I don't play D&D

I don't play D&D

tell me about caster supremacy

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Non-magical things are limited by a fairly conservative interpretation of "realism" while magic can do literally anything with no or relatively little cost beyond spell slots that recharge daily.

Everybody gets the following:
Hit points
BAB
Weapon and armor proficiencies
Feats

Martial characters get more hit points, better BAB better weapon and armor proficiencies, and more bonus feats.

Casters get all of that to a lesser extent, except casters also get spells on top of that.

Spells can be prepared every day (usually from a spellbook) allowing casters the versatility to change what tools they have available to them.
Feats, however, are selected when you gain a level and then locked in.

Spells scale. A fireball spell deals more damage as the caster gains levels.
Feats (generally) do not scale. Weapon Focus is always just a +1 bonus no matter if you are level 1 or level 20.

Spells typically have really open ended effects. Consider Polymorph, for example.
Feats, however, have really narrow, specific effects with a lot of limitations.

Many feats make you marginally more powerful by giving you bonuses to attacks or saving throws.
May spells do that too, except that the do not have any of the limitations that feats do.

Fighters gain feats as they gain levels granting little bonuses to hit, or to lift penalties on certain actions. The feats do not become more powerful as they gain levels, and fighters are locked into their choices.
Wizards gain fewer feats as they gain levels, but also gain spells that get stronger as they level up, can be swapped out with spell preparation every day, and have effects that replicate things martial characters can do or do them better.

All character classes specialize in different things. Fighters can wear armor, wield weapons, and fight things with them. Thieves hide, sneak, pick locks and disarm traps. Wizards use magic.

But what is magic, exactly? It's the impossible made possible. Depending on the setting, magic can be anything and everything. A spell can lift a massively heavy object, hit a large group with a ranged attack, increase a person's strength and speed, control the minds of others, see the future, transport the entire party somewhere, make the caster invisible, open a locked door, even summon new allies from other planes. If it can be done, a wizard can do it.

In short, magic can be anything and everything, so a wizard's "speciality" is everything. Anything that other classes can do, a wizard can do better with the right spell. That's caster supremacy at its core.

Compare a fighter and a wizard:

>GM: A minotaur attacks! What do you do?
>Fighter: I sword/bow/axe/muscle him to death!
>Wizard: I magic him to death!

Depending on who you ask and the scenario, this may make the two classes equal.
Although the fighter might get fucked over by flying, reach, or magic bullshit, we can ignore that for now.

>GM: Fighter, you are stuck in a jail cell! How do you escape?
>Fighter: I smash the bars!
>GM: The bars are too hard / it's a wall of force / you don't have your weapon.
>Fighter: I'm fucked then.

>GM: Wizard, you are stuck in a jail cell! How do you escape?
>Wizard: I teleport away.
>Wizard: I summon a monster to smash the bars.
>Wizard: I turn the bars into cheese and eat my way out.
>Wizard: I mind control one of the guards.
>Wizard: I turn incorporeal and walk though the walls.
>Wizard: I wish the prison was gone.
>Wizard: I possess one of the guards.
>Wizard: I disintegrate a walls.
>Wizard: I create a key out of thin air.
>Wizard: I plane shift to my pocket dimension.
>Wizard: I wizard bullshit.

It's not just my example of escaping a jail cell, non-magical characters often devolve into commoners anytime they need to solve a problem they can't kill.

>3e is the only edition, ever

Well, it's the one edition well-known for its caster supremacy, so it's most relevant here.

3e is the only edition where caster supremacy is a problem.

It doesn't exist in TSR editions of D&D, because balance is irrelevant in TSR editions of D&D. WotC is just garbage and, as a result, printed three editions that contain garbage.

youtube.com/watch?v=zFuMpYTyRjw

At level 20 a wizard can make a god shit itself in fear with his ability to bend reality and even unreality to his demented will!

At level 20 a fighter can hit, like, 5 times! With a sharp piece of metal! Like, REALLY hard!

"Caster supremacy" refers to game systems wherein a magic-focused character can use magic to do certain things better than a character who does not use magic, even if the latter character is supposedly specialized in that thing.

Example:
>A Rouge attempts to pick a lock. He rolls his lockpicking skill, and may or may not succeed.
>A wizard casts the "knock" spell on a lock. It opens.

