How do you balance wizards and warriors, Veeky Forums?

4e D&D.

That's like saying "You probably shouldn't drink coke it's got a fuck load of sugar in it"

then you going "OKAY!" and proceeding to chug a bottle of pepsi.

You think you're cute. But you're just stupid.

This.

Pathfinder is an arguably worse version of D&D, with nearly all of the same issues and a few more tacked on for good measure.
What you should probably do is have the cost to use magic be logarithmically related to how powerful it is.
Yeah, that ritual can cause the earth to split in half right under that city you hate, but the stars have to be in just the right position or all that planning goes straight to hell.
I always considered having the casting time for a spell be one action per level, but I think that would get me lynched in most Dungeons and Dragons communities.

Just bring back spell casting time from the older editions. Might not solve the problem, but it makes it easier knowing that that wizard/cleric/etc is going to get bumped a ways down the initiative order to cast a high level spell.

That was a joke, what with unlimited cantrips.

In all seriousness, what system makes fighters fun?

Sadly my group hates it.

Have fun.

>In all seriousness, what system makes fighters fun?

1) Legend of the Wulin

2) Dungeon World (if you're into storygame SHIT)

3) REIGN

4) The Malifaux RPG

5) Fate (again if you're into storygame SHIT)

Shilling it harder than a Vector employee: Marvel Heroic Roleplaying.
>But they hate it and don't want to learn a new system
Then grow a fucking pair and tell them you're sick of being sidelined by every chump with a pointy hat.

I like that idea too, I'm trying to find a flaw with it but the only thing I'm coming up with is maybe some higher level spells need to be modified into one action. But something like fireball could easily be 3 actions. Wish similarly being 8 actions is just fine. It gives higher level spells a more epic feeling as the other characters try to disrupt the caster's focus turn after turn hoping that his save or die spell won't go off.

I'd argue that the caster should be able to either spend his whole turn pouring two actions into the spell he's casting or allowing him to move while putting one action into it if he chooses.

As the guy you replied to, it would make Metamagic even more powerful that in was previously, to be frank.
I honestly think you should just get a different system. 5e is the least bad about it, and to be perfectly honest, you're not going to run a long enough campaign to get to the point where it matters.

Remove magic from every area where it competes with mundane skills. Wizard could divine your location and travel there unobserved, but he needs a thief to handle the locks quietly and a warrior for the kill itself.

Alternatively, as makes most sense in a high-magic setting, give every archetype access to spells they need to do their jobs.

>it would make Metamagic even more powerful
I don't follow, I looked up a few metamagic feats just now to see how this system would interact with them. I don't see any obvious problems with it.

I'm one of those stubborn 3.5 players who don't like to give up the billion splatbooks and ridiculous amount of epic levels unfortunately. My group likes it here so I make it work.

Isn't 5E still full caster edition?

I don't see how one can like fighters and play 3.5

I don't play fighters.

I'm not OP btw

>Quicken Spell for bypassing casting times
>Persistent Spell for near-permanent effects
>Repeat Spell for any spell above level 3
>Isn't 5E still full caster edition?
It's less blatant about it, especially because damage is now WAY more important than it was in 3.5 (lol instant death spell).

>Quicken Spell only works on spells with a casting time less than 1 round

>Persistent Spell uses a slot six level higher than normal so it takes 6 more actions to prepare

>Repeat Spell takes three more actions to prepare and is just as effective as normal

I play GURPS, and I find casters and martial are fairly balanced for a couple reasons, esp. compared to D&D. 1) Lack of HP bloat means dealing damage is most always a decently speedy option, unlike D&D where the options are spend an hour dinking away at a giant sponge or have the cleric cast a single spell. 2) Of all the magic systems in GURPS, I don't remember a single one that isn't some combination of slow, limited in scope/effect, resource-intensive, or risky; D&D wizards always struck me as strange as they're no-fail instant-casting sanity-maintaining with no real costs or drawbacks at all. 3) OPTIONS OPTIONS OPTIONS. This doesn't make the two options more balanced in terms of mechanical competency, but it does make them more balanced in terms of FUN. Giving martial characters choices of what to do in combat beyond Charge or Full Attack makes them more exciting and let's them flex their creative muscles in interesting ways. 4) Have matching levels of power; if you're running a game where martial characters are constrained by realism, don't give the wizards a high-fantasy magic system that lets them skullfuck the universe effortlessly.

