Caster v Martial Balance and how to fix it

Commonly I see threads bitching about the power gap between caster/wizard characters and fighting/nonmagical characters. Usually, this pertains to balance between them. People are either unsure how or simply unable to fix the issue themselves.

For those of you who don't care about this issue, or believe that casters should be stronger then martials by default, then you can simply pass by this thread. You are free to play games however you like.

However for the rest of us who desire the solution to caster v martial imbalance; I will now give you the solution.

Casters are support characters.

Not "support" as in, unable to help contribute to the game, but support as in their abilities are best used to compliment others. The power to heal, end curses, bless allies, maintain equipment, provide minor utility, divine problems up ahead, grant resistances or other bonuses are all extremely important and useful functions a character can have- and this is where Wizards should be designed. Powerful magic abilities like teleportation, huge blasting magic, invisibility, conjuring monsters, wishes, and bringing people back from the dead should have never been just a standard 'ability' that magical characters have. These are things that happen due to plot, or great many sessions and adventures worth of effort. There is no 'fireball' spell, though you can still have fireballs in your game. You just have to convince a fire elemental to make one for you instead. Clerics, if they exist in your game of choice, should be folded into the Wizard class, or be renamed to Sage to give players a clear understanding of what the new class is about.

Simply put; this solution mixes the best of both worlds and will forever end all caster vs martial disparity you will have to deal with as a DM/GM.

In reality most people just want a martial that gets to do a little bullshit too.

>their abilities are best used to compliment others
"My word, Fighter, you sure are doing a good job today. I feel glad to have a martial like you around."

And what if people wanna throw fireballs or support people non-magically?

I personally would rather reign in magic than turn fighters into anime protagonists.

Make magic slow, subtle and demanding. Big stuff requires a lot of prep (actually tracking material components), costs a lot (either your own health or wealth), and time is never on your side.

Bad guys can use magic better because they can either make someone else pay the cost for them (blood sacrifice) or have already given up everything (usually their soul).

Fireballs are typically too powerful to be given away willy nilly as a class power, which is why I've stated it should be a plot or rare item sort of thing. Like you can't cast Fireball but you might still find a Scroll or Staff of Fireball.

If you liked high fantasy games, you could also just let the Wizard player grab a magic rod from the magic item shop or craft it himself; a magic rod that acts like a bow but deals elemental damage of a chosen element instead. You'll still feel like a spell slinger but without the trouble.

>Support non-magically
Through money, skills, RP, and any of the other myraid ways people can already do that?

>I personally would rather reign in magic than turn fighters into anime protagonists.

So you'd rather drag everyone down than have Hercules or Huma Dragonbane be your fighter?

>Through money, skills, RP, and any of the other myraid ways people can already do that?

Through stuff like a 4e Warlord where you use tactical acumen and leadership to inspire people to victory.

Just play any high level D&D that isn't 4e.

Try... Barbarians of Lemuria. Shadow of the Demon Lord. Savage Worlds. GURPS, OSR games. Each has their own solutions to this particular issue, and they all work (more or less).

>*DON'T play any higher level D&D

wow, way to miss the most important word there

Yes

Because those people have divine blood and the average fighter is more likely to be the son of a pig farmer.

Actually, GURPS has serious issues with it with most of it's magic systems. Not because magic is too powerful but because it doesn't scale for shit, so if the TL rises magic stays just as expensive (Pointswise) without actually getting any better value-wise.

Stop. You've already messed up. Read the OP post again.

No amount of making people jump through hoops to play a Wizard will fix the balancing issue. Letting someone cast a Wish spell exactly once per level isn't balanced, just because they only get it a rare scant handful of times. It's irrelevant how limited you make things, because players will just bypass and go around your limitations, like the ten minute adventuring day.

Fix the problem at its source. Make casters more about support, and you won't have to worry about 'anime protagonists' either.

Huma Dragonbane didn't have divine blood. He was a fighter, a D&D fighter. He also struck down a goddess in combat (He needed a holy weapon to hurt her but his skill to get there and to beat her in combat was entirely his own)

Then why does the wizard get to do things more impressive than Merlin, who was the son of Satan himself?

Because they're poorly designed and over powered. Next question.