As has been mentioned, D&D 3/3.5/PF is the most famous offender (for example at certain levels a Druid's "animal companion" sidekick is a better frontline tank and damage dealer than a fighter).

Designers and fans tend to get pissy when the logic of this is questioned (see pic).

Everything said, there's nothing wrong with having one character be overall better than another character so long as they're reasonably close in terms of power and the lesser PC can something the greater PC can.

Everyone likes an underdog! Pic related. But D&D goes too far with its wizard bullshit.

*and the less PC can do something the greater PC can't.

In 3.5, a wizard can react faster than an god with the Supreme Initiative divine feature (i.e. literally faster than physics permits) simply by casting the 4th level spell Celerity.
After casting Celerity, if the wizard is of 24th level or higher, there are any number of spells the wizard can cast to banish or seal that god, and possibly slay them if circumstances permit.
This means a wizard can, in a time frame that is faster than time, kill a god before the god even knew what it was messing with.

I would have no issue if D&D was up front with Casters being better, have Martials only able to get to level 10 or something, that's usually where the game has broken down to the point where Martials can't meaningfully contribute anymore, and then have Casters progress to level 20. Then people know what they're getting into, but with levels being the same there is this implicit idea put forth that everything is equal but then doesn't live up to that, that's what causes the booty bothering.

Shit, look at Exalted, there is a whole splat that is just Better Than The Rest, by design! The book comes right out and says it. That doesn't stop you from playing a weaker splat but you'll know what you're getting into and you'll know you aren't supposed to be equal to them so you can make that choice informed.

>because balance is irrelevant in TSR editions of D&D
is it?

tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards

filename related

There is something at the bottom.

Disappointment

Class-based leveling rates were something that were an annoyance in earlier editions, but worked very well for its goal. A level 10 wizard is stronger than a level 10 fighter, but the fighter will hit level 10 at a lower exp total. (Likewise, a fighter can wreck shit a thief can't, but a thief levels even faster than a fighter.)

What contributed to caster supremacy going from 'that thing which happens at higher levels, but you still need a fighter to play meatshield or you will fucking die' was a combination of:
>Everyone levels at the same rate.
Because they wanted 'pick and choose' leveling instead of sticking to a single class, maybe two if you were willing to grit your teeth.
>Non-magic characters getting abilities gutted out and turned into feats.
So you have to take feats to get back SOME of what you'd have in previous editions.
>Casters getting feats IN ADDITION TO spells.
And many spells not being toned down to compensate.
>HP bloat / scaling rendering raw damage an inefficient way of ending an encounter.
>Damn near every DM ignoring 'roll vs instant death because the fighter hit you for that much damage in one shot.'
>Huge HP pools rendering that an unreliable possibility at the best of times, anyway.
So the fighter, ranger, etc. wound up having less and being able to do less, while casters wound up getting a little extra while keeping all their old toys, and no longer lagging behind in level.
>3e's skill system is really restrictive on what a character is capable of doing.
A fighter can maybe climb well and swing a sword, while a wizard can slow fall, shoot lightning from their fingers, knock people out with a hand gesture and at later levels fly, teleport and open walls with a word.

Rogues can fast talk, sneak and pick pockets, while a wizard gets outright mind control and invisibility.

>I would have no issue if D&D was up front with Casters being better
Oh shut the fuck up. D&D has been out for 40 years and you're in a thread talking about it.

You didn't get hoodwinked and knew a long, long time ago.

You also forget casting times.

Casting times HAMMERED any caster, because the way initiative worked is you roll a 1d10, subtract your dex bonus, and add either weapon speed or casting time (which was usually the level of the spell in question - a full round castign time was +10). Any injury or interruption during the casting time ruined the entire spells.

Since a bow was weapon speed 4, and darts were weapon speed 1, and both had rates of fire that were more than one round, (2/1 for bow, 3/1 darts), and only fighters and rangers had iterative attacks it was entirely possible for other classes to stick holes in casters before they could get off their better spells. Likewise, you needed those meatshields to protect you from monsters who could have anywhere from 2-6 attacks in a given round so you could get off that spell to end the encounter.

Making every spell an instant cast spell made casters supreme.

