Has anyone actually seen this so called "caster supremacy"?

I once played a game with a guy who made a really broken wizard, and it definitely made the game less fun for everyone else.

A month later, he made a really broken barbarian, and it definitely made the game less fun for everyone else.

I've never seen it. We have one powergamer in the group, but even he never went full cheese with casters. When I played a caster myself, all the "ends an encounter in the first round" spells people keep talking about in this context were only moderately effective.

>>43737476

The utility gap is real, and it is the most clear and obvious example of caster supremacy. That spellcasters can emulate the function of almost any other class, plus having a huge variety of options that go beyond that, makes caster supremacy in 3.PF inarguable.

>>43737476
We've had this thread before, and the answer was yes.

I've never actually seen it, then again I don't think I've ever played with anybody who would have wanted to unbalance a game intentionally.

>>43737786
Have you seen it happen?

>>43737476
Yes, OP, I've seen it happen. The wizard:

-ended encounters with one spell, SOMETIMES two
-overcame giant problems with a hand wave and some bat poop (namely: "We're stuck in the middle of an entire continent inhabited by hostile natives and the only avenue of escape just flew off. Wat do? Oh, right--massive teleportation.")
-replaced the rogue's scouting with a few spammed Divination spells
-summoned monsters with impunity to flood fights with them (the druid does this, too)

So there you have it. It's not "so called," it's not mythical, it's not theoretical. Fullcasters are supreme because of, as >>43737786 said, their flexibility and limitless utility.

>>43737476
In my 5e game the party druid has a habit of blasting crowds of mooks, but when it comes to the larger targets (that have good saves), the fighter/rogue/monk are crucial damage sponges and single target meat grinders.

It just comes down to the GM making sure the wizard doesn't get to freely do whatever they want without consequence.

>>43737476
I've seen casters solve what were intended to be major problems with magic. The party is in a jungle and food/supplies are going to be a problem: magic poofs up food every day.

But I have not seen what I would call caster supremacy. The mage casts the auto win spell, but half the targets make saving throws.

If anyone should bitch it is probably the rogues out there. Some caster spells pretty much remove the need for a rogue with the only cost being resource drain. So you could end up in a situation that you have the rogue for the common stuff so you can save the mage for the important roguish stuff.

I've seen that sort of hint at happening in games.

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>>43737476
I've seen it happen, I've been the one to MAKE it happen.

Low level wizards are fine... Once they start getting the toys like "fly" though... they pretty much neutralize non-flyers completely (float in the air and spam cantrips on them until they die) and utilize similar tacts against almost every other monster type. By the time you get towards the last few levels, a single wizard can turn the ENTIRE party into an invisible flying battle-wagon surrounded by 4 different kinds of forcefields with damage buffs so high they might as well be an attack helicopter (WITH CLOAKING!). By the time a wizard hits level 14 or 15, spell slots start to matter alot less, especially when augmented with items, and what goes from a class thats supposed to be based on careful preparation and clever tricks becomes that player who's using mods to break the game engine.

I've seen it get so bad that my current group actually limits wizards to a single school of magic (sometimes two) and just gives them extra feats/skill points to use instead.

>>43737797
>Implying only people that want to break the game do so.
Nigga what. Clerics, Druids, and Wizards are so easy to break I've had newbies do it on accident on no less than three separate occasions.

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Most of my 3.X games were at low levels, where the disparity isn't that big of a deal. But, nearly every game I've been in that got to mid levels where stuff like fly, teleport, and plane shift open up, they became warped around the casters' capabilities.

I don't think its a matter of power gaming. The higher a caster is in levels, the more they have to actively try to make sub-optimal choices in order to not overshadow the not noncasters int he party.

>>43738102
To be honest, you don't have to be "good" at breaking the game to do it, so yeah, echoing what this guy is saying.

Take for example, the "fly" skill mentioned >>43738070. A new player sees fly and thinks it's awesome. They may not be thinking at the time that it gives them complete immunity to non-flying melee enemies, completely renders climb, acrobatics, terrain, ground-based traps, and possibly swimming (this one is kinda up to the GM) completely pointless. They just saw "Fly" on the list and thought it was fucking awesome. As they play the game though, they're gonna come to realize these things.

Also, as other have mentioned, they have a Spell for literally EVERYTHING, even with no skill points invested.

>Disguise? There's a spell for that.
>Lockpicking? There's a spell for that.
>Having knowledge or reading langauges? Spells.
>Healing? Spells.
>Curing diseases/poisons? Spells.
>Surviving in cold/heat/water/lava? Don't make me laugh.
>Stealth? Invisibility, lol.
>Armor? Lol Magic.
>Melee combat? Yeah, give me a second to buff my weapon wiuth stuff and then out-perform the fighter.
>Low stats? Yeah, let me just Bull's Strength myself and cast Fist.
>Crowd Control? You bet, I can nuke entire cities while the fighter and Rogue are busy trying to play flank-tag against a single opponent.

It's something like this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEZB2bZMbkA

It's not about damage or ending fights quickly, casters are superior because they bring both power and flexibility to the table, meaning they're always relevant.

>>43737476
Yes.
/thread

>>43738321

Don't /thread your own posts, especially when they're less informative than a lot of stuff in the thread posted prior.

If you insist on using 3.P, there is a relatively straightforward fix:

Remove all spells above spell level one.
(And all items, creatures, etc that require them.)

Casters keep their spell slots, so they're still going to be hella effective, especially with metamagic feats stacking up. But now they don't have any of their game-ruining fun-stoppers.

>>43738373
Isn't that basically what a Magus is? There's pretty much nothing they get later on that outperforms Shocking Grasp + Metamagic feats... and thats a level 1 spell by default.

>>43737476
I've played with characters who invalidated other party members via utility spell choices several times. I've quit games where those characters were controlled by players who actually played those options in a way that rendered other characters unnecessary.

This behavior can be worked around, by careful encounter design and meticulous book keeping, but that is generally difficult and not at all fun.

Yes. You know how it stopped? Simply asked the GM or said player if they can tone it down because what they're doing is ruining the fun of the other players.

>>43738373
I'm pretty sure wizard was intended to be played like this from the beginning. I mean, the book of spells is not here for nothing; a wizard should find his spells and then right them in his book, before he can use them. Finding the formula for a given spell should always be a quest reward (except for level 1 spells and cantrips).

>>43738535

'The group can fix it' is always true. It's why it's an irrelevant point when it comes to critique of a system. People have played and enjoyed these games, either getting lucky or putting in the effort to get past the issues. But the very fact they can get unlucky or that people are forced to put in extra work to balance and fix broken mechanics are real systemic flaws which deserve to be highlighted and discussed.

I've played a martial and felt invalidated by summoning before. I've had another player feel invalidated by my utility wizard spells. It definitely happens.

>>43737476
yep. Had a really fun game that basically fell apart when the party caster got good enough to craft magic items that replaced his need for spell slots and our need for those functions in the party. Sure, they had limited charges, but 'limited' is a relative term and they lasted long enough for him to replace them with better versions.

At low levels, wizards provide a bit of utility, and are decent at dealing a little but of damage.

At mid level, wizards have a wide variety of spells to choose from. This is where they begin to get a rep for being able to handle any situation.

At high levels, wizards can break reality, and with enough preptime they can do all kinds of crazy shit.

But at any level of play, a good wizard works as part of a team. He doesn't solve everybody's problems directly, but instead provides the group with the means to solve their problems.

A good wizard takes their tremendous repitoire of spells and uses them to their best effect while also letting other members of the party shine. If you're not doing this, then you're not a good wizard- you're just a strong one that nobody has fun being around.

>>43737476
le old "My players are too retarded to exploit the game so it must not be broken" meme

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>>43738388
I legit asked the GM to let me retcon one of my characters into a Magus once because I was invalidating most of the encounters by level 8.

Also... it was kinda boring. At that point, the idea of just hitting stuff with a magic sword like a glorified fighter actually sounded APPEALING if only because there would be tension in the plot again.

Magus'es are a good class... they don't break everything, but they still have enough good magic-related skills like Spellcraft and Knowledge Arcana that they can help advise the party through a magical encounter without everyone feeling like they're against some hyper-advanced race of magic aliens. Honestly I wish more of the magic classes were like this. Witch kinda comes close if you don't abuse some of the more broken Hexes/Patrons, as they lack alot of raw damage spells that sorta justifies and balances their utility (the still invaldiate Rogues and other skill monkeys though).

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>>43737476
It's a thing. In reality you rarely get to the level of fully optimised godwizards because most players either don't bother or aren't able to optimise to that degree (for a full godwizard you need to be able to get pretty much any spell from every book and have a DM that doesn't put a stop to it), but casters are almost universally more versitile and effective than martials. It becomes very obvious if your part has multiple casters and the rest are playing some lower power martial classes like fighters. Only thing the fighter can do is be good at fighting, and even then he likely ends up getting outclassed by the casters.

>>43738617

>But at any level of play, a good wizard works as part of a team. He doesn't solve everybody's problems directly, but instead provides the group with the means to solve their problems.


It'd sure help if the mechanics actually assisted with this playstyle.

What you're describing is like playing a team based FPS and someone is arbitrarily given Cheat Engine. Not hacked cheat engine in. Just given it for reasons nobody can really determine.

If the only thing keeping your class "fun" is entirely based on player discretion there's a fault there. And yes ALL classes rely on player discretion to be "fun" but there's a difference. The basic rule of "Don't attack the king and rape the princess when they're giving you your adventure" always stands for everyone.

"Don't cast fly because the rogue wants to roll acrobatics" is something that... ultimately is kind of metagamey. Because logically your wizard SHOULD want to bypass all obstacles in the easiest way possible but him doing that is essentially taking away other player agency. There's no reason for him to hold back other than because everyone else wants a turn. It's silly if you think about it context.

It's even more silly if say, the rogue fails his acrobatics roll and the Wizard casts fly to save him. At which point it becomes a question of "If you could do that from the beginning why didn't you?" to which the answer again becomes very meta.

I've been the supreme caster. The GM claimed it wasn't happening and I was just as strong as everyone else, and I was a little ambivalent since I was struggling plenty to stay on top of things, but the main complaints levelled by the rest of the party were:

- I was always involved in the solution to a problem. This wasn't true of anyone else. Every single time there was a dilemma or obstacle of any kind I was able to participate meaningfully at least, and was usually fucking instrumental in dealing with it. Sure, the majority of the work was almost always done by someone else, barring like one specific fucking dungeon that I think was meant to be my 'personal arc' (It was fucking trash for me, and noone else could do ANYTHING), but these things were fucking unsolveable if I hadn't been there and it happened every fucking time.

- I technically could have won any fight. Because of my various reserved resources, even if I only ever actually did this once, I had, since about the 1/3rd mark of the campaign, sufficient one-time resources to win a fight. Our battles were fucking HARD FOUGHT. This was not an easy campaign. Every battle we scraped through by the fucking skin of our teeth, I would typically come out the other side with only a couple spells remaining and a couple HP remaining. BUT this was without using any of my last resort options. I kept accumulating reserves of power, oneshots, etc. at roughly the rate shit was getting harder, such that there was all of like one fight ever that I couldn't have won us with one or two rounds worth of actions if I decided that it was the one fight we had to win without fail, with no issues. I just knew there was harder shit ahead and if I ever blew my reserves I would never catch back up again. This was not true of anyone else.

>>43737476
Played a finesse Fighter. Got outclassed by the Druid's wolf companion. He ended an encounter with a simple Entangle spell.

We were both very new to playing.

What I experienced more often was fighters/martial types feeling like there wasn't much use to doing anything but standing and full attacking, while the wiz could play on a more strategic level, or even complete the goal of an adventure on their own with some cleverness and a good deal of risk. I tried to fluff up maneuvers and tactics when martial characters wanted to try something new, but magic users naturally had a lot of interesting options.

An equally great problem is that 3.0, at least by implication, made killing monsters the most important part of the game. When you get gold for XP, suddenly being da best at slaying monsters isn't the biggest deal.

>>43738070
Yeah. Large part of the problem is that at high levels wizards just have som many spell slots (and probably enough money to easily buy wands, scrolls and other magic items) that they no longer have to worry about running out of spells.

If you had fewr spell slots, then a wizard doing the job of every other class simply wouldn't be practical, as they'd waste their spell slots (sure, a wizard could use knock to open locks, but a rogue can do it without using a spell slot). Wizard spells could still be very powerful and capable of turning a fight around, but they'd actually have to save them up for critical moments rather than throwing them around in every fight.

Think Gandalf. His magic often saves the day, but he uses it sparingly and when necessary rather than throwing tons of spells around all the time.

>>43737476
About a year ago one of my friends ran what is essentially a hard mode pathfinder campaign. Every time we fought something it was 4-5 levels higher than us. It was the first time I played anything close to a cheese wizard. The other guys were a ninja, alchemist, gunslinger, and samurai (or was it called a ronin?) So nothing too high tier, and nothing too utility based. Basically what I am trying to say is that there's no way the others would've survived fighting things beyond their level if I wasn't there. Magic Jarred leaders when we were outnumbered 100-1. Reverse Gravity'd a group of elite troops we couldn't have faced all at once. Late-end game I stopped time and that's always good. I tried to make my character where he's entirely utility and the others DPS, but I eventually without realizing it surpassed everyone else PUT TOGETHER once I started doing high level summons. Friend was nice enough to make the final boss a JRPG style final/secret boss where everyone was important somehow so others didn't feel useless by the end.

