Give me two good reasons (which can't be solved simply by having a friendly meatshield) to play any other class rather...

You mean 2e and onward.

Wizards were broken as all hell once you got a few certain spells, making the mundane classes obsolete.

The trade off was that they sucked shit at low levels.

System doesn't give a given magic user most of the powers that are given to magic.

And martial classes have powers equal to that.

(Note: NPC martial types may more more common than NPC magic users, but that's because peasants are more muscley, and a hedge mage that can cast light (and nothing else) isn't particularly useful most of the time.

Particularly when sunrod / flash lights exist.

Because you start lower, so you don't end up climbing as high, most non-caster classes level up faster than casters(excluding bard), there's no such thing as 0 level spells so you have to actually make your spells count, it's way harder to do save-or-die at high levels because of how saves work, and if you're starting from level one you have to fucking earn that power. As a cleric I have a reduced weapon selection, I have less hit points than a warrior, I can't use a weapon near as well as a warrior(the NPC warrior- me and the DM can't find anyone else to play- gets 3 attacks/2 turns and bonuses to hit, while I get 1/turn and no negatives, for example. And he isn't using the fighters handbook). If you play a wizard, you have 4 health if you're lucky, a quarterstaff, no armour, and one spell a day. Choose well. Sure, around level 11-13 the wizard will be able to put damage the fighter, but mostly in bursts and, since most spells allow saves, with less consistancy. Hell, the most broken class in second edition is arguably the Barbarian because it gets an absurd amount of stuff.

Oh, and on top of that, when wizard is out-performing fighters, fighters switch focus from being damage dealing tanks to getting followers and becoming Lords, holding lands, getting taxes, etc. Even thieves eventually become heads of thieves guilds by leveling, but clerics and wizards are always limited to hirelings.

Good post.

Gandalf is a Swordmage or Wizard/Fighter

No he's a cleric dipshit, his powers all come from his divine nature. This also handily explains why he can use weapons and shit.

Gandalf is most definitely a fighter who just has an magical artifact staff.

.... Why the fuck do people think that "gets followers" is a good way to handle epic level martial characters?

Particularly if you are doing anything at all dungeon crawly.

Clerics don't dual wield a quaterstaff and Longsword

i have never once run out of sword.
i have never had to dip my fingers in bat shit to use my sword.

Using followers to help crawl an epic dungeon sounds like something a reasonable person would do.

From my perspective the whole "bluh bluh I'm a high level martial who handles all problems with his superl33t group of murderhobo friends" schtick sounds super boring.

Except that most of it is wrong.

Not the individual parts, because he got those mostly right, but even as low as level 5 the wizard already had access to spells that made him the most important person on the battlefield. By 10, whether or not the wizard had spells left was the most important part of the game, and higher level play was essentially a awful game of nuclear spell tag with spell defenses and breaching them the entirety of a battle.

Wizards were broken as shit, and the whole "you had to EARN it" was bullshit. You basically had to sit out while other people had fun until it was your turn to dominate every battle.

Well, to start with, this lets you transition from dungeon crawling to realm management, which a lot of players really enjoy. Suddenly you're running your own little fiefdom with a standing army(albeit a small one) and getting all the benefits from that, and that can quickly become the focus of the campaign. It's one of the reasons I really like ACK- it takes that focus very serious, and expectations you to transfer into it as soon as you get the opportunity.

Also, and this is very important- good luck fighting a dragon without martial backup. Like I said- in 2e, the saves are much harder to game, so you can't just finger of death enemies- having a couple dozen archers to buff being lead by the party warrior is an excellent way to fight a dragon. Trying to magic it is not.

They can. Depending on god you get extra weapons, Athena gives sword, quarterstaff is default, and it's not even a quarterstaff- it's a staff. Which all casters can use.

because in The Dark Eye,
any wizard will run out of Astral Energy,
and eventually will reach the threshold of Death when casting with his own Blood.

Fighters on the Other Hand will keep on rocking and rolling, long long long after the wizard has cast all the spells he can conceivably cast.

