How do you balance "Dude in metal who hits stuff really

anyone who uses magic becomes mad and forgets how

I never really understood how a setting could have ubiquitous magical influence and pointlessly restrict the average guard/soldier/whatever from using it in some way.

In your particular case unless that "metal" is antimagium I wouldn't bother, but even that is just a really lazy sounding decision

>>54227075
Magic is restricted, rare, difficult, dangerous, and shunned.

That's how.

Make him really good at hitting things with pieces metal.

>>54227149

Like, it seems there's an upper limit of how well hitting something with a piece of metal will take you in an adventuring career.

When the other members of the party can conjure fire from their fingertips and call on the divinity of their God to close their wounds, what does tincan man really bring to the table?

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>>54227075
By making skill and determination its own kind of magic, and drawing on real-world mythologies to give the game some flavour and variety. Most of all, it allows your martial players to have fun and be able to do incredible things alongside the mages.

Let your warriors cut and smash things that normal warriors shouldn't be able to. Let them reach into an enemy's teleport spell, grab them, and pull them back out of it. Let them parry an offensive spell out of the air with their weapon or their bare hand, and let them cut an active spell to dispel it. Let an archer loose one arrow that multiplies into a dozen, and let that archer feather an enemy a hundred miles away.

Also, stop fucking playing D&D if you're looking for something more exciting for martials. I love the game and have played it in one form or another since 1995, but holy fucking shit, it poisoned the minds of multiple generations of RPG players on what to expect between warriors and casters.

>mfw the rules for magic and spellcasting classes take up more than half the core rulebook

>>54227179
You either restrict the magic, or you allow the guy with the piece of metal to also go beyond those mortal restrictions.

It's really that simple, and this thread is a pointless troll bait. We've had them about twice a day lately.

Give arcane and divine magic a smaller scope and assume everyone is competent at adventuring. It worked for Barbarians of Lemuria.

>>54227075
Magic is slow and ritualistic, that and you really need a fleshed out mundane combat system for mundanes to be fun

>>54227075
Simple, every stat doubles per level of the fighter.

>>54227125
>unless that "metal" is antimagium

The same properties that detract casters from wearing armour also work as a defense against magic.

BAM! hire me WotC

>>54227075
In one of my settings that was a consideration in. I went with a "Certain teachings show how to use physical martial arts in a superhuman way. Via manipulation of the metaphysics of the world."

There is also ancient amulets that project a sphere like field where magic goes to utter shit and will drive mages insane if they stay inside for too long. So mages tend to have a lot of guards to make sure they don't get shanked by an assassin wearing one.

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>>54227075
Why must martial remain wholly restricted to the laws of physics? Have their natural progression take them to the levels of Hercules, Beowulf, and the like. By the time the wizard can throw fireballs like it's nothing, the fighter should be busting through walls with the same effort.

That, or lots of magic items.

>>54227179
Just make the fighter work off of mythical physics rather than actual physics.

>>54227245
You'd still need to restrict the utility of the wizards, though.

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>>54227075
Are you talking about class fluff/crunch flaws or armies X fireballs?

Either way, the clear answer is pic related.

>>54227252
Let wizards do anything at the expense of casting time and fragility.

>>54227253

Fighters get powers from Cthulhu?

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We have this conversation all the damn time, the number of answers don't increase.

>How do I balance magic and martial abilities?

Option 1: Make Magic rare, difficult, risky, etc [the Warhammer Method]

Option 2: Make Magic weaker, limited, specific and limited in application [that is, its not reality warping, its a specific art which can accomplish only so much]

Option 3: Make martial abilities scale into the clearly supernatural [The Exalted Method].

Option 4: Magic is a skill that is readily known to most of the population, not just pure Mages [The Elder Scrolls Method]. Every fighter worth his salt is casting defensive wards or healing.

And yet every time we have this thread there is at least one asshole who wants the non-existent Option 5.

Option 5: I want unlimited, D&D-style reality warpers to be on the level with completely mundane persons using only human-level abilities, and I want to do so without giving them any obvious easily exploitable weaknesses that have ABSOLUTELY NO POSSIBLE workaround or ability to abridge or limit.

No, I want normal everyday medieval soldiers to work alongside gods, and I want that to work. Why? Why do you want that? Its completely asinine. Most settings don't have this problem, or if they do its nowhere near the degrees of 3.X, so why is this such a constant request.

Fucking shit.

>>54227075
Magic takes time and preparation, is expensive and tasking on the user, and requires practitioners to keep themselves within certain moral, spiritual and physical constraints in order to maintain their powers. An unprepared spellcaster is no more useful than any other shmuck, giving a certain edge to those who cultivate internal power and skill.

Or, martials posses the ability to defy reality via sheer will and skill, giving them the tools to go up against reality-warping mages.

>>54227303
Immortal starfish.

>>54227252
I wouldn't really say that. I've always liked the concept that one novel did. Wizards are inherently powerful as shit but there is artifacts that can instant kill them with a touch, The gods hate them and will damn them to hell the moment they die and will send people to murder them if they attempt to expand their lifetime too long.

There doesn't need to be that many limits on what they can do. Just reason why they aren't unstoppable.

>>54227075
one idea I had had is sort of based a bit on Eastern concepts, namely how most martial arts is tied to Buddhism, which is about the search for objectivity and breaking through the 'self'.

Mages, generally, are about imposing their 'will' or 'self' on the false reality to control it, and ascribe to subjectivity.

So, basically: strong martials and mages sort of have this back and forward against one another because martials can resist and even cancel out magic.

A powerful enough fighters are walking anti-magic fields against weaker casters. While stronger mages basically banish fighters from 'their' reality.

>>54227230
>a guy in full plate hiding behind a tower shield takes less damage from gouts of acid or flame than a guy in nothing but a cowboy hat and assless chaps
>BAM! hire me WotC
lol what a hack

>>54227253
what

>>54227306
>No, I want normal everyday medieval soldiers to work alongside gods, and I want that to work.

This is possible but only if the gods are NPCs and the game is about trying to survive in a world where people can nuke you. Having it being a clear even functional thing though is impossible as you state.

>>54227075
The short answer is pick a different system

The long answer is numbers

>>54227075
We could

a) Restrict magic
b) Restrict mages
c) Restrict the frequency of mages
d) Make the dude in metal armor an anime character
e) Make the dude in metal armor a mage himself
f) Make the dude in metal armor like neo-nazis. Refusing to adapt to modern times and admit that the era of metal men is over
g) Give the dude in metal armor a gun

Pick your poison, OP. Protip: They are all shit options. The correct answer is to delete wizards.

>>54227075
By applying restrictions and limitations to the magic and divine, not by boosting or penalizing the fighter.

>>54227356
Option 6: "Just make Wizards NPCs" isn't really an option to balance magic and martial abilities so much as exclude them.

If they aren't excluded entirely, and a "lesser magic" exists for the PCs, then it has to follow one of the first four options as well, presumably 1, 2, or 4.

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The. Entire. Fucking. Problem. Is. Manufactured.

The only reason casters are supreme is because of what they can do at what cost. There is no grand philosophical barrier to fighters being relevant, it's just shitty imbalanced spell lists.

>>54227319
>There doesn't need to be that many limits on what they can do. Just reason why they aren't unstoppable.
If players can be wizards, "not literally gods" isn't good enough. If players can't be wizards, your system is losing out on a lot of potential, and there's not a lot of reason to have powerful magic in mortal hands at all.

Magic is a law of physics that all organisms make use of in their basic functioning. What's known as spellcasting is actually just manipulating the properties of magic to outward effect, like how the same glucose that powers your body can also explode. As a martial character levels up, the magic in their body becomes more powerful, allowing them to preform feats of strength and endurance we would think of as superhuman.

>>54227377
That and martials don't have the options and utilitity they realistically should have

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>>54227075

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>>54227303
All classes get powers from Cthulhu.

No matter the differences between using Wishes to have dragon steak for dinner or cleaning plate codpieces with sand and vinegar, all become raw materials for the Elder God's anal acid sacs.

>>54227329
This is of them underwater.

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By giving him super skills like increased stamina, reflexes and strength.

>>54227075

- Magic is hard to use
- Magic is expensive
- Magic has more subtle effects
- Magic isn't as good as everyone thinks it is
- Divine magic is fickle
- Magic takes its toll on the body
- Magic is governed and has punishable offenses

>>54227075
>magic can only kill magic users

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>>54227075
Give martials a dinosaur body and an "extra head feat".

Add melee skill that can let them make different types of buffs that are comparable to spellwork, or methods to potentially block or assist in avoiding odd things like the example with the gout of acid in >>54227329. Or to make it more simple, make the soldiers the sort that excel at one on one fighting or holding down a group around them, and make it actually work, and leave magicians as the siege weapons. Or just let adventurers be adventurers and don't bother with stuff like the lifting capacities so you can get more herculean feats for what is put in.