Every Shadowrun game I've ever been in, yes. Never seen it in D&D, though... psionics are way more broken than anything else and always take the limelight.

>>43738774
This is why I say wizards are fine at low levels, when Magic Items are too expensive to be practical and a single spell slot could be the difference between life or death. There's tension, resource management, planning... it's extremely engaging and fun.

Then at the higher levels it's basically like playing with an infinite ammo sniper rifle that fires rockets on full-auto.

>>43738774
Then you end up with >>43738748's dilemma.

>>43738617
>A good wizard takes their tremendous repitoire of spells and uses them to their best effect while also letting other members of the party shine. If you're not doing this, then you're not a good wizard- you're just a strong one that nobody has fun being around.

It's not the players job to make the game fun. That's the game designers job. If me playing a class normally makes other people not have fun, maybe the designers shouldn't have made that class?

>>43738189
Oh, this too. Countering wizard shenanigans meant that the world just got too weird--not in a wondrous magical way but in a "wow, I guess there's a factory somewhere cranking out magical countermeasures".

I didn't realize it at the time, but I was rather lucky that my HS group mostly liked blasty wizards and didn't care all that much for powergaming the system--they wanted to feel like big damn heroes, so we still had loads of fun with 3.5.

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>>43738783
>Allowing psionics in your game.

My condolences for having such a shite GM.

>>43738822
>>43738783

Where does this bullshit come from? In no edition of D&D are psionics stronger than core magic. Not fucking one.

Also, magic in Shadowrun isn't OP. It's a tool like any other which can be used and countered. A good running team has a mix of magic users and mundanes, because all one or the other ends up with issues.

>>43737476
So the problem is the system. Get a better system you jerks.

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>>43738840
It's more that psionics are just retarded as a concept. They feel completely out of place in most settings that aren't pandering to retarded weeaboo anime-fans.

>>43738535
You can do that, but it's frustrating when a player doesn't mean to cause a problem, but does anyways. "You were too clever, stop doing that!".

I'm fine with wizards doing crazy stuff, even game breaking stuff if it's a rarity. The problem is more too many spells that are too flexible and have no significant cost aside from a spell slot. Earlier editions had much fewer spells, and even at high levels, you didn't have tons of slots.

>>43737476
I run a game where the party is made redundant by the wizard, but everyone still has fun because the game is RP heavy and everyone has their own plot arcs like the fighter becoming nthe world boxing champion, or the their planing the next big heist or the monk phoning it in every God damn game so he can play on his phone, the wizard is trying to start a magical industrial revolution

>>43738840
I've heard they were bad in 2nd Edition.

I can confirm in 3.5 they were way better balanced than regular magic.

>>43738871
There's literally nothing weeb about them you tard. Couldn't you even bother to muster a classic complaint like "too scifi" instead of basing your sperging on complete nonsense?

>>43738951
Please stop taking the b8 Anon.

>>43738951
Generally the people I see who want to play Psionics aren't scifi fans, they're weebs who won't shut up about whatever new "schoolgirls with psychic powers" thing they're watching.

It's like the "ninja" class. Nobody who plays it ever does it because they have a well thought out serious character idea for it. They do it for vary degrees of "ZOMG GUISE! I SAW THIS IN AN ANIME!"

>>43738922
I had a psionic in 2e. It sucked. The powers were cool but drained a lot of points.

>>43737848
Sounds like you had a DM who couldn't handle mid-high level D&D.

Problem 1) Spell Resistance, varied enemies, more mook enemies
Problem 2) Don't plan a stranded situation like that when your party can teleport away unless you make a reason that they cannot teleport away. Like say its a different plane instead of a far off continent. Even if its a far off continent, standard teleport has a range of 100 miles per level. max of 2000 at level 20. The distance between europe and North America is 5000 miles. Greater teleport has an unlimited range but is a level 7 spell. At that level, being stuck at a non-magical physical location SHOULDN'T be an issue in the first place.
Problem 3) At higher levels there should be more divination protection. Plain and simple.
Problem 4) Protection from BLANK, Mooks to fight monsters, AoE, Dispel Magic, Enemies summon their own monsters

Not saying Caster Supremacy isn't possible, but your examples could of easily been solved, none of which involved peoples favorite go to of "Anti-magic field".

Also, were the other players upset with these events? The only ones that may cause issues are 1 and 3. The other two just sound like headaches for the DM

>>43737877
5e is completely different, you idiot.

>>43738987
Dude...stop playing with such shitters. This has literally never come up in my group

>>43739034
Casters have tons of work arounds for spell resistance.

And he said divination replaced scouting. Are you honestly saying there should be divination protections everywhere?

>>43739076
see >>43738957

>>43738840
>>43738951
Psionics feel out of place, like something that was tacked on after the main game was complete. It's a whole extra list of rules and mechanics to learn for something that really feels less like fantasy and more like sci-fi, paranormal, videogame, -or yes, anime flavorings.

I don't really wana learn a whole bunch of extra crap because someone wanted to be some special snowflake that the game/setting wasn't even built for in the first place. Sorry.

>>43738070
Why dont you just ban the spell "Fly" then and play lower levels ?

It's not that hard ...

>the year of our Lord 2015 and anons are still asking if 3.PF RAW wizards are bust
>still playing RAW 3.PF
mobile so you faggots are gonna get a
Disgust.jpg

Add me to the list of those who suffered from caster supremacy at the table. In fact, the last game I was in basically killed all my love for 3.5, having a Planar Shepherd and a wizard with some sort of double-casting shenanigans in the party.

>>43739100
>>43738957
Not everything you disagree with is bait. Although the anon in question is a bit paranoid, it's not completely unjustified in certain circles. It's kinda like playing with people who would inject their magical realm into every game if the other players didn't tell him to knock it the fuck off. Or players who don't like Wuxia monks in their games of sword and magic because those games of swords and magic aren't a kung-fu film.

>>43739103
Bullshit. Psionics aren't in any way more egregious than, say, swordsages; and they're one of the best designed set of classes on 3.x

>>43739089
There's a 1st level divination spell (in the ranger list, but easilly available through various shenanigans to some full casters) that literally creates a map of a several-mide radius. And that's just one of many exampless.
"More divination protection" is a stupid response.

>>43739034
>spell resistance
Made irrelevant by summons, wall spells, etc--and it's really just another saving throw anyways.
>Don't plan a...
True, but it can also be really frustrating to have to bend the world around the capabilities of one character.
>More divination protection
"Every opponent becomes a wizard".
An opponent with access to magic of that caliber could also have plenty of countermeasures to make traditional recon impossible.
>miscellaneous countermeasures
See above. At some point, most of the significant action is taking place on the level of wizards outwizarding other wizards that the game starts to sound like Trek technobabble.

Alot of what you're describing just comes down to the wizard saying "I do cool thing" and you pointing to a text block in the book and saying "nuh uh".

In some ways, it's a strength of D&D that the game changes as you level--level one and level ten are totally different experiences. But when your XP mainly comes from killing monsters, it shackles the game to an activity where the wizard can excel above all others.

>>43739254
Agree with everything you say... but who the fuck still gives XP per monster kill? I usually give my characters a huge chunk for like... advancing the story or finishing a side-quest/plot-arc.

>>43739279
*my players

>>43739112
Why not just play a different game that doesn't require you to police broken spells and keep your PCs weak?

Its not that hard.

>>43739254
A significant problem is that most anti-wizard "balancing" measures actually involve making the wizard useless. In fact, they're generally things that exist in the setting for the sole and specific purpose of making the wizard useless.

If the answer to "Why can't the wizard solve this encounter easily?" is "it was designed so that magic can't do anything" then you might be solving the problem of caster supremacy but the result isn't very fun.

Limiting the number of spell slots has similar problems, with the main difference being that the wizard can ~choose~ whether he's able to trivialize the encounter or is useless. In many cases, if the wizard decides not to use his magic, he has nothing else to contribute; his role is essentially to hold all the party's I Win buttons for when they're most needed. Which could be balanced and engaging given the right situation and/or perspective, but it's a completely different type of balance from what other party members have to deal with.

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>>43739119
I'll supply one for you, since I agree.

Get over it, 3.5 is old news, and Pathfinder is the weekend at Bernie's of RPGs. Stop being so delusional.

>>43739254
>Made irrelevant by summons, wall spells, etc--and it's really just another saving throw anyways.
Summons, see my previous post. Wall spells don't instantly win the fight, they just change geography, which is fine.
>True, but it can also be really frustrating to have to bend the world around the capabilities of one character.
If the group had I rogue I would put more traps than if they didn't. If they were a more combat heavy group I would put in more talking and less fighting. If there was a paladin in the group I would make sure to put in opportunities for Do-Good-ery. Bending the world and adventure to the group is what a DM is supposed to do.
>"Every opponent becomes a wizard".
At high levels, most baddies should have access to magic either by their own abilities or by the abilities of allies. The same thing goes for the party. Divination fails, send in the rogue with invisibility cast over him. Why not just have the wizard be invisible and sneak in? Because true seeing doesn't beat stealth scores. So now you are utilizing the skills of the rogue combined with the abilities of the wizard and TA-DA the party is working together!
>See above. At some point, most of the significant action is taking place on the level of wizards outwizarding other wizards that the game starts to sound like Trek technobabble.
The only real instances I've seen of wizards our wizarding wizards is to create a path for the barbarian/fighter/paladin to move in and fuck that dress wearing faggot up.

>Alot of what you're describing just comes down to the wizard saying "I do cool thing" and you pointing to a text block in the book and saying "nuh uh"
Did I say counter the wizards every action? No. But letting them do what they want whenever they want is just as bad. Sometimes shit won't work and you need a new approach.

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>>43737476
Yes, OP, I've seen it happen.

And it happens because many GMs don't know how to balance the game properly so that each party member is able to shine in the same capacity.
Whether it's because whenever there is a problem the wizard player chimes up before everyone else "I have a spell for that" or the other players asking the wizard first, it matters not.

What matters is that the GMs can't into balancing as well as it would be required to run a good D&D game.

>>43739408
You hit the problem whith this old, tired argument - you get a point where the defenders like you recur to circular logic. "high level opposition should have magic because it's high level" is an assumption that is an artifact of the edition, and impedes any sort of actual looking at the real issues of the game.

>>43739486
What's an example of a situation that only the party Fighter can solve to give him his time in the spotlight?

>>43739486
>And it happens because many GMs don't know how to balance the game properly so that each party member is able to shine in the same capacity.

Ugh, please, not again with this shit.
It's not the GM work to balance the game. It's the designers'.

Some of you guys should really try an all wizard game sometime. Or, hey, you could not play D&D.

>>43739534
It's both party's jobs.

In this case, the designer did exactly 0% of their share of the work though.

>>43739546

All wizard is boring

All tier 1 is very fun though, clerics wizards and druids together are great fun

I get around it by severely truncating the spell lists. Because, even not from a game balance perspective, an otherwise medieval or even early renaissance world wouldn't make a half a shit fo sense with spells like Wish, Teleportation, Scrying, anything that makes long distance communication instantaneous, to name a few.

>>43738774
>Think Gandalf. His magic often saves the day

gandalf isnt a wizard though. and his magic is like...parlor tricks

>>43739617
He's also kind of an angel... thing

>>43739534
Ultimately, the GM is the only one who can make a game balanced by forming encounters from the bits the designer provides. However, that can be much easier or harder depending on how well the system is designed.

>>43739641
All three of those examples are solvable by the wizard, and solved better by a wizard

>>43739408
Why do I only need to do this with wizards?

When my fighters get high level, I don't need to go "oh these monsters are immune to swords"
When my rogues get high level, I don't need to go "oh all the guards have x-ray vision you can't stealth around them"
When the wizard gets high level, I have to either a) make huge plans to ensure that the wizard doesn't just skip the entire plot or make other party members completely useless or b) go "oh this entire plane is immune to divination effects" which is basically the same thing as telling the wizard to go fuck themselves for daring to pick caster and picking spells they think are cool.

>>43739641
>Boulder
>Intimidate
>Tree

Well, it'd a good thing there arent any spells that cover those. Or a full caster that could get some sort of bear as some sort of companion.

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>>43737476
>Has anyone actually seen this so called "caster supremacy"?

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>>43737938
You know what else removes the need for a rogue? A 10lb sledge.
-breaks doors, locks
-thrown down a hall to check for traps
-tied to a rope and used to get places
A wizard can replace a rogue, but so can any martial class and about 25gp worth of equipment.

>>43739641
>There was a boulder in the way and the fighter had enough strenght to roll it to the side.
Telekinesis. Or Bull's Strength. Or Summon Monster and make them lift it. Or use a blasting spell to smash the boulder.

>There was a few people we had to shakedown and the fighter was on board to intimidate them.
Charm Person. Or Suggestion. Or Detect Thoughts. Or Zone of Truth.

>There was an object we had to get ontop of a tree and the fighter had ranks in climb. Guess who got it down?
Spider Climb. Or Fly. Or Summon Monster, again, to get a flying or climbing monster. Or Mage Hand. Or Telekinesis.

