Fuck memes. Irrelevant Fighters, unstoppable Wizards.

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Fuck memes. Irrelevant Fighters, unstoppable Wizards.

Post by tussock »

Right, fuck I hate memes. Warriors are quadratic, Wizards are linear.

Fighter: better attacks by level times more attacks per round = level^2.
Wizard: better spells but the same number of spells each round = level^1.

That's true. It is easier and safer for a Fighter to defeat a slightly lower level Fighter than for a Wizard to defeat a slightly lower level Wizard.

The problem for warriors at high level in 3e is that hitting things for damage doesn't fucking well matter, once you're taking off hit points the fight is already over. What matters is mobility and action denial and they're crap at that. Plus, saves are too hard, so they can't even just sit in the corner and pout safely.

Well, and also in not contributing to the game outside combat. They don't get pet dragons, demonic servants, and infinite transport automatically, like Wizards do, you see.



Yes, spellcasters usually have bonuses that stack up to a faster growing set of attack and damage output than the Fighter gets, so they're also a better quadratic Fighter than the Fighter is (like so many of the monsters are), but the fucking meme is backwards.

I'm pretty sure it started here, so screw you guys. 4e fixed your meme, rather than the problem (because they're idiots). :nonono:


3e: Irrelevant Fighters, unstoppable Wizards.
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Post by Korwin »

No glue whats the point of your post.
But its an excuse to post this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFuMpYTyRjw
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Post by John Magnum »

tussock wrote:Wizard: better spells but the same number of spells each round = level^1.
Haha, wow. Yeah, because the quality of a wizard's spells is increasing linearly. Wizards are getting more spells per day times more spells known times higher spell levels known times lower-level spells scaling to level.
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Post by hogarth »

I agree that the "linear vs. quadratic" terminology is meaningless. If you compare a 17th level wizard against a 16th level wizard, is that eleven times better than comparing a 3rd level wizard to a 2nd level wizard? Who the fuck knows?
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Post by Juton »

The only Wizard spells that progress in anything like a linear fashion are direct damage spells, everything else increases at a rate much faster than that. Although that rate is hard to quantify. For example:

Jump->Levitate->Fly->Overland Flight
Clairvoyance->Scry->Contact Other Plane
Fog Cloud->Stinking Cloud->Solid Fog->Acid Fog

The next spell in the theme is way more powerful or versatile than the one previous. A wizard's spells can't be considered to increase linearly, but at a rate faster than that.

A fighter could be considered to have an average damage output that increases faster than linear. If you are interested in just raw hitpoints in damage. If you look at the number of turns on average it takes a fighter to defeat a level appropriate monster though, you'll see that it will take the fighter longer and longer to do so, barring heavy optimization. I will argue that a fighter actually progresses sub-linearly because a 20th level fighter isn't as good as his job as a 1st level fighter is.
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Post by Neurosis »

Korwin wrote:No glue whats the point of your post.
The same as the point of every other Den post/Den thread?

1. Fighters are underpowered and boring and can't contribute out of combat/can't have nice things.
2. Wizards are overpowered/have too many nice things.
3. ???
4. Profit

About 50% of the posts/threads I read on here are about this are this. Seriously.
John Magnum wrote:
tussock wrote:Wizard: better spells but the same number of spells each round = level^1.
Haha, wow. Yeah, because the quality of a wizard's spells is increasing linearly. Wizards are getting more spells per day times more spells known times higher spell levels known times lower-level spells scaling to level.
QFT.
Last edited by Neurosis on Wed Feb 22, 2012 7:01 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Post by BearsAreBrown »

What the shit is the point? Linear vs Quadratic because if there was a function where level implies power, the Wizard's increases exponentially while the Fighter's increases at an even pace.

Or it's Good vs Bad because one is good and one is bad.
Or it's Irrelevant vs Awesome. Or Mundane vs Magic. Or Boring vs Badass.

Who cares?
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Post by Libertad »

Schwarzkopf wrote:
The same as the point of every other Den post/Den thread?

1. Fighters are underpowered and boring and can't contribute out of combat/can't have nice things.
2. Wizards are overpowered/have too many nice things.
3. ???
4. Profit

About 50% of the posts/threads I read on here are about this are this. Seriously.
This is funny because the Tome Series solves this problem lickety-split by making the Fighter just as bad-ass as an optimized Wizard. Oh, and Wizards are still powerful, but they can't easily do Scry-and-die, and they're limited to a number of non-core spells equal to their level.