>>54227075
Magic is for the nobles only

>>54227075
An iron man suit.

Anything short of that won't work.

Unless the magic is far weaker than what's in d&d.

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>>54227075
Give the metal dude technologically advanced armored beasts.

Use a superhero system.

>>54227075

Keep the magic either high cost or low impact. There, done.

>>54227179
The only upper limit is one you impose on yourself.

>>54227075
>Casting takes time, needs a couple of turns and no you can't take silent casting feats this isn't gurps or dnd
>Magic runs on a energy system, the most powerful, fight ending spells will make you drop to your knees and outright unable to fight properly, even if the spell fails
>The fighters stats get buffed to hell and back, while the wizard was mastering the chain block he was at the gym
>Wizards also need to spend xp/ gets less xp thanks to spells. Much like in dnd you could pick a overpowered race but they would be level 11 and you'd still be level 3 and quickly becoming weak as fuck.
There's many way you can do this, but some of the first steps are don't play dnd or gurps.

>>54227075
How about, not making the magic nearly as powerful as you are implying it is. If Wizards are essentially gods then what's the point of this?

>>54227381
Depends for me on what you are trying to do with the plot line. I've always kind of liked the players using large scale rituals and things like that to try to tip the odds and having consequences for taking on unnatural magic power. If the game is more low key though yeah likely just having wizards be weaker would work out better.

I've always liked the "Sure you can have magic. But realize while you are stronger then the rest of the party there is huge personal consequences for taking this and you will be Sacrificing a lot."

>>54227075
H E R C U L E S
B A T M A N

YOU DON'T EVEN FUCKING NEED TO BE CREATIVE JESUS FUCKING CHRIST STOP MAKING THIS THREAD OVER AND OVER.

>>54227075

By realizing that sufficiently powerful martials are supernatural in their own right.

If the epic level wizard is conjuring the legions of the damned and erasing mountains with a thought, the epic level martial should be taking on armies singlehandedly, suplexing dragons, and generally doing crazy wuxia stuff.

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Another caster vs martial thread? Time to post my homebrew! This game balances casters and martials, you'll never have a balance issue again.

>>54227306
>>54227356
I think you could have option 5 as a game, but you would need to be very, very clear and upfront about it at the start. Have the game directly state that spellcasters are Gandalf without as many reasons to dial himself back while everyone else is stuck playing Boromir, more or less.

As long as the game makes it clear upfront that someone without magic will be very weak in comparison to someone with it, there's a lot less problems with the game. You don't have to worry about someone having a bad time just because they picked a class that sounded strong but was actually weak.

Then you can actually base the campaign around this fact, and discuss with everyone what you want to do. Granted it would be trivial to do this if the game were balanced as well, but that's beside the point.

>>54227377
I would save this pic if various wasn't spelled wrong

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>>54227882
>hurcules
>not divine

>capeshit
>capable of settings with consistent internal logic

>>54228007
The point is so thoroughly over your head that it no longer in orbit of the sun.

>>54227075
Without making casters weaker (as they should be)?
You don't.
In a world with actual magic, though, why the fuck shouldn't a martial have magical/divine gear?

Otherwise you could impose severe limits on casters, like extremely long preperation times, bodily stress (ex. Magic Fever stuff), mana pools, etc.

>>54227327
This makes a lot of sense to me, wish more systems were like that.

>>54228029
Not him, but he pretty effortlessly countered yours. I don't see what the problem here is except with you.

Forged weapons and armor, and anything made with honest toil and high craftsmanship are resistant to magic to an extent. Some spells can be resisted by will power or dodged.

In mechanical terms, avoid stacking endless modifiers and work in defenses like evasion into most martial classes as they get stronger.

Wizards have to wear a dress and not carry a sword because it will interfere with weaving magic. Wearing a suit of armor is straight out of question. Magical armor enchantments are typically only useful against spiritual enemies, i.e. ghosts and demons and not a guy with a common steel blade.

A wizard might blow up a gaggle of bandits with a fireball, sure. But against a hardened knight in a good set of armor backed by iron determination, he might find his spells lacking.

By accepting that it's not possible and not enforcing "realism" on some classes and letting the others fuck with the laws of reality

By the time your wizard can start fireballing armies your fighter should be able to pull a cuchulainn and just go kill them all in single combat over and over again

>>54227075
By making the magic accessible ONLY to divine beings. You need a +20 Level Adjustment demigod template before being allowed to cast spells. Technically there's a "scholar" class with lots of knowledge skills that can learn rituals and make pacts, but they're all slow and/or very risky with side effects like physical corruption, eternal damnation and sudden death.

Or you can play a game where the guy studying scrolls and learning magic is on equal ground with the other guy that mastered every form of combat and battlefield strategy imaginable.

Maybe magic comes in different "schools" and like any complicated field it requires a lot of dedication to master one, so while magic can do anything, no one mage can do everything.

>>54227075
Depends on the setting, what you mean by "balance", and why you want to do it. These are easy subjects to tackle when you are specific about all of the important details.

>>54227306
Option 1 and 2 are the same, and so are options 3 and 4. Despite OP being a retarded faggot, there are only 2 options (if you say ignoring the problem isn't an option):

1 - Make magic weak enough that skilled magicians are as strong as skilled mortals.

2 - Make everybody a magician. This includes Herculean characters, sorry, super strength counts as magic.

>>54227125
>>54227230
This is done in the Book of Swords stories by Fred Saberhagen. Wizards can do a lot of cool stuff, but when exposed to large amounts of iron, they can only access their simplest spells, like turning invisible.

It costs 50k gold in Pathfinder to cast wish. That's how it's balanced

>>54227075

Make magic unreliable, of limited effect, or hard to access, or all three.

Trouble is finding a way to do these things without making spellcasting classes/characters play like shit.

>>54229291
And if a Wizard couldn't teleport to an infinite plane of earth and command an army of elementals to mine him gemstones, that might be a meaningful restriction.

>>54229364
They get will saves

>>54227075
Stop interrupting "magic" as able to do literally anything and everything with no effort while autistically restricting martials to your incorrect amateur understanding of the real world.

>>54229364
>wizards should be allowed to do all this without working out the math or cost or making checks or facing resistance and plot conflict from interested parties or you're a no fun martial lover

>>54227075
By giving him magical/divine/etc. pieces of metal to wear and hit with.

FUCK YOU I WON'T DO WHAT YOU TELL ME

>>54228029
Hercules is divine and Batman's super-power is plot armor. Next.

how I would do it: lots of people can learn spells, but it takes a huge amount of training and practice to do so, and each spell is very particular in its usage and take a lot of properation. Most people wouldn't bother with it, though some people might practice a spell or two if they thought it was useful enough to justfy the time and effort.

Wizards are those who devote their lives to the study and memorization of many spells. A trained wizard readied for battle is a fierce and dangerous thing indeed.

But armor will absorb the impact of a fireball as well as it would anything else. A battlemage should really wear a helmet and at least some heavier than normal clothing to protect against shrapnel and debris.

WIzards well versed in healing spells to aid the injured after the battle tend to make a bigger impact on warfare than battlemages.

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>>54227075
>How do you balance "Dude in metal who hits stuff really hard with other pieces of metal" in a setting with actual magic and divinity and shit WITHOUT giving him magical/divine/etc. pieces of metal to wear and hit with?
There are four established solutions to this issue:

1. A character that utilizes charm or another social ability to get others to assist them and fight their magical battles for them.

2. A character with sufficiently superior knowledge, gear, technology, and/or bestiary.

3. >>54227149
>Make him really good at hitting things with pieces metal.
This.
Extreme ability in a particular skill, whether that's martial fighting or another.
>>54227182
>By making skill and determination its own kind of magic, and drawing on real-world mythologies to give the game some flavour and variety.
This is another way of looking at it.

As for the counterpoint:
>>54227179
>it seems there's an upper limit of how well hitting something with a piece of metal will take you
See
>>54227705
>The only upper limit is one you impose on yourself.
and
>>54227186
>You either restrict the magic, or you allow the guy with the piece of metal to also go beyond those mortal restrictions.
>It's really that simple,

4. >>54227125
>I never really understood how a setting could have ubiquitous magical influence and pointlessly restrict the average guard/soldier/whatever from using it in some way.
This.
Have them use magic, there is really no reason not to give them "magical/divine/etc. pieces of metal to wear and hit with" or to let those who can fight also be able to cast.
It is very hard to justify people never using magic at all if it is available.

>>54227075
Magic makes you insane and leads to suicide

>>54227075
Have you tried playing something other than modern D&D/PF?

