing in life is fair comment should be represented by the class power structure too.

    Just one mans opinions.

    Later

    8O :thumbsup:
    Master Greytalker

    Joined: Jun 25, 2007
    Posts: 951
    From: Neck Deep in the Viscounty of Verbobonc

    Send private message
    Sat Jan 19, 2008 8:13 pm  

    It seems to be your own statements are needlessly arbitrary. Why SHOULDN'T non-spellcasters be the equals of spellcasters? After all, we're not talking about the laws of physics here. Magic is imaginary and D&D is a game, therefore there's simply no basis for saying that anything should or shouldn't be equal to anything else.

    But all that aside, here's why it was done that way:

    1) Different players like to play different classes. It's just that simple. And to penalize those who like to play fighters or rogues is unfair and unnecessary.

    2) The D&D adventuring party is supposed to be a team, at least to some extent. The vast majority of adventures are written to incorporate elements that require a wide array of skill sets. Thus, a variety of classes are required and to achieve the highest level of success they must work together.

    3) Clerics and wizards (or fighters, or rogues, or pink bunnies with green ears) CAN be superior to other classes in your home game if you want them to. All you have to do is adjust the details of your campaign world accordingly. However, in order to accommodate that possibility the rules must be written in such a way as to make each class equal at equal levels. In other words, in order to quantify the degree to which one character is superior to another, the rules must state what characters of each given level can do. It would be unnecessarily complicated to use different rules for each class.

    4) D&D is a GAME. As a game, it's primary function is to facilitate FUN. It just isn't fun to play a game in which another character is demonstrably superior to your own. Conversely, the fun of playing that superior character grows significantly less when it can't be shared with the rest of the group. Everyone wants their character to shine, but if one player is insisting that his character should be more powerful than everyone else's, that player is an egotist and needs to have his ears boxed at the very least.

    Hope this helps.
    Apprentice Greytalker

    Joined: Mar 16, 2007
    Posts: 58


    Send private message
    Sat Jan 19, 2008 9:25 pm  

    Cool

    First of all thanks for the response...I do have a couple of follow up comments/questions though.

    Quote:
    Why SHOULDN'T non-spellcasters be the equals of spellcasters?


    From a playability standard this can work both ways (magic using vs mundane class) ..

    For me, in your example the fighters (and I am guessing your 3.0+) and thieves gain powers far out of line what has been reflected in fantasy literature. Even ol' Gord in Greyhawk lacked some of the uber powers now ascribed to the Thief....way out of line what is in fantasy literature too.

    I would go farther by saying that if you read what WoTC puts out in fantasy literature, you will find few of the "Epic" or higher level skills of the fighter & thieves, being identifiable in the tales that they relay.

    With magic reigning supreme as rendered in fatasy.....

    The other way, when you look into what the representation of fantasy has been through the decades (in fantasy literature), the magic using far outpower the non users.

    As an example...

    In the current book I am reading is Jordan's Knife of Dreams in the Wheel of Time series, you would see a representation of how magic users are far superior. (BTW..I have played since 1976...so I have read a lot of fantasy literature). An Aes Sedai (mage/cleric in that storyline) in that game gain far more authority than the political power fighter types.

    In WoTC releases they seem to first represent my point and glorify how the magic using PC's overawe the lesser classes, but at the end of stories they are trying to find ways to thwart them....making a mages contingiencies fail is one example that I can think of off hand, but I can't remember the book.

    Quote:
    to penalize those who like to play fighters or rogues is unfair and unnecessary.


    It isn't to penalize, but to show how it would work in the Magic campaign setting. The fact that one class is more powerful than another shouldn't affect the playability or enjoyment of that PC. They are still enjoyable, aren't they??

    I am just advocating thought about how it is arbitrarily instilled into the game. I don't want super magedom...I want the mage to be the more powerful PC at higher levels that they should in reality become.

    Quote:
    or pink bunnies with green ears


    What stats are you using???????????????

    Oh....are they vorpal bunnies...Run Away............................. Cool

    I would like you to note I am not trying to sway you, but trying to better see where you are coming from, so I offer a few counters to show how I am seeing it represented in Fantasy Literature...which is where fantasy first appeared after all and is frequently refashioned in...although the MMORPG has the reins now a days.