Tome of Battle is another possible solution, if you swap out the Fighter, Monk, and Paladin with the the book's classes. Wizards are still better, though.

The only remaining obstacle is convincing your local group to try it out.
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Post by hogarth »

BearsAreBrown wrote:[..] the Wizard's increases exponentially [..]
I don't think it particularly does. For instance, I think there's a much bigger jump in power level between a level 5 and a level 9 wizard than there is between a level 15 and a level 19 wizard; that's neither exponential nor quadratic.
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Post by fectin »

Gaussian Wizards, Chi-square fighters?
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Post by Neurosis »

For instance, I think there's a much bigger jump in power level between a level 5 and a level 9 wizard than there is between a level 15 and a level 19 wizard; that's neither exponential nor quadratic.
More importantly, though, is that there's a much bigger power jump between a Wiz 5 and a Wiz 15 than between a Fighter 5 and a Fighter 15. I mean that's the core of the entire talked-to-death-argument.
Libertad wrote:
Schwarzkopf wrote:
The same as the point of every other Den post/Den thread?

1. Fighters are underpowered and boring and can't contribute out of combat/can't have nice things.
2. Wizards are overpowered/have too many nice things.
3. ???
4. Profit

About 50% of the posts/threads I read on here are about this are this. Seriously.
This is funny because the Tome Series solves this problem lickety-split by making the Fighter just as bad-ass as an optimized Wizard. Oh, and Wizards are still powerful, but they can't easily do Scry-and-die, and they're limited to a number of non-core spells equal to their level.

Tome of Battle is another possible solution, if you swap out the Fighter, Monk, and Paladin with the the book's classes. Wizards are still better, though.

The only remaining obstacle is convincing your local group to try it out.
This is kind of what's so tiresome about the fact that this discussion keeps coming up again and again and again forever and ever and ever ad nauseum is that it is a problem that Frank & K have already fixed at least to their satisfaction.

(I've been thinking a lot lately about the Tome material, and it's a pretty interesting approach to fixing the problem of overpowered, cheesed out wizards by making everything else equally overpowered, and therefore "balance" by way of "everyone is a god now" and making cheese irrelevant by putting all of the cheese right up-front and making it super obvious rather than making it dependent on your level of system mastery. As a matter of fact, anything Tome plus applied cheese is kind of horrifying because the BASELINE POWER of any Tome class is already ridiculously high.

However, I have issues with it, like its complete incompatibility with everything WotC ever published (imagine a game in which one person wants to play a Tome Fighter and another one for whatever reason REALLY wants to play a core Ranger or whatever? ugh, or I don't know, the fact that you really cannot mix and match Tome feats with non-Tome feats meaning if any feats you like weren't covered in Tome you need to either not use them or rewrite them to work like Tome feats). Using Tome if you want everyone on even footing means basically never using anything non-Tome, which actually leaves you with a lot less options.

More fundamentally than that, that it's built on a lot of assumptions, a LOT of very extreme assumptions, that don't in my experience actually apply to the way that I or anyone I know actually plays D&D. Like it is built on the assumption of chain-binding and a "wish economy" and everyone always exploting every rules loophole to the fullest of what the RAW allows, and in every D&D group I've actually seen or played, every single participant would in practice fully agree that the correct "answer" to those rules issues is fully supporting the DM when the DM says "no you fucking can't" if anyone tries any of that ill thought out bullshit and that's that. Basically the D&D the authors of Tome have been playing is nothing like any D&D I've ever played or ever seen anyone play, and that's fine, but Tome is a comprehensive solution to problems that, for me, never ever actually manifest due to unspoken gentleman's agreements. I mean only one person (who was for unrelated reasons kind of a dick) that I ever played D&D with even optimized at all and at the time I knew so very sadly little about D&D at the time that I couldn't really even engage with his optimization at all.)

Still though, it is at least A SOLUTION to the fighters/wizards problem even if it's not an optimal solution, so I'm not sure why, like Pinky and the Brain, every day we have to try to take over the world talk fighters/wizards to death. It's not like I'm opposed to any discussion of it, just that it might be nice to see a little less.
Last edited by Neurosis on Wed Feb 22, 2012 7:44 pm, edited 5 times in total.
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Post by Username17 »

hogarth wrote:
BearsAreBrown wrote:[..] the Wizard's increases exponentially [..]
I don't think it particularly does. For instance, I think there's a much bigger jump in power level between a level 5 and a level 9 wizard than there is between a level 15 and a level 19 wizard; that's neither exponential nor quadratic.
The increase between 15 squared and 19 squared is 60%. The increase between 5 squared and 9 squared is 224%. So that observation is completely in line with quadratic growth.