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>>54227075
>How do you balance "Dude in metal who hits stuff really hard with other pieces of metal" in a setting with actual magic and divinity and shit WITHOUT giving him magical/divine/etc. pieces of metal to wear and hit with?
Limit magic severely. Some other anon posted an idea on this board for D&D that I really like.
>Remove the wizard/sorcerer/cleric classes
>Create various caster-type characters with different specializations (necromancer, elemental master, enchanter etc.)
>Give all of them access to the same list of cantrips which they can cast at will
>Make all of their other "spells" X per day class features (with the X perhaps being something like once per 2 levels?)

This already balances things out. Especially if there's a healing spell among the cantrips, which severely swings things in favor of the melee characters (perhaps too much)? In other words, instead of balancing metal men against mortal gods, we balance them against five trick ponies.

>>54227075
Don't limit him to what a human can realistically do. His hit points are not abstract, he's just that tough. He's strong enough to push over a castle wall, can sprint up a cliff face, arm-wrestle a giant, shoot an arrow then catch up to it in mid-flight, deflect arrows back at the shooter with just his sword, he can double jump, and none of it is magic in any way.

>>54227075
Just make the magic impractical to use in the middle of combat.

Impractical enough that you're probably better off hitting people with pieces of metal unless you have the time and resources, and talent, necessary to dedicate your entire life to practicing magic - and even then you still want a big guy with armor next to you just in case someone tries to jump you.

You'd have to think of something slightly more clever for battlefields but for skirmishes and dungeoncrawling and such it's not that hard.

>>54227075
He can lift until he reaches the point that he can punch holes in reality.

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>>54227075
The dude in metal that hits stuff really hard with other pieces of metal can leap on top of towers, run on water, fight at hypersonic speed, hurl boulders, charge through a solid stone wall, dodge or parry any projectiles and survive cannonballs to the face.
That's how.

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You can't you fucking retard.

Just fucking make a difference between warriors and warriors that can mend their broken flesh and steel their skin.

>>54230158
>>54230210
>>54230384
>Let's not and say we did.
The question was asking how to balance non-supernatural fighters against magic users, not how to claim to balance non-supernatural fighters against magic users. Actually doing so is part of the premise.

>>54230456
So what, do you want me to write a talent tree for that clusterfuck that is D&D?

>>54230478
Actually somebidy did.

Spheres of Power limited mages
And spheres of might buffs martials with optionsl access to legendary talents that grant powers beyond the norm.

>>54230456
In a fantasy world, being extra strong is not supernatural, but casting spells is.

>>54230456
So, are you asserting that no amount of martial arts being impossibly kick ass could ever match mages, and if so, why?

>>54227377
Remember when DMs were supposed to limit how borken a Wizard is by Wizards only being able to learn Spells from other Wizards Spellbooks?
Remember how Wizards were supposed to invest TIME and GOLD into researching the Spell they want to learn before they learn it?
Remember how handing out Spells to Wizard was supposed to be treated the same way as handing out Magical Equipment to Non-Casters?
Remember when Warriors got Followers and Strongholds so they would be able to compete in Utility?

>>54230456
>The question was asking how to balance non-supernatural fighters against magic users
You fucking can't.

Just fucking add in supernatural fighters, you fucking retard.

>>54227306
Because an entire generation of players were brain damaged by 3.X. It's fucking hopeless to reason with them.

>>54230559

THe whole topic is literally like "how do I balance sticks and stones against a modern first world military".

>>54227075
Magic takes a lifetime to learn. You can become a good fighter by the time you're 20.

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What's wrong with good old fashioned plot armor?

>>54230456
>The question was asking how to balance non-supernatural fighters against magic users
Yeah, and that's exactly what I did mate. Just because they no longer cast according to Vancian magic doesn't mean they stop being casters. Having an X per day spell system and a limited spell selection doesn't make them any less casters.

That's the problem here: your definition of magic user is so narrow, it's impossible to balance mundane warriors against them. What you want demands us to gimp casters by neccessity.

Give martials a range of extraordinary abilities in and out of combat
Restrict powerful utility magic with time/cost penalties
Structure all classes around role specializations regardless of power sources
basically just play 4e

>>54227075
a level 1 wizard is about equal to a level 1 wizard

so just give the fighter some really impressive feats of superhuman toughness, strength, and swordplay that can do as much damage as meteor swarm over time

the person who hits things with his sword should be able to match an equal wizard blow for blow, and do certain things better, like not run out of magical ammo

The only 2 solutions is either no-one uses magic or everyone uses magic.

>>54230683
Levels were never meant to be equal between classes

>>54230688
Define "magic."

>>54227306
Option 1 is the best way.

>>54230708
Supernatural tomfoolery

>>54230210
Go the complete opposite way, if a real human spent all his time on learning to fight there's no way he would ever miss hitting someone that wasn't trained like he was, in fact he would almost always critically hit.

>>54228029
Hercules wins because he has divine strength and Batman wins because of capeshit plot armor.

Better luck next time champ.

>>54230500
Spheres of Power also sucked dick and nobody fucking used it.

NEXT!

>>54230644
No tension.

>>54231130
How about
and hear me out on this
we give fighters herculean strength without making it divine in nature?

I know it's a stretch to imagine such things for someone with wood for brains, but you can at least make an effort.

>inb4 b-but that would make fighters supernatural!
Nigga you're giving wizards literal magic, so either both fighters and wizards have access to supernatural abilities, or wizards have to stick to pocket sand

>>54227075
Make his hitting things magical or divine.

>>54227075
Make him magical.

>>54227075
Say "fuck it" and make everything a little magical? I mean, shit, you don't even have to explicitly say it's magic. Just give characters rad goodies to play with.

>>54231194
>we give fighters herculean strength without making it divine in nature?
Not everyone likes anime weebshit.

>>54227245
Yeah (talking D&D) at level 20 a fighter should be able to swim around in full plate and punch half a dozen seadragons to death without break, without specalising into any of those two (swimmin' and punchin')

>>54231130
Plenty of games integrate "plot armour" into the mechanics, it's a valid method.

>>54231454
I think we've found the problem. It's not that wizards and warriors are hard to balance against each other. It's that if you try to bump the warriors up, you get autists REEEEEEEEEEEEEing about how it's too anime, whatever the fuck that means.

>>54227306
I prefer the lord of the rings or wuxian style of magic.

You just become so fucking good at something thatit simply eclipses what beginners can do.
Like baking a small bread that can feed a person for a week, step on snowflakes to jump through the air or be so good at starting a fire that you only need to touch thing and they can start burning.

>>54231492
Maybe to you since all you seem to play are shitty homebrews with no danger or consistency but to people who have ACTUALLY played, plot armor is by far the worst shit imaginable.

Like at least mages have the excuse of using magic but there's no way that a martial should be capable of surviving a blow from a dude who is as powerful as Darkseid.

>>54227075
easy, in abrahamic religions, iron's origin isn't from earth, but from the sky (can be a god gift or from meteor), so it's divine by nature, you can give it antimagic property, a knight with the highest quality of iron armor can dispel offensive magic and have a natural resistance to magic overall, i don't know why silver is the most known metal that's effective against mythical creatures.

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>>54231454

>>54231502
Why don't you play exalted or anima, that would surely sate your thirst for over the top anime bullshit where martials can punt mountains into the stratosphere "because they're martials."

>>54231507
Because after the bronze age iron became much more abundant and people didn't need to rely on large chunks that fell from the sky to create iron tools and weapons.

So Iron lost ist mythologic standing when people noticed that it's just another metal.

Silver on the other hand was still rare and not something some farmer could get.

>>54231519
Why don't you read up on some Irish myth and stop being such an illiterate pleb.

>>54231505
>Maybe to you since all you seem to play are shitty homebrews with no danger or consistency but to people who have ACTUALLY played, plot armor is by far the worst shit imaginable.

You don't know me dude, I was thinking about stuff like FATE but even D&D contains things that basically boil down to plot armour (the HP system, the Lucky feat, etc).

>>54231519
So, what, are all the good games the ones where you play measly dirt farmers who get a deadly infection if they so much as stub their toe? You're being silly.

>>54231519
Only when I'm done reading Iliad no Monogatari, Kamikari ga Beowulf and Seppuku no Hercules

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>>54231542
>Seppuku no Hercules

>>54227075
By not having HP sponges and by having realistic wizards.

If you don't have HP sponges you can't ignore a guy with the sword because it will cost you your life. You need to always be sure that al swordguys are accounted for and you are protected from them.

And realistic wizards means not being able to have 10+ spells running at once. Take for example Slayers, a fucking anime, where wizards do have a lot of the spells that D&D magic is capable of. But they are not as powerful because they can't have them all be running at the same time. Most wizards could have only one spell active. So they can either defend or attack. Professional mages could have two spells. And some archmages probably can manage 3 at once - one of those guys is a boss that Lina and others are trying to beat.