>Caster v Martial thread
>HERE'S MY GREAT GRAND PLAN
>nerf magics, boost fighta, ban all 1st tiers
Does somebody have bingo for that one?

So you just invented Low fantasy/magic OP, congratu-fucking-lations

>I want to do everything a caster does
>I don't want to be a caster

>Hercules
>Anime fighter
Weebs actually believe this

Why not play 4e?

Supporting people non-magically is being a spellcaster?

a)Because he doesn't
b)Not Satan but an average devil

For starters, you imply that 'nerf magic, boost fighta' is somehow a wrong move. Why, because it's generic?

Secondly, nothing in my post said anything about boosting fighters and, more importantly, not even really nerfing casters. Changing their primary function and role isn't much of a nerf, it's a change that encourages the game's primary roles to not get shit on.

Also >playing a game with tiers

Plenty of people on Veeky Forums want to play low fantasy or low magic games but yet still struggle with caster supremacy. It's because they still haven't shifted the focus to support magic. If anything it's people's focus on 'low fantasy, muh realism for fighting men but magic can do whatever' that causes so many balance problems in the first place. Support mages fix this in all levels of play.

Because 4e has a myriad of flaws and in my subjective opinion, it feels soulless and sterile.

>For starters, you imply that 'nerf magic, boost fighta' is somehow a wrong move. Why, because it's generic?
No,it's because it has been done to death already and it has been done well.Why do you keep inventing bicycles and believe that it's a good idea?
>Secondly, nothing in my post said anything about boosting fighters and, more importantly, not even really nerfing casters. Changing their primary function and role isn't much of a nerf, it's a change that encourages the game's primary roles to not get shit on.
Outside of "your off support now" it didn't change shit.it didn't change shit.You, literally, just cutted down 7-9th level spells and took martial stuff from clerics.
>Also >playing a game with tiers
You tell me me, you're the one trying to fix them.
>Plenty of people want to play low fantasy or low magic games
And they can do it, by simply NOT playing D&D 3.5
>Plenty of people on Veeky Forums want to play
Don't make me laugh

Unlike the holy 3.5, which to this day keeps spamming PunPun's and bingo-tier discussions ,like this one.

Play LITERALLY anything but 3e/3.5/3.tranny edition. Now fuck off with your troll thread. Here's another (you) for your pile.

No, 3.PF is pretty bad as well. I'm just saying that the solution isn't '4e.'

This.
3.5 is the posterchild for this issue, and one of the few games that it's actually a problem. It's not nearly so widespread as people on the internet, who mostly play 3.PF, make out to be.

It's clear from your suggestion that you don't understand why Casters are OP in the fucking first place.

Casters casting fireball isn'[t the fucking problem. It's the fact that they're too fucking OP at support and you may as well replace the Fighter with a fucking peasant or better yet a summon, like you suggest.

Support magic IS THE FUCKING PROBLEM.

3.5 even fixed the problem in it's own game.

Fucking ban the Wizard, Druid, Cleric, Sorcerer. Psions, Warmages, Dread Necros, Healers, Beguilers, Incarnates. Ban Fighters, get Warblades.

Playing 4e in order to avoid caster supremacy is like cutting off your arm from the shoulder down because your hand is on fire.

So basically you want everything to conform to your idea of how fantasy should work, regardless of what other people should do. I'm not even against the idea of turning Wizards into the support, but you should make classes that fufill the roles that your taking from Wizard. i.e A class devoted to blasting, a class devoted to illusion and invisibility, etc.

I'd argue that it was less the classes, and more the spells themselves.
While the replacement classes they brought in later did a lot, it was the system from the ground up that was the actual issue.

That's precisely why those classes worked so well. They either cut down on spell lists to be more thematic instead of doing EVERYTHING(Dread Necromancer, Warmage, etc) or kept a broad list but forced you to specialize to get the "best" stuff(psionics).

Show the doctor on the PDF where the evil green boxes shattered your verisimilitude.

>The power to heal, end curses, bless allies, maintain equipment, provide minor utility, divine problems up ahead, grant resistances or other bonuses are all extremely important and useful functions a character can have- and this is where Wizards should be designed.
You're missing something pretty important here in your "solution" - it's boring as shit for the caster player.
A big part of rpgs is generally combat, and by limiting the caster skillset to these things you have made them unable to contribute to combat at all.
Your casters get to cast buffs on the martial, tell them where to go and then stand around during combat with their thumbs up their asses until it's time to fix up the fighters boo boos afterwards.
Forcing them to heal during combat doesn't actually make things any more interesting. PnP isn't WoW.