>Persistent Spell
>Lasts 24 Hours
>Takes +6 actions to prepare
Even if I gave you the other two (when Repeat, say, Feeblemind could make or break a fight, though that's sort of a stretch) AND assumed that Quicken Spell's one-round requirement fell under the extra rounds rule (which makes sense, now that I think about it), come on, man. Persistent Shield/Mage Armor?

Save or dies suck.

>It's less blatant about it, especially because damage is now WAY more important than it was in 3.5 (lol instant death spell).

Mind you, Out of Combat still goes to spellcasters without effort.

Actually, that's a bad example, given that you'll want Persistent Shield whether the rule holds or not.
>Persistent Fox's Cunning/Owl's Wisdom
>Persistent Fly (because when you need Fly, it's probably a situation you don't want to spend 3 rounds in)
Man, now that I think about it, that rule doesn't really prevent any Persistent cheese at all.

so what fantasy systems do fighters well? My DM finds fantasy craft rather clunky.

By not playing D&D.

OH suure, get your angels, dude. They will never be able to pull as much of sick stunts as I do anyway.

>the cost to use magic be logarithmically related to how powerful it is.
I do not think "logarithmically" is what you want.
In that progression, one step on one axis is increase by ten times on the other. Second level spell is 10 times bigger than first. Third is 100 times than first. Fourth is 1000 times.

I just give martial classes cooler magical gear to make it up the lack of casting

ToB+XPH+MoI only.
Or DSP only.
Or by not playing D&D. Yes, that includes PF.

Angel Summoner is cool, but BMX Bandit is still the coolest.

>3) REIGN

I feel that this can be elaborated upon.

In REIGN, martials and casters are balanced out in a couple ways.

First, anyone can learn magic if they are correctly trained. There's nothing special about a sorcerer vs a normal joe; Sorcery is a skill the same as Fighting and Athletics. Moreover, Sorcery doesn't necessary have to fall under a single stat-- different forms of Magic might use your Body or Coordination, instead of just your Mind.

Secondly, anyone can learn how to Counterspell, which is the ability to muck up a mage's flow and disrupt his spells, effectively acting as a straight-up defense against magic. A magician's worst nightmare is a dude in plate armor with a shield and lots of points in Counterspell.

Finally, fighters have access to Martial Paths, which are really cool feats and techniques that give them options in combat outside of "I Attack!" or "I use Power Attack!"

Magic in REIGN is still really powerful, but you can have exactly as much fun playing as a martial character (more fun, in my opinion)

On a scale

Some systems have better build in balance than othesr. It's mostly painful in 3.X or Shadowrun. The simplest solution is to have mages of similar level challenge you casters. A blob of kobolds is a waste of a wizards time, leave them to the fighter. Now, a kobold sorcerer who can counter spell and debuff is an actually challenge for a spell caster.

I give warriors cool trinkets and artifacts. Casters have their spells and warriors have their weapons that level buildings and split the sun.

I don't.
>Wizards > not wizards.
I tell this to everyone and then they decide if they're either cool with it or find a new GM.

Does anyone play a "not wizard" in your games?

>ToB+XPH+MoI
>DSP
No fucking clue how people stomach playing 3.PF any other way.

Right now everyone does, got a rogue, a Paladin, and 2 fighters.
They fight the allpowerfull evil wizard.
It's my favourite cliche.

3.5 treats Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit as the same level, but really they aren't. Either BMX Bandit has to use Motorcycle Marauder for a high power game or Angel Summoner has to downgrade to Crab Control for a low power game.

Play Fantasy Craft though.

Neat. I'm guessing there's a reason people specialize in magic and don't just dip a few points in for utility spells?

Yes. It's called Attunement.

You can totally dip in to get a couple utility spells, but for the really strong ones you need to be Attuned. And Attuning is a one-way ticket to crazy town.