    Each DM can make their own decision...I was sort of leading others to see what I have seen through the various incarnations of the game...it is a game designers who are arbitrarily setting what "Balance" of magic is...I just think they (those designers) are so taken with the idea of balance and appeasing the other classes that they have lost sight how much magic should dominate a world.....Yes I know each DM controls this view.


    Each to their own of course...

    Later

    Cool
    Master Greytalker

    Joined: Jun 25, 2007
    Posts: 951
    From: Neck Deep in the Viscounty of Verbobonc

    Send private message
    Sun Jan 20, 2008 4:53 am  

    I certainly see where you're coming from, and for what it's worth I agree with you on at least some level. Clearly, if there were such a thing as magic it would greatly alter reality as we know it. I also agree that much of fantasy literature presents a system whereby magic overpowers all.

    But not all fantasy literature. Consider, for example, Conan. He has precisely no special abilities other than his strength and courage - and yet he defeats every wizard he encounters. Consider also the manifold fantasy novels that allow magic only at great cost - in many of them the price of magic use is greater than the benefit.

    Thus I put it to you that there is no definite basis from which to argue the superiority of magic. It's not a subject for which there is scientific data that presents a clear conclusion. To suggest that magic should be superior because the number of books with powerful magic is greater than the number of books with puny magic is irrelevant. The fact that there _are_ books on both sides of the issue is proof that it need not be one way or the other. In other words, as you put it, "To each his own."

    And in terms of whether or not it's fun to play a character who gets outshined by a more powerful character - it's not. I've been there on both sides of the screen and I can tell you that being on the low end of the power curve gets old fast.
    Apprentice Greytalker

    Joined: Mar 16, 2007
    Posts: 58


    Send private message
    Sun Jan 20, 2008 11:34 am  

    Laughing

    I totally agree that Conan is the bomb vs mages, but he is the exception and not the rule in fantasy literature. He was one character.

    I hate to mention ol' El here but he has been written about far more than Iuz has been (Iuz should talk to his people about that...maybe do an interview or two, or maybe a biography to get his side of the story).

    You have magic usning creatures in the game like Elminster, Fzoul, Manshoon, Thamm, The 7 Sisters, etc...and there a plenty of novels out there that detail their magic supremacy.

    Then you have stories like the Wheel of Time, Fiests Works on Midkemia, I could just go on and on with it. Magic dominates the sword swingers and thieves.....even in Feists last trilogy where the main character is the Sword Master of all the Kingdom, he is bested by magic over and over again in the story. He finally gets his plot device against the mage though in the form of a hardened bean bag hurled into the throat of the casting mage, after he was conveniently distracted by the female in the room...... Wink

    It is a plot device in the story though.....if the dice favor the magic users win hands down...Conan is a human cuissanart....but he is an exception and not the rule (I do recognize there are others too).

    Quote:
    Thus I put it to you that there is no definite basis from which to argue the superiority of magic. It's not a subject for which there is scientific data that presents a clear conclusion. To suggest that magic should be superior because the number of books with powerful magic is greater than the number of books with puny magic is irrelevant. The fact that there _are_ books on both sides of the issue is proof that it need not be one way or the other. In other words, as you put it, "To each his own."


    Each to their own.....just one or two points.

    If you acknowledge that D&D is the child of fantasy literature, and you can find it statistically correct that mages usually have far more power in the fantasy literature out there....then why not clearly allow this delineation in the classes.

    Will the fighters and thieves not enjoy their play??? They will still hack and slash to their contentment.....keeping the classes fair is arbitrary which is what I mentioned and it appears that you might agree with (at the beginning of the last thread.)

    BTW...thanks for the comments.

    Later

    MT

    Cool
    Apprentice Greytalker

    Joined: Mar 16, 2007
    Posts: 58


    Send private message
    Tue Jan 22, 2008 7:51 pm  

    Cool

    Another quick point to make on the subject....

    Let me give an example to this....

    If you have a rat snake with its mundane coils and bite and you put it up against its natural nemesis the king cobra...we both know how it turns out....almost every time.... The king cobra has poison on its side.....don't the magic using classes/creatures remind you of this poison using nemesis vs the fighters and thieves of the world...????