Unfortunately, while one can think of many scenarios where other party members can participate, it's quite a bit harder to think of one where the caster ~can't~ participate. Unless you resort to antimagic.

>>43739517
There are a few, solvable by wizards and fighters alike.

What is the point of your question again?

>>43739534
I disagree. It's in the GMs best interest to get the group of players on the same page, giving everyone a chance to shine, since he dictates what happens next -even through player input.

If he lets a player take a skill from some third party splatbook or whatever that lets the player do someone else's job and perhaps do it better, then it will tip the balance we're talking about, because that guy intrudes into the area of expertise of someone else.

Also, any GM worth his salt wouldn't let two players with evil characters group together with two players that have good characters, unless they all agree that they want a PvP scenario in the campaign.

The developers have no say whatsoever in character creation: they can't help the players more than they already try to with all the detailed rules of the book. If a player doesn't get the optimal choices and makes a character that's a little weaker than someone else, the GM will have to keep it in mind. Not the developers.

>>43739641
Wizard can blast the boulder to pieces.
Wizard can intimidate people by threatening to fireball them.
Wizard can fly to get the object on top of the tree.

to the second part: It absolutely is the developers job to make the game fun. Otherwise, why am I paying them money? If I have to houserule a bunch, why wouldn't I just make my own system instead? Or use a system that actually works?

> If a player doesn't get the optimal choices and makes a character that's a little weaker than someone else
Why is this an option? If I'm playing the game for the first time, why can I pick traits that make my character completely worthless? Let's say that there are 10 "good" traits and 10 "bad" traits, and it's pretty easy to mathematically and logically show that the bad traits are bad. Why do the bad traits even exist? Shouldn't the developer just remove those from the game, forcing players to make characters that can actually do things?

>>43739725
The point was that you can't just say 'give everybody equal time to shine' and call anyone who disagrees a bad DM. If that was the problem, then you should easily be able to give examples of cases where the Fighter can shine where others can't.

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>>43739695
>-breaks doors, locks

Because there is no circumstance in which there would be something delicate within the locked object, or a situation where you would want the door to be locked again

>thrown down a hall to check for traps
Because that thrown sledgehammer will definitely land on the single pressure plate that activates the trap

>>43739695
>A 10lb sledge.
>Taking several extremely loud minutes to open a door
>Worthless against vaults and similar

>>43739695
>Your noise alerts the guards. Your team is now fighting 10 guards all at once on the front door, and the rest of the castle is preparing defense
>Your Sledge falls down the pit trap into acid after the first throw with no chance to escape.
>You are in the desert and you sit on the sledge. You go down 1 hill and have to pull it back to the top. The GM tires of your shenanigans and you die of thirst.

>>43739755
>Why is this an option?
If there's a skill that makes someone better at diplomacy and they take it in stead of something that might give them an edge in fighting, it's the GM's responsibility to balance the game, not the developers. They put the option there for variety, to give the players better freedom at creating their character. If, however, someone makes a character that's good at talking and the GM never gets to diplomacy but straight to hack hack hack, it's not the developer's fault. Or am I wrong?

As I've stated previously, it boils down to what the GM wants the players to encounter, that makes the skills worthwile to get.

The developers put the pieces of legos there, the GM only has to use them to build something.
And as to why they would make "bad" traits, I don't have a clue. But maybe, just Maybe, you could stop whining about them and do something instead? Like Houseruling them? Or telling the player "Look, this is a hack-and-slash campaign, so it would be in our best interest if you took something that made you better at hitting things." and if they don't, then they shouldn't complain.

>>43739755
Some of those "bad" traits when used lightly can add interesting flavor to intentionally lower-power characters.
And yes, OP, I have seen it happen, because I was the wizard, however fortunately I have some restraint and branched off into interesting but sub-optimal choices.

There was one campaign that was particularly interesting, which had a background theme of "all magic has consequences" even natural and divine, so magic was something that became an "only in dire need" tool but was still fun to play.

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>>43739787
>>43739805
Oh LORD, it was a joke! From the depths of the old archived threads.

You remember funny, right /tg/?
From the time before?

>>43739844
The problem is when one class has an option for +5 to Diplomacy, and another class has an option for automatically succeeding at Diplomacy

This is where 3.X breaks down.

>>43739695
Arcane lock still beats both the sledge and a rogue.

>>43739848
What is this funny? Can you kill it and eat it? If you can't I don't want any.

>>43739848
Yeah but it wasn't funny. get bent.

>>43739860
The problem is that wizards can basically succeed at everything once they're a high enough level... often better than characters who specialize in succeeding at that thing.

>>43739848
Honest to god, if the tale of Eric and the Dread Gazebo were told on here today, it would just be followed by 137 serious spergposts arguing about whether it was a legitimate move or not.

No, but I've also literally only been in situations that could be resolved through combat.

When I was running a 3.5 game, I had what started as a group of 3 players turn into a fuck-huge group of 10. The Wizard and Cleric working together were absolutely instrumental in solving all of the late-game problems, with everyone else being relegated to effectively being tools for those characters to cast spells on and point at enemies. Everyone still had fun (the game wouldn't have lasted as long as it did otherwise), but fuck me making challenging encounters required some serious mental gymnastics on my end.

>>43739765
So you would say that someone who's "giving only the player who chose wizard time to shine" is an example of a good GM?

A fighter with strenght should be able to lift things better than others, the wizard can do so with a spell.
A fighter can intimidate someone into stepping aside, the wizard can cast fear and be done with it.
A fighter can potentially swim, climb or ride better than his peers and the wizard can just cast fly and be a-okay.

So what exactly are you arguing? I am telling OP that caster supremacy is sadly a thing, and you?

>>43739741
Or, and I know it's a hard concept to grasp after years of 3.5 brain damage, the developer shouldn't even have written that splatbook that tips the balance.
This is not an issue exclusive to 3.5, but that's the worst of the lot.

You are right that a player can make a character that is a little weaker than another. But here we are talking about a game that has the druid and the monk in the same book as though they were equally functional.

>>43739876
Ultimately the problem is that spells work by allowing the Wizard to break the rules of the game and do impossible things without having to go through the checks everyone else has to deal with.

In theory, this is balanced by a limit on the number of times they can automatically succeed at their efforts.

In practice, the limit on number of times per day is
1. Irrelevant because the situation is so niche they'll never need to do it more than a couple of times
2. Irrelevant because the rest of the party will adjust to accomodate the Wizard's needs, since that gives them the best chance of success
3. Irrelevant because the rules the Wizard is allowed to break include redefining what a 'day' is by escaping to interdimensional space
and
4. Irrelevant because they can replace personal expenditures with the use of consumable resources that are trivially cheap to make... if you're a Wizard.

>>43739860
I know anon. I know.

We're arguing around circles: I AGREE THAT CASTER SUPREMACY IS A THING, I AM NOT OP!

That's why I have been saying that a GM who wants to run pathfinder and D&D has to prepare extra hard to shut wizards down when they will eventually take the spotlight of the other players.

>>43739870
Nah, turns out you were just a humourless cunt all along
I bet your imaginary gaming group thinks you're just a treat to play with.

>>43739915
Moreover, the fact that 3.X has settled on 'number of times per day' as a balance consideration means that classes which aren't limited to a number of resources per day are made shittier, because 'they can do it all day'.

>>43739905
I think this thread has started to devolve into a bunch of people who agree bit are arguing anyway

>>43739954
I'm honestly surprised no one has said "fighters don't run out of sword swings" in this thread yet.

>>43739967
Some people can't into reading is all..

>>43739954
>>43739969
It doesn't matter, unless the GM fights the wizard via attrition and swarms of enemies that the player just cannot get away from (good luck, this is a wizard we're talking about), they can just rest for a few hours and get all their magic back anyway.

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>>43739991
That's what rogues, assassins and predators at night are for anyway, am I right?

>>43737476
/r/ing that one screencap of where a guy was gonna get betrayed by the rest of his party, and instead just wiped the floor with all of them because of his egregious caster supremacy.

I think the first to turn on him was the rogue?

It gets posted around here every so often. my image folder is too disorganized to find it though. I really should start labeling my images instead of leaving them the string of numbers.

>>43739905
Re-reading your post, I suppose my point compared to yours is that I don't think the balance issue lands on the DM to solve.

Caster supremacy is real dudes, so real even a noob wizard can cause damage to the DM's game.
It was my first 3.5 session, i made a sorcerer(not even tier 1). Every guard that should have tailed us
>ghost sound
every mob that should have impaled us
>silent image
We only started actually entering combat when the DM started making every person and animal in the realm know how to identify my whole spell list, despite the kingdom being poor and having a ban in magic and magical studies.
Even then, ray of enfeeblement was more than enough for the hd5 enemies our DM was throwing at our level 3 party.
I quit the game when he started adding armor ac to saves against my touch spells...
I may have been that guy in the first few sessions, but he could have just approached me instead of being all passive agressive... If I knew we were playing Martials & Madness 3.5 I would've made a warblade or some other shit.

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>>43740024
I just got done posting it, so read >>43739844

If I am a player and I am looking for a game, what do I do? I go ask a GM: "Hi, I am player and I am looking for game."
Then the GM will tell me "Oh, hi. I am GM, I am not having game, I am having other game. If you want to game, you have to go to other GM"

So I go to the other GM "I am player: GM told me that you are holding game."
Then he will say "Yes, indeed, I am holding game."
And when I find a game that I would like to play (fantasy/sci-fi... heroes/villains... dungeoncrawl/sandbox) I will tell him
"For game, I will make this character."
And then the other GM should tell me "Oh, no! Your character is the same as somebody else's. Can't you make another one?"
And I will answer "Sure!"
Because I don't want to overshadow that someone else... unless we agreed that I take his same skills and role in the group.

Comprende? In the end it Does fall to the GM to balance the game. He can use the pieces of legos to either put them all on one plate of the scale, all on the other... or find a good balance between them.
Wouldn't you agree?

>>43737476
My very own Jade Phoenix Mage. Far outstrips the Duskblade and the two non-casters in the group in terms of usefulness.
I deliberately limit my spell choice to make the difference not too extreme.

>>43740096
Maybe, but there's a point where the system works against you too much to make that a real possibility.

The the rest of the party is a Fighter, Monk, and Rogue, the DM probably shouldn't let someone play a Wizard. Then again, the DM should also run a game where half the classes aren't rendered useless by the other half.

>>43740360
The GM has to take into consideration the burden of work he's going to have to put into GMing a game for a Fighter, Monk, Rogue and Wizard party.

If the players aren't agreeing on what game they should play beforhand, talking amongst themselves and the GM, the blame does not lie with the developers, that's all I am saying.

>>43739908
3.5 (and PF) are pretty broken from get-go. A wizard will outclass any martial in the basic book with just the spells from the same book. Splatbooks just give them more ways to do it, although there are also a few splatbooks that make martials slightly better (Tome of Battle does a lot to give martials more things to do than just "I hit it with my sword" and adds abilities and perstige classes that try to close the gap between martials and casters, but most people hated it because "weaboo fighting magic" and "muh realism").

>>43737800
Yes, I've done it personally.

>>43740425
Not him, but it does, in the form of them making the options look equal. That's the issue, it's not like a point based build-your-own-shit game like GURPS or HERO where they mark problematic powers and advise the GM on double checking everyone so things don't end up jank. If you don't know by experience that there'll be a problem, people will just take what they find cool, which is why you have situations where one player picks a monk and the others pick druid, cleric, wizard etc.

>>43739034
How to make casters less broken
> just don't let them do anything.
A /tg/ guide.

>>43739915
A GM could enforce an actual time limit on the quest, like if the BBEG is not stopped in x days he'll finish a ritual to summon a demon lord or something. That way the party can't just rest 8 hours whenever the wizard blows his load (most of the wizard's spells that create extraplanar spaces to rest in don't affect the passage of time, just keep the people inside safe from enemies).

>>43738987
>Generally the people I see who want to play Psionics aren't scifi fans, they're weebs who won't shut up about whatever new "schoolgirls with psychic powers" thing they're watching.
As someone who generally watches a lot of anime, I've got to wonder what the hell exactly those players are watching. Nothing well known really matches that description, at least nothing airing recently.

If it were simply "schoolgirls" I would understand.

>>43737476
I've ended multiple encounters with sleep that would have fun or interesting for other members of the party.

I regret nothing.

>>43740519
I wouldn't. What does Psionics have to do with schoolgirls?

>>43738774
>Think Gandalf. His magic often saves the day, but he uses it sparingly and when necessary rather than throwing tons of spells around all the time.
Gandalf is like a Fighter 18/Wizard 2, guy.

>>43740425

So you're saying that if I'm a developer a game that people will play.

And I provide these two character options:

Super Swing [1 Point] : You get +1 to your attack.

Mega Summon [1 Point]: You summon a creature that can do the following: fly, attack at a +5 bonus and turn invisible.

Then there's no responsibility on me if I post this? If the GM doesn't realize how imbalanced this is from the get-go and doesn't instantly start tweaking or banning shit then that's ENTIRELY his fault? I have absolutely no part in this? Telling me "You made a bad set of powers" is completely wrong because the DM actually had to finish up my work?

Jeeze I had no idea working as a Tabletop RPG dev was like being a bug tester at Bethesda badumtish

Want to avoid X supremacy?