For example, there's a school of magic called the Ironbone Priesthood, which covers earth and metal magic. To use the really good spells you need the Greater Mark of Earthly Attunement. Here's what that means:

If you do your Greater Mark of Earthly Attunement just right, your bones turn to iron. You also become perfectly attuned to Ironbone magic and can’t cast any other spells, but let’s back up and think about that metal bone business for a minute.

First off, you become incredibly heavy – a weight gain of 100-200 pounds is typical. Expect to walk on bruised feet for a while. Carrying this extra weight around is tiring – it costs you a point of Body, permanently. It’s not that the muscles went away: It’s just that they have a much bigger load to carry, now.

However, an iron skeleton is a lot harder to crack. Whenever you take Killing damage from weapons, two points of Killing damage become Shock instead. (You take Shock damage normally, and Shock converts to Killing normally, but this is still a pretty big advantage.)

Furthermore, when you strike someone with a punch or a kick, you do an extra point of Shock damage. It’s sort of like wearing brass knuckles, only they’re under your skin.

You can also screw up your Attunement and end up with bones made of lead or tin or something super heavy and less durable than iron.

Being Attuned to Fire Dancing, the fire magic school, makes you basically immune to cold and causes your blood to ignite when exposed to the air, but also makes you sterile.

D&D is, so far, the only game franchise to convincingly and consistently balance warriors and wizards against each other *in the same scene* in such a way that they're both about equally useful to the party, are equally engaging to play, and neither are absolutely indispensable. They stepped back from that immediately of course, but that doesn't diminish the accomplishment and 4E remains the gold standard for fighters and sorcerers working as a seamless team.

Of course lots of games manage magic/martial balance fine by giving magic lots of utility but making it an inferior choice for straight murdering people, so that characters step into the spotlight as their particular speciality becomes necessary. That's fine too.

While the mutations you get from attuning are cool, the main point to take away is that attuning to a school simultaneously unlocks the high-level spells and locks you out of every other school.

My favorite thing for 4e was making two martials or two spellcasters play differently.

A Wizard and a Sorcerer FELT different. Rather than 'We do the same thing, just at different rates'.

A wizard called up arcane forces at long range, working slow but powerful spells.

A sorcerer went 'Fuck that, I am the magic' and proceeded to turn into a lightning bolt, zap through three guys, return to human form and then presumably pull an 80s action pose.

Wizards find new spells from enemy spellcasters books just like martial classes get new equipment.

Wizards have to have spell components which the player and me keeps track off. Spell components for some of the better spells are more costly than others.

Thats it. Thats all you fucking need to not make wizards not break the game.

>Wizards find new spells from enemy spellcasters books just like martial classes get new equipment.

>I got a fly spell!
>now I can fly!

>I found a +1 axe!
>Now I can switch my +1 sword, to an axe to axe people instead of sword them!

What a fucking huge improvement.

They probably don't know any better.
I know I didn't.

Whenever a wizard, sorcerer or other arcane caster uses a spell, it takes 3 times as long to cast as stated in the manual, unless they aee willing to sacrifice 1 max HP for each level of the spell (returned upon rest)

Greatly reduce the versatility and/or power of spells. If magic can do anything, why bother being anything but a wizard? On the other hand, if magic can do anything but not very well, or can do a certain limited number of things well, then other options become far more viable. Since the latter is much easier, I recommend using that one - make wizards extremely limited, not just to one spell school, but to one narrow type of magic. E.g., pyromancy, curses, mind magic, summoning (with summons being weaker than the fighter but more disposable). Anything outside of that simply won't be possible for them.

That's actually a really good way to do it. Wizards are far stronger, and are therefore a villain-only class. Players don't get to play them any more than they get to play a dragon or demon - they're obstacles to be overcome.

>In all seriousness, what system makes fighters fun?

3E D&D after you've banned every PHB class that isn't tier 3 and every PHB-equivalent class (Shugenja, Favored Soul etc.)

