Design philosophies that make you rage?

[Count Arioch the 28th]

White Wolf representatives are knocking on your door. They politely disagree with you.

White Wolf games are bad, and you should feel bad.

[Elennsar]

I know I'm not. Because that second-to-last post of PR's is intended to create a bad impression.

[PhoneLobster]

I'm also the one who is getting work done on a D&D overhaul. It might not be what you want to play, and it might not be perfect, but I'm doing something. What have your projects accomplished? Multi-page bitchfests about floating islands vs. hollow worlds. Fuck that.

I love this hilarious attitude.

"Well, I am working on my own self admittedly mediocre house rules. WTF are you doing, certainly NOT working on your own mediocre house rules, that's for sure, I'd know! Your constant interest in discussion of rules design and hanging around a community centred on that, well that certainly proves that you never actually do it now doesn't it! You god damn (presumably) lazy bastards!"

[Elennsar]

Don't forget the irony that PR is verging on having created a multipage bitchfest about himself.

That takes talent.

[Psychic Robot]

Don't forget the irony that PR is verging on having created a multipage bitchfest about himself.

That takes talent.

What's the matter, E? Saw an opportunity to get yourself in "good" with the boys of the Den, and you jumped on it?

[Orion]

PR--

I owe you an apology. I was not thinking clearly when I posted that, and I overreacted, and crossed some serious lines of acceptable behavior. Mea culpa.

That said, I've read your D&D revision. Last time I looked, it was unbalanced gibberish thrown together without a clear vision, goal, or methodology. It was not better than the original in any noticeable way, and plagued by a number of fundamental bad decisions that have been repeatedly pointed out to you.

Also, you're still being a whiny bitch about fire. When I'm thinking clearly, I know having one bizarre meltdown like this is not evidence you should be ignored forever-- that would entail losing K, PhoneLobster, and Random at a bare minimum (and probably myself, come to think of it).

Anyway, the hostility and arrogance around here lately is starting to get to me. I know I might be part of the problem, but... please, take a chill pill and consider the possibility that we might have a point.

[Elennsar]

No, just musing on how ironic it is that you're commenting on how there's something wrong with the multipage bitchfests...

while making one about your obnoxious behavior.

No, seriously. This is fucked up crap on your part:

Allow me to open this by telling you to go fuck yourself. How much fail can you cram into one post? Let's see, I posted on the Paizo boards. True. I met Frank on the Paizo boards. By your halfwit reasoning, Frank is a Paizil. I left the Paizo boards because I was sick on their shit. Frank is the one who already "sabotaged" your reputation with the gaming community. Frank is the one who poisoned the Paizils against the Den, not me. Perhaps I cemented it, but that's like complaining that I drove the final nail in the coffin when Frank had already put in ten others.

Your fucking strawman argument is that I hate 4e because the wizard is too weak. Idiocy. I have repeatedly bemoaned the caster-noncaster imbalance in 3e. My problem with 4e is that it's so obsessed with balance that it's boring. You can't have an animal companion in the Core books because it was deemed too powerful. Why? Economy of actions, oh noes. Same with summoning. Same with necromancy. The game is so mind-numbingly balanced that you can't deviate from your prescribed role (no enchanters, that's too powerful!), or else people like Titanium_Dragon--the people for whom 4e was developed--will throw a fucking fit and say that overland flight is broken.

Maybe I don't want to play a blaster wizard, but I can't do that in 4e because it's broken. Fuck that. Give me slight imbalances with interesting mechanics any day of the weak.

As for why you should listen to me: maybe you shouldn't. We clearly like very different types of games. I'm okay with casters having more powers that non-casters. You're not. Fine. I'm also the one who is getting work done on a D&D overhaul. It might not be what you want to play, and it might not be perfect, but I'm doing something. What have your projects accomplished? Multi-page bitchfests about floating islands vs. hollow worlds. Fuck that.