Have a discussion with everyone about expectations
Have a DM with a spine

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>>43740549
It's nothing near as bad as you make it out to be.

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>>43737476
I don't know about other systems (I've heard 5e closes the gap a lot) but in 3.5e the gap between casters and non-casters is huge.

First of all, a lot of spells are "silver bullets", the kind of spells you have no reason not to take because -if succesful- they can shut down 90% of all combats. Even as early as level 1, a well-timed sleep or color spray can completely wreck the enemy to the point where they might as well just drop dead and save your party the trouble. At higher levels the options only become more ridiculous.

Secondly, utility. Besides casting spells, 3.5e casters can do so many things. A 3.5e cleric, without ridiculous investments in cheese, can outfight a fighter (divine power and many other buffs), outsneak a rogue (one of the plethora of spells that give you a skill bonus, with one of them even giving you a flat +20 on any skill check), heal, summon enemies, fly, attack from a distance with various spells, debuff the enemy, buff the party etc. A fighter on the other hand can hit his enemies with a sharp stick and then.... yeah, hit again. Maybe plink away a few arrows if he packed a bow.

The problem in 3.5e is that full casters are incredibly good at what they do, and "what they do" is almost anything you can imagine doing.

Admittedly at low levels this is less of a deal. If the aforementioned first level wizard casts sleep he can trivialize an encounter, but if he fails then he's completely useless save for a handful of crossbow bolts he might fire at the enemy. At higher levels he gets so many spell slots that he's unlikely to run out of them before the fighter types run out of hp.

>>43740576

Yea that's why it's a hyperbole.

The point isn't to provide a 1:1 demonstration of the problem but rather to accentuate the issue to make people realize it's there.

>>43740538
Did you somehow not see the greentext?

>>43737476
As much as /tg/ bitches, no, this doesn't happen unless the GM has no spine. Also, Wizards lack consistency, where a rogue casts backstab an unlimited amount per day

>>43739103
Psionics have been around since OD&D. They are a part of D&D.

>>43740538
Nothing. I was just pointing out that it seems highly unlikely that it's some "new schoolgirls with psychic powers thing" your players are mimicking, because that's actually really rare to the point of non-existence. If they were really copying their animuus, they probably wouldn't even be playing Psionics to begin with. Most animu with schoolgirls in it nowadays are just that: a show with girls who go to school. No psionics, no magic, no monster of the week, just girls going to school.

That sounds more like a /co/ thing than an /a/ thing to me. Or maybe you were just overexaggerating, I don't know.

>>43737476
Of course. Right from the start. Every time I played a Wizard I won every important fight by dropping down the save-or-suck spells. Right from level 1 with Sleep and Color Spray.

>>43740766
And when he does have a spine (for instance I rule that a caster must be in possession of his spellbook to cast spells, no dimensional faggotry) he's accused of "being unfair".

No shit, you're playing one of, if not the, most powerful class in the game.

>>43737476
>Has anyone actually seen this so called "caster supremacy"?
As a general rule, the amount of it you see will be dependent on how big a dick the wizard player is.

Many times they won't be a dick, and mostly pick spells that don't overlap with what other people want to do.

But there are players out there that will push other people out and take the spotlight, either out of ignorance or spite.

And yes, I have seen it. I've seen a munchkin bring a 7-year old to tears because he didn't want her to have fun anymore. I've seen an autistic dickbag shut down an entire game with the right spell list.

That's the worst aspect of caster supremacy. The more power you have to shape the setting, the more power you have to ruin it for everyone else.

Like, I don't understand how bad you have to be at playing a caster to not dominate by accident. All it takes is casting AoE save or lose spells with a high casting stat.

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....As a GM I've never had a problem with wizards, desu. Its hard for me to imagine people HAVING that problem. So much of the wizards abilities that give them an edge:
Divination
Items
Aquired spells
Illusions

Depends on how the GM gives it to them, and can be genie twisted (outside your mini dimension, you see the kolbolds contructing something with your scrying. However, your top-down veiw makes it impossible to see through the trees. Wait, is that a spike its carrying?) taken away (the black knight slashes his axe through your staff, shattering it), hidden (to gain the power to warp space with Dimension Door, you must fight your way through the library of Arrak-Hustuul!) or countered with plain ol smart npcs ( you heard a sound over there? Hmm... I dunno man. Lets split up and check both, that one chick had a staff... shout if you need me).

I mean... I just can't really see it I guess?
I mean, you don't stick enemy healers within arms reach of the pc fighter right? (Unless that is intentional)

As for letting other classes shine, I think that is more a player thing then a class thing. Just because a wizard CAN hoodwink a nation to fight the dragon doesn't mean he gets the opportunity.
Meanwhile the bard might be rolling seduction after being pulled aside due to his good looks... and the queen is happy to assist.

I guess what I'm saying is, seems like pansy, short term thinking, video game GMing to me. GM = God, and can come at a wizard from any direction imaginable. Being unable to counter a wizard in a fun way (just shutting them down seems lame, except in the heat of the moment when they try something incredibly simplistic. I once had a badass knight of the realm bat a fireball aside, deflecting it with his shield as he charged the wizard down. The look on the players face was priceless)

The only time you get caster supremecy is when you have shit GMs who dont implement a way to stop it:
>Somatic gestures
You really think in a world with magic on the regular, that you would just over look this? No. You have iron mittens for mages, shackles for fighters
>Verbal components
Whats that? They have to speak to cast some spells? and perfectly at that? Sure wish there were ways to mass up someones speech.
>Reagents
This one I can see not being an issue. No one likes micro management. But some spells, like wish and shit, should have the reagents be fucking hard to get.

So, you mess with any of the above, and you have yourself a completely useless librarian. Its the trade off of being usefull all the time or being very powerful in the perfect circumstances.

tl;dr- Your casters are over powered only if your GM half-asses his shit.

>>43737476
I take nothing but combat spells to prevent this from happening to me. People talk shit about evocation, but there's never a time when blowing shit up with a snap of my fingers doesn't amuse me.

>hurr durr Psionics are sci-fi
First of all, no. D&D Psionics have just as much sci-fi influence as anything else in the game. A lot of stuff is also based on crystal mysticism and Hinduism.
>sci-fi is out of place in D&D
Sci-Fi shit was always in D&D. SpellJammers, Beholders, Illithids, the numerous modules and adventures involving exploring old star-ships.

Psionics are only out of place if you go out of your way to make them feel out of place.
>muh OP
Psionics were only broken in 2e(iirc) because it was basically gestalt, and 3E because that entire system was a fucking mess. In any other case(ESPECIALLY IN 3.PF) they are so much better designed and more balanced than anything in the core rulebook. The only thing Psionics has on any other branch of magic is damage(and that's a maybe), and you are a genuine retard if you think that breaks anything.

desu this thread is full of dummies.

>>43739103
>It's a whole extra list of rules and mechanics to learn

Do you know how spells work? Congratulations, you know 90% of how psionics work.

>>43740890
>You really think in a world with magic on the regular, that you would just over look this? No. You have iron mittens for mages, shackles for fighters
Still spell, and you assume the party is going to be captured to begin with. Also freedom of movement
>Whats that? They have to speak to cast some spells? and perfectly at that? Sure wish there were ways to mass up someones speech.
Silent spells, and there are no practical ways of keeping a mage quiet.
>This one I can see not being an issue. No one likes micro management. But some spells, like wish and shit, should have the reagents be fucking hard to get.
This is already true, and suprise mages can afford it because they don't need magic weapons and armor.
>tl;dr- Your casters are over powered only if your GM half-asses his shit.
tl;dr-Your casters are overpowered if you don't create blatantly contrived situations that mildly inconvenience them, and only before level 5.

>>43740890
If you think a GM can tell a player "You're not allowed to learn a spell without in-game work, and you're not allowed to prepare and cast a spell without specifically buying required components for it", and the players won't throw a temper-tantrum over the DM 'ruining muh player agency', you're fucking retarded.

Players do one thing, and only one thing, consistently, and that's cry when DMs put hurdles in front of them.

>>43737476
Yes, pathfinder summoner.

Eidolon made combat too easy, i was notoriously hard to kill due to all my buffs, movement spells, polymorph, and invisibility spells.

It happens, I've done it. I've had it done to me.

>>43741096
PF Summoners are actually really tame, its just that people realize how FUCKED casting is when people are capable of kill things the old fashioned way.

And actually killing things in Pathfinder is really inefficient.

>>43739034
>just build your entire campaign based on nothing but the wizard

I find it hilarious how something as bullshit as "anti magic" is a thing in caster editions just to deal with their crap.

>>43737476
I had a person in a Pathfinder group claim that a Monk was overpowered and the wizard only started getting good at midlevel.

I don't have enough experience with monks to say if that's true or not, but a broken character doesn't make a game fun at all, and illusionists just make me mad.

>>43741317
Monks...start off middling martial characters with no abilities beyond "punch", and turn into low-tier no-utility characters with no abilities beyond "punches that aren't completely negated by damage reduction/resistances".

>>43737476

I play casters exclusively in 3.5 and PF, because there's literally no reason not to.
As a rule of thumb my character does nothing but complain, blather and prepare circumstantial spells unless I think something important will happen soon, or the GM is wasting our time with long pointless combat.

Roughly 60% of the time, I can solve whatever problem the party is facing even with a generic spell list. The Tier 1 classes can power through anything by themselves, unless it was specifically designed to grind them down. Even then, the only counter to a wizard is just another wizard.

My party doesn't really know how OP the casters are, because I never just solve everything.

One time a dude was GMing and he lifted the leveled Aquarium encounter from White Plume Mountain, but somehow without understanding it. It was just level after level of combat with things that had low damage, but high AC and lots of HP.
So I used Polymorph: Hydra rolled my seven attacks and then used Abrupt Jaunt get out before any of them could lay a finger on me.
At level seven I could have the HP of a fighter, have 21 AC because Mage Armor, could teleport as an instant action (and interrupt a successful attack against me) and attack seven times with 1d10+4 damage on a hit, with a reach of 15ft. For the price of one level one spell and one level four spell.

You picking up what I'm putting down, amigo?

>>43741317
I don't know why people claiming Monks are OP is a thing, but it happens pretty often despite the class generally being agreed to eb quite bad by people who are well versed in the mechanics.
I think it might be ebcause they look a lot better on paper than in practice. They have an impressive unarmed attack bonus, but what a casual observer might not think about is that that is to balance out the fact that they can't use any weapons, and that at higher level the inability to use any fancy magical weapons means their damage ends up being sub-par. They also suffer badly from multiple attribute dependency, forcing them to spread their stats around rather than focusing on mostly increasing a couple of important attributes.

>>43740766
>As much as /tg/ bitches, no, this doesn't happen unless the GM has no spine.

I'm happy that 3.5 exists because people like you stay contained there.

>>43741262
Anti-Magic/Dispel Magic actually hurts fighters and martial more than casters.

Seriously D&D set up Caster supremacy to be a thing when they decided anything supernatural was going to be magical rather than anything magical being supernatural.

>>43740883
So a Wizard isn't a problem... as long as you give enemies abilities that don't actually exist, invalidate what the rules actually say the wizard is capable of, and assume the wizard isn't playing optimally and using his abilities to understand the new things you're giving everyone else (because, as an Int-based class with all the Knowledge skills, they probably know more about things than anyone else)

>>43741420
But they can use certain exotic weapons, right? You'd think the class would have branching options beyond punch.

>>43738723
>you're describing is like playing a team based FPS and someone is arbitrarily given Cheat Engine. Not hacked cheat engine in. Jus
>>new tf2 class: wall hacker

>>43740457
So, did the DM let casters get away with nonsense, or did he rely on faulty planning? If no, which spells did you use and how did they break the game?

>>43741040
>Players do one thing, and only one thing, consistently, and that's cry when DMs put hurdles in front of them.
Get better players, yo.

>>43740883

Of course you're not going to have as many issues if you play with someone who understands how to have cooperatively and you decide to house-rule some stuff.

But, the thing is, unless the players *know* the rules you play by, you're just dicking with them.
See, a "badass knight of the realm" can't batter aside a fireball. They can dodge it. Or they can have magic armor that lets them bypass it. At least by the rules.

Nobody's saying it's not a good idea to homebrew, but we're talking about using the rules as written, even as intended. Because D&D doesn't purport to be a "build your own rules kit" it's a fully finished product that has many glaring flaws.

What if your wizard had cast that one spell that makes him untouchable by ranged weapons(it's been a while, but it's a low level spell, that I can remember), cast flight on himself and then just, I don't know, cast grease under the knight? Maybe pair it with some equally low level flying monsters, or if he wanted to fuck with you, an incorporeal undead that sits 5ft under any melee character and attacks them from underground. Admitedly, that last one is higher level than 3, but none of the rest are.

>>43741638
Wind Wall is the one that blocks arrows, if I recall

>>43739825
How would sitting on a rogue in a desert help?

>>43741532
They can, but most of their special abilities rely on them going around unarmoured and punching people.

>>43737476
None of the groups I've gamed with have ever done something retarded or attempted to make something extremely broken. They knew if they did it would just end up being no fun. It's counter-intuitive. The only types of people who do this sort of broken shit are ThatGuys who shouldn't have a group in the first place.

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>>43740890
>Somatic gestures
Chop off their hands.
>Verbal components
Cut out their tongues.
>Reagants
Burn the apothecaries and their shops.