    I shouldn't dominate the debate by the posting of the fantasy sources and the other points I have made....it is the process of natural selection that plays out here.....!!

    Fantasy literature is the source of fantasy RPG's!

    WoTC has weakend the magic classes in order to agrandize the other classes supplying them unreal powers in an arbitrary fashion.

    Wouldn't natural selection win out even in fantasy???

    Later

    Wink
    Master Greytalker

    Joined: Jun 25, 2007
    Posts: 951
    From: Neck Deep in the Viscounty of Verbobonc

    Send private message
    Tue Jan 22, 2008 8:28 pm  

    Okay, you seem to be taking this personally so I'll just make this one point and then drop the subject.

    As I understand it, you're arguing that wizards and clerics should outshine characters of other classes at the higher levels because the preponderance of fantasy literature has magic-users as being superior to others in terms of personal power.

    You've also admitted that there are some books that use a reverse paradigm, allowing non-spellcasters to overshadow spellcasters (a la Conan, etc.)

    Therefore, you tacitly admit that while most fantasy literature makes spellcasters superior to others, it need not be that way.

    D&D is, then, one of the cases in which it isn't that way. Think of D&D as being somewhere between Conan and Lord of the Rings. That's the way it was designed, because that's the way the designers wanted it. They wanted it that way because it made sense to them and because it made for a more enjoyable and marketable product.

    If you want spellcasters in your game to be more powerful than anyone else, then make it so. But don't expect the rest of us to follow along. It's just a game, dude, so who are you to say how it "should" and "shouldn't" be? It is what it is. Get used to it.
    Adept Greytalker

    Joined: Jul 12, 2001
    Posts: 465
    From: Ithaca, New York

    Send private message
    Wed Jan 23, 2008 7:31 pm  

    Oh, this is rich. Laughing

    You're arguing that because fantasy literature usually treats magic as superior to physical prowess, a magic-using class in D&D MUST be superior to a fighter.

    OK, I'll buy that...IF you acknowledge that magic, as depicted in fantasy literature, is extremely rare, unstable, and requires personal sacrifice on the part of the wielder.

    So, only one player in a hundred can play a wizard, they cannot have a physical stat above 8, and they have to sell their soul to cast spells above 4th level.

    Magic classes are mechanically balanced against non-magical classes because it's more fun that way.
    Apprentice Greytalker

    Joined: Aug 24, 2007
    Posts: 57


    Send private message
    Thu Jan 24, 2008 6:30 pm  

    Just remember to keep it friendly folks.

    Debate is good.
    Arguing is not so good.

    Smile
    Apprentice Greytalker

    Joined: Mar 16, 2007
    Posts: 58


    Send private message
    Thu Jan 24, 2008 10:31 pm  

    Cool

    Quote:
    You're arguing that because fantasy literature usually treats magic as superior to physical prowess, a magic-using class in D&D MUST be superior to a fighter.


    I am posting here and elsewhere that the classes are becoming an amalgamation instead of distinct classes. Any DM worth his salt knows that you don't award EXP for actions out of class/race role playing...so a mage using fighter skills should get NO or reduced EXP for such activities, the same goes for other classes using magic...

    The erosion of the classes is just part of the issue.

    Quote:
    OK, I'll buy that...IF you acknowledge that magic, as depicted in fantasy literature, is extremely rare, unstable, and requires personal sacrifice on the part of the wielder.


    It isn't extremely rare........hardly: Elric of Melnibone by Moorcock, The Amber Chronicles by Zelazny, The Dying Earth by Vance, more recently....Belgarion books by Eddings, Midkemia Setting by Feist, Wheel of Time by Jordan, the lists can go on and on, these are just off the tope of my head.

    It is never unstable either, and never required personal sacrafice unless you are a blood mage, Wu Jen, or other class variation that requires blood or HP sacrafices...Unstable....HAH!

    Quote:
    So, only one player in a hundred can play a wizard, they cannot have a physical stat above 8, and they have to sell their soul to cast spells above 4th level.


    You lost me here...it is not the case at all. In other setting the Deities of Magic will actually spread the mage/magic using gene to wothy family lines to pass on generation to generation.