And the next day and the next day the Fighters will still keep on going if they're skilled enough.

Meanwhile the Wizards Mana will restore relatively slowly.

This is the reason to play something else than wizards.

because not even the hordes of hell can contend with a competently managed treasury and a full strength army of loyal vassals and knights.

clerics have churchly duties, and at higher levels, divine quests and tasks to pursue. wizards generally have to keep working just to pay for spell components and kep the flow of new spells to maintain that power edge.

martials have the time to actually do the work of governing. plus what peasants are going to willingly follow a lord who can incinerate any rebellions? they'd have no chance to overthrow him if he became tyrannical.

in any medieval or pre-modern inspired setting, holding land and gathering taxes from peasants are indeed a super power.

Give example spells. What third level spell is so important that your one use of it a day makes you the most important person on the battlefield? Unless you were doing rest-nuke-rest in second edition wizards should not be running rampant at level five. Unless, of course, you've never played second edition. Or maybe just haven't played it in years?

You would really have more people involved in a dungeon hellhole?

You'd have to super not value a bunch of your followers, or treat them like RTS units that will slow the game down when you lose them.

.... Are players just fucking insane? Management is friggin' boring, and you should be finding fellowers to be better than you at doing, not managing, with management having enough knowledge to hire good people, and get a general sense for how things are going.

Getting enough archers to slay a rampaging dragon should be a quest and in of itself, not a class feature.

So Humanity Fuck Yeah, despite not having a capstone of actual power involved. Blah.

>enemy casters counterspell you (D&D)
>someone shooting at you to interrupt casting (oldschool D&D)
>running out of spells (D&D, more prevalent in oldschool D&D)

>inb4 my meatshield wins all the fights for me

>followers
>if you are doing anything at all dungeon crawly
Retainers help you dungeon-crawl. Every sword-arm you can bring to a dungeon helps. Even the guys who stay outside the dungeon can watch your equipment and allow you to more easily heal up and resupply at the dungeon's entrance, as opposed to running all the way back to town for every little thing (not to mention risking random encounters all the way back to town...). They also help you haul treasure, the sum of which can easily exceed your character's encumbrance limit.

>inb4 hundreds of followers flood the dungeon
Which is why OSR tends to have rules like separating retainers from followers. You can have a limited number of retainers, who are loyal NPCs who get a share of the treasure and are the only people being paid enough enough to follow you into the dungeon. You have unlimited followers, who are relatively sensible people and will not follow you into the dungeon because dungeons are horrible scary deathtraps.

>You would really have more people involved in a dungeon hellhole?

>You'd have to super not value a bunch of your followers, or treat them like RTS units that will slow the game down when you lose them.

That's what being a military commander is all about. You have limited human resources to solve a practical problem.

But from your aversion to management tasks I can see you're not into problem solving.

To each his own, I guess.

Its good to be king.

>Its good to be king.
You're god damned right.

I'm pretty sure at seventh level you could litterally walk into a bar and hire a group of 36 mercenaries pretty easily, what's wrong with a class advancing into being a noble? I mean, personally I'd add roleplay elements to the advancement, but...

Also, realm management isn't just about tax collecting and stuff, you obviously hire a handful of courtiers to do the mundane shit you have no interest in- the interesting stuff is political. I'd typically want my thief friend as my spymaster, then the group as a whole engages in politics, diplomacy and warfare with an army behind them.

ah man, who'd ever want to do all that boring realm management stuff. politics, taxes, and making decisions is all so lame.

The fact that you can hire mercs pretty easy means that a class is just getting a stipend as class advancement.

I have no problem with the idea that PCs get responsibility and political power as they level, just that it is a replacement for actual magical power. (Rather than getting supernatural powers that don't tap into magical energy explicitly.)

Moreover, this means that martial classes have features that don't particularly go will together, because infinite followers + infinite followers is just infinite followers,

Unless you are really fine with "nobody can have the same martial class and have interesting high level play.