This is why earlier groups often had to force someone to play the healer.
Being the walking bandaid/plot exposition machine is fucking boring.

If you want to play low fantasy play low fantasy.
If you want to play high fantasy make the martials high fantasy too. It's that easy.
Trying to mix the two is the absolute worst thing you could do.

The funny thing about only using later classes in 3.5 is that the basic premise of the "martial vs caster" thing that keeps them separate. That casters get bigger effects but are limited in use across the day, while martials can keep going, is far better illustrated there than in core

ToB classes get maneuvers they can recharge in the middle of battle that have powerful effects, but are never as powerful as equivalent level spells, while a warmage or dread necromancer has some serious firepower, but run out of steam quickly if they blow it all early

Nah, keep psions, those are balanced.

This is what happens when your first RPG is 3rd Edition DnD.

I mean, if you're not a shit DM 'caster supremacy' doesn't exist.

>oi, grot
>lookit the man in pointy hat
>stab em first

If you think wizards casting offensively is the problem you haven't seen the half of the actual casters power

>Well now my fighter has +8 AC, has 3 more attacks, and can fly invisibly.
>This will last for 14 hours due to my caster level
>Also his sword is now +8
>I still get to cast all my fun spells too

Play 2e
Play 4e

Play 4e, or WHFB (or another system where magic is legit dangerous).

We figured out how to balance magic ages ago. Spergs just refuse to accept it because for the most part they want to play godwizards.

No,it's because TRPGs = D&D3.5
Everyone who plays something else must be beheaded

Don't you fucking people get tired of making these threads?
I swear to fucking god, I talked and thought less about sex back when I was a virgin then Veeky Forums talks about caster supremacy and it's "solutions".
WotC really poisoned the well of this hobby with idiots like you using 3e didn't it?

>No summoning
But that's the most fun magic

I got this PDF a while ago that helps give martials more options so they can do more cool shit, instead of just 'full attack'.

Magic should be limited to things a heroic individual could also reasonably replicate. Things such as conjuring fire and levitation are fine because, with some effort, anybody can find a way to make fire or relocate themselves or an object to where they want. The further you stray from this, the more impossible the gap is to bridge.

If a spell needs more than a few sentences to describe, it's probably too strong or too exploitable.

The anime protagonists complaint is among the most retarded I've seen too, because powerful heroic types predate anime by thousands of years.

>The anime protagonists complaint is among the most retarded I've seen too, because powerful heroic types predate anime by thousands of years.
Nobody is complaining about powerful heroic types,everybody is complaining about illogical powerFETISH.

If you think Wizards are the only problem you're sorely mistaken. Stabbing the Cleric or Druid first isnt much easier than taking out the Fighter, and of course then you're dealing with the fact that martials can't actually protect casters and are stuck trying to clean up the fight after the caster throws one spell and gets focused

The very fact that you have to focus them shows how imabalnced it is, and only really works if the caster rolls poorly on initiative.

>ban magic
>keep the "its totally not magic guise!" ToB crap

Wew lad

Like what? Because nothing I've seen in anime save for the shit in DBZ seems too far out there compared to mythology. If I faithfully recreated some of the shit in celtic mythology and just changed the names around, you'd swear it was among the most ridiculous power-tripping anime bullshit in existence.
>b-but that's just one example
Achilles was just a dude who got dipped in a river by his mom and became immortal, Enkidu was 100% homegrown human yet was the only person Gilgamesh, a fucking demigod who is powerful enough to flip actual gods the fucking bird, could consider his equal.

That's why it rustles my jim jams when people refer to ToB as the Book of Weaboo Fightan Magic unironically despite the fact that it lines up much more heavily with WESTERN mythology.

You don't get off that easy. If you make it harder for players that play casters you also have to make it harder for the villain who casts spells. At least come up with an in game explanation for why the bad guy can use offensive spells that the party can go deal with and mitigate. Otherwise you're just buffing armor and weapons that do less once the party picks them up and you're a dick.