    The stats for a mage are random like all classes, and if you allow for it there are instances where mages have high STR (I have even seen exceptional STR). It is possible. They just use mage weapons, and have to use the mage attack charts.

    You must be talking about a Demonologist for the 4th level reference.....selling a soul is their province.

    Quote:
    Magic classes are mechanically balanced against non-magical classes because it's more fun that way.


    Mechanically = Arbitrary

    The balancing of the classes is to appeal to the broadest purchasing base among the public, and is hand in hand with the generation using Role Playing Games on computers. If you don't keep the fighters and thieves arbitrarily augmented you lose that part of the gaming community as they go to games that better serve their personal proclivities.

    Part of my point is that fighters and thieves were enjoyed in role playing for years without the needless bling of 3.?? fighter and thieves.

    It is the weakening of magic using creatures and making magic a province of fighters and thieves that I strongly object to...like with my wallet.

    I have one other post here.

    I started gaming on the University of Alaska (Fairbanks) in 1974. It was table top war games first for me, but then a game called Fellowship of the Ring (for table top gaming) that first called me into role playing. That was about 1975. The facts are that Gygax and his co creator used another tabletop game called Chainmail to fashion D&D in the first place.

    The reason that I post this is to somewhat illustrate the time line of the games advent, and some of the early fantasy elements that formed the game.

    I know, I was there..... Exclamation

    Later

    Wink
    Master Greytalker

    Joined: Jun 25, 2007
    Posts: 951
    From: Neck Deep in the Viscounty of Verbobonc

    Send private message
    Fri Jan 25, 2008 11:13 am  

    So...I win, then?
    Apprentice Greytalker

    Joined: Mar 16, 2007
    Posts: 58


    Send private message
    Fri Jan 25, 2008 4:59 pm  

    Laughing

    None of us win...this is a discussion, and not a debate.

    I am simply posting the facts as I see them, and even though many people seem to want to pooh pooh the idea, I was there and I do have perspecitve on the issue.

    Of course my perspective isn't popular...but I am not posting to win...I am posting to spark thought about the current system that awards things like Experience for mages acting fighters, fighters acting as thieves, etc...

    Later

    Confused Cool
    Master Greytalker

    Joined: Jun 25, 2007
    Posts: 951
    From: Neck Deep in the Viscounty of Verbobonc

    Send private message
    Fri Jan 25, 2008 7:57 pm  

    I...see...
    Master Greytalker

    Joined: Apr 13, 2006
    Posts: 654
    From: Frinton on Sea England

    Send private message
    Fri Feb 01, 2008 6:59 am  

    I've been away for a bit and missed this post. It appears to have ground to a fairly amicable halt but I have a question or two for you Matan Thunder. Did you have a reason for your initial post? Were you seeking a solution to a problem in your campaign? Do you have a solution to the perceived problem of heavy-handed game balance issues? Does your campaign have Mages weilding power beyond other classes and, if so, how have your players adapted, especially if they're running other classes? Or did you just want to rustle up a debate (nothing wrong with that)?

    Btw, I'm not convinced that high level mages in 3.5 don't rule the roost in terms of power.
    Apprentice Greytalker

    Joined: Mar 16, 2007
    Posts: 58


    Send private message
    Sat Feb 02, 2008 9:21 pm  

    Cool

    Quote:
    Did you have a reason for your initial post?


    More an letter to the editor or editorial of my own towards the issue of downgrading the magic using creatures vs the magic handicapped.

    It flies in the face of "Natural Selection" in a major way. Like the King Cobra vs the Rat Snake. The poison (in the analogy here magic) would win out vs the rat snakes coils every time.

    Quote:
    Were you seeking a solution to a problem in your campaign?


    No, To be absolutely honest my 2nd ed game is in hibernation mode until I dig up some ol' crusties like myself that can deal with the fact that all the classes aren't created equal, and that magic is a part of the game I don't see as needing to be down-played in order to appease certain elements in the community.

    Quote:
    Do you have a solution to the perceived problem of heavy-handed game balance issues?


    Game balance is okay for what it was back in 2nd ed. It has been micro managed to the point I practically hork up each time they bring it up now a days in the WoTC crowd.