Also one other thing from REIGN; not a specific rule but a guideline for Magic, specifically what it shouldn't do. All fantasy games should really take this to heart:

"when you’re building a game around your central issue, see if you can identify any magic uses that are absolute poison to your concept. If I’m doing an exploration-based game, I don’t want magic to take the trouble out of travel. If I’m doing a game of revenge, I don’t want it to be easy for the PCs to level up to the point that they learn the Spell of Phantom Stalking Doom, cast it on the main bad guy, and then have a light supper while the magic flits off to what should have been the climax of the game. A quest game won’t be as fun if there’s simple magic that leads the PCs where they need to go. Or that leads their enemies right to them."

In other words, no matter what the system is, magic shouldn't be able to completely sidestep core elements of what it means to play the game. DnD has always had this problem with stuff like Sleep. It didn't used to be a problem; back in Basic, Sleep was basically your "time to get out of the dungeon" spell, because the entire game was about going into dungeons and stealing treasure from orcs and kobolds. When instead it's able to totally wipe out an encounter that might have taken a DM several hours to engineer, then it ruins the game.

>What system makes fighters fun

If you don't want to stray TOO far from 3.X in order to keep your players comfortable, FantasyCraft

Fighters get a bunch of different special actions depending on the weapons they specialize in (polearms can trip and do damage as one attack, axes can do damage and sunder at the same time, whips can be used to manipulate items from further away, and so on) and the Soldier class itself gets a bunch of useful class features, like counting as cover for themselves and their friends, stacks of DR, and crafting bonuses for arms and armor so that they can make and maintain their own custom weapons.

It's also got a fairly robust mundane crafting/customization system, and magic gear is a lot rarer so having a tricked out normal sword is actually useful.

>Fly spell on the same level as an Axe +1

Nothing will ever be fun to you if you are deliberately autistic you mongoloid. You are that guy who gives anyone who enjoys playing Non/Wizards a bad name.

Make the wizard keep track of his components. That shit is a total turn off, not very many shops sell bat guano for your fireballs.

Making spellcasting less fun isn't a great way to balance things out.

Okay, so what should the fighter get then? A magic sword +2?

Or what should the wizard get? Magic missile v3?

Face it, your solution is fucking retarded. Magic items in D&D either confer the same amount of benefit to everyone (i.e. ring of protection or boots of flying works the same for both fighter and wizard), or do useless shit like giving +1 to hit and damage or +1 AC.

Fucking exciting shit right there.

As long as one character's entire reason d'étre is hitting things with a stick, it will never be really balanced in a game where options outside of hitting things with sticks exist.

Okay lemme ask something else then.

Wizards by level 10 get 3 5th level spells.

Are you seriously telling me that by level 10 I need to give every non-caster character 3 magic items that're equivolent to 5th level spells? And the wizard doesn't receive magic equipment at all?

That is an incredibly wonky level of balance you have there that's also incredibly delicate and hard to take back the moment you fuck it up.

mages in WoD are hilariously unbalanced, though.

Ah yes. Tedious bookeeping. The solution to everything.

Also why wouldn't shops have bat guano? If wizards/adepts are enough of a class and fireball is ubiquitous enough of an offensive spell most major metropolitan areas should sell it to wizards.

Use the tier system and gestalting.

An unoptimized wizard is reasonably balanced, in most games, with an optimized fighter/rogue or fighter/monk gestalt.

Most probably would, unless there's strict guano control laws.

Not true; you just need to let them do more interesting things while curtailing the ability of the non-stick wielders to do everything.

In a fantasy setting, a person who devotes his entire life to learning how to fight with a stick should be as formidable in combat as a person who devotes his life to learning a certain kind of magic. What this really means depends on the setting. If it's "low magic", then his feats may do no more than stretch the limits of human ability, but the magical guy at the same time shouldn't be wielding godlike power either.

If the setting his mythic, high fantasy then the weapon dude sure as heck better be able to be, like, Cu Chulaain or Siegfried or another figure of similarly immense martial prowess.

What if that's the only way they get spells?

Again: a really wonky solution that kinda makes you out to be the asshole going "NO! THE BOOK SAYS YOU CAN HAVE THIS COOL SHIT BUT I'M NOT LETTING YOU"

Your answer is kinda like you wanting a really nice looking BB gun but your mom goes "Sorry Billy but your retarded brother is too stupid to not hurt himself with this thing and I want to be fair so you can't have it".