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Post by Neurosis »

The increase between 15 squared and 19 squared is 60%. The increase between 5 squared and 9 squared is 224%. So that observation is completely in line with quadratic growth.
I would never have guessed that because at a glance it's very counter-intuitive.

One of the thing about the Gaming Den I like best is the constant reminder that I know fucking nothing about math, and that I really need to get on that shit.

*needs to look at a quadratic growth table*
Last edited by Neurosis on Wed Feb 22, 2012 7:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.
For a minute, I used to be "a guy" in the TTRPG "industry". Now I'm just a nobody. For the most part, it's a relief.
Trank Frollman wrote:One of the reasons we can say insightful things about stuff is that we don't have to pretend to be nice to people. By embracing active aggression, we eliminate much of the passive aggression that so paralyzes things on other gaming forums.
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TiaC wrote:I'm not quite sure why this is an argument. (Except that Kaelik is in it, that's a good reason.)
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Post by hogarth »

FrankTrollman wrote:The increase between 15 squared and 19 squared is 60%.
Or 136.
FrankTrollman wrote: The increase between 5 squared and 9 squared is 224%.
Or 56.

So no matter which argument you want to make (that 5->9 is more powerful or 15->19 is more powerful), you can throw a bullshit meaningless number at it. Yay!
Last edited by hogarth on Wed Feb 22, 2012 8:31 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Username17 »

hogarth wrote:
FrankTrollman wrote:The increase between 15 squared and 19 squared is 60%.
Or 136.
FrankTrollman wrote: The increase between 5 squared and 9 squared is 224%.
Or 56.

So no matter which argument you want to make (that 5->9 is more powerful or 15->19 is more powerful), you can throw a bullshit meaningless number at it. Yay!
If you want to talk about absolute power differences, the higher level wizards have you covered there too. You're not seriously going to try to claim that a grip of 9th level spells isn't worth more than some fourth and fifth level spells are you?

The shift of 15->19 is more absolute power and less relative power than the shift of 5->9. You know, just like a quadratic progression. Very different from a linear progression, which is the same absolute power and less relative power, or an exponential which is more absolute power and the same relative power.

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Post by ModelCitizen »

Fighters' damage hasn't been a linear function of level since the early 80s. As soon as you multiply a scaling attack bonus by a level-dependent extra attack or damage bonus, you are no longer a linear fighter. You still suck, but your sucking happens to be expressed as a quadratic or cubic polynomial.
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Post by hogarth »

FrankTrollman wrote:If you want to talk about absolute power differences, the higher level wizards have you covered there too. You're not seriously going to try to claim that a grip of 9th level spells isn't worth more than some fourth and fifth level spells are you?
Seriously? You're going to defend those numbers as meaning something?

If so, please regale us with an explanation of how going from level 2 to level 6 (which is worth "32") is as big a leap in power in absolute terms as going from level 16 to level 17 (which is worth "33"). Wait -- I have to go get some popcorn first.
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Post by Aryxbez »

I totally have no problem with these kind of discussions "ad-infinitum" away, it's part of what makes me like the Gaming Den so much. It would be nice to see an RPG where the fighters are the super awesome demigod/wizards of almightyness, while the wizards are forced to suffer Fighter/Monk/Samurai style, mwahahahahahaha.

Other than that, definitely just tone them the hell down, and beef the warriors types the hell up, and have a sane 1-20th level (or its equivalent) power level progression.
Schwarzkopf wrote: One of the thing about the Gaming Den I like best is the constant reminder that I know fucking nothing about math, and that I really need to get on that shit.

*needs to look at a quadratic growth table*
Yeah...I don't knows math too well either, especially going beyond the complexity of the basics. Can't say I'm too interested of trying to wrap my mind around such complexities, although I guess would be a step forward in making one an RPG designer?


As for Tome, I recall that it actually doesn't fix as much as people says it does? I know Lago_Paranoia has talked about this a few times before. Other than incomplete information for Wealth by level, rebalanced armors, lack of Tome Bard, Ranger. Lack of actual superpowers to the non-casters, sure can action cancel, but where's the super strength, the Jump good/self induced flight, and so forth? Although, the Soulborn class I think shows a pretty good example of a high level Fighter type with actual superpowers at his disposal.