    Balance in the game is important, but balancing things like encounters, skill sets, and encounters is just needless fluff. A good DM can easily handle the issues as the arise. Making it official balancing is an issue.

    As you well know it is up to the DM and his players to find balance. The W***** of the C*** don't need to do it for all of the community. Make the balance issues optional like so many other things in the game. I don't see the need to remove the encounter with a dragon vs low level PC's moving through his/her territory as part of a necessary game balance strategy.....just "Run Away!"

    Quote:
    Does your campaign have Mages weilding power beyond other classes and, if so, how have your players adapted, especially if they're running other classes?


    The mages dominate at the mid to higher levels using the old addage "Mobile Artillery" in addition to a great deal of other powers. The idea is that the other classes have basically become super hero parodies of what they were in 2nd ed. I just don't see the need to create skill trees that don't have very good plot/life stories that support them.

    Epic level is fine, but there don't need to be super classes to meke them Epic.

    Quote:
    Or did you just want to rustle up a debate (nothing wrong with that)?


    Raising awareness, and to spur thought. The idea isn't to create flames but to cause thought on the issue.

    No one has to agree BTW...I just don't see the need for the latest batch of super classes. I also have two other points involving the issue.

    1) The entire pen and paper gaming is trying to adapt (wrongly in my opinion) to accomodate a new generation that sees power trees as class skills. Just because it can be thought of as a power tree, you do need to qualify why and where this skill set comes from.

    I do read some 3.?? and 3.+??, but I don't really have time to read it all. I am either working or creating new material for 2nd ed. I do recognize that things change, but a fighter should remain a fighter, a thief a thief, etc..

    2) I hate to mention the fact that MMORPG's have drawn off many of the magic using community. It has been noted on other sites and among that community.

    The fact is (with all due respect) that many DM's and gamers want to keep paper and pen gaming low level and power. The inability of many DM's to handle anything past 10th level is part of the problem.

    The fact remains that in my posting there are gamers out here in paper and pen gaming that might just stop their WOW character at 9th level if the nature of their posting on paper and pen forums are any indication.

    I know...I have faced it on all but a few sites. Magic is relegated to 2nd class status, power gamers are ridiculed for their beliefs, and anytime you want more than a few magic items someone has to mention "Munchkin". It is just so lame.

    Enough editorializing on that though. The thread was started to draw thought to magic in the game.

    Magic should be paramount.

    Later

    MT Exclamation
    Master Greytalker

    Joined: Apr 13, 2006
    Posts: 654
    From: Frinton on Sea England

    Send private message
    Mon Feb 04, 2008 10:22 am  

    So you would say that your preferred gaming style is one that is magic rich "High Fantasy" (I don't like the term but I'm sure you know what I mean), and that most gamers, perhaps particularly ones who play in this setting, prefer less magic powered games.

    That's interesting because I'm one of those low magic world DM's and what I've found over the years is that the more restrictions I placed on magic (whether it be items or spellcasting classes), the more respect, and occasionally dominance, the magic wielders gained.

    It's a matter of personal choice and you're quite right to say that a good Dm can sort out most problems without the heavy corporate hand and its sometimes arbitrary pronouncements. I don't normally defend Wotc but I feel a degree of sympathy for them here; ultimately they've got to produce a basic system that appeals to a broad range of tastes.

    Anyway, good luck finding the players that you need, that's never easy whatever type of game you play. Sad
    Display posts from previous:   
       Canonfire Forum Index -> The Backalley All times are GMT - 8 Hours
    Page 1 of 1

    Jump to:  

    You cannot post new topics in this forum
    You cannot reply to topics in this forum
    You cannot edit your posts in this forum
    You cannot delete your posts in this forum
    You cannot vote in polls in this forum




    Canonfire! is a production of the Thursday Group in assocation with GREYtalk and Canonfire! Enterprises

    Contact the Webmaster.  Long Live Spidasa!


    Greyhawk Gothic Font by Darlene Pekul is used under the Creative Commons License.

    PHP-Nuke Copyright © 2005 by Francisco Burzi. This is free software, and you may redistribute it under the GPL. PHP-Nuke comes with absolutely no warranty, for details, see the license.
    Page Generation: 0.46 Seconds