That is how to solve caster "supremacy".

>>43741850
You don't need to do anything more than pick druid at character creation to see caster supremacy. It's hardly a matter of being That Guy.

>>43741850
Except to avoid it everyone has to know what the broken stuff is.

>>43738070
>I've seen it get so bad that my current group actually limits wizards to a single school of magic (sometimes two) and just gives them extra feats/skill points to use instead.

Honestly, that's not a bad houserule. Are there provisions for schools that are plainly less powerful than others?

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There was once a time when wizard players didn't expect to be able to have access to all the spells they wanted.

The DM was the one who decided if your player could find a particular spell. Even if you found it, you still had to attempt to learn how to cast it. If you failed, you had to wait until you gained a level before you could try again.

If the DM didn't want a certain spell in their game, they didn't let the players find it.

If the DM wanted the wizard player to have a specific spell, the DM let the players find that specific spell.

How many wizard players that you know would be OK with this? How many of them would throw a fit because they can't have access to the spells that they want?

>>43742004
I grew up on AD&D and I remember that. It was fine, it was also part of what made playing a wizard fun.
But the fact that the wizard gets some spells of his choice for free is, after all, part of the rules in 3.5.

I was a Druid in a wilderness campaign, and one day particular, no-one else managed to do jackshit. Navigation? Best survival skill in the group(duh). Someone fell off a boat? Wildshape. It's winter and people need to get dry? Spontaneous SNA for fire elementals. In-combat I was something of a glass cannon, but we didn't actually fight anything that day.

>>43741971

It would be easy enough to reverse the "specialist wizard" system.

Evocation wizards can only be blasters, but a divination wizard can afford illusion and necromancy or enchantment (I don't remember the table off my head, so assume I got those right.)

That way you can chose to be the versatile court wizard (Divination/Illusion/x that acts as a skill character, the powerful evoker (Evoker/) or conjuror as a combat character or the midground specialist (abjurer/x).

Little bit of balancing there, give the normal specialist bonus to your primary school and you're golden.

I'm always a little stunned to see how many people are ready to blame a poorly designed game system on the players and GMs, rather than the people who actually wrote and sold it.

>>43742557
Sunk-cost fallacy.

The game can't be bad, because that would mean they wasted their money on a bad game.

>>43742004
Yeah, most players expect to just pick their shit from the lists. It's even more grating because most players don't even RP research anymore. They level up in the woods, and they magically wake up with new spells transcribed in their spellbooks.

>>43742004
It's rather confusing that wizards can just automatically get spells, without even attempting to have to properly learn them.

Sure, a fighter can automagically know how to work just about any weapon, but that's assumed to be part of a background of training. The weapons are already there to be used. I assume a wizard wouldn't automatically know every spell as they got to higher and higher levels, especially when many would be new to them.

>>43740890
>The only way to solve casters being overpowered is to force casters, literally, into gimp suits.

If you have to tie a character up in a literal straight jacket just to make him balanced then there's something desperately wrong with the game.

>>43742557
It can be both, you know.

>>43738723
To be fair, I think caution should account for a lot of the wizard holding back. What if they need that slot later on? What if they end up running a gauntlet and burning loads of spells?

Beyond that, DM should account for some. Make the area an anti-magic zone perhaps. Even if you don't, you have other options. Wizard wants to bypass shit and let no one else have input? Fine, they need to make checks to fly because of strong gales. They manage it? Fine, they air elemental attacks the wizard for challenging it in its domain.

That sort of shit. Assholeish? Kinda, but then so is removing everyone else in the games ability to affect it

>>43742620
That's how it works in the rules, though.

>>43742557
D&D haa caused some very severe brain damage

>>43742620
>>43742626
It is assumed they are formulating these spells as time goes on, seeing as how they have genius level IQs

>>43742004
It should have always been that way, it's a key component of balancing.
People bitch about how much martials are dependent on hunting down magic items, when casters should have just as much trouble hunting for the right spellbooks to scrape a single useful spell out of.

It wouldn't totally solve the issue, since the spells are quite often still bullshit, but it would make it less horribly stupid.

>>43737476
Sure. In practice, it was largely just the Wizard playing saying "Oh, no don't worry about rolling for that X PC, I'll just cast Y spell", irritatingly often. Combat also tended to revolve around him.

'Massive Magical Null Zones' became a relatively common natural phenomena after a few weeks.

>>43742626
>It's rather confusing that wizards can just automatically get spells, without even attempting to have to properly learn them.
It's assumed that much as how fighters continue to train their craft, wizards do too. During their study, they formulate new spells and expand their understanding of arcane magic (which is how they get access to higher spell levels).

>>43742910
>3.5PF has caused some very severe brain damage

ftfy

>>43737476

All the time.

I've seen a wizard wipe out literal armies in less than 3 rounds.
I've seen a bard who was more effective at melee combat than the dedicated melee units through spells, while also having infinitely more utility,
I've seen a cleric that automatically solved any encounter he was in, and still had time to babysit the non-casters and heal them.

Casters are just outright better than non-casters. This is because their limiting factor, their spells per day, doesn't actually matter, because you will literally never be in a situation where you blow all of your spells in one day, and be in a situation where you have nothing left, ever. Not only that, you DM will literally never stop you from replenishment your spells each night. In all my years playing D&D, I have not once, across several different groups, been in a situation where the casters did not get a full night's rest, preventing them from getting their spells.

The only times a non-caster will be as good as a caster is through extreme GM fiat, broken homebrews, or are a book of nine swords class (which are basically just casters)

You may have a non-caster that offers as much combat efficiency as a caster, you may have a non-caster that offers out of combat utility, but never will a non-caster be able to do both as ridiculously well as a caster.

>>43743117
You haven't had sufficiently assholish, or perhaps overly assholish, DMs. I usually make the caster have to dedicate a minimum amount of time to be able to prepare spells and such and if someone starts to get ahead of themselves usually you can knock them back down to size.

See
>>43742828
and also
>>43742004

>>43743186
So the solution to caster issues is being an asshole.
Riiiiiiight.
Keep playing 3.5!

>>43742828
>Kinda, but then so is removing everyone else in the games ability to affect it

Or you could just play a better system and not NEED to be an asshole about it.

>>43743231
I actually don't play 3.5, I started in 4e, moved to PF a while and now I run 5e. Preferring 5e so far, much sleeker.

As far as the solution goes, Im using a slang term. You dont need to actually be an asshole, just follow what things say. Wizards are meant to have to dedicate X amount of time for preparing spells. I usually make the offer ''you can prep x spells per hour'' and let people choose if they want to have a full list of spells or extra time to do whatever.

The second link also gives a good solution. Either the fighter can find a new magic weapon of +3 Fuck You every dungeon or the wizard needs to dedicate time to learning extra spells and both have to accept the DM saying ''sorry, no''. A wizard that, up until then, has only used fire shouldn't suddenly learn Sleep for no well explained reason, ya know?

First link is the example of being a dickhead but its in response to the Wizard being a dickhead. I presume you'd talk to them first but maybe you didn't think of that?

Eh, whatever. At the end of the day, casters can be handled. Do they make it harder on the DM? Yeah, sometimes, but you shouldn't DM unless yer willing to deal with that

>>43739617
>>43740545
You guys really have no idea about lotr lore huh

>>43743186
People play casters so that they can cast spells.

The best way to DM is to make sure casters can never cast spells!

>>43743332
>A wizard that, up until then, has only used fire shouldn't suddenly learn Sleep for no well explained reason, ya know?

And the fighter shouldn't suddenly learn a new feat for no well explained reason either. It's almost like leveling up and learning things is meant to be abstracted in D&D(past 2e).

>>43743310
Play a better system? Dude, Im Irish and from an area with like no nerd community. Getting people just to play DnD was hard, getting people to try other shit has been near impossible. There are better systems, sure, but learning a whole new system and having to try and find a new party or something is head-wrecking for me.

Ain't all of us got the luxury of just playing a different game. Sometimes ya gotta make do.

That said, 5e and having non-assholeish party members have helped a lot.

>>43743332
Casters in 3.PF need 1 hour to prepare their spells, or they can fraction it down. You can change that time, of course, but those are house rules, and we are back to the starting issue - you can work around things by heavily houseruling the game, but that is not how the game was written (and supposedly axpected to work), and there are other games that work out of the box.

>>43743372
I just realized: having only access to D&D in your area is a lot like only having access to public TV broadcasts in a foreign country. It all looks like it's out of the 70s and shit.

>>43743343
Nice fucking strawman man. Let them cast spells, just make it an actual challenge.

>>43743371
Well yeah, obviously. But give me a reason. Same with anyone going wildly beyond their current limits, I ask for a reason and if they havent got one I give them options.

Want to multiclass? How did ya pick up the skills? Want to learn a new spell wildly beyond what you've used thus far? How did you learn that? Wanna use a weapon yer not proficient in through a feat? How did you train yourself to account for the weight differences?

Alternately, you just say ''fuck it'' and end up with people healing each other with divine rocks and punching the ground to create earthquakes or whatever.

>>43743412
Wait, really? Shit son, thats pretty fucking fast. Yeah, thats fucked up alright.

Then again, it does fit the whole ''Casters are incredibly rare'' mythological thing. To be honest, at that point, Id say everyone should be at least a half caster if someone is gonna play a caster.

>>43743430
>Alternately, you just say ''fuck it'' and end up with people healing each other with divine rocks and punching the ground to create earthquakes or whatever.

Come on, what the fuck are you even going on about at this point?

>>43743426
Yup. I tried to run Rogue Trader one time, got a dude that named his Astropath ''Wifi'' and played them as the party bitch then complained that they weren't getting to do enough.

Conversely, in DnD I once got to pimp slap an imp into a pillar of lava and decapitate a dragon by launching myself from a catapult and pulling some great rolls

>>43743468
And at that point you've basis ally just resigned yourself to not letting players have characters they actually wanted to play.

Again, its far better to just use a balanced system rather than trying to cludge together a broken one.

>>43743488
Actual fucking games Ive been in, believe it or not. I forget how it happened, it was like 6 years ago, but he ended up with a rock of healing that he built a religion around. Dude keeps asking for the Cult of the Rock of Healing to show up in other stuff.

And I once managed to use a monk with maxed out str, some good rolls and a splatbook class I forget to cause a localised earthquake. We had all given up by that point.

>>43743500
True but its not like we all have the luxury of picking and choosing what we play. If I want to play a ttrpg that isn't DnD, chances are Im gonna need to go to some serious effort to organise it, guide my assembled party through it and then resign myself to being a forever DM. I'd rather try cobble something together desu, I got other stuff I need to do with my time.

>>43743568
Thing is, other systems are a lot easier to understand, and more fun to run, to the point that people might actually enjoy running them for you.

>>43743636
If you have suggestions, I'd like them. Ive yet to find anyone that would entertain anything but DnD but if I can go in with some ammo in the mag I might be better off.

>>43743678
You are playing 5e, right? You are still better off than pathfags.

Yes I have seen caster supremacy first hand

the biggest and most obvious gap is usually in the use of summoning spells

Summoning is far to flexible in DnD/PF and is probably the single biggest reason for a gap between casters and martial classes.

Party is fighting a big boss? no problem just summon the toughest, nastiest, biggest counter to whatever you are currently fighting you can think of to act as a better martial than all the ones currently in your party while you blind and blast the BBE from behind your creation

fighting a large group of monsters? no problem just summon a huge number of lower CR creatures to keep them all busy and fuck with the action economy. Then next turn trap half of them in some kind of tangle vine or black tentacle like spell.

Things can also get out of hand when you use spells in combination with each other. Simple things like Create Pit to have a bunch of baddies fall down into it. Cover the pit with a wall of stone. Cancel the pit spell. Now unless the baddies trapped inside have a strength score that is high enough to break the wall of stone they all instantly die with no save.

there are many other equally or more broken combinations with spells that people here can probably think of but the point is that casters can do all of this without even really breaking a sweat and can do it multiple times per day once you stat to reach mid to higher levels.

>>43743733
True that alright. Its been going well too, actually. So far Ive played a badass barbarian and the bastard child of Rorschach and Batman. Fun times.

>>43743747
Wasn't there some issue with that where the DM was meant to control what shows up instead of letting the caster choose? Or is that just 5e?

>>43743787
it can be done many different ways
you can allow the player to choose
you can let the DM choose
or as I have also seen you can roll like a 1d100 to just get something at random

from what I have read in most rulebooks though it says nothing on the issue meaning that is most likely left up to the player casting the spell what will actually come out.

in all three of the cases though summoning does nothing but skew the action economy in favor of the player who summoned the creature and allows them to do really really stupid shit that they normally would never be able to do.

Martial classes have no way to compete with this and cannot ever put the action economy back into their favor one the casters start summoning minions.

Haven't really seen it but then most of the time my party has either been all half casters or 2 martials and a caster and the martials were more valuable than the caster. At least in my current edition. In PF? Different story. Casters have to be countered by the DM in PF I find, rather than just accounted for

>>43743856
Well, to be fair, if the DM makes the caster just summon an assload of squirrels, the caster hasn't gained much power.

Still though, you have a point. I'll keep an eye out for that in future games I DM.