Wow did you ever just mangle the everloving shit outa 2e's combat round.

First off: no, most spells do not have a 1+ round casting time. Second: no, someone with 3/1 ROF does not attack 3 times before the spellcaster gets his spell off no matter how shitty his initiative roll is. Third: only multi-round spells can be interrupted. Spells with a casting time of less than 1 round are cast during the caster's initiative order and cannot be interrupted.

Fireball (the attack spell every wizard is waiting for), for instance, is casting time 3. Versus a longsword with a speed factor of 5.

Casters can make pew pew bang bang from long range, much longer than most armies.

Since a melee oriented barbarian or rogue needs to be close for their swish swish stabby affair this leaves time for the caster to aim, and release magical nukes.

Casters are only threatened by archers with their twangy twangy thwip thunks which are also long range.but the casters bring the pain harder.

In conclusion, pew pew fire strong

3.x also made most spells scale with level. So, wizard not only gets new magic, his old spells also get better.

>the game accurately models what humans can do
What a great line.
Wonder what GURPS does then.

I don't know if they did it deliberately or not, but this is a perfect example.

See the main reason he did so well in the show where he was fairly underpowered was that he was still useful sometimes, but mostly that he was a good character. It was a very character driven show, through and through.

If your group doesn't care much for roleplaying, or like some groups ends up just slogging through every combat, not being as good in combat or whatever everyone else can do easily is going to wear at you.

Also note that the "wizards" of the show were of a fairly martial bent. Sokka could influence the world around him more by being crafty than her sister making ice statues ever could. Plus, a good martial artist/fighter type character still has a good chance against anyone but the Avatar (against whom nobody stands a chance anyway).

Caster supremacy is this:

> Ding! Reach level 18
> Fighter: +5% more likely to hit on all attacks, +5% more resistant to magic, can take a feat for more +5% type bonuses or maybe the ability to smash *two* people in the face at once
> Wizard: Can now edit reality 3 times per day

At level 20, a Fighter can cut down an entire army.
At level 20, a Wizard can make the army never exist.

3e is the only edition where the caster supremacy was this bad yes.

The fighter hits troll for XdY damage per swing.
The wizard casts a spell and ends the encounter.

Pathfinder is much better when you don't even pretend it's realistic. You tell the players beforehand that it's unbalanced and ignore little rules like the limit on free actions. You may end up with and unbalanced, incoherent and unrealistic mess, but it will be crazy-awesome.

See that thing? A Wizard does it better with an appropriate spell.

Caster supremacy, otherwise known as "Don't play with randoms online in an unbalanced system" is present in more than one system.

Here's the video of Caster Supremacy

youtube.com/watch?v=zFuMpYTyRjw

...

...

>At level 20, a Fighter can cut down an entire army.

Sadly no, he can't even do that.

What things can everyone do that martials not do? Needs another circle for "things that things casters can summon can do".

>What things can everyone do that martials not do?
Be useful

>GM: Wizard, you are stuck in a jail cell! How do you escape?
>Wizard: I melt the bars/transform wall to mud/teleport away/polymorph into a mouse and sneak out
>GM: The bars are anti-magic alloy / you're finger-bound and gagged because obvious wizard clothes / you don't have your spellbook and/or ingredients
>Wizard: Welp.
Not trying enough. Also, if we're talking wizard capable of wish/disintegrate/pocket dimensions, we're also talking Hercules-tier fighter and it's not like they're easy to trap by normal means.

Might aswell cut his tongue and hands, user. I'm sure your non-caster players will appreciate.

In a nutshell

>GM: Fighter, you are stuck in a jail cell! How do you escape?
>Fighter: I smash the bars!
>GM: The bars are too hard / it's a wall of force / you don't have your weapon.
>Fighter: I'm fucked then.
This is bullshit GMing. If you don't want people to get out, you don't let the caster get out, either. If you're fine with the caster getting out -- why aren't you fine with the martial getting out? Their whole deal is being buff.

I think we're talking in-universe.

Which is inseparable in many ways from the out-of-universe, yes.

For example, if you're playing D&D, you shouldn't be playing a super realistic game where heroes can't do stuff like muscle their way out of prison (even if they're using their heads about it). Or, if you want to keep the players in prison for whatever reason, you can always modify the in-universe situation.