>>54227075
Every time magic effects happen there is a X% chance of dark unspeakable things from the dungeon dimensions popping into existence and eating the face of whoever used magic

while the epic level wizard creates a pocket dimension to trap the hydra in, the epic level warrior throws the hydra into the sky so hard it turns into a constellation

>>54231524
common doesn't necessarily mean useless, what if magic doesn't exist on earth because iron is common, or due the core of earth being iron?

>>54231454
>how do you balance fighters with wizards
>make fighters supernatural too i guess, we wuz myths and shit
>ANIME WEEBSHIT REEEE
?

>>54230539
Pepperidge Farms remembers.

>>54227075
Spells have cost and cooldowns
Whacking a blade has none

>>54231590
>we wuz myths and shit
It's ironic that you say that when martials are the black people of character classes

>>54231507
>i don't know why silver is the most known metal that's effective against mythical creatures.
The anti-microbial properties of silver make it much very desirable as tableware in an age where hygiene was poorly understood. You could wash things with water that wasn't perfectly clean and not get sick using them if they were made from silver.

Given that many illnesses were attributed to evil spirits in those times, it's not too much of a stretch to go from 'silver wards away evil spirits' to 'silver defeats magical creatures'.

>>54231596
>Spells can warp reality on a quantum level and make it so the enemy becomes his own grandpa.
>Blades can easily stab you if you happen to fuck up and trip on a rock.
Yeah, totally equal.

>>54230616
Only when anons suggest tactics like the battle of Endor, the autists protest incoherently.

>>54231659

They don't want to admit Lucas answered the dilemma of autistic OP's before they were born.

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>>54231502
/thread
what is wrong with making fighters powerful and deadly on par with magic users?

sounds like good game design to balance classes against each other, and its about as realistic to have karate kid-tier fighters as it is to have level 20 wizards

>>54231654
Big Spells have Big costs.

Swords are more reliable and deal a consistent amount of damage.

Swordsmen have the advantage in the beginning, but obviously get weaker as spell casters gain more cost material.

>>54231719
>what is wrong with making fighters powerful and deadly on par with magic users?
Because the whole thing that balances martials against mages is that mages can only be useful a certain amount of times before resting while martials can keep going for as long as they fucking want.

If you make martials too powerful, it fucks up the whole dynamic because either you end up with more mages or you end up with OP pieces of trash that can effectively emulate spells all day, erry day.

Plus, not everyone wants to PLAY A FUCKING CASTER HOLY FUCKING SHIT! WHY DO WE NEED A THREAD FOR THIS EVERY FUCKING DAY! YES I'M MAD!

>>54231740
wouldnt it be the opposite?

wizard leads with a powerful spell, but is forced to rely on ever weaker spells as he runs out of magic, while swordsmen deliver consistent damage even when forced into prolonged battles with little rest?

>>54227075
i usually go the route that mages are shit in confrontations unless they have prepared beforehand like a ritual or a deal with some entity. they are strong over large distances like they are sitting in their towers taking their time to conjure all kinds of shit in your way to stop you

>>54231740
>Swords are more reliable and deal a consistent amount of damage.
Yeah, consistently shit. You have a better chance of convincing a bandit to give up their life of crime than killing most creatures past level 5 with an ordinary sword.

>>54231753
>Because the whole thing that balances martials against mages is that mages can only be useful a certain amount of times before resting while martials can keep going for as long as they fucking want.

That doesn't balance them tho. Especially at high levels.

>>54231758
It depends on the magic system.

The one I was working with relies on building up and not to mention big spells have cast time too.

So while the swordsmen stab the wizard, if they can't kill him, wizard eventually cast some big spells that can wipe them out.

>>54231774
Yes it does, it's just that shit DM's are too pussy-whipped to throw enough encounters at the party to drain the mage of their spells.

When the game is played as intended, it balances out.

>>54231771
Is your argment that spells are stronger than swords?

I will agree with you, but how do you balance that? They should have clear tradeoffs because who will pick the swordsman if wiz is always OP?

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I guess we just NEED one of these threads on the board at all times.

/tg general thread everybody, post whatever you want

>>54231795
No it is not. I did throw a lot of encounters at the parties. Unless people are good at optimization it is just a TPK. Fighters run out of HP and die. Casters run out of spells and die.

The ones who survived most consistently were actually rogues and swift hunters who could hide. Unless they made a mistake and got into close combat then they died too.

How much anime do you have to watch to think for a second that martials should be on par with casters.

Get that naruto shit out of d&d. Either play a caster or stop complaining that you can't do what a caster does.

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>>54227125

A simple and completely in accord with classic myth and folklore to defeat magic and magical beings like the fey is Cold Iron. You could even say that the decline of the elves began when everybody began to use Iron in their weapons and armor.

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>>54231912
excuse me cunt, this is a skeleton thread, stop posting off topic shit

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Make magic not exist

>>54231937
>Posts irrelevant shit because he's a butthurt martialfag
>Accuses others of posting off topic shit
Welp, I guess neither skeletons or martials are known for their INT.

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>>54231937
skeletons you say?

would a BBEG with skeletors personality and powers, but actually competent be a fun villain to fight?

>>54231753
>If you make martials too powerful, it fucks up the whole dynamic because either you end up with more mages or you end up with OP pieces of trash that can effectively emulate spells all day, erry day.
This is not the utter and absolutely inevitable truth that you think it is.
It is a probable outcome that should be avoided, though. That I agree.

>not everyone wants to PLAY A FUCKING CASTER
While I fully support this, there is no reason for a fighter to avoid ANY & ALL MAGIC USE WHATSOEVER.
If you want to be competitive in a world full of magic, you have to account for it.
You fight magic with extreme skill, abilities of others, knowledge and tech, or, yes indeed, magic.

If you don't want to play a cyborg, you don't have to play a luddite.
If you want to fight guns with knives, it can be done, you just need a plan beyond impotent anger at the existence of guns.

>>54231912
>martials should be on par with casters of the same level.
FTFY

Like anon said, either adjust the scale of what magic users can do or adjust the scale of what martials can do beyond irl physics.
It really is that simple.

>>54227075
>How do you balance "Dude in metal who hits stuff really hard with other pieces of metal" in a setting with actual magic and divinity and shit WITHOUT giving him magical/divine/etc. pieces of metal to wear and hit with?
Look I play FFGSW and 40k RPGs, in those games the "magic" shit is balanced out in two ways: either they are more utilitarian in nature and don't always work (FFGSW), or the player has to choose to cast a wimpy spell or risk bad things happening (40k).

Guns and swords just wind-up being more reliable and less likely to draw angry daemons seeking to rip-out one's entrails.

>>54231975
I vote yes.

But I am biased.

It's a shame that shit threads like this are allowed to get 150+ posts but threads like this >>54225528 end up dying before they even pick up steam.

I tell ya, /tg/ has gone to the shitter.

>>54227075
Magic is difficult and normally produces effects that are in-line with what non-magic dudes can do. Its advantage is in its flexibility. A level 5 wizard can't cast a 40-foot-diameter fireball that will kill average people and severely wound heroes -- he can produce and launch an arrow of magic ice, dealing damage in the same range as a good longbow. Or he can start a campfire, even under wet conditions. Or he can use an illusion to change his appearance. But no save or die, no save or lose, no save or suck.

And divine power is saved for when it really matters. Goblins raiding farmsteads doesn't really rise to the level of being worthy of a miracle to solve.

This shit isn't that difficult to figure out. But D&D has set the bar for casters so ludicrously high that of course non-magical dudes can't keep up. "Linear fighters, quadratic wizards" doesn't have to be a thing. It's just that D&D made wizards quadratic. Are you really telling me it is easier for a wizard to blow a giant hole in an enemy army's front line (fireball, castable at 5th level) than it is for a fighter o make 2 attacks per round (+6/+1 base attack bonus, achievable at 6th level)? At 5th level, a wizard should still be working on magic missile.

>>54232288
>3R 1P
You're embarrassing yourself.

>>54227075
Matter also has properties in terms of how easily they are interacted with in terms of magic, the same as magnetism, shinyness, density, etc.

Mages would then need to make use of alchemical compounds instead of spells when facing soldiers wearing tinfoil hats.

>>54232347
I'm not the guy who made the thread, I'm just saying that good threads are being drowned out by an ocean of shit while these threads are allowed to float to the top daily.

Can't we just cut the bullshit and make a martial vs. caster General or something?

They shouldn't be balanced. Don't ever balance them. Magic is supposed to be fucking magic, not a reskinned method of fighting.

>>54232418
These threads had basically died off until a few days ago when someone started making them again.

>>54232042
But why? Why should martials be as powerful as casters? What's the logical reasoning behind it beyond the selfish "I play a martial so I want to be stronger than everyone else?"

>>54227075
Make magic either take forever to cast (based on the power or utility of it). Or make magic not be a thing someone would be able to define themselves as doing soley.

Like you can only cast a few spells a week, they're still cool and interesting spells, but they're more clutch moves than your go to. So less wizards and more people who can occasionally use a spell.