>>43743787
Well, yes, in theory, the summons are controlled by the GM. But the summoned creature is supposed to obey the summoner, especially if they share a common language and the summoner can give precise instructions. It's also easier on the GM to just let the player control his summons(up to a point, anyway - obviously he should slap the player if the summon tries to do something that wouldn't make sense).

>>43743925
I mean beyond that, like people often let the caster go ''I summonX amount of bears'' when I think it was meant to be the DM that chooses what is summoned based on conditions the caster and spell provides. I dunno am I just thinking of a FAQ from 5e though.

>>43737476

If anyone answers "Yes" to your question, don't believe them. If you have a party and the spellcaster is doing everyone's jobs for them you don't have a broken spellcaster, you have an awful DM.

If your spellcaster feels as though he can prepare a bunch of utility spells to outclass the rest of the party at their roles, then you're simply not giving your spellcaster enough spellcaster-specific challenges that will expend his resources. You're not designing good encounters, you're not providing enough out-of-combat tasks or mysteries that they can solve, and you're not creating problems that take actual teamwork to fix.

I play D&D, and to a degree D&D is about resource management. If you're not forcing your wizard to manage his resources, you're simply doing it wrong.

Moreover, you need to show a spellcaster that just because he can do everything doesn't mean he's the right person to do everything. When he uses his wasteful spells to sway social interactions, don't make them go universally well for him. In a fight, have his wanton use of highly destructive spells cause collateral damage that fucks him over in the long-run. Make mages socially unacceptable in the world you create so there are checks on their behavior in town.

Shit, there's so much you can do if you think of tabletop as more than a set of rules that are or aren't broken.

>>43739515
I will assist in his argument that high level opposition will eventually need that or gm fiat. Or you just need to build better villains. Take your pick. If your players are playing broken characters, make something so broken it breaks the rules. Because you're in charge. Duh.

>>43743787
Not in 3.X or Pathfinder. Its explicitly up to the player to choose what kind of creature is summoned with every casting.

>Consider the 8th level druid. Now, an 8th level druid can do many things, like cast spells or shapeshift, but they also get an animal companion. At 8th level, their animal companion is likely to be a brown bear. Now, a Brown Bear gets 3 attacks a round, is Large (he gets free attacks whenever anyone moves up to him), has a 27 strength, and can make grapple checks as a free action whenever it hits you. An 8th level fighter, for comparison, can only make 2 attacks a round, although he probably has better accuracy and AC and he should have more tricks to use than a bear.

>But that's just one of the druid's abilities. The druid can also turn into a brown bear. So every time she wakes up in the morning, whatever else she does, an 8th level druid is, at minimum, 2 brown bears.

>Except one of those brown bears can cast spells. There's a feat in the PHB that lets you cast spells while wildshaped without any penalty at all. Oh, and any magic cast on the druid automatically affects its animal companion for free. Druids get many, many spells that benefit animals, so this is a useful power.

>So a druid is like two bears, each of them capable of more attacks per round than a fighter, except both bears can fly (Air Walk), both of them have magically enhanced claws, and one of them is throwing lighting bolts and and turning the ground to spikes and summoning more bears.

>That's caster supremacy. One guy gets a sword and armor, the other person is an aggressively hegemonizing ursine swarm.

>>43744038

The fact that you have to go out of your way to fuck them over pretty much proves that you are wrong.

Think about it, you have to allocate special situations to deal with them in a way that the rest of the party can't do anything about.

>>43744038
>you're not giving the spellcaster enough spellcaster specific challenges

What, so you have to put in a problem only the caster can solve, hope he has the right spell prepared to solve it, and hope he assumes that only he can solve it instead of deciding to save his spells for something else?

Might as well just house rule him to have less spellslots and save everyone the trouble.

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>>43744346
I don't get how anyone can seriously say that this a good system, and that its the either the GM's failure that they can't stop the fighter from feeling outclassed or the druid's fault for making an effective character with the basic tools provided in the PHB.

>>43744379
Not that guy but its not even fucking them over, its making it so magic isn't a ''fix everything'' button. And every class gets that sort of shit. Like, do you think the Barbarian with 0 sneak skill is gonna be able to take over stealth duties from the rogue? No, some classes have specific roles and thats fine, thats why there is a seperate class with that role.

>>43744463
Well, having the right spell prepared is kinda what playing a wizard or the likes is about. A rogue needs to bring the right gear, a fighter needs their weapons and armour etc, a wizard needs to prep appropriate spells

Why the fuck are you play it /RAW/ of all things? There have been fixes and rebalances (Rebalancing Compendium comes to mind) for a *long fucking time*.

Stop bitching about RAW when we have the internet.

Also psionics are amazing and the only better designed thing in the shithole that is 3.pf is the Tome of Battles.

>>43744379

I can't argue that spellcasters are more challenging to handle, but I reject the premise that they are "supreme". I'll also admit I approach D&D from a storytelling perspective and not a mechanical one, and that's how I can justify a spellcaster having demonstrably more options while still rejecting that it's better or worse than any other class.

In a story, there are always reasons why, sorcerer or soldier, people can't just do whatever they want. Those reasons are social, societal, and they have repercussions that can't be assigned a numerical value.

So while I can't argue that, say >>43744346
this guy can turn into two magical bears in 3.5/PF (though I play 5E) I can tell you that doing such wouldn't be an option he'd always have, just like assassinating a rival wouldn't be an option a rogue would always have, just like settling a difference in an honor duel wouldn't be an option the fighter would always have, just like throat-punching the duke wouldn't be an option the monk would always have.

Context and in-game considerations matter and they're the best way to help your players have an "even" gaming experience.

>>43737491
Everyone else is babies

>>43743047
Which still hurts the fighter more.

~~WoooooooooW~~

>>43744481
BRAIN.
DAMAGE.

3.PF induces brain damage, it's all I've ever been able to work out.

>>43744523
And if you prep a puzzle just so the wizard has to burn a spell and the wizard didn't prepare it, you've stalled the game for however long it takes him to switch at best, or caused a TPK at worst.

>>43744576
Yes, and now you have to explain, in detail, how the caster can't do all that and more ANYWAY, unless you actually go out of your way to fuck'm over.

Give an exhaustive list of ways wizards can't do both everyone's jobs and their own.

Because I'm going to be pretty sure, unless you twist things like MAD to an insane configuration, you won't. Come on, we've all got our ears open.

>>43744789
Well, yes but how is that any different than doing something similar for a, say, rogue? I mean, if you set up something that requires the rogue to have x doses of a specific poison, say, and they don't then you have the same problem.

Thats kinda how the game goes and thats kinda why people say its at least partially about resource management.

And, to be fair, theres very rarely a situation where the wizard would need a specific spell. Most puzzles have multiple solutions, like theres multiple ways to open a door. You can pry it open, cave it in or pick the lock. Probably more.

>>43744874
And Wizards are more likely than anyone else to have a solution to any given problem. Which brings us back to the original point.

>>43744956
Well yeah but then the wizard needs to make a decision. Burn the slot now and risk being screwed over later on when you need a slot of that level or let someone else step up.

Caution should be a wizards limiting factor. If they are able to confidently throw a spell at everything without any worry of running out, you aren't giving them enough to deal with.

>>43744792

I really don't, you patronizing cockleak.

A DM creates the world and all of its social/political institutions. You can add any flavor, variation or rule to your game world's social contract with the players. You can influence how they behave without having to be outlandish.

In its basic essence you have to create a world in which the backlash for a character unleashing power is appropriate to check the power unleashed. If a wizard comes into a town and gets roughed up by a few thugs and fireballs them in an alleyway, the response from the society around him should make him think twice about being so irresponsible next time. Maybe he gets arrested, maybe he gets kicked out of the city he wanted to be in to buy his phoenix feathers. Maybe he scries a secret meeting and uses that knowledge to blackmail someone. Uh oh, the victim finds out and comes hunting for him.

All good stories are made by complicating the protagonist's best intentions, and you're dumb for thinking that doesn't apply to D&D.

And if you find your PCs in a bunch of situations in which they're just murdering monsters or NPCs with no strings attached, watch out, because you might be a bad DM as well as the unrepentant douchebag you already seem to be.

>>43745029
I once had a sorcerer in my party that wanted to use fire to solve everything, even if I warned him he was in a wooden building. So one time I had the building catch fire and start collapsing around him. He survived, just about, but it made him realise the risks involved and he became more conservative and clever as a result.

So yeah, this is a good way to handle it. Caster Supremacy is still an issue but you mitigate it and make your players more wary to needlessly exploit it.

>>43745029

Yet this wouldn't happen to non-casters.

This is the fucking point, get it through your skull.

The fact that you have to complicate things for them to make them balanced is WHY THEY ARE POWERFUL.

>>43745029
>>43745093
Thinking Fireballs are the problem with casters is the ultimate sign you don't actually understand caster supremacy.

>>43745029
So...you have literal jackshit, but here you are, shooting off your fucking mouth about how it's not a problem.

GENIUS.

You really should go dunk your head in the toilet. Don't come back up.

Not a single fucking one of your 'solutions' doesn't apply to a non-mage just as simply, if not HARDER because guess fucking what? A WIZARD CAN THEN JUST THROW MORE MAGIC AT IT AND THE PROBLEM GOES AWAY.

Literal dogshit.

3.PF, everyone. Fucking. Eternal. Braindamage.

>>43745289
>>A WIZARD CAN THEN JUST THROW MORE MAGIC AT IT AND THE PROBLEM GOES AWAY.

But if the spellcasting is what got them in trouble in the first place, is more spellcasting really what's going to fix the problem?

Maybe and maybe not. As a DM you have the right to decide how people interpret PC actions.

And when I say PCs, I really don't just mean spellcasters. This rule goes for everyone, as I said earlier. Any character who has any talent should find that talent regulated by social pressures that they don't want to defy. No "prevented", mind you. Not "fucked over" or "ganked". Just regulated.

Also, every spellcaster is not a level 20 spellcaster. Not every spellcaster can prepare the right spells everyday. Every spellcaster in your game is not going to be able to foresee and counter every problem that gets thrown at them, unless you allow them.

Which I'm sure you would, because you're not very smart. But that's okay. Keep paying close attention and I'll help you out.

Because you see, while in a theoretical sense a player who has read a pre-made module can build a wizard which can conquer it single handedly, that's not the reality. I know talking about reality to a fa/tg/uy is really dumb, but I'm trying to tell you that in the real world things aren't as clear cut as you'd like them to be, you've got to be inventive to keep your game in line against any player of any class who tries to break it.

Mine is one of many strategies that work to do that.

>>43742943
That's bullshit, though. Every other resource needs to be gathered.

>>43745619
Sure thing, bubby. Keep thinking that you're not magically twisting the world to punish those damn dirty PCs for daring to play magic users.

Perhaps you've even managed to convince the PCs it's for their own good!

But your ideas are literal dogshit.

Because everyone's omniscient and can tell who needs to be 'regulated' instantly, sure.

>>43743117
>I've played with an impossibly incompetent DM.

>>43741262
>>43740496

Glad at least two of you spotted this. It amazes me how oblivious the DnD apologists are around here.

>>43745619
I find it hilarious that you, of all people, called someone else patronizing.

>>43745707
As I've said repetadly: It causes brain-damage. It HAS to, because no one with a fucking brain would dribble out horseshit like

>>43745619
>>43745029
>>43744576

He manages to actually overlook that the power of the druid isn't in the bear thing. That's just something the druid can do with minimal cost and investment.

In ADDITION to the bear thing, which fully and totally renders fighters obsolete, they are still a full fucking caster.

>>43745289
Stop feeding the troll.

>>43742004
Being perfectly honest, this shit right here is EXACTLY what the main problem with 3.5 is. Older editions of DnD had the wizard level slower, have to find and learn spells/spend time making spells and components were a thing. 3.5 said fuck the book keeping, the majority of people, (our target consumer audience) ain't got no time for that. So the levels were normalized, and most people literally assume that shit like >>43743343
>>43743047
>>43742626 (THIS ONE IN PARTICULAR)
Is just inherently true of casters. That and you have the internet to basically say, hey do X/Y/Z and you destroy the entire campaign by yourself lololololololololololololol. That and DMs having to do even more bookwork to keep up with the flying, summoning, divining, exploding, making cash out of thin air - ing, bullshit guy (ESPECIALLY when the wizard just straight DOESNT keep track of his spell usage, this happens a LOT in my play groups), the DM not know the interactions of how higher level spells work (this happened in several of my groups where the wizard was a force missile mage and he still managed to break the game) and in general players being lazy and there NOT being rules to back the DM up when they are being lazy about spell usage/lying about spell usage all combine to mean that, MY CLASS HAS MORE RULES AND ABILITIES THAN YOURS, FUCK EVERYONE ELSE.

>>43745695
>I've played with an average DM.

FTFY

>>43745695
Well of course. What other type of person would willingly run 3.5?

>>43745714
You've never been spoken to in an insulting way and responded in an insulting tone?

>>43745754
The 3.PF wild shape with spells was a bad rule. One that's been fixed in 5E where you can't do it until level 17.

Every game on earth has powerful builds and classes that can be used by a tactical player to gain advantage. If you're in that scenario, no matter the game, you need to use your mind to discourage that sort of behavior and make people understand that while the numerical rules may make a player think they can do anything, the incalculable rules of a living, breathing world are entirely another matter.