I don't need to worry about it, because my players are too stupid/lazy to play wizards efficiently and it balances it's self. If I was worried though, I would probably homebrew martial feats that allow them incredible exploits of strength, dexterity or fortitude. I don't think I could balance it, but I think I could make martials interesting enough that they would fit in among the retardedly powerful wizard. I already allowed a homebrew feet that allows massive weapons and one that allows any wieldable weapon of appropriate size (as in: not the massive ones) to be thrown efficiently.

I don't. I'm the only one who ever plays full Wizard in our group, and even though I know how badly I could break a game, I choose not to with my spell choice usually relying on what areas of study my Wizard focuses on, plus some minor utility spells.

I usually ask the DM to just give me gold instead of magic items as well, so they end up with more magic gear than I do.

>47194448
I shouldn't need to. It's like asking how to keep your car from exploding. How about not driving a Pinto?

>But my group hates other games /doesn't want to learn

Yet they are fine with your fatass Cheeto stained hands rewriting half the game they like/know based on only your game design hunches gleaned from a decade of fapping to Mike Mearls/Monte Cook yaoi and some ideas cribbed from a Veeky Forums thread.

Your analogy is shitty. I'm not refusing to give you the BB gun because your brother can't be trusted with it, I'm refusing to give you the BB gun because you asked me for fifty presents and I'm giving you two or three, you selfish little brat.

That sounds metal as fuck. I'll have to look into REIGN, thanks.

Any opinions on the overall system? My group doesn't like /too/ much crunch.

No you're not giving him the BB gun even though the objective arbitrater of the rules (the book, which declares you're doing more than a make believe freeform roleplay) says he can have it and it's perfectly reasonable for him to have it and the reason why is because if you actually do what it says then he winds up with 50 presents and the brother winds up with 5.

Except it doesnt' actually look that way unless you actually break it down with every single wizard player you get and if you have the patience and time for that well congradufuckinglations but I and a good chunk of people don't. The book tells you that you get ______ and we trust the book to at least be honest with us and you're telling us that the book is so monumentally wrong that you need to cut out and put entire chunks of it behind walls.

At which point the question arises: why are we playing this?

>should be as formidable in combat
>in combat

My point exactly. Even if you make "fighter" a combat beast, it doesn't matter, because that dude with a pointy hat can sorta do that AND SO MUCH MORE ON TOP OF IT. See: 5e.

The initial dice mechanic might be tricky to really get.

Basically you roll a group of d10's and you need to look for matching dice. The amount of dice that match and the number of the matching dice are what's important.

>I always considered having the casting time for a spell be one action per level
Makes blasting completely and utterly useless in a game where it's not good in the first place. It takes legitimate effort to optimize a sorceror, a class that gets unique spells for this exact purpose, to the point of being able to blast effectively per action.

It's also fucking retarded because combat in 3.5 is over in a couple of rounds anyways, so good luck ever getting anything over 3rd level off.

Build your wizards first. Determine what a level one wizard will be like, how it'll progress and how a max level wizard will be.

However absurd they are at max level make Warriors capable of similar stupidity just through strength and rage. Max Level Wizards can spawn meteors? Max Level Warriors can cause ground shattering earthquakes by slamming their weapon into the ground.

Here's the thing: you people who are triggered by 5e are just regurgitating 3e talking points rather than actually caring about in combat + out of combat function, because if you did, you would jizz your pants over the rogue, who indeed is top notch in and out of a fight.

You're really bad at analogies.

Going a bit further on this, I would say if you specialize in a particular skill, getting crits in that skill results in a magic like effect.

For example, being athletic as fuck should become magical at some point: You try to climb and bam! A nat 20 suddenly you find yourself scrambling up the wall with the greatest of ease because you just pulled off Spider Climb because you're that awesome at climbing

That may be.

But that doesn't change that your "solution" is nothing more than a patch that attempts to gloss over the real issue by essentially walling off wizard progression and handing them abilities piecmeal.

>you would jizz your pants over the rogue, who indeed is top notch in and out of a fight.
No, that's the Bard. The Rogue is a second stringer in combat.