>>54232487

Because player options should not be traps. If you want your casters to be always stronger than the martials, then either don't make the martials an available option for players, or don't make casters available for players. You want both things in your game? Then find a way to make both useful. Otherwise don't try to act like your game has options when it bloody well does not.

>>54232487
Two players playing the same level characters should be roughly balanced with each other.
You don't give one player a bicycle and the other a tank.
Just scale down the mage or scale up the fighter.
It's not that hard.

>>54232487
>"I play a martial so I want to be stronger than everyone else?"

No one said stronger, just as strong. Or even just in the same ballpark really, the important thing is that casters and martials both depend on each other, both have a vital and fun role in the group. That's the foundation of a team-based game.

>>54232678
Martials already have a purpose though, they soak up hits that more important classes would've taken.

>>54232743
Ha. Ha.
Excellent description of them as an NPC class.

>>54232487
>as powerful as casters
>be stronger than everyone else
Wizardboo logic.

>>54232596
>>54232613
>>54232678
Caster supremacy is only an issue in 3.PF

Why do people make such a huge deal of it?

>>54232418
Sure you are not. I believe you.

>>54233226

Well, yeah, most games either make both options equally useful or do not have one of them as a character option (you can't be a nonmage in Mage the Awakening, for example).

Those people were just asking to the guy asking "why SHOULD martials be as useful as casters". The answer, of course, is "because that's how a team game fucking works", and as you said, most games do actually know this, it's mostly a problem in D&D and games inspired by it.

>>54233226
Because they refuse to play other games.

>>54233226
Because 3.pf is 50% of the RPG playing community

>>54233303
It's not a problem in D&D, it's a problem in 3.5 and Pathfinder.

>>54233329

I found that by the end of 2nd edition the problem was already kind of starting to rear its head. 3.0 just took it into maximum fucking overdrive.

>>54233329
The problem still exists in 5e, albeit lesser

>>54233361
No it doesn't. Martialcucks just have left over salt from 3.PF

>>54233361
in terms of pure damage, its actually fairly balanced

wizards do have a lot more out of combat options, but generally, casters do not dominate the game unless someone is going out of their way to be a munchkin

>>54233379
It's little different in 5e. While casters still have more versatility and power the gap is not that big and could be overlooked most of the time. Problem is martials became incredibly boring to play. Like mind-numbingly boring. Even 3.5 with all the jokes about "could swing - not swing" never made them so boring.

>>54233416
This
>Champion: Oh boy, I crit on a 19-20, whoopie.
>Battle-Master: Oh boy, I can trip a dude and boost my AC once per battle before needing to take a nap, yay.
>Eldritch Knight: Oh boy, I get access to third level spells at level 12 and I'm MAD as fuck to boot, yay.

>>54227075
Time for your daily dose of this thread, only worded slightly differently now

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>>54231937
WHERE THE FUCK WERE U YESTERDAY

>>54213302

SKELETON THREAD WAR WAR WAR FUCKING WAR

>>54227075

Magic is ritual based: You might win the occasional battle by having a few guys in robes chanting for half an hour but those guys are dead without meat shields to protect them.

Magic is hard or restricted to bloodlines: Not everyone has magic and it's balanced by obscurity.

Magic isn't as impressive as everyone thinks: The occasional blast of force is handy, but except in rare scenarios magic isn't really enough to outright kill people, just more than enough to change how people fight.

Most people are pretty damn magical in there own right: Can't hurl a fireball? No problem, instead you're inhumanely quick and you can swing a stupidly heavy sword without tiring. The problem fixes itself.

If you can't provide a solution to this problem you just aren't thinking hard enough.

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Kneel before your master

>>54233226
because fuck the caster cucks

>>54231753
I have never, ever seen a caster run out of spells in 5e.

We did a 5 session long dungeon with no rests and the caster was still just fine on spell slots. At level 12. He had been casting in every room too. We counted the spell slots he used. Don't act like spell slots limit casters at anything except level 1-5.

>>54233416
I mean if you don't find them interesting to play then play something else. Don't complain that casters are OP.

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LONG HAVE I BEEN ENTOMBED... NO MORE!

>>54227179
But there isn't.

Remember that at the upper """limits""" of adventuring a lone fighter is supposed to be able to easily slay adult dragons.

You only think there's a limit because you've been beaten to death time and time again with the stupid fucking realism stick instead of understanding that 100% of THE GAME IS UNREALISTIC TO BEGIN WITH

>>54227245
Absolutely agree 100%.

There's no reason why you shouldn't reach the prowess and epic mythical tier of folklore heroes at upper levels

>>54227306
Option 3 is clearly the only real solution.
Low levels are somewhat bounded by the laws of reality. Higher levels become insane with completely unbelievable feats of strength, durability, will, and determination

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I venture into the world of the living...

>>54233749
I like playing martials. That's why I prefer other systems - they allow much more things to do with a sword and a good kick.

>>54227245
This. Not even just physical stuff too, let the beatstick do the other classic warrior hero things, like shrugging off enchantments through sheer force of will.

>>54233897
Okay so... What are you complaining about? You don't even play D&D.

>>54227075
Treat Magic like artillery or napoleonic area cannons? Its cumbersome and takes a long time to cast, is difficult to master, may not be very accurate and it sometimes backfires.

>>54231975
If your players like Skeletor, and that kind of hamming, yes. If they don't they'll probably say his personality is silly.

>>54233945
I play D&D, I just try to do it with DMs I know for a long time and preferably those who allow to use ToB.

Also it doesn't have anything to do with why I post here. Even if I would have never even once played D&D I would have still posted. It's a general stance or principle if you want. I like checking out new systems from time to time to see what can be plundered from there and what things are done bad.

>>54232440
You're right, magic shouldn't even BE used for fighting.

>>54233945
This thread was never about D&D

>>54234178
Every thread that isn't about warhammer is about d&d

>>54234199
not true

there's also M:tG threads

>>54234213
MtG is just a D&D card game.

>>54234199
Why is sci-fi/Cyberpunk so unpopular, /tg/?

I would love to play a modern urban x-com style game of sort (not necessary with aliens, just with guns and a city battle map), but none of my friends like guns.

>>54227327
Thats pretty dope actually. You could have like "Will" and "Enlightenment" checks and mid battle banter can actually be a form of attack, as the characters try to convince each other of how correct they are.

>>54234178
Of course it was. Caster supremacy is only an issue in 3.5 and PF.

>>54234282
On /tg/ at least cyberpunk threads tend to dissolve into a couple of guys sperging out if anyone dares to claim that cyberpunk doesn't necessarily have to be about a group of street criminals fighting a megacorp that controls the world. Basically if it's not exactly like a basic bitch version Cyberpunk 2020 it's not "real cyberpunk."

>>54227075
>How do you balance "Dude in metal who hits stuff really hard with other pieces of metal" in a setting with actual magic and divinity and shit WITHOUT giving him magical/divine/etc. pieces of metal to wear and hit with?
You don't. Why would you? The very idea of it is absurd.

>>54227075
Give him straight up anime abilities. Not magical, but retarded strong, able to jump and do flips and shit, and has heightened senses. In this world, knights are a race of humans with these abilities, but they have to intake almost double that of a normal human to keep themselves from fatiguing, so normal scrub humans learned ancient magic to even the playing field. Also, magic takes time off of your life.
>Basic spells = a couple seconds to a couple minutes

>Beginner's destructive magic
A couple hours

>Intermediate spells
A couple days to weeks

>Advanced destructive magic
months

>Forbidden spells
Years

>Ancient Forbidden spells
Self sacrifice of a sense

>Sacrificial Destructive magic
Your life or another. Able to destroy cities, but the sacrifice has to accept their death for the spell to work. No half assed shit or "I'm gonna kill this dude to use this magic"

I think it would be pretty even, then.

>>54234323
>Of course it was. Caster supremacy is only an issue in 3.5 and PF.
>I've never played anything other than D&D
kill yourself

>>54234412
In what other game is caster supremacy a thing?

>>54227075
You're really doing this every day huh?

>>54234446
Does he do it at the same time of the day ?

>>54234478
Can't tell. The thread is always up when I'm awake and has at least a few hundred replies. I could go check the three other ones he's done in the archives but I really don't care to.

>>54227075
Getting awesome at magic takes a lot more time and effort than becoming awesome at swords.
>In the time it takes Vulcar to become an expert warrior Mishmal is still a journeyman illusionist.
>Vulcar is now both an expert warrior and an expert thief, Mishmal has just now become an expert illusionist.
>Vulcar has leaned Smithing and Leading and now Mishmal is an expert in illusionism and necromancy.
>Mishmal can pull of a wide variety of incredible tricks but nothing that could be considered godlike.
Most hero warriors aren't just good at fighting, their great deeds involve leadership, wisdom, perception, trickery and stealth and whatever other abilities they can muster when combat ability isn't enough. A bad-ass martial is jack-of-trades. If they are up against superpowered foes then they would also be masters of all trades.
Also think of magic like science. A guy can have an understanding of scientific thought and knowledge in a field but that doesn't mean he has access to all "the awesome powers of science." It's not like there is scientific energy floating around that is somehow separate from everything we do. Just a series of techniques that let us understand and control the world, like sword-fighting.