Spellcasters aren't ruinously overpowered. They don't make others obsolete. Characters are more then automatons who mindlessly follow numerical outcomes.

>>43746111
The average DnD group says otherwise. Most people dont want to do all of that book keeping in the background or just want to play that way (thats why there is a guy screaming DAINBRAMAGE in the thread).

>>43746111
5e is fine, yes.

However, we are not fucking talking about 5e, we're talking about 3.PF, where, in fact, THEY ARE RUINISALLY OVERPOWERED AS PROVEN SEVERAL FUCKING TIMES IN THIS THREAD.

The fact that you can't seem to understand that, is why we are laughing at you.

My fucking bear, as a druid, means the fighter has no fucking job. He's fucking obsolete.

As much as you want to cry and whine? Yes, the numbers do play a fucking part, it's why we're using a GAME. SYSTEM.

The fact you stumble at the first stepping stone is insane. Just. Stop.

>>43746317
He is a troll just stop. Your sperg only feeds him.

>>43746359
Yeah, I'm finished.

Just wanted to finish yelling at some retard that deserved it for once. Clear the system, as it were.

>>43737476
Yes but usually the trade off for caster supremacy is even when you're a min maxing rules lawyer that can bend everything into a simple solution with a utility spell at level 3...you'll still spend fifteen fucking minutes looking for the effect in the rulebook because notecards/bookmarks/writing down your spell list is somehow a fucking silly concept to them.

Now excuse me, I need to flip through a fucking monster manual eighty times to make sure I have this data right for my own game.

>>43737476

The fact that you haven't seen it apparently and also think it might not actually be real means you're too fucking stupid to be posting here and should have your posting rights revoked.

2+2 = 4? 10 > 4? BUT HAVE YOU SEEN IT?!?!

>>43745282
No, I understand it. They can do just about everything in PF, and better than most other classes usually.

Without major homebrewing, or abandonment of the system, the only solution I see is to detract in some way (add social reprecussions perhaps) or leave them in the state of having to constantly judge ''Is doing X worth the spell slot? What if we get swarmed and I need it later?'' etc. That is, however, dependent on refusing them item creation feats. If they get those, game over basically.

>>43748161
As it happens, thats largely why I didn't run PF longer than 1 session. I switched to 5e asap, it has a lot of that dealt with. Wizards are still powerful but less ''Lasers everywhere+magic fix everything button'' and more like they have their niche but aren't the be all and end all.

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A lot of the problem with wizards is that so many people use their spells to just work around all problems, right?

Well what if I just create a wizard that's best at large, destructive spells that shouldn't be wasted on petty enemies? Just save a few Magic Missiles for regular combat, maybe a support spell or two, and then just be a combat monster you pull out when you need the gloves to come off. Regulating myself as a wizard instead of trying to force the game or the GM to regulate me.

>>43748355
Ideally, thats what most wizards should do. Or even if you have some utility then have only a few uses so you need to regulate that too.

If you trust yourself to resist the temptation and your DM trusts you, go for it

I've seen it happen without the caster in question even trying. I've seen casters be the most crucial character in any situation, in or outside of combat, by only casually glancing at their spells. I've done that myself, without even trying either.

If you ever play in a game (of appropriate system) with a caster who wasn't trying to gimp himself on purpose, you're going to see it.

>>43748355
>>43748384

>Guys, the problem can totally be solved if I gimp myself on purpose and make a conscious effort to be bad and obsolete!

You people are part of the fucking problem.

>>43737476
I've seen it in multiple games, across multiple systems.

>>43740576
It's exactly that bad, that's literally just the tale of Fighter and Druid.

>>43748450
So wait.

Lets assume this person lives somewhere where organising a group isn't easy, right? Say...rural Ireland.

The only groups this person has access to want to play DnD, perhaps even PF. The person wants in, likes the system, decides to join.

They want to play a caster of some sort. The party has no caster lined up and are starting a new campaign wherein the DM wants to run some stuff which sort of requires a caster.

Are you saying its in this persons best interest to go full caster supremacy when the DM just wanted a caster for plot purposes? Or should they simply relegate themselves to never getting to play a ttrpg, at least not for an extended period?

Or is maybe gimping oneself a little preferable to these options? Hmmm?

>>43748551
>If I build a very overly defined, completely onesided scenario for my benefit, then I can shift the goalposts and win this argument!

Yeah, no. First of all, this isn't about what exactly you should do in a farfetched as fuck scenario like that, this is about the fact that caster supremacy exists, and you can't fix the central problem by making a gimped-as-fuck wizard and purposefully choosing to play unoptimally.

Second of all, if a group specifically requests that you make a fucking wizard, then they should probably not cry when the wizard proceeds to function to standard, not even optimized, functionality of the class and trivialize the other characters.

Third of all, this scenario is still fucking retarded and ignorant of the whole issue, and you should feel bad for making it.

Yes. I played in a group that featured an artificer played by a guy who knew what he was doing and used his downtime to its full effect. Short of denying him downtime (which screwed everyone else just as hard), there was very little that could be done to effectively challenge him.

>>43748704
Actually, if I may, my statement originally was in relation to someone elses question, not the overarching thread topic.

As for the scenario, as a rural Irish DnD player its something Ive seen a number of times. Currently I forever DM 5e cause otherwise I wouldnt fucking play. But dismiss it as fits your argument I suppose.

Dont get me wrong, I aint saying askibg for a caster sans cs in pf is logical but if yer in my situstion you dont really get the luxury of being picky.

>>43748704
Actually, that is a way to fix the problem. If you don't like caster supremacy, make it so that your casters aren't so supreme. Homebrew the rules if you have to instead of complaining about the problem and not doing anything about it aside from banning wizards from your game. Even something as simple as preventing a wizard from taking regular naps to refresh his spells and keeping to a more regular sleep schedule could change things greatly.

I did not understand caster supremacy until I played, ironically enough, a fighter. Now, this wasn't modern D&D. It was 2e, and the fighter in question managed to be very optimized in what he did. Partially because we had some pretty terrible houserules in play that basically meant that warriors would become ungodly monsters after a few levels. I saw this beforehand and warned them, and was promtly ignored because they thought I was simply sperging about statistics. To make things worse, we had no casters at all, and thus nobody to look even more ridiculous. We had a paladin (much tamer due to some terrible decisions), a thief and a bard.

So, long story short, I was a level 5 fighter with a 18/00 strength and mastery bonuses. And full plate. And I dual-wielded, because that's the most sensible way to fight at lower levels. This meant that as soon as I jumped into a fight, I became an ungodly blender that instantly ruined everyone's day and basically ended the fight single-handed and trivialized any challenge that the rest of the party had any business taking on.

If I didn't purposefully try to leave some for the others, my character ended up murdering the fights by himself. As soon as I actually did what I was supposed to do, I trivialized the encounter, made others feel unnecessary and had to watch my DM get frustrated as fuck.

It felt bad and I actually retired the character, because holy fuck I don't need to be feeling guilty about playing my character in a functional way.

>>43748551
It's the jedi rules. Either everyone should be a caster or nobody should be a caster.

>>43748828
Rural Irish DnD player being forced to play a single class in a way that supports your argument is in no way the same as Rural Irish DnD players existing. And nowadays, the Internet and the ample, easily accessible gaming possibilities that brings have made this point very, very moot.

Also, the adage is that no game is better than bad game, and this is very much true. If you enjoy being nervous about flexing too hard and making everyone jealous of your massive muscles, then by all means do play. But as these threads show, many people have a huge problem with this issue, and I'd seriously just suggest not playing if the choice is bad game that will cause problems and grief or not playing at all.

>>43748858
THAT is a solution. Actually changing the rules so that the wizard player doesn't need to feel guilty for doing the regular things his class suggests is a great solution, and what is actually often called for. The player having to consciously regulate himself and gimp himself is not.

>>43748948
Internet? You obviously arent irish. We have shit for internet, like pureed shit. I can barely get on here reliably, let alone roll20 or the likes.

You do have a point though. I have no idea why the dude was asking that and, frankly, its a shitty solution. But its a solution that to some may be necessary.

Alright, let me lay it out simple.

1. A character's 'power' is defined by their capacity to resolve obstacles
2. Casters have the ability to overcome obstacles more effectively than non-casters. This is due to a combination of versatility in approach, effectiveness of their spells, and ability to access capabilities non-casters cannot.
3. Ergo, casters are more powerful than non-casters

There are four ways to resolve this problem.

Method 1: Do not present characters with obstacles. With nothing to overcome, all characters are equal. This, generally speaking, is a poor idea since conflict (and thus obstacles) is the root of adventure and entertainment.

Method 2: Reduce the versatility of casters. If their 'toolbox' of spells is small, they have fewer opportunities to resolve obstacles using magic since fewer of their spells are applicable. Making spells more narrow in their effects is another way of presenting this method.

Method 3: Reduce the effectiveness of spells. If spells can be disrupted or resisted easily, have temperamental effects, or are only marginally more useful at problem solving than easily accessible mundane options, casters become less powerful.

Method 4: Allow non-casters to perform the same kinds of problem-solving that casters can. The issue with this method is that as magic becomes more powerful, it becomes increasingly difficult to justify a mundane alternative. A short-range teleport requiring line of sight can be compared with a long-distance leap or sprint, and is thus comparable. A teleport across a city cannot, unless the martial character can leap tall building in a single bound. Travelling to another dimension simply isn't possible without magic. Thus, this method essentially only works in a low-level game, or one where magic is very limited and comparable to physical feats of daring-do.

Method 5: Force the party to be all casters or no casters. This 'Jedi' rule functions only if all casters use equally powerful classes/options.

>>43738822
I have allowed psionics into my 3.5 games in the past (was at the time quite ignorant of them as a whole but I trusted my player). The last thing that happened before campaign end was this flying mad woman blowing up and burning down an enemy pirate ship without problem. Never again

>>43749114
This leaves us with four viable options (excluding Method 1).
1) Limit the versatility of casters significantly.
2) Reduce the power of spells significantly.
3) Give non-casters equivalent versatility and power
4) Make all characters casters, or prohibit spellcasting entirely.

I should mention that these assertions are based on the D&D 3E and 5E core rulebooks, and 3E at least has attempted the first three options over the course of its history. It created casters like the Warmage, Dread Necromancer, Beguiler, and Shadowcaster that had far more narrow spell lists. It created the Truenamer, which had access to weaker supernatural 'spells' and (if the math had been done properly) would have worked well alongside non-casters as an equal, despite its versatility. It created the Book of Nine Swords, which gave martial characters some significant options to put them in league with casters, at least on the battlefield.

>>43749149
Wizards can do the exact same thing at way less cost.

>>43743117
A terrified marathon in the roots of a mountain, pursued by literally hundreds of thousands of mooks and a few dozen elites is kind of a staple of fantasy. As is the party trapped in a hell plane where the literal ground becomes an enemy mob if they tarry too long.

I house rule force effects to have a break DC, extra dimensional spaces like Magnificent Mansion/rope trick to be vulnerable to traditional B&E if the entrance is noticed, make immunities and auto-succeeds (FOM, Knock, et al) grant bonuses instead, Grant shield bonuses to touch AC, give non-flatfooted characters welding steel weapons a BAB vs spell power roll to deflect hostile ranged spells, and let martials of heroic tier or higher use a charge movement to climb the air in a straight line, and it's still possible for casters to break the game unless I tailor encounters to consume large numbers of spell slots.

I tell you what, having the fighter and rogue have to lock down the entrance to the rope trick for 8 hours while the casters rested for the first time in 3 days made for some tense fucking gaming though.

>>43741153
> No really man, PF Summoners aren't OP
Seriously, fuck you and fuck everything you stand for you stupid nigger. The last time I played a game with a summoner, said summoner was one of those kinds that forsakes his Eidolon for MORE summons. He just spec'd into summoning more shit, and more powerful shit.

His character was so obscenely powerful that at Level 3 he was able to solo a CR15 encounter(Which consisted of 25 wolves, 4 Direwolves, and a level 6 werewolf druid).

>>43749623
Pathfinder Summoners are notoriously overpowered. Summons mean more actions and more bodies, which means as long as your character is not themselves killed you can reliably stomp the shit out of nearly anything.

One time I played a summoner's Eidolon. Just the eidolon, with the Hit Dice increased to 15 and the BAB increased to full, since it's an Outsider. I was easily one of the strongest characters in the party, only outshone by the Conjuration Wizard. Huh, fancy that, he was a summoner.

>>43749758
>>43749623
Pathfinder Summoners can also stomp all over a Rogue at the same time as a Fighter by focusing their Eidolon entirely on skills and using the free Summon spells instead for combat use.

And that's even before you get into Buff spells or anything else.

>>43737476
Caster supremacy is primarily a product of bad DMs that don't know how to say no to a shitbird's "creativity".

>>43750109

You don't need creativity to give a monster ~ -20 dexterity.

Hell, you don't need creativity to "sleep" away any encounter till 4th level, then move to the next power option.

I will never understand how anyone can see Pathfinder as anything but a huge disappointment.

I was one of the biggest haters of 4e, and was excited as shit for Pathfinder, right up until it came out, it fixed none of the issues it was apparently made to fix and just added more problems, it was so depressing that I dropped 3.X as a whole after reading the core rulebook.