1. It's called "sword and sorcery," not "just sorcery." If you aren't doing both, you aren't doin' it right.
2. Wizards are faggots. If you want to be a primary spellcaster at least refrain from being the I'm-a-permavirgin-pussy-who-fantasizes-about-altering-reality-so-that-I'm-not-the-loser-anymore class.

Only Gandalf ever did the "wizard" thing right, and that's 'cause he wasn't actually a wizard.

... If you liked it so much, why would you play a game that has you farting around towns and shitting up dungeons before you get to the good stuff?

>getting soldiers should require a quest!
>I-i meant it's pointless because mercenaries can also be bought!

choose one.

also, I don't want my swords and sorcery to become a fucking anime, I don't need magical powers on my fighters, they work just fine becoming lords and wielding political, military and diplomatic power.

Also, followers aren't actually infinite, there's just no cap on how many you can have, idiot. They also don't matter much- they're mostly stuff like serfs and town guards. The only time the number you have really matters(aside from taxes) is when you go to war.

because the politics and working of the land mean more if you the player have an understanding of the people who live in it beforehand.

the same reason CK2 is always more interesting after the first generation has died; you aren't being bumped into a random setup that has no meaning to you.

plus just, it feels better to have earned it. same as playing a low level wizard before you get to high level. it feels betrter to have earned that place. plus the low level stuff can be fun in its own right.

it feels good to struggle a bit to survive in a harsh dungeon environment; using hard fought for knowledge to gain an advantage in a delve and walk away with treasure. which feels even better because the xp and treasure you gain can be put toward establishing your footholds as a local power.

anyone can write "you are the best king" r "you are the coolest wizard" on a sheet of paper in front of themselves.

not everyone can turn 6 hit points and a sword into a kingdom to stand the test of time.

Gandalf is a Race-as-Class "Wizard" unique to the setting. Gandalf is not a bog standard, setting agnostic wizard.
Totally different beasts in both theory and function.

>infinite
>different then no cap.

Have fun not understanding what divided by zero means.

>Paradox stopping shit
That's funny joke.

OP: Because Clerics and Druids are mechanically better in 3.X. Because Lore Bards and Clerics are better in 5e.

I'll give you a third because I'm in a good mood: because fuck you, that's why.

Are you calling Cu chulainn anime?

Captain America Anime?

Anyway, the point of the unappealing is that having a class feature that both means "hey I've solved the problem without working on it" and "my DM can't ever not give me my stipend of warriors or he is screwing me out of a class feature" does not make for fun times.

Getting lost in another world for a month shouldn't screw me out of my class features.

It's very impressive how you can type with your neckbeard alone.

>Are you calling Cu chulainn anime?

... Yeah yeah,

Chuck Yeager is anime.

King Arthur is anime.

... you're an actual idiot aren't you? The difference between "infinite followers" and "your number of followers isn't capped" is that the second still has a finite number of followers. So three fighters or whatever with followers would have- get this- more followers than just one. They'd probably be ruling a trio of cities with close political and economic ties, too, which would allow them to form a deadly alliance in order to bring all three of their aforementioned strengths to the fore, while any other members of the party play their own particular roles- the thief sneaks into enemy fortresses to steal plans and stops enemy thieves from doing the same, the wizard uses spells to cut down the enemy numbers and strengthen ours, etc.

Also, for most people, the slow build is what makes the eventual kingdom management so much fun- you've followed the character from day one, seen them go from lowly adventurer to powerful lord, and that makes it so much sweeter with each new conquest.

I was responding to, quote "supernatural power source", not supernatural strength or skill -you typically reach that shit around level 6~. It's when swinging your sword causes a fucking blast of wind as a ranged touch attack that I have a problem.

Class-granted soldiery, plus class-granted elite guard (those are different things, mind you), plus mercenaries, plus--if shit's REAL dire--drafting vassals.

That's going to kick the shit out of the standard upper limit on how many mercenaries one can usually hire.

Cu chulainn was literally an avatar of a god. He's not the best example of a martial character unless we're aiming for Immortals territory.

>King Arthur is anime
So is emperor nero

>infinite

>limitless or endless in space, extent, or size

How is that not describing your number of followers isn't capped?

