>Wizard
>Can command the forces of nature and shape reality to their will
>Warrior
>Can't command more than a few hundred mooks.
Why is this?
Has anyone actually developed and published a game where martials and casters are on the same footing in terms of influence, even in the late game?
It really isn't a difficult thing to do. It's very easy to restrict the power of wizards by limiting their magic in one form or another. You can also give warriors mythic powers that set them significantly apart from a mere badass with a sword. The problem comes primarily from wanting a high-magic setting where PC wizards can do almost any crazy magical thing you can imagine and secondarily from wanting PCs warriors to lack mythic powers of any kind and to be realistic enough in their capabilities so as to not completely out of line with what's possible in the real world. It's not hard to see why those approaches don't work well together.
If you go for more of a swords and sorcery vibe, it's a lot easier to balance things out. In Barbarians of Lemuria, for instance, magicians can do some pretty impressive things, but it's very difficult to pull off, can't be done often (for powerful spells, it may take you a month to gain back the power you spent on them, and for even more powerful ones, the loss is permanent), and you may have to do a long ritual or suffer significant negative effects in order to bring their cost down to something you can actually cast.
>Has anyone actually developed and published a game where martials and casters are on the same footing in terms of influence, even in the late game?
Fairly often, but it's a plain and boring aim
Yes, it's called "every system that isn't D&D."
This is false.
See: Savage Worlds, all iterations of WoD.
>Has anyone actually developed and published a game where martials and casters are on the same footing in terms of influence, even in the late game?
If you're a wizard and some mouth-breather has more or equal influence as you and is scaling up linearly to you, you're a shitty wizard.
At the very least that martial should be looking to you for advice on magical shit, thus giving you the opportunity to manipulate his opinions.
That's a pretty stupid way of looking at it.
Maybe they're looking to you for your expertise one specific field, which happens to be your field of study.
But on anything else, the reclusive wizard's opinions should be disregarded. Especially war, economics, industry, or public relations. You don't ask an aerospace engineer to identify the plague that's devastating your yields. Should be no different with a wizard.
>You don't ask an aerospace engineer to identify the plague that's devastating your yields. Should be no different with a wizard.
You are 100% correct, and if you as a Wizard let the Warlord know that all you really understand is the fiddly bits of contract summoning law, then you deserve what you get.
Keep that shit mysterious, yo'.
All Merlin really knew was some neat prestidigitation and how to seduce watery tarts with a penchant for handing out royalty defining armaments.
This isn't reflected at all in most popular ttrpgs. Spellcasters and their kind tend to be nigh omniscient gods for some reason.
Hmm...that's a fair point. The closest you really get are games like WFRP - especially 1ed, where wizards were feared and generally copped more abuse than their abilities really warranted.
Maybe it's because in the scenario I'm outlying in , it's presuming a setting where - while magic does exist - it's neither omnipresent nor particularly potent. It's just kind of a wet-fart as far as cosmic scales go - enough to dupe the locals into believing you're hot shit, but not enough to back up the claims.
In a lot of TTRPGs, like Mage, D&D, ect ect, magic is both very real and very powerful - so the people who wield it are suitably powerful for that.
What you want is a low magic system with a bit of a stronger emphasis on the realism than normal.
Depends on what you consider a wizard.
If you see a wizard as a dude who throws around fireballs, breaks minds and teleports around at the snap of a finger - you can only balance that against a man-at-arms if you're sacrificing realism or giving the wizards some kind of kryptonite weakness.
You can make wizards "balanced" against everyone else if you make magic mostly about mysterious rituals that are difficult and time consuming to pull off, and less about destruction at will.
>Has anyone actually developed and published a game where martials and casters are on the same footing in terms of influence, even in the late game?
It's called 4e, and people REEEEEE'd all over it. Personally I loved it, but it fits what you're looking for.
"Martial" and "Caster" are social constructs.
In settings like Runequest and TES, where everyone knows a little magic, and can, thru a reasonable amount of effort, learn more, this isn't much of an issue.
The question isn't so much "Are casters overpowered?" as, "Why are you spending 20+ levels doing nothing but 'Hurr, I hit it wits muh sord' "?
(Which is I guess just a rewording of "Have you tried not playing D&D?")
Yes, Hackmaster 5E has made really fun and balanced classes without gimping anyone or making things bland and samey like dnd4th, and without reducing class focus.
Because classical table top rpgs were based on classical fantasy works, where spellcasters were really powerful beings who shaped nature and reality with their minds, while warriors were mundane but would also achieve important stuff with cunning strategies and a little bit of skillful improvisation.
The problem is that spells are well documented by the rulebooks, while the feats of strategy and skillful improvisation of the melee characters are very abstract and end up being left to the imagination of the player and the judgement of the DM.
If you don't like how that works just play a different system.
I wonder why Veeky Forums doesn't just fork 3.5 and fix it instead of complaining about it endlessly, though. One could easily just change a little the spellcasting mechanics to make wizards less all powerful and more dependent on the rest of the team, while adding more versatile strategic combat options to melee classes instead of just leaving those to roleplay.
Because that takes way more effort than you think it does and has been done a dozen times before? "Just change a few rules bro :^)" is how you get incredibly shitty homebrew.
>where spellcasters were really powerful beings who shaped nature and reality with their minds
no they weren't
You started with 3.5, didn't you?
It's simple. You just have to make the Wizard a Wizard, instead of a God like it is in D&D.
Your average spellcaster in that game would still be quite strong if you restricted them to a single school of magic and made their spells go from 1-6 instead of 1-9.
A blaster would be total shit.
It's harder to get a wizard to that level than a warrior.
That's a pretty comprehensive list, but it's missing TSR D&D.
I'll check this out, thanks.
3.5 if you give your warriors the amount of magic items you are meant to.
Jesus Christ, again?
Please tell me you're at least not the same fucking guy.
Congratulations!
You've made what is most likely your first unoriginal and unimaginative thread on Veeky Forums, retreading a topic so old that in all likelyhood you hadn't even managed to hit high school when it was outdated and dull!
You've nowhere to go but upwards now as literally anything else you could post other then what you've posted would be more interesting and less talked about!
You have much to look forward to a long future of near-constant meteoric improval of posting quality as you skyrocket from the near-unattainable nadir that is this astounding creative low you started your journey at!
Anima.
These threads are so common and boring, I'm going to post my caster martial balanced homebrew so it gets more exposure every one I see.
I think it's funny when people arbitrarily limit fantasy fighters to regular human feats, but yet Wizards are free to do anything. Where is the mass used to conjure a dragon coming from? Where is the calories to support that super fast healing spell? Wizards without something to offload the energy cost to should fall into a exhaustion coma for the amount of energy they need to ignite a ball of fire and hurl it at someone.
>muh cuckbrew guys it fkzes 3.5 i sweeeers!!!!
Here is how to fix 3.5
WARNING IQ 120+ REQUIRED AFTER THIS LINE
Ban anything that doesnt have a caster progression or dont. Fucking. Play. D&D.
>doesn't read it
>claims it's just a 3.5 homebrew
Nice meme. Educate yourself before you speak.
>Uses the word 'cuck' unironically
>>>/reddit/
>triggered by the word cuck
Have you tried reddit.com/r/cuckoldry a d reddit.com/feminism ?
They are fit for you cuck. Go prep the negro bull
This is by far the worst rules light game I have seen.
user KYS
>fixing 3.5
>instead of not playing D&D
BUT WHY