>>43750246
You're totally welcome to think that. Have fun playing something else instead. I'm serious, there are better games and I hope you find one. If you like the D&D model I recommend:

>13th Age for decently balanced tactical combat that makes martial characters fun to play
>5th Edition for a good overall balance but low options and casters still having an edge
>Dungeon World for very simple mechanics that get out of the way when you want to RP
>Legend for good variety and interesting mechanics if you don't mind making every monster from scratch

I play Rifts, and I can confirm that caster supremacy exists there as well.

>>43749813
You act like the rogue isn't one of the worst classes in PF.

>>43750319
If they're going to pretend like it isn't garbage, I think a class that can get a free skill monkey alongside a free army of fighters is a fair complaint.

>>43750335
Yeah, fair, sure.

Summoner is still a full tier/tier and a half under the big boys, though.

>>43750109
>Caster supremacy is primarily a product of bad DMs that don't know how to say no to a shitbird's "creativity".
No, caster supremacy is primarily a product of people being afraid of having to audit the entire library of fucking rules that exist for the game in order to eliminate all the possible broken combinations.

No one complained in 2nd Edition, when the entire spellbook for every class fit in a couple fucking books (literally; published that sweet-ass spell compendium). Why? Because spells in those days were a gift to find, a rarity to come across... there was no listed price for puchasing scrolls in a store, so you only got whatever was found (ie. whatever the DM rolled or decided you got). There was no expectation on magical item access. Magic items weren't just another part of the money economy.

Ironically, the very things that the 3E devs apparently thought to "fix" for the spellcasters of D&D were the only thing that kept them sane in the context of the other classes.

>>43740883
>desu
Kill yourself.

>>43750940
>a couple fucking books
4 for Wizards, 3 for Priests. Don't forget about the 4-volume Encyclopedia Magica and the 4-volume Magic Encyclopedia (that was basically a giant index) for magic items..

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Seems like the place to ask. What think, /tg/?

>>43751106
If you were being strangled into playing 3.P, always insist on using this book. Even if you aren't going to use any of the materials. Any DM that would deny this book is too stupid to play with.

>>43737476
Yep.
I've played several unrelated DnD and Numenera campaigns where a caster (me or someone else) made noncasters feel ineffectual due to my ability to trivialize combats with control spells or fireballs as well as doing utility/noncombat things better. For example, rogues were looking forward to being good with disguises, stealth, and general trickery. With the low-level abilities of Disguise, Invisibility, etc., I was able to do these things effortlessly (whereas they would have to roll and still have a significant chance of failure even though it was their specialty).

>>43751057
Still better than 3PF, isn't it?

>>43751106
Pretty much >>43751116

It's a good way to tell if the DM actually understands the system or not.

>>43751143
Of course. 3.PF doesn't even have anything like that to keep things under control.

>>43738373
The hell level 1 spells are gonna be any practical use at level 10+? Sure there's Grease, but that's more an inconvinience at high levels, and colour spray is basically useless against high level enemies given you're at best sacrificing a turn to make them lose theirs, and at worst just commiting suicide

>>43738723
>It'd sure help if the mechanics actually assisted with this playstyle.
It does. Wizards are better of buffing allies and debuffing enemies than they are trying to do the entirity of the party's job themselves, since it's easier to let the fighter fight than it is to spend a ton of feats on metamagic so you can fireball things to death, and it's easier to let the rogue stab since they probably do more damage than your summons.

I'm not gonna lie that wizards can't outclass the rest of the party, but it costs them significant effort and resources to do so, making it an inefficient option to do so. Boom, there's your in character reason.

>>43743957
Again, in 3.PF summons are under the control of the cater. There were, however, a couple of variant rules that suggested to make a custom list with the DM in order to reinforce the theme (and, I suppose, rein in the versatility). Still variants, though.

>>43744487
Yeah but the caster's role is "God" (see the most famous 3.5 wizard guide).

>>43739676
Actually to be fair, the first two are perfectly possible. Uberchargers can make you adjust the terrain around your dungeons (and even then they can ignore difficult terrain on some builds) and rogues can get a high enough move silently/hide/stealth to make them all but impossible to see without Touchsight/Mindsight

>>43750940
>No, caster supremacy is primarily a product of people being afraid of having to audit the entire library of fucking rules that exist for the game in order to eliminate all the possible broken combinations.

Like the PHB. It's all there in the first fucking book for the game.

Caster supremacy deniers sound more and more like those flat-earthers. They literally cannot see the factual evidence before their eyes, and have a system of justifications to shift the blame instead of actually taking notice.

>>43751616
>Like the PHB. It's all there in the first fucking book for the game.
If you're lucky enough to have a playgroup that has no desire with regards to splats, then congrats to you. That isn't as common as you might think.

>>43739755
>Wizard can blast the boulder to pieces.
With what exactly? His spells that do half damage to the boulder before hardness and hp are brought into the equation? If a boulder's big enough that only the strength 22+ fighter can shift it, the wizard's gonna be spending about 10 minutes and most of his spell slots to try and do what the fighter can do easily, not to mention he'd have to have all those blasting spells prepared in the first place.
>Wizard can intimidate people by threatening to fireball them.
Is not how intimidate works. Being able to kill someone is not the same as being scary to them, which is why it's charisma based, and the circumstance bonus you'd get from showing off your fireball would be more than outweighed by actual skill ranks.
>Wizard can fly to get the object on top of the tree.
Yeah, that's a fair point. But like I said with regards to the boulder; why waste a spell slot on something the fighter can do easily?

Ah fuck, I read all this and see they're meant to be examples of things that 'only the party fighter can solve'. Still though, only the tree problem is one the wizard can solve in a reasonable time frame compared to the fighter.

>>43741096
Which is a damn shame 'cause synthesist summoner is an absolute blast to play. Also apparently loses out in numbers to barbarians/fighters at high levels, but I never really got there

>>43742004
Does not matter much
Helps with wizards, but then there's clerics, druids etc. Cleric for example gets all the spells, if I am not mistaken.

>>43741663
And it's a wall, not some kind of forcefield around the caster.

Paizo thought it was a good idea to make the latter a thing though, and for 1 creature/fucking level

I've only ever played one game of PF, and truth be told, the entire thing was a buttfucked mess of DM-induced caster Supremacy.
Minor storytime:

>Playing a rogue named Lindell, first game in the system, so wanna play something Martial, as I'm more accustomed to my home system of 4e at this point
>Ask the DM during character gen if I can be the typical swashbuckler rogue with a rapier and everything
>"Why would you do that when you can be a two-weapon fighter? You're going to die with a build like that anyway, so you might as well go with the guy with more HP"
>How else are we going to pick locks and check for traps then, DM?
>"Oh, well, so-and-so is going to be playing a wizard, so you don't need to worry about that."
>oh, then can I play a ranger with an animal companion?
>"Why would you do that? So-and-so is cross-classed Druid too, so he can summon animals at will."
>Can I do gunslinger?
>"In this setting guns aren't invented yet, so no." (He hadn't told us a fucking lick of the setting before this, mind.)
>Fine then, I'll just stick with my rogue.

First dungeon I got killed by the wizard's fireball and got left behind, due to "being generally meaningless in comparison to the rest of the party."

>>43744293
You realistically somewhat mitigate what is allowed to summon by paying attention to alignment of the summoned creatures
Good aligned summoners may not summon evil etc.

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>>43743117
>book of nine swords class (which are basically just casters)
But that's wrong. Name a caster with renewing spells per encounter or one who can re-prepare spells in a minute with a single feat, then you might have a point there.

>>43741579
Im playing 5e and Im using cantrips creatively. The DM won't let a lot of my bullshit fly but at times he gives me credit for resourcefulness such as using Prestidigitation in order to emulate the smell of pheromones to distract a certain creature from the rest of the party.

>>43743747
Since when were summons better at fighting than fighters? Takes you a full turn to summon them (During which time people should be stabbing you, since anything where the caster is casting for a long time is bad news) and they're almost always several levels of CR below the party. Summon Monster spells are more useful for utility than for actual combat.

>>43751647
>If you're lucky enough to have a playgroup that has no desire with regards to splats, then congrats to you. That isn't as common as you might think.

What I meant is, that caster supremacy is not an issue of people not wanting to vet splats. Druid + natural spells is in the PHB, many wizard save-or-suck/die are in the PHB, the Cleric can outfight the fighter with a single feat outside of PHB, and so on.
Splats make things worse, by adding more and more pieces to the combos, but it's a well-known fact that the worst offender in the balance issues is the PHB.

>>43751799
I wasn't disagreeing, I was merely stating that I think the reason you didn't have as many complaints about imbalance with previous editions is that players had a different mindset with regards to splats and character progress. In many ways, character progress wasn't something that players had much control over. Character development was more through roleplay and in-setting rewards, rather than specific mechanical benefits you chose as your character gained experience. This meant players didn't really read splat books like they do today. That was something the DM mostly did by himself.

That's why you even have problems in the core book. There were no feats in older editions, and wizards didn't get two free spells every level. Clerics and druids had far more limited spells to cast (in scope, not number). The only real thing that 3E did wrong was give players choice without balancing out that newly-granted freedom.

>>43751572
But that's fucking wrong. It's often faster to cast one or two AoE saves or sucks, and then the battle is often fucking done.

>>43751655
>Is not how intimidate works. Being able to kill someone is not the same as being scary to them, which is why it's charisma based, and the circumstance bonus you'd get from showing off your fireball would be more than outweighed by actual skill ranks.
Fighters, charisma and skill ranks don't belong in the same sentence. Are you sure you're playing the same game?

>>43751958
"The fighter's class skills are Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Handle Animal (Cha), Intimidate (Cha)...."

>>43743787
>>43743856
>>43743901

In Swords and Wizardry, a retroclone, Fighters of any level get to make an attack roll on EVERY HD1 creature they are fighting or next to each turn.

So a sorcerer summoning a shit ton of squirrels or imps or whatever and they can mow through them. So that is one advantage, at least in this system.

Though I don't really think that old school DnD retroclones had this huge problem with balance or even really 'cared' about it, to be honest.

>>43751865
What part of 'wizards are better off buffing allies and debuffing enemies' don't you get? Sure a wizard can nerf enemies to hell and back, but somebody has to actually kill them, and summons aren't gonna do the job unless you've got a seriously shitty martial, since they're crap for the level you get them.

>>43751958
When you've got a fighter's skill list and about 1 useful skill on it, you're gonna invest in that skill.

>>43752050
That's because the old school games were designed decades ago. Game design has come a long way in that time. They're all bad games.

>>43752072
okay, >>43739755 here, so the problem is that wizards cant intimidate people with fireballs. Well, in that case, instead of using fireballs, wizard casts Charm Person to persuade the opposition to give them the information. Wizard can still do the same thing that the fighter can, except fighter has to use valuable points to get intimidate up while wizard just has to use 1 spell slot

>>43752115
The fighter has to use a skill he likely already has, while the wizard will likely pay in some other way (For example, a specialist would have to give up a school other than enchantment to do this, which is important when you consider it's one of the more commonly dropped schools)

In addition, the example was multiple people, and if the information was especially valuable they wouldn't tell it to a friend not out of distrust, but simply out of not being allowed to say it. Thus the wizard would need a charisma check to get them to do it, which is yet another point of failure as opposed to intimidate, which offers only a level+wis check against the fighters level+3+misc, misc being something he may well have invested in since intimidate is such a useful tool for fighters.

>>43752145
okay, so wizard has to pay a bit to use charm person. It doesn't change the fact that they can still do it, when the original poster argued that intimidation was something that only fighters can do.

>>43752145
The fighter does also pay for it. He only gets 2 skill points in level, so if he wants to intimidate and climb up a tree in your other example he can't do anything else. Half of your skills forever is much more of an investment than a daily spell slot, or even several slots.

>>43752178
Mm, saying it's a non-option is dumb, except at like level one. But it's an incredibly inferior option.

And it isn't intimidation strictly speaking, so he's right there. But that's semantics.

>>43752186
I'm not the guy who was giving them as examples, I'm just defending them. But it's not just a single spell slot, it's also deciding not to ban enchantment and thus either losing another school or losing adrupt jaunt (which is good because there's powerful options, and there's just plain dumb options), and the alternatives in skills are crap anyway. That said, climbing/swimming is anything someone with decent strength can do. I personally would invest in jump/intimidate if I were playing a 3.5 fighter again.

>>43739546
>>43739546
>Some of you guys should really try an all wizard game sometime. Or, hey, you could not play D&D.

You guys really should.

OP I don't know why you're even asking this, caster supremacy is completely totally 100% a real thing. The few areas are casters fall short only serve to high light how OP they are in all most all other areas.
That shit just isn't balanced. If you want to keep it so no one feels overshadowed either let everyone play casters or make everyone plays martials, and keep a hiring or two in the party to fill in the missing spell gaps.

>>43737476
I lived it. A Pathfinder group, with houserules to make martials stronger, no less. They had things like AC granting DR and for the setting firearms were being treated as Simple weapons because it was the late 19th century. I made a Witch focused on Necromancy. While the rest of the group was flailing through combat with some elite Elven commandos of the British Empire I blinded one and had his comrades shot by a squad of skeletons because firearms ignore DR at first range increment. The blindness came as the bigger surprise, however, these guys only thought in terms of damage and the only casters they'd had focused on evocation.