Considering magic pieces of metal: In a modern or sci-fi setting a warrior would use guns, tanks, aircraft, grenades, rockets, all things created engineers based on principles illuminated by science.
In a world were magic is part of existence and it can be at least somewhat understood and turned to practical purposes then it doesn't make sense that a warrior would not use it when he needs to.

ALSO ALSO, fighting isn't just about hitting guys. Probably the most important skill of warriors is not being killed. Heroic warriors have amazing reflexes for dodging both blades and fireballs as well as incredible endurance to keep up for hours and iron wills to resist fear, stress and madness.

I think Armor Class neuters DnD martials far more than not being able to jump 30 feet in the air or blow down straw houses with their breath, to be honest. Systems that use defense rolls and damage reduction get to see martial characters that can actually hold their own against enemies consistently, instead of constantly praying for lucky rolls and getting their shit pushed in while waiting for the wizard to end the encounter with a fireball or hypnotic pattern. When I'm playing my 5e Battlemaster with 20 AC it feels like I'm just flailing around uselessly while praying that I won't get instantly knocked out at any given moment by the enemy getting a couple hits in. I don't feel cool or strong at all.
And for some fucking reason wizards have an entire buffet of defensive spells they can stack? Shield, Mirror Image, Blink, etc etc. The mages in the party always have higher ACs than the guys in plate armor, and enemies have disadvantage to hit them and have to make special rolls just to have a chance at doing so. It's dumb.

>>54232487
>What's the logical reasoning behind it beyond the selfish "I play a martial so I want to be stronger than everyone else?"
The fact that most magic in legends is divine, infernal, or fey in origin?
The concept of mages as some guy who knows the source code of the universe and uses it for something other than curses or protection against evil is relatively new.
Ablooblooing about martials wanting to do something other than hit things hard is something I've never understood, and this is coming from someone who is basically a mage IRL.
Plus the fact that mages, particularly Wizards, know ALL schools of magic rather than just one or two specific fields.
Also
>Wanting to contribute as much as a mage
>Selfish
Guess that puts Moon Circle Druids in the 'only selfish douchebags' circle.
Hoping to drag this thread to bump limit.

>>54232487
Fun.
The game is meant to be fun. Playing krillin or yamcha is not fun.

>>54234886
Then don't play them. Nobody is forcing you to play them.

>>54234942
Why are not fun options in the game. Why did someone spend a large wordcount describing and detailing the not fun classes. Why do multiple places in the book try and claim that the not fun classes and the fun classes are both equally as fun when they are not.

>>54234942
Because I want my knight in shining armor or Conan. I want to chop heads and save fair maidens. Block a dragon breath with a shield, drop melting and burning piece of metal and wood on the floor of the cave and jump forward cutting his smug lizard face in half.

Only the d20 derivatives say "fuck you" to that for the most part. And due to popularity of D&D most people play it or some derivative of it and will do it for at least 5-7 years at the very least.

>>54234886
>>54234942
Martialcucks choose to play as Krillin and complain that they aren't as powerful as Goku

>>54234942

If a thing is designed to not be fun on purpose, it's a waste of space and the game shouldn't present it as a viable player option. Either put up or shut up, basically.

>>54234942
>>54235020
>I want to play X
>X isn't fun to play
>We should change things so X becomes fun to play
>If X is not fun to play, just don't play them my dude
How about completely missing the point?
>Inb4 "But this logic applies to a ridiculous character idea that shouldn't be playable"
Yeah, no, that doesn't hold any water when the concept of fighters beating the odds is one of the major if not archetypical concepts that characterized fantasy.

>>54235003
Some people like to play certain characters even though they're not the most powerful. Not everyone is a powergaming autist.

>>54235006
You have 2 choices:

1. Don't play a martial
2. Don't play 3.PF

>>54235020
Krillin is put into the rulebook next to Goku with no direct indication that he's a weaker choice.

>>54235060
Would you expect anything different from WOTC?
>We don't have any bias towards Blue guys honest!

>>54235053
Not playing a martial doesn't allow me to actually chop head and take names. At best it allows me to use magic to snuff out life out of enemies.

The second option is real but really sucks in how it shrinks the playing field.

>>54235025
>>54235047
Powerful != Fun

If being the most powerful PC is the only way you can have fun then roll a caster. It's not rocket science.

>>54235060
He's only noticeably weaker in 3.5

>>54235073
So you want the entire game to be redesigned to suit YOUR personal playstyle?

Fuck off.

>>54235081
Move and Full Attack sure is fun guys.
>But do something else!
And then it becomes mother-may-I with the DM, or you fall even further behind in Number Cruncher Simulator 2003, and the DM gets confused as to why his monster ate you alive when it was supposed to be on-level.
And if having less power isn't a problem, why not just ban mages altogether, or restrict their abilities?

>>54235053
>Some people like to play certain characters even though they're not the most powerful.
But they still want to have fun. There are ways to do power imbalance and still have fun. This isn't one of them because it isn't fun.
Furthermore, the people who play these classes don't play them because they want to be weaker. If they did why would people be upset?

The world hates Magic-Users.
If it becomes known that you're a Magic-User, the commoners will hunt you down and kill you.
Nature hates magic, and animals and even plants will shun you or become aggressive.
Magic itself hates Magic-Users and will resist attempts to control it. Theur enhanced magical senses make Magic-Users vulnerable to magical areas, creatures and traps in ways that normal people aren't.
Good luck reaching level 2, you arrogant bastard.

>>54235115
I want it to be redesigned in accordance with it proclaims to deliver.

>>54235117
Yeah martials are boring as fuck. That's why I never play them in 3.5

Some people like the simplicity though. They don't want to have to choose from a dozen different spells like casters do. They just want to smack things. Nothing wrong with that. Fighters are the perfect choice for them.

>>54234678
>Most hero warriors aren't just good at fighting, their great deeds involve leadership, wisdom, perception, trickery and stealth and whatever other abilities they can muster when combat ability isn't enough.
All things that a Fighter won't be good at because they have to devote most of their resources towards STR and CON.

Meanwhile, a Bard can do all those things and still be useful at what he does.

>>54235020
No. Usually they complain when people tell them that wanting krillin to be as strong as goku is bad and that they're playing the game wrong. Such as this string of threads over the past few days

>>54235129
Fun is subjective. Plenty of people have fun playing martials even though they're not the most powerful class in 3.5

>>54235165
Why are the simple classes always martials, why can't there be simple casters? 3.5 Warlocks were a step into that direction, but I think they still had more choices to make.

>>54235165
Alright, agreed.
Now, because we want to play martials that are more complex, I'd like to make Bo9S available for our next campaign.
I haven't played 3.5 in years due to personal preference and unfortunate experience, but I'm of the impression the third-party Path of War and Psionics books for Pathfinder provide an interesting campaign and options while still remaining relatively balanced. Is that true?

>>54234426
In WoD mages could dominate field, as far as I read.
Also there are dnd clones that probably have the same problems.
Outside of above I have never seen magician supremacy in different systems.
In FATE, SW, BRP and I think GURPS (other "generic" system that I know) it seemed balanced with other things.

>>54235212
Because the sheer number of spells available to casters. Martials are one dimensional. All they do is hit things with their sword.

>>54235208
Sure. But usually with alterations. With banning classes in certain tiers, or using a bunch of hombrew. Fun shouldn't be worked for. A good system would be fun out of the box

>>54235223
If you really want some hardcore rip and tear check out Mythos Compendium. It is eternal work in progress but it has enough classes to play with. Author used Exalted as inspiration.

>>54235234
In mage it's by design, rather than mechanics cock ups by incompetent devs in 3.PF.
The whole point of the gameline is hubris and power and yadda yadda yadda

>>54235254
>Fun shouldn't be worked for.
t. Casual

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>>54235281

>>54235254
But we've just established that fun is subjective.

I reject the notion that nobody has ever played a 3.5 martial out of the box and had fun. Why is this so inconceivable to you?

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>>54235299

>>54235251
That's circular logic. Why does every caster have to have a large array of different spells?

>>54235254
>>54235281
>>54235299
I always knew martialfags were the casuals of tabletop gaming. I'm glad that 4e failed so WotC can focus on the people who actually play their game.

>>54235309
Use your imagination for a second. How many different spells can you imagine a wizard casting? Magic offers endless possibilities.

Martials are just one dimensional fighting men.

>>54235309
Because they're designed to be useful in every situation. Duh.