I'm willing to contribute to projects. Tell me the paradigm you're working in (heroic fantasy with Charles Atlas Superpowers that match spellcasters?), and I'll add my ideas. My paradigm doesn't work like that. It's heroic fantasy with heroes doing heroic things, and the spellcasters come out a bit ahead, but the game doesn't fall apart because of the imbalance.

Now, go guzzle santorum and meditate on this.

If your point is that:

However, in D&D land, where you can accurately create tremendous bursts of fire that are clearly very hot (for fire), a fireball will win out. The trade-off is that characters can only do it a few times per day.

Say so.

If your point is that:

The reason that not everyone wants to use fire is because not everyone can do (or chooses to do) magic. And the reason that flamethrowers don't rule the world is just because of that--fire might beat swords, but when there are far more swords than fire, fire can't beat all of them.

In terms of mechanics, the fighter can beat the shit out of the flamethrower once he gets close enough. Or he can harry the flamethrower with ranged weaponry. And he can survive getting hit by the flamethrower.

But if your point is that those who are asking why they should listen to you should guzzle santorum, then frankly anything other than putting you on /ignore is nonproductive - except, perhaps, for an arguement.

In other words, do you have something we actually should listen to and you're just fed up with strawmanning (in which case I'd like to know which - is it that fire beats swords some of the time or that fire beats swords but you can only use it a limited amoutn of the time) of your position, or not?

Because honestly, while I don't much like either of you, and having either of you like me doesn't matter very much, Boolean's stuff is interesting to read.

So unless yours is also interesting to read, all things being even, I am very comfortable with being listed with the people who think you're a pain to the eyeballs because when you tell people to guzzle santorum you are.

Personally, I'd rather have a nice discussion on how the guys with fire and the guys with swords manage to be able to adventure together without one making the other useless.

Because presumably, at some point, that was going on - but it started becoming a rant that having fire means you can beat swordsmen and that swordsmen should suck it up, then that those who disagree should suck it up, and then it got to this.

Maybe we need to go back to just what is so awesome about being able to create fire magically that should be able to counter an equally skilled (at swords) swordsman - last time I checked, fireball in D&D was more the "kill a bunch of little guys" then "take on fighters of your level", so if that was the basis, then "wizard beats weaker groups, fighter beats individual brutes" would be nicely balanced in the sense balance is the goal of a good game.

[Psychic Robot]

That's mighty big of you, Boolean. All is forgiven. And I've done a lot of work on my D&D revision so far; I just haven't polished it to the point of re-submitting.

EDIT:

But if your point is that those who are asking why they should listen to you should guzzle santorum, then frankly anything other than putting you on /ignore is nonproductive - except, perhaps, for an arguement.

In other words, do you have something we actually should listen to and you're just fed up with strawmanning (in which case I'd like to know which - is it that fire beats swords some of the time or that fire beats swords but you can only use it a limited amoutn of the time) of your position, or not?

Because honestly, while I don't much like either of you, and having either of you like me doesn't matter very much, Boolean's stuff is interesting to read.

So unless yours is also interesting to read, all things being even, I am very comfortable with being listed with the people who think you're a pain to the eyeballs because when you tell people to guzzle santorum you are.

Its really that simple. Either guys with fire win over guys with swords or they don't.

Is there a way to get an answer to that without being told to perform physically impossible stunts?

I'm genuinely not convinced.

Then don't read vitriol-laden posts that are in response to vitriol-laden posts. It's that simple.

Guys with fire can do more damage than guys with not-fire. Why? They have fire, and they can burn multiple opponents at once. In terms of a one-on-one combat, all other things being equal, the guy with fire will win. (Which is precisely what I said earlier.) Why? He has hot fire. But the thing is, wizards aren't equal to fighters, which is why they can lose. They have weaknesses--low HP being one of them. If the fighter closes in, he can easily bring the pain to the wizard, despite the fire.