Can you only randomly have 1 follower at a time, and can replenish at particular areas?

Then it sounds like you do have a cap on followers, that you are you have a Comrade from Only War, who is just a human familiar)

... Which then gets weird when you get sucked out into another world.

No, see, you have a finite number of followers determined by your actions and stats, which you can increase or decrease by taking various other actions, and you'll never reach a point where you can't have more, but they aren't a set number you'll always have. If you send your followers knowingly to their deaths, you will run out, and quickly at that.

>Her reason for the see-through dress is because she wants people to see through it
I know she's probably seen hundreds of dudes, but I'd still go for it.

Then why the hell would you say that there is no cap on your followers?

Cap implies maximum in most situations, including this one.

And honestly, that you aren't mentioning a hard cap anyway, suggests that the number is enough that adding an extra fighter just gives you some resilience from the DM fucking you out of a class feature.

saving throws were different back then, user

fighters got an army

The obvious dumb answer is you don't play a wizard because you don't want to.

The game is about storytelling and escapsim. Some people want to be able to throw guys more then be the most powerful in the group.

Plus if everyone is a wizard then the game will just get harder to match, and you stop being special in the first place because every npc is a fuckin wizard.

you will never find yourself unable to recruit more, but you don't have an infinite number. Are you dense?

Gandalf is a bard. He uses the oratory skill. Also he sings a lot in the books.

Damn Nigga

... That still doesn't explain why 2 fighters with that class feature would suddenly double the number of people that are willing to tag along.

Is having two bosses that great of a draw in a fantasy setting?

I'd think it the opposite.

they're lords. They'd have two cities to draw from. Duh.

gandalf is a multiclasser. in 3.5, i would give him Wiz 8/Ftr3/Brd2 before moria, and Wiz9/Ftr4/Brd2/Clr1 afterwards.
There are only a couple beings more powerful than him. the witch-king is probably a Wiz15/Ftr5 and a shade of course.
Sauron was breaking epic levels. Def Wiz20/Ftr10 at least. He would be considered a Lich of some sort with the ring being his phylactery.
statting the others, Aragorn was a Ftr10/Rgr5, Gimli Ftr16, Legolas Rgr20, the hobbits were all Rog5/Brd5/Ftr1 by the end.

By wizard, do you mean casters in general? Because in 5e, which is the only edition of D&D that I've played, wizards specifically are very squishy and fragile. They need protection from the rest of the party and lots of healing from the cleric, or else they'll just roll over and die to any random thug with a club. Their at-will damage is also atrocious, the paladin and ranger are the ones you need for long term damage dealing.

If by "wizard" you just mean "caster", then yeah, the options that have magic are superior to the options that don't have magic. The fighter and rogue are kinda crap classes compared to the paladin and bard, who do their jobs just as well but also have magic. The barbarian is a great big meat shield, but a moon druid can tank just as well. A lot of the primary abilities of these pure martial classes, such as action surge, also come in so early that the superior classes can just dip to get them.

Believe it or not user, there was once a time where your GM selected the spells you could find for your list beyond creation. Thus Sorcerers had the advantage of always getting a selection of what they wanted. There was a logic to it long ago.

Isn't that still the case though? I mean you are not going to "magically" learn the spells if you are a wizard. You still have to find the spells to copy them into your spellbook. If GM wants you to learn specific spells so you only find said spells then there is nothing you can do about it.

So you can be the friendly meatshield for your buddy wizard.

OP can't in b4

You have to be someone else coming in and predicting the subject matter. Of course you're in b4 something, you were in b4 everyone.

Fun, and taking your turn as the meat shield.

No, wizards get spells automatically as they level.
>I mean you are not going to "magically" learn the spells if you are a wizard.
They do.

>Not playing D&D 3.PF or 5e
>Wanting to be a character with a different skillset, like an explorer, courtier, or survivalist; or a martial character that isn't bad (see first point).

1. Conflict is the soul of drama.

2. People root for the underdogs.

3. Most RPGs follow traditional arc structures.

>Game is well-made

>Leaving your comfort zone
>playing a more focused character

Well put!