>>54235336
You do know that making at least somewhat competent martial in 3.PF takes much more effort and skill than making a competent caster?

Or we could just invoke the name of Tordek.

>>54235305
I don't. I'm saying it's evident from nearly any major online source that more people do not have fun with the core than do. It's not just here, basically everywhere that talks about rpg's has ranted and raved about how unfun the class system in 3.PF is. That doesn't mean it's impossible to have fun with, you could have fun playing F.A.T.A.L., but it doesn't mean its fine the way it is either.

>>54235369
The most complicated part of a martial is character creation, not during actual play.

Nice try though :P

>>54231930
Beat me to it, fellow Kiplingfag.

>>54235384
There are tons of solutions if you don't enjoy playing a martial in 3.5

>use supplements such as weeaboo fighting magic
>use some homebrew rules
>don't play a martial
>don't play 3.5

Just play 5e like everyone else.

>>54235346
Why would mage know all types of magic?

If you are ill would you instead of going to medical doctor go to biology(sea life) doctor because both of them are doctors and work in general field of biology?
In same way why would fire elementalist know how to move earth or enchanter know anything about evocation?

>>54235384
Note most of these places that talk about this shit. GitP, RPG.net, Reddit, all hives of the most casual scum this side of tabletop gaming who couldn't even build a commoner with enough proficiency to tie their shoes.

Y'know how /v/ always talks about fake gamers who come into the hobby and ruin everything because devs cater to them instead of their audience? Well the groups who bitch about caster supremacy are those casuals. They don't care about actually learning the game, understanding the mechanics, or getting enthralled into a story; they just want to open up the book, shit out a character, and brag about how awesome their special snowflakes are.

Nobody's forcing them to stick to one system, they're just too stupid to give other systems a try, in which case, fuck 'em.

>>54235449
I know. That's not what the discussion is about. I'm replying to someone asking why they should be balanced in the first place.

>>54235455
>In same way why would fire elementalist know how to move earth or enchanter know anything about evocation?
Overlap?

>>54235455
So your solution is that we break down the wizard and cleric classes into 3647575 subclasses?

>>54235467
I'm not going to respond to some twelve year old's blanket accusation that everyone with an opinion you disagree with is wrong and a casual ruining the hobby.
What I will respond to is
>Nobody's forcing them to stick to one system, they're just too stupid to give other systems a try, in which case, fuck 'em.
3.PF is the most popular rpg of modern times by a huge margin. 'let's just play something that isn't DnD' isn't really an option for many people.

>>54235423
It never ends, anon. It never ends.

The only edition to completely remove the problem was the most despised, so obviously we don't want/deserve balance. Just accept this and move on. This is a hell of our choosing.

>>54235537
>3.PF is the most popular rpg of modern times by a huge margin. 'let's just play something that isn't DnD' isn't really an option for many people.
Play 5e like the rest of the casuals, you don't have that excuse anymore.

>>54235554
We should just have a caster vs martial general at this point since these threads reach 350 posts every single day.

>>54235575
The pathfinder audience is still much larger than the 5e audience in many places across the states, and even it doesn't really solve this problem, just makes it less egregious.

>>54235499
Not really but come to think of it:

Why the fuck not?

I played whfrp 2e for a long time(with no caster supremacy or as a guy that liked to play wizard I did not notice) but in there magic above cantrip level and 1d4 common spells is restricted into different lores of magic an any person can know only one lore and divine casters had different spell list for different gods, with no overlap.

>>54235597
Better, lets kill a bunch of bird's with one stone. Let's have the I'd like an argument general where anyone can go to have their stupid discussions about whatever system they like.

>>54235572
5e doesn't suffer from this problem either.

The only edition that suffers from caster supremacy is 3.5

Martials are legendary dudes, meaning they have destinies and other Vth century mary sue bullshit.

>>54235601
>Play a different system
>3.PF's all we got
>Try 5e
>It's NOT THAT SIMPLE!
I'm glad I wasn't born with low functioning autism like you.

>>54227075
You don't, dumbass.

But there's no reason not to make Enchanted Weapons standard for anyone who's on a first-name basis with a noble or has the money to buy a shitty town wizard's hour-and-a-half.

I've found muskets also work - Bonus if the party decides to steal them and then complain about how they can't hit anything despite not firing in a formation like the NPCs.

>>54235674
You can pretend that 5e is a bastion of perfect balance that has none of the problems of earlier editions all you want, it isn't going to change anything. Nor the fact that most people fed up with this sort of thing don't want to play any edition of dnd at all, and want something completely different.

>>54235718
>You can pretend that 5e is a bastion of perfect balance that has none of the problems of earlier editions all you want, it isn't going to change anything.
Last I checked, 5e fixed most of the bullshit that you're complaining about, so maybe you just like being useless and complaining about being useless?
>Nor the fact that most people fed up with this sort of thing don't want to play any edition of dnd at all, and want something completely different.
Then do it, don't sit here trying to prove to me how you're not a casual or whatever, just go ahead and fucking play another game.

It ain't rocket science.

>>54235718
Have you even played 5e?

Martials are just as powerful as casters. What more do you want? Some people are never satisfied it seems..

>>54235777
>777
Witnessed, 5e is great!

>>54235406
Does anyone actually play 3.pf for the gameplay? I always thought the main appeal of those games other than how common they are is the process of creating stupid and broken character concepts.

>>54235628
See>>54234773 for an example on how that's not the case. Was long as there's vancian casting and legacy spells there will never be balance

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>>54235175
Which is shitty design. A very rough partial fix would be to assign the slow, medium and fast experience tables to different classes. (Assuming 3.PF)
>Full-casters are slow, half-casters are medium and non-casters are fast.
Give fighters 4+Int or 6+Int skills.
Take a feather from 5e and let feat options be sacrificed for an additional +1 to an attribute. So all those fighter bonus feats don't go to waste.
Those are some very minor fixes

For other more major changes:
Assign different aspects of spell-casting to different stats
>Int is max spell level, Cha is DC and Wis is additional spells
So magic user halve to balance between stats just as much as non-casters. This also limits how many casters get to the point of being crazy 9th-level spell users with the one that do sacrificing spell power or slots.

Maybe remove the current full-attack rules, take something from Simple d6. Take a penalty to all actions (somewhere between -3 and -5) to gain an addition action. This applies to attacks and skills.
Spells may be included in this with the penalty applying to caster level and/or DC, with the possible limit that only one spell may be cast per turn.
Allow attacks to be held and rolled as parries against incoming successful attacks, if the rolls beats the attacker's he misses.
Naturally a character can still move and do all this.

Use pic related for some ideas concerning combat manuvers and feats.
Use http://hyboria.xoth.net/rules/die_stygian_jackal.htm for ideas concerning HP and AC
Look at Fantasycraft for ideas on anything

Or play a different system.

>>54235406
It actually is. Because if you want to survive at least for some time at levels above 8 you need to keep in mind a lot of shit about magic in head. Forgot about something? Well you are dead now.

As a martial you can't have a safety net of contingencies, illusions and other protective spells. At least nowhere close to what a full caster can do for himself. Those martials who just whack everything in sight die pretty fast. Or become a puppet of their enemies.

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>>54235251
Because the sheer number of fighting techniques available to martials. Casters are one dimensional. All they do is wave their hands.

>>54235777
Damage=/=power. That is not and has never been the problem.

>>54234773
>>54235857
This is spurious argument.

Let's stop pretending as if wizards constantly have Blur, Mage Armor, Mirror Image, etc active.

>>54235900
Every single one of those bar a small handful is simply a variant on hit person with weapon. They all accomplish the same end through the same means. Trying to compare that to the billion affects one can bring forth with magic is stupid and we both know it.

>>54235900
The possibilities of magic are limitless.

No matter how much martialcucks bitch and moan there are only so many ways you can swing your sword.

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>>54235423
>>54235554

>>54235935
>Let's stop pretending as if wizards constantly have Blur, Mage Armor, Mirror Image, etc active.
...this is sarcasm right?

>>54235963
>The possibilities of magic are limitless.
As arbitrarily dictated by the writers of the game.

>>54235900
>Each manuever is listed in a spreadsheet that barely tells you anything about how they're supposed to work.
>End result is still "hit dude for X damage" with a sprinkling of "mother may I?" for good measure.
Man, why are martialfags so dumb? Do they dump INT IRL to get immersed into their roles or what?

>>54235904
What is the problem then?

>>54235963
That's entirely up to the author mate. That's the whole point. Magic is only so much better and more interesting because the writer wants it to be that way.

>>54235983
>>Each manuever is listed in a spreadsheet that barely tells you anything about how they're supposed to work.
How they work is described elsewhere. That's just an overwiew.
>>End result is still "hit dude for X damage" with a sprinkling of "mother may I?" for good measure.
Didn't know you played the game I took the list from in SUCH a wrong way. Holy shit.