Bending bars isn't realistic.

D&D isn't realistic.

The caster is a lot harder to deny because of the options he has. You're right about the fighter's schtick being buff, but that's all he is. If he can't smash his way out, he has no other options. Meanwhile the caster has a multitude of solutions to any problem.

Guy who can try to bend bars exists in real life. They can't, so Fighter can't.

Literal reality warping magic doesn't exist in real life, so real life rules dont apply to it.

Get over it.

Martials are usually bound by the 'rules of reality', however the game designer sees 'reality'.
Casters are not, as a rule.
>But why does this create caster supremacy?
Re-read it again.
>The game's rules are obviously balanced so that one playstyle is leagues more effective than another despite the two being considered 'equal' in game terms.
If that's how you want the game to play, sure, but don't be surprised when people complain that the game doesn't let them do what they want because it won't let them do what they want without constantly fudging the rules or rule zero-ing it.
How Fighters are considered overpowered by some of Pathfinder's designers is beyond me.

No, I mean that D&D as a whole isn't realistic. I'm not saying magic invalidates realism.

D&D, at level one, has heroes be -- heroic. Way above normal people. And it just goes on.

It's inspired by sword-and-sorcery fantasy, and myths and legends, all of which have people performing impossible martial feats.

Sounds like you shouldn't be playing D&D, user.

>Can kill enemies in a single round without giving them a saving throw of any sort
>Not overpowered

Stop trying to play overpowered cheese bullshit if you can't handle being called out on it.

>What are attack rolls
>What is armor class
Fuck's sake, user, you're either baiting or delusional.
Hell, even Wizards are proficient in crossbows, so you don't even have 'only Fighters can use weapons' to stand on, either.
>But they get feats and that makes them hit super hard!
Hey, look what a Wizard gets when he hits third level!
Blindness. Hope you have a blind fighting feat or make your save, because you now have a 50% chance to miss regardless of skill until you either get a caster to fix your problem or wait six months to get use to your new no sight. Oh, and an armor class penalty. And a perception penalty, obviously. Oh, and hope you took Acrobatics, because you're not moving faster than half speed without making a check.
How far away can a wizard cast this from? 100 feet, minimum. But hey, at least it's one of Fighter's good saves. Unlike the Will save needed to resist Sleep, which leaves you Helpless.
This is just an example. The level of versatility a wizard has at early levels is limited. But it blows up to downright ridiculous proportions later on.
At least they got rid of Divine Metamagic, for whatever good that does.

>attack rolls
>armor rolls

But no saves. Get your op shit out of here.

and I was just meming. Call it baiting if you want tho

Two more things that probably weren't mentioned (but I can't be arsed to read EVERY reply):
Almost all spells you would want to cast in combat are a standard action, while non-magical classes rely on full-round actions because their basic attack never gets additional damage dice. Bringing back multi-action casting times would go a long way toward making spells powerful but balanced.
Very few spells have non-magical loopholes, only other spells designed specifically to hard-counter them such as Death Ward and True Sight. This is why the wizard apologists in this thread say "but there could be an Antimagic Field", the wizard's only weakness is a better wizard.
Needing to prepare spells becomes a non-issue around level 10 because you can make scrolls for spells you don't need every day.
Fighter intends to make an AOO to interrupt wizard? Wizard takes a 5-foot step and casts a spell safely. Fighter declares he readies an action to interrupt wizard? Wizard stays put and makes a piss-easy Concentration check to cast a spell safely. There are feat chains the fighter can take to have *better odds* of pulling this off, but he never actually gets the option say "no, you can't cast spells next to me, at all", not even with a polearm.

Caster supremacy in Pathfinder is a myth. It has been debunked.

Reading comprehension in Pathfinder players is a myth. It has been debunked.

For argument's sake, prove it.

>I have no idea what I'm talking about, let me weigh in on the subject anyways.

>I don't know how venn diagrams work.jpg

>this is what PF fans actually believe
Jesus Christ, you've drunk deep of Paizo's kool-aid, haven't you? What's next? You gonna tell me that glorious Paizo fixed each and every one of 3.5's problems with their perfect flawless game?