However yeah, seems the high level of optimization for Tome is perhaps bit "too high" that without system mastery, could be rather impossible to deliver good challenges and engaging stories.
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Post by Neurosis »

Aryxbez wrote:I totally have no problem with these kind of discussions "ad-infinitum" away, it's part of what makes me like the Gaming Den so much. It would be nice to see an RPG where the fighters are the super awesome demigod/wizards of almightyness, while the wizards are forced to suffer Fighter/Monk/Samurai style, mwahahahahahaha.

Other than that, definitely just tone them the hell down, and beef the warriors types the hell up, and have a sane 1-20th level (or its equivalent) power level progression.
I have half a mind to stat up a version of the 3.5E Fighter that is somewhere between the "swords are irrelevant after Level 10 because everyone else can teleport and fly and has enough hit points that fuck your longsword" power level of the core Fighter and the "foil all actions all the time as an immediate action because fuck you" power level of the Tome Fighter. Largely to see who rips it apart and on what basis.
Last edited by Neurosis on Thu Feb 23, 2012 2:00 am, edited 4 times in total.
For a minute, I used to be "a guy" in the TTRPG "industry". Now I'm just a nobody. For the most part, it's a relief.
Trank Frollman wrote:One of the reasons we can say insightful things about stuff is that we don't have to pretend to be nice to people. By embracing active aggression, we eliminate much of the passive aggression that so paralyzes things on other gaming forums.
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TiaC wrote:I'm not quite sure why this is an argument. (Except that Kaelik is in it, that's a good reason.)
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Post by tussock »

No glue whats the point of your post.
Who cares?
Yeh, I get that a lot. When Monte Cook is talking about fixing linear warriors by cutting them down to one attack that scales smoothly with level: :bash: ! Every gods damned third or fourth comment on the official 5e floaters is "linear fighters, quadratic wizards". The game designers seem to want to fix a well known problem that doesn't fucking well exist, it's just an empty meme!

The problem for Fighters is the basic structure of the game. It's not about killing things, it's about taking their actions away, and Fighters can't do that at all, especially not melee Fighters who normally grant extra actions to the monsters in 3e, and have to trade movement for attacks as self-denial. Irrelevant.

The problem of Wizards is not how their power grows, it's that they are very good at dealing out action denial but can never normally suffer from it. Unstoppable.

AD&D had Fighters giving out really good mass action denial, and Wizards suffering hard from that same thing. Sticky melee that disabled spellcasters. Both of those were removed for 3e. That's the problem, not the power growth.

The next spell in the theme is way more powerful or versatile than the one previous.
The same thing happens for Fighters.
ride a horse -> pegasus -> dragon
One attack -> two -> everyone in reach -> 60' reach.
En Passent -> trip 'em all -> lockdown -> charge + mass push + trip + lockdown.

All of which deal out better attacks at higher damage. Of course, they only have one trick each, and none of those tricks are very good, because Fighters can't have nice things.

More importantly, though, is that there's a much bigger power jump between a Wiz 5 and a Wiz 15 than between a Fighter 5 and a Fighter 15. I mean that's the core of the entire talked-to-death-argument.
No there isn't. Seriously. If that's all you've concluded you've been doing it wrong.

20 (flying invisible) 5th level Wizards attack a Wiz 15, the big guy dies in 1 round, pretty much every time, depending on paranoia assumptions.

20 (archer) 5th level Fighters attack a Ftr 15, he just kills them until they run, every time, because it's trivial to be immune to everything a Ftr 5 can do.

The jump is bigger for Fighters, AC and attack mods grow much quicker than DCs and save mods, it's just that being a Fighter at high level is irrelevant, because he can't even kill a single cowardly 5th level Wizard. Ever.

Also: the den's continued use of 5th, 10th, and 15th level characters for comparisons is maddeningly stupid for such a smart place. One level above all those, the melee characters all get noticeably better. 6, 11, 16, eh.
Last edited by tussock on Thu Feb 23, 2012 4:27 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by John Magnum »

Is there any particular reason this level 15 wizard hasn't had Permanent See Invisibility on for the last five levels?
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Post by CapnTthePirateG »

Why the fuck are we arguing about this?
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Post by Neurosis »

CapnTthePirateG wrote:Why the fuck are we arguing about this?
Besides this excellent point...
20 (flying invisible) 5th level Wizards attack a Wiz 15, the big guy dies in 1 round, pretty much every time, depending on paranoia assumptions.
A) No, not really they don't. First off, a 15th Level Wizard really should be aware they're coming (see: Divination Spells, all of them) and be reliably able to either have a readied action/to win initiative (on winning initiative, see: various variably well known cheese). Then the 15th Level Wizard auto-wins by casting Globe of Invulnerability, which negates every single fucking thing every one of those flying invisible bitches can do. At that point team 20 5th Level Wizards is limited to attacking with their masterwork crossbows or some other shit that won't end well for them.
B) What is the point/meaning of this statement/comparison?