Because we are playing anima.

... Uh huh.

I think people enjoy adventure moding in their dead dorf forts, so I don't think it's an issue of from the bottom to top being good, but people liking to play in a setting that they have already played in.

... Okay, but why force everyone to engage in the system that way?

What if people want the first rough game to be the politics game that they fuck up, and then have to do again.

(This was something I liked about Spore)

You're a fucking idiot.

Having no cap means I could have 10 followers or 10,000,000 or 1,000,000,000. I have however many I have managed to acquire. If I send *all* of them to their death at once, I now have 0 followers. But I *could* still have 1,000,000,000. I just don't at this present moment because I (like an idiot) sent them all to their death.

If I had infinite followers, I could send 1,000,000,000 of them to their untimely demise and *still* have infinite followers left.

You really are a complete and abject fucking failure of a human being if you can't figure out how those two things are very different from one another.

forcing attrition is one way to help tip the scales, wizard is more about resource management, so forcing him to expend more high level spell slots is a good way to make him husband his resources, simply the though that his only 5th level spell slot will be useful later instead of now, will prevent him from showing his hand a lot of the time

I was kind of with you until D&D.

Because being Awakened requires Priority A, and I need that extra nuyen for my Wired Reflexes (which just so happen to fuck with Magical ability anyway).

>Because having nothing but controllers will get your shit stomped in by enemies still standing when you start running out of hard lockdown.
>Because you'd had no way to spend healing surges in combat outside second wind.

>Give me two good reasons to play any other class rather than a wizard?
How about two in two seconds?
1. I want to play another class.
2. I don't need to cast spells, I got a guy for that.

>I don't need magical powers on my fighters, they work just fine becoming lords and wielding political, military and diplomatic power.

And what stops non-fighters doing the same thing? I mean, there are mulitple settings where spellcasters are literally the rulers.

what peasants would live under a lord who is magic, and may very well live forever?

not to mention in older editions when the focus was less on questing as a party pf 4 for eternity, the ability to have feudal vassals was literally a class feature of fighters.

people heard of this pretty tough guy who beat up a dragon with a sword and decided hed probably keep them safe, so they moved into his front yard.

nobody goes "id feel so safe under the protection of that guy who's house explodes every other week"

God, what sort of fucking incompetent wizard would blow up his house every other week? What sort of stupid shits do you play with?

Also, non-squieture. What the fuck do the plebs care if the guy lives forever, as long as he rules well? Hell, I'd FAVOR that, because he can plan in the super long term.

you show me a high level lawful good wizard with no desire to become a lich or artificially steal someone's life span or something, and ill show you someone who isnt going to live forever.

plus, any wuizard who keeps himself getting new high level spells is spending all his non adventuring time in the lab anyway. completely unfit to rule.

we're not talking about harry potter becoming ruler of Narnia here. we're talking about a medieval era North Korea, but where all the myths told about Dear Leader(tm) are TRUE.

>The trade off was that they sucked shit at low levels.

And the upshot of that is that you play a tanky Fighter if you start at low levels and rely on the campaign to fail before you reach high levels (which is usually the case) and if the game starts at high levels you play an OP caster.

One of the only people to successfully complete the Tomb of Horrors without cheating did so by sitting outside of it and sending his army of several hundred orcs in a few patrols at a time, receiving regular updates on what's going on and sending in new orders to deal with the situation as it unfolded.

Fireball is ungodly powerful in AD&D.

No one in Lord of the Rings ever casts a spell higher than 3rd level. The characters all cap out somewhere around 3.X's level 5.

Same thing that stops a wizard from getting four attacks a round: The class system. You can make an argument for a point-buy system and that argument is probably going to include verisimilitude and character customization, but that's a very different conversation from asking why one class in a class-based system doesn't have the capstone ability of another class.

Oh god, I can feel the wind from those goalposts moving.

In order:
Life expansion can come from other places then those two you noted. Your uncreativity? Not my problem.