9th level wizard has two minutes of prep time (away from the battlefield) against a 9th level fighter. Who wins?
Same scenario, except classes switched. Who wins?

Try to sell me on caster supremacy in 4e, where everyone has the same mechanics and the numbers don't mean anything, or 5e where you need to concentrate to use one debuff. 3.PF is the only one with this problem.

Nah, that's unnecessary cruelty. But some precautions are in order if you don't wanna get frogged by a presumably evil sorcerer.
if he's not evil/asshole, he should've used his superior brain and avoided imprisoning entirely

>Try to sell me on caster supremacy in 4e, where everyone has the same mechanics and the numbers don't mean anything,
>the numbers don't mean anything

There is no caster supremacy in 4e, but did you ever actually play 4e? Because that's the complete opposite of how it works. The numbers mean everything, and martials can usually apply the same damage and debuffs as casters with their powers. A cleric uses a healing spell, a warlord says something nice to give you HP back. It's the fluff that doesn't matter.

When you apply half level to literally every stat and score I start wondering why you ever did it once.

>4e

Arcana stacking trivializes most skills. Admittedly, a far more minor problem than other D&Ds, and it is available to all classes, Wizard is just the best at it (and he still has to dedicate some build resources to it).

>5e
Wish, simulacra, army of skeleton bowmen... There are some quite broken single spells like Hypnotic Pattern. And casters getting both the "be good in combat" and "do things skills can't while still having skills" bags too doesn't bode well for 5e either. That said, still miles better than 3.PF.

Why I ever played 4e? Someone in my group wanted to run it, and asked me if I'd like to join. I had no idea what it was like, and thought the campaign premise was fun. That campaign is still going, but in retrospect, it's not my favorite system.

It might be my least-favorite edition of a system that's not even my favorite in the first place.

I agree the half-level thing is strange, and a huge part of the problem. The treadmill design is much less satisfying to me than something like 5e.

Pure martials only excel at swinging around statblocks to deal hitpoint damage in combat while casters have a ton of different tricks they can use in any environment, from combat to puzzles and social situations.

Fighters only fight. They spend feats on getting +1 attack and have few skillpoints. Wizards can fly, create iron walls, animate rope, levitate shit, and basically do anything.

Simply put, casters excel at every facet of roleplaying. Fighters only become relevant when it's time to 5 ft step and full attack.

Add to this the fact that martial classes are constrained by false notions of """realism""" while wizards are just let roam free with no semblance of realism, balance and common sense. Level 20 fighter is an Olympic athlete. Level 20 wizard is a God.

...

My group started on 4e and for a lot of them it was their first system. It started out strong, 3 combats in the first session and that took up maybe half of it. But the adventure went on, we leveled up, and the numbers started scaling really poorly, so that in paragon tier one combat took up about 80% of a session. We weren't having fun anymore.

Slow combat is a pretty big complaint I've heard. Were you using the fixed monster stats from MM3? That's supposed to make a difference.

I've only played it play-by-post, so it's hard to judge how long it'd take at a table, but I can imagine. If anything, analysis paralysis seems like a pretty significant factor for some players.

Why the fuck do Barbarians get more skills than Fighters?

Because fighters are for people who are beginners at D&D, so they must be unable to do anything but roll to hit. Barbarian is for expert roleplayers.

>Fighters are the noob friendly class
>When they require you to know how to optimize more than any other class in the game.

I don't know how closely my DM kept to the monster stats.

Didn't you know? Less options means it's more noob friendly.

>Less options
>Has close to 100 combat feats to choose from in the PHB alone.

Saying a Fighter has less options than a Mage is like saying Niagra Falls is smaller than the ocean.

There's a lot of options to consider, it's just that Fighters don't have the luxury of choosing new feats if they fuck up and choose a trap option.

I was sarcastic, but some people actually believe that.

Spellcasters are stronger mechanically but this doesn't matter for the vast majority of players who don't optimize anyways.

>sadly
Fuck off with that noise. One man should never be able to fight entire armies head on. Maybe a few dozen weaklings, but one person slaying thousands of people is beyond stupid.

My mistake.

Even if that one man is a wizard wielding magicks moste potente?

>D&D
>Realism

>Fighter shouldn't be able to swat down an army of weaklings because it's beyond stupid.
>But the mage should be able to wiggle his fingers and erase an entire continent off the map from the safety of his demiplane.