>you would jizz your pants over the rogue, who indeed is top notch in and out of a fight.

I have played a rogue from 1-10.

When the fuck does this happen? In combat I can literally do a single thing; I can't even waste my attacks like a fighter can, because I only have one. When it hits it's nice, don't get me wrong.

Out of combat I have... expertise. The same shit full caster bards get? Fucking wow.

By giving enemies a chance to disrupt spells.

For example, in 2nd edition Dnd a spell fizzled if you were hit while you were casting it. I don't get why they didn't have a similar thing in 3rd edition. Just give spells an initiative cost, which lowers a wizards initiative. If someone damages a wizard between the casters original iniative and the iniative the spell goes off on, they need to do some kind of save to keep it from fizzling.

That doesn't sound too confusing, neat.

Ever played Dungeon Crawl Classic? That game has some crazy critical effects, like Knock opening every door for a mile around or Detect Evil forcing baddies to rethink their evil ways. It's great.

I actually love DCC for how it handles a lot of things. I kinda dislike all the randomness involved, it makes games where you actually have a heroic character concept already in mind kinda hard to pull off (which is intentional), but it's a really nice game overall.

>I don't get why they didn't have a similar thing in 3rd edition.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? They do.

>the mage did his prep time before, you know, showing up to the party
>sorry fighter you're fucked, you should have known there was a wizard in a warded hidden basement somewhere

This.
The problem with D&D magic is that it doesn't have any limits because lol magic and spells just continually ramp up and up in raw power and bullshit potential.

Well, the better solution is play a different game which offers both martials and mages interesting things to do without letting either conquer the game. Which is easily a preferable option. But if your players won't go for that, mummifying the rules in patches is about all you can do.

Easier said than done, since in the majority of RPGs the consolation prize fighter analogs get is "nothing." 3e is actually more generous than most RPGs in this respect, which isn't saying much.

No they don't. On 2E a hit would cost you the spell. In 3E you just have to make a concentration check, which is pretty easy. Also, in 2E casting spells takes segments, which means you can be hit between the time you start casting and finish casting; in 3E it's a standard action which can only be disrupted by someone holding their action.

Assuming you mean in D&D 3.5 then the answer is ban anything that causes "instant death" of any variety and divide all caster levels in half. Compensate them by raising all spell DCs to 10+Caster stat+Highest spell level known that way lower level spells stay useful.

If you want to get more complex make the wizard pick a school to focus on, spells from all other schools count as one spell level higher. That will help mitigate the whole "caster can do everything" issue.

> fighters get a bunch of special actions

see, the problem is people think that Fighter's aren't fun, and then they start tacking on a bunch of different special abilities for Fighters to get because, "That's what makes wizards fun, right?"

But no, the issue isn't that Fighters are inadequate, it's that the core combat mechanics of D&D are very poor. OG D&D was based on the naval warfare game Don't Give Up the Ship! (which was Guygax's first game, and the project that he first teamed up with Arneson on), hence Armor Class (the ranking of the ship's hull) and Hit Points (How much damage the ship could sustain and stay afloat). D&D is stating living (mostly)humanoid organisms with mechanics intended for bulky mechanical armored watercraft.
So many of the isms that plague D&D's combat stem from this:
> Your ability to hit targets being based almost entirely on your class of character
> Remaining fully functional as long as you have at least 1 Hit Point
> How well you can defend yourself is based almost entirely on what sort of armor you're wearing
> Your proficiency with weapons being functionally equal across all weapon types
etc

The most of the numbers line up for balanced exchanges fighter-to-fighter, but the mechanics are obtuse and clumsy. Fundamental combat boils down to an exchange of blows between how accurate you are and how effective the armor your enemy is wearing because it's based on a game meant to emulate the exchange of fire between naval combat vessels. Fighters aren't the problem, it's D&D's combat that needs to be revised entirely. 4e tried Bloodied, which helped a bit, but gave in to the misconception that an abundance of special abilities is how you make a game interesting. Every edition adds or exchanges the bells and whistles, but they never go back and re-do the game from the ground up.