A wizard can have other wizards working for him to help defray the times. Also, any fighter that's spending all his time ruling is rapidly becoming a fat piece of shit that can't fight for shit.

Or, you know, both could split their time between leading duties and personal fitness/research.

And we're talking about that because...why? You decided that's how it HAS to be? How sad.

Also, use proper capitalization, you utter fucking faggot.

The problem is when that capstone for the class can literally be gained via roleplaying.

The Fighter gets it automatically, but there's not a single thing that prevents a wizard from buying a castle via hard earned gold, or earning a duchy for helping to slay the dragon.

>You'd have to super not value a bunch of your followers, or treat them like RTS units that will slow the game down when you lose them.
D&D was never about roleplaying. It was always an RTS on paper

Because some of us play for fun, not to minmax and annoy our friends.

This may sound crazy, but hear me out

I think...I think some people may have fun by minmaxing

This may sound crazy, but hear me out.

I think... I think nobody said you can't play a fucking wizard, just pick wizard, minmax him and be done with it, unless your party is already made of wizards alone because then picking wizard might be suboptimal choice.

I think you're making an unwarranted distinction between roleplaying and the rule system.
Ultimately, the rules (including the class system) are only there to provide structure to your roleplaying in order to make it more fun. There is no inherent difference between the rules provided in the official handbook and the rulings provided by your GM at a whim. If your GM and you together roleplay you becoming a lord and gaining loads of followers and vassals, that's not inherently any different than you and your GM roleplaying you (as a fighter) learning a few wizard spells. They both involve you gaining an advantage in-game through roleplay. It just so happens that in the official rules (which are just guidelines to fun structured roleplay) the wizard gets more spells at high level, and the fighter gets stuff like lordship. It could be the other way around just as easily, or you could come up with an alternative reward for continuing good play - the rules just give a specific thematic structure to the rewards, such that wizards get magic and fighters get stuff that fits the pseudo-feudal knightly theme of their class and setting.

Clerics and Druids exist. They're not so much reasons to not play a wizard as they are reasons to play something that isn't a wizard.

Wow that sounds so fun I'm really surprised you can't find anyone else to throw away three nights a week on that tedious garbage.

Because I've banned Wizards. Beguilers, Dread Necromancers, and Binders are more interesting and balanced with the rest of the party.

Yes, in a well-made game there would be a reason to play a non-caster. Where's the joke?

And every night you lie in your bed, you remember that you didn't turn a 1d8 sword into a kingdom, the wizard did it for you. And he made the sword.

You cannot have drama and struggle in a system with classes explicitly designed to trivialize challenges.

>Give me two good reasons (which can't be solved simply by having a friendly meatshield) to play any other class rather than a wizard?
1: a sword doesn't have a daily use limit.
2: having a block of health is quite nice from time to time
3:spell resistant monsters never seem to bother marshals
4: spells are really piddly at low levels
5: hunting for new spells gets real tiresome after a while
6: magic can't solve every problem and you look like a chump when that happens (since magic is the ONLY thing you can do competently)
7: marshals never have to worry about concentration checks.

and those are problems I can think of for casters off the top of my head for Pathfinder, a supposedly caster-biased game.

anyone who tells you these problems are non-existent is either lying, or had a GM who was catering to casters and were too oblivious to notice, or has never played Pathfinder and is just mindlessly parroting the internet.

Sure, we just 'never played it'. Everyone's wrong but you, of course, that's how it really is.

Also, it's martials, you fucking retard.

Let's go line by line.

1: HP does have a daily limit, and by the time the spells run out, you probably want to take a break because you'll get no-lube fucked without them.

2: Not as good as just not getting hit due to any number of protection spells.

3: They don't bother mages most of the time, either, SR is trivial to overcome.

4: Color spray, sleep. Oh, look, the encounter is over.

5: I get 2 a level 100% of my choice, plus I can buy more with gold or trade.

6: Do list some it can't solve.

7: They don't need to worry about it, no. They also don't matter the vast majority of the time so who cares that they get that one, tiny perk?

But, please. Tell the class how you balance a T1 with a T3-4.