Excuse me, I thought "level 20" was supposed to do unheard of shit.

Throwback to their AD&D days when they were more like a cross between a fighter and a rogue, and rage wasn't their main feature.

>Add to this the fact that martial classes are constrained by false notions of """realism""" while wizards are just let roam free with no semblance of realism, balance and common sense. Level 20 fighter is an Olympic athlete. Level 20 wizard is a God.

I don't think martials in 3rd edition were ever intended to be realistic. That was the false impression some Paizo designers had of the system. See the description of the rogue or [Ex] abilities.

Part of the problem is that fighters were tied to a flawed feat system while rogues were tied to a flawed skill system, and meanwhile some of the traditional limitations on spellcasting were loosened for easier playability. Also they basically didn't playtest it and assumed that wizards would all be blaster casters and clerics would be healbots. I don't know what they were thinking when they made the druid though.

I've seen arguments about Guts from Berserk and what his level should be.

The conclusion is generally that he's pretty smalltime, maybe level 5-7 at best.

He literally took on a hundred soldiers at once and won.


In more historically examples, see Simo Hayha and Horatius.

If people talk about caster supremacy in DnD, it's usually specifically about 3rd/3.5 edition, because that's when it was most egregious.

In earlier editions caster supremacy was less of a problem because it was much harder to cast spells while under attack, so even if the wizard could alter the outcome of the battle with his spells, he needed the rest of the party to keep him safe while he was casting (pretty much the "how it should be" part of the picture), abd because everything had an order of magnitude less hitpoints (this worked in the martials' favor as it meant "I hit it with my sword", aka. literally the only thing a fighter can do, was actually viable way to kill things compared to throwing save-or-die spells at the monster untill it rolls a 1).

4th edition solved the issue by effectively making everybody a "caster" (all classes had abilities that could be used x amount of times per encounter or day and had various special effects), so martials could also have more combat utility than just using full attack every round. 5th edition went back to a more clear caster/martial split, but kept the power levels of the classes close enough that while caster supremacy is still sort of a thing (casters have a wide selection of spells that tend to make them more versatile than martials), playing a fighter is actually a viable choise even if wizard might be more "optimal".

Pfft, I know, right? I mean, that stuff doesn't even happen in mythology! You ever hear about how Samson killed 1000 dudes with a jawbone of some donkey? Sooooo stupid! And the trials of Hercules? I mean, those are just so unrealistic? Who even came up with this childish crap anyway?

Here are my thoughts.

>If everything but magic is modeled on the real world, then caster's could potentially rape martial classes.
Now in this case, you are admitting that the game may be unbalanced, you give a reason for it, but you are left with how to reconcile min-maxing scum and gameplay in general if you decide that casters can do more extraordinary things than martial classes.
>Nothing is explicitly modeled on the real world, but caster's rape martial classes anyway
In this case you hide behind RAW without giving a reason, and retain all of the problems as above, but in addition to being an ivory tower asshole about it. In most cases, this is just poor game design.
>Only martial classes are modelled on the real world, and so caster's rape martial classes anyway
Now you are just actively hating on physicality, and there may be reason to suspect you were builled by jocks at high school or some shit, retaining an inferiority complex into your adult life and beyond.
>Martial classes are actually caster classes with sticks and stones
In this case you reconcile balance issues, but fall in the trap of being shonen protag game.

I don't know what the solution is, except maybe remove one or the other.

desu, I don't want anime fighters either. I want Hercules and Achilles. Or Conan.

It's technically a euler diagram, but that's getting a bit pedantic perhaps.

That's what it's making fun of. Anyone who has more than a 50/50 chance to kill a man in single combat is an anime fighter.

Why the fuck do martials have do be "realistic?" Why can't they preform Herculean feats?

>nice quints
Because pic related

>I want Hercules and Achilles. Or Conan.
You don't even need to go that far in strength. Just think about someone like Link from Zelda. He can fight well against wizards because he has a holy sword that deflects the wizard's magic plus a mirror shield that deflects projectiles, if he gets weak he carries around fairies in a bottle, he has all sorts of equipment to deal with magic bullshit without getting into Goku territory in terms of physical feats.