Really, though, the salient thing is...
No there isn't. Seriously.
By "power jump" I don't mean power as in "ability to kill shit" I mean "ability to deal with level appropriate challenges in a changing game".

So the valid question isn't really how well a Ftr 15 fares against 20 Ftr 5s or how a Wiz 15 fares against 20 Wiz 5s.

It's how a Ftr 15 and a Wiz 15 fare comparably against, say, a truly horrid umber hulk (CR 14).

The Ftr 15 unwisely tries to attack it, for damage. The Wiz 15 makes it his bitch with one spell. That's what I meant by power jump, if you want to view it in terms of "ability to kill shit", that's the appropriate comparison to make.
The jump is bigger for Fighters, AC and attack mods grow much quicker than DCs and save mods, it's just that being a Fighter at high level is irrelevant, because he can't even kill a single cowardly 5th level Wizard. Ever.
I guess I kind of see with what you're saying, kind of --I don't agree that a 15th Level Fighter can't ever kill a single cowardly 5th level Wizard--but I don't see how the 20 v. 1 examples are really germane to...anything, really.
Last edited by Neurosis on Thu Feb 23, 2012 6:06 am, edited 2 times in total.
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hogarth wrote:As the good book saith, let he who is without boners cast the first stone.
TiaC wrote:I'm not quite sure why this is an argument. (Except that Kaelik is in it, that's a good reason.)
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Post by tussock »

Schwarzkopf wrote:A) No, not really they don't. First off ...
It is impossible to have discussions about Wizards where one side has perfect foreknowledge and preparation while the other blunders ahead without. Spells are all about having the right ones for the job. You know that. As I said, depends on paranoia assumptions. Perfect defence plays are unlikely IRL, IME.

Old argument, don't care. Sorry for getting into it.
Really, though, the salient thing is ... By "power jump" I don't mean power as in "ability to kill shit" I mean "ability to deal with level appropriate challenges in a changing game". ... how a Ftr 15 and a Wiz 15 fare comparably against, say, a truly horrid umber hulk (CR 14).
As I said, the Fighter is irrelevant, the Wizard unstoppable. There's plenty of team scenarios where the Fighter takes away all the THUH's hit points, but they don't matter. That hasn't changed since 1st level when the Druid dropped Entangle (or the Wizard dropped Sleep) on some poor unfortunate monsters and took away all their actions when a DMF.would've got himself very badly hurt by trying to take away their hit points first.

but I don't see how the 20 v. 1 examples are really germane to...anything, really.
The bit where everyone was discussing how quickly the classes grow in power, and someone said Wizards grow faster. I don't think it's true. I think optimised Wizards are, from 1st level, playing a totally different game to the Fighters in 3e. Spells are all automatic wins when you have the right ones to hand.

But they don't grow all that fast. It's still an area of level appropriate monsters losing a lot of actions each round, with fairly easy immunity to everything any particular monster type can do. Layering on the easy-spreading cheese.
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Post by Neurosis »

It's really not germane to the discussion so I'll just make one final comment: the Wiz 15 has access to much better divination spells and more spell slots per day. Therefore he is more likely to know that the 20 Wiz 5s are coming for him and to be properly prepared than the 20 Wiz 5s are to know that they're going to be up against the Wiz 15 and to have leveraged whatever 3rd, 2nd, and 1st level spells could make a difference against him. I could research specific examples of how a 15th level Wizard has much, much, much better preparedness/readiness potential than a gaggle of Wiz 5s, but it's kind of self-evident.
Last edited by Neurosis on Thu Feb 23, 2012 9:44 am, edited 1 time in total.
For a minute, I used to be "a guy" in the TTRPG "industry". Now I'm just a nobody. For the most part, it's a relief.
Trank Frollman wrote:One of the reasons we can say insightful things about stuff is that we don't have to pretend to be nice to people. By embracing active aggression, we eliminate much of the passive aggression that so paralyzes things on other gaming forums.
hogarth wrote:As the good book saith, let he who is without boners cast the first stone.
TiaC wrote:I'm not quite sure why this is an argument. (Except that Kaelik is in it, that's a good reason.)
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