>>54235980
It just so happens that the writers of D&D are quite imaginative when it comes to magic as evidenced by the list of spells in the PHB.

>>54235963
>>54235937
So you're saying the way to balance the game would be to limit them both to the same number of options?

The Fighter has 3 ways to hit people with a sword, the Wizard has 3 ways to bend reality to his whim.

Is that fair?

>>54235987
Utility. Casters have many options in and out of combat that can ignore altogether the battle HP attrition that martials play. Martials deplete HP and that's it.

>>54236064
My bad, I thought we were talking about 5e

All high-level characters have magic. The problem-solving capabilities some people with magical abilities have in story and myth are simply beyond anything that a mundane character can be imagined as having while remaining recognizably mundane. Simple combat ability or even mundane noncombat skills can't compete with piles of supernatural utility like teleporting or talking to the dead to solve mysteries. If you limit all magic-users so hard that they can't outcompete abilities recognized as mundane that either means your entire game is low-level compared to high-power story/myth/games (acceptable but not what everyone is interested in) and/or you've made a lot of the more powerful/useful abilities NPC-only somehow (which is a bullshit decision that frustrates players).

At low levels the magic user is sufficiently limited that their combat ability is balanced with hitting things with a sword or bow and their non-combat utility is balanced with shit mundane characters can do like sneak or climb or ask around town. So it's fine if a character starts off mundane. The important thing is that every single mundane character needs to GET magic if they level up enough and become a Death Knight or a Runesmith or something.

In single-author fiction authors can work around this. Sometimes overly-powerful characters seem to forget about their own abilities or get countered by massive amounts of luck. Lots of "mundane" characters in folklore get magical items or help from magic-users that happens to precisely align with what they end up needing. Even Hercules got magical help from the gods. Obviously this sort of thing doesn't work in a game. If you really wanted to emulate folklore you could make it an actual class-feature where you get magic powers flavored as "I helped an old beggar woman and she gave me this magic bag...", but that's not really a mundane character anymore. For more conventional fantasy players should just become magical in their own right.

>>54235983
Frankly I would be ok with martials having realistic amount of damage and effects. Hit something with a sword? Target loses a limb or its guts are spilled out, half the skull is making an impression of UFO and so on. Arrow? It just hit a guy in robes in the eye and came out from back of his head.

Playing field will be levelled pretty hard. Because wizards will need to sink much more resources in defences or will need a bodyguard.

You can get to this level of damage in D&D but the price is too high. While if we go "realistic" everyone with decent skill should be able to pull it off without feats.

>>54236032
The only way that magic could be as one dimensional as martial combat is if every single spell was some sort of physical damage effect.

And at that point, why even bother with magic?

>>54236033
Not really what I'm talking about.
Magic has no true form across fantasy, everything it can and cannot do in any given medium is arbitrary. Magic can teleport you an infinite distance in the blink of an eye to any place you've so much as heard described and there is no chance of failure. Why can it do this thing with no restrictions? Just because it can. You can create your own worlds, open portals between planes of reality, force unbreakable commands on subjects and so on with no restriction. Why? Just because thats how it works.

>>54236039
Why do you want to limit the number of abilities?

Casters are always going to have more options. Deal with it.

>>54235935
>Shield
Lasts 1 round and costs a reaction.
>Blur
Concentration, costs an action to cast.
>Mage Armor
Lasts 8 hours and costs an action to cast
>Mirror Image
Lasts 1 minute and costs an action to cast

So since you can cast as many spells as you want so long as it isn't a spell with a duration of "Concentration," you can in fact stack these spells on top of one another.

>>54236087
Then why not take it another direction? Have magic be just a smattering of rituals and low-level utility, with a handful of combat-capable cantrips so they can toss a few firebolts at enemies without needing a crossbow.

Then you can expand on fighters as the undisputed kings of combat and give them a bunch of special maneuvers to inflict status conditions, balanced out by their relative lack of non-combat utility. Rogues would still be handy for being more speedy than a typical ritual and not being as narrow as some of the magical effects.

>>54236064
Because that's what they do!

Fighters are just that: fighters. What the fuck do you expect a fighter to do besides fight?

It's like your choosing a very obviously one dimensional character and then complaining about a lack of options. You're rolling a fighter and complaining that you can't teleport or fly or do any of the stuff the wizard does.

>>54236077
Do you people even play 5e? Sleep, hypnotic pattern, banishment, plane shift, fly, every wall spell, invulnerable shields, blink, teleports, reverse gravity, fucking simyulacrums, etc. Martial are still nowhere near as versatile at any given moment as a caster. This is just intrinsic to the very concepts of the classes

>>54236144
Because that's boring as fuck.

Why do you want casters to be as boring as martials?

>>54236122
>Why do you want to limit the number of abilities?

Because that's what OP asked? >>54227075

>Casters are always going to have more options. Deal with it.

Unless you just...don't? Hell, I'm not even suggesting that their only be 3 spells in the game, just that any given individual wizard should know a handful of spells rather than pages upon pages upon pages plus scrolls and wands and staffs and everything else.

Why do you insist that Wizards have more power available to them than most Mythological Gods?

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>>54235864

>>54236188
That's some real circular logic you've got going.

>>54236087
Well, I have no problem with Casters being very versatile. But if they outshine martials by such a huge degree in battle that's just retarded.
Martials, imo, should stand a fair chance in a pitted fight against a caster. Well, yes the caster can conjure up many effects, but if you just introduce one thing
1) Casting takes a round or two or three
then martials may be able to distract him (invoking an concentration check) while closing up. But the mage might just as well win.
There somewhat balanced fights.
Or do it like Symbaroum and introduce some corruption if casting too much in too small timeframes.

Or this >>54236144
But no, casters need to outclass everything and everyone just because. I mean, I also like to play casters. But martials should also be interesting to play, espeacially in fucking combat.

>>54236151
>Because that's what they do!
>Fighters are just that: fighters. What the fuck do you expect a fighter to do besides fight?
Do you realize how utterly circular this is? That casters can do all sorts of things because they can and martials can only hit things with swords because they just can

I think everything else I could say has already been said on this thread. My personal favorite solution is simply allowing martials to accomplish feats that would be impossible in the real world.

But, I haven't seen anyone mention it in this thread (maybe they did), what about all spells costing HP to cast? I dunno how D&D HP scale, maybe make them cost an amount of HP equal to their level. Maybe twice. Yes, for all spell casters. The reason is that casting a spell makes you tired. Would that help?

>>54236186
>Martial are still nowhere near as versatile at any given moment

The moment where the caster runs out of spells because he decided to show off and burn all his slots on pointless utility when an Athletics check and a rope would have sufficed.

>>54236217
But they don't outclass anyone in 5e - the current edition.

You're complaining about shit from two editions ago.

>>54236123
>Fighters can't even attempt a trip attack unless they have enough superiority dice to roll.
>Meanwhile Wizards can still do broken combos that shit all over the concentration mechanic to gain 20 AC, force an opponent to be disadvantaged, and miss anyways because they hit a clone.
AND PEOPLE THINK THAT 5E IS AN IMPROVEMENT?!? IT'S THE EXACT SAME SHIT, THE EXACT. SAME. SHIT. AS. BEFORE! GODDAMNIT I JUST WANTED A GOOD EDITION FOR ONCE AND NOW IT'S RUINED! GODDAMNIT!

>>54236229
So answer the question: what more do you want martials to be able to do?

If martials can do everything that casters can do then what's even the point of rolling a caster?

>>54236231
>The reason is that casting a spell makes you tired. Would that help?

For 3.PF, no, because a wand of Cure Light wounds is relatively cheap, and HP doesn't matter that much anyway when it's all about utility and rocket tag.

Personally, my preferred solution is to tone casters down while bumping marials up slightly. People seem to really, really underestimate just how fucking bonkers powerful casters in 3.5 are.

Limit mages to one school, give martials some actual ways to inflict status conditions, be more tactical, and offer utility, and you'll have made huge strides that nobody should really be able to honestly complain about.

But of course, people will, because martials can only swing a sword and nothing else, and any caster that isn't omnipotent isn't a real caster.

>>54236229
It's not my fault "Fighter" only means one thing. Meanwhile, Wizard can basically be anything from Harry Potter to Harry Dresden to THE WIZARD OF OZ!

>>54236265
You had a good edition and you shat on it. Now you'll eat your shit and enjoy it

>>54236151
>Fighters are just that: fighters. What the fuck do you expect a fighter to do besides fight?
I don't know. Maybe what fighter did in "real life"?
Take care of weapons and armor and animals, build camps, lead men into battle, study tactics, sing, play instruments, create poetry, learn philosophy, navigate, sail, execute the law, rule over fief, know genealogy, know etiquette, know basic of court game.
Of course none fighter did all of above but try to do anything of above with 2+int skill points when most probably is cross class skill