[Orion]

Psychic: I just posted this in Elennsar's thread. I'm too lazy to explain how this applies to this argument (gotta go meet the fiancee) but hopefully you'll understand.

If you're still harping the versimilitude argument, later tonight or tomorrow morning I'll post a list of fiction where Sword does more damage than Fire.

Elennsar: I'm not of the opinion that inbalance in power between character builds is unacceptable. For two reasons:

1st: Designers are human, they will make mistakes, the game is put together piece by piece and not always perfectly reconciled, etc. Some builds will end up stronger no matter what you do. That's before you get into house rules, or just campaigns with different challenge breakdowns.

2nd: Most games will for verisimilitude have to allow options to happen during gameplay that are not among the "supported" options. Your game might be balanced around people using weapons, but it's probably *legal* for the warrior to drop his sword and try to punch his opponent out. I'm fine with that being underpowered.

That said, each of these imbalances can and should be mitigated. The first is mitigated by avoiding introducing *deliberate* imbalances. There will be unforseeable imbalances in the product no matter what, so it's only *more* important to plug any known holes.

Second, look at what types of actions you expect people to want to take in the genre and try to support as many as possible? If you're playing a gritty cops & robbers game, dropping your gun probably should make you ineffective. If you're playing a Gun Fu martial arts game, it probably shouldn't weaken you dramatically, and in some situations (like when activating a rage ability) might even be optimal.

In this case, if you *know* some players will want ancestral weapons, why *wouldn't* you make sure it was as balanced as possible?

[Elennsar]

Then don't read vitriol-laden posts that are in response to vitriol-laden posts. It's that simple.

Guys with fire can do more damage than guys with not-fire. Why? They have fire, and they can burn multiple opponents at once. In terms of a one-on-one combat, all other things being equal, the guy with fire will win. (Which is precisely what I said earlier.) Why? He has hot fire. But the thing is, wizards aren't equal to fighters, which is why they can lose. They have weaknesses--low HP being one of them. If the fighter closes in, he can easily bring the pain to the wizard, despite the fire.

If Boolean's post was vitriol laden, it didn't look like it to me, and you responding in that tone certainly didn't encourage me to trust you were in the right.

As for guys with fire on "one-one-one combat"...

If the wizard has low HP, which you said he does, should that be enough of a disadvantage to balance things out?

If yes, then your wording didn't express that as well as it could have. If no, then what was the point?

That's the problem. "Guy with fire has advantages over guy with swords" =/= "fire beats swords (Period, full stop, end of discussion)" - if you're arguing the former, great. If the latter, not so great.

So:

Guy with fire has advantages.
Guy with swords has advantages.

Yes?

[RandomCasualty2]

Guys with fire can do more damage than guys with not-fire. Why? They have fire, and they can burn multiple opponents at once.

Huh? Guys with swords can stab multiple people in a round too.

I could just easily reply with my own strawman about how swords are better than fire because you can attack people attacking you from multiple directions easier, where a flamethrower has to be a sustained jet of flame in one direction.

[Draco_Argentum]

However, there has been a significant amount of flaming here lately, and that is distasteful.

Its always been like that. The quiet section a few months back was the aberration.

[Username17]

Guys with fire can do more damage than guys with not-fire. Why? They have fire, and they can burn multiple opponents at once.

What the hell? You seem like a prisoner of a one-blow-system. In the real world, there is no such thing as "at once." Things happen over time. Your combat round is some number of seconds, right? Here is a gy shooting arrows. Nominally each and every arrow is deadly, since it could potentially hit you in the spine and drop you instantly. And And here are som pretentious dumbasses setting themselves on fire. Count the seconds involved. I double dog dare you.

How many arrows are fired in a 6 second interval? How many six second intervals does it take for the fire to get really big while the guys are spraying lighter fluid on their friend and fanning the flames? Stop making hyperbole statements and count. This is somthing that you can objectively check.

Fire is really dangerous in an inexorably consuming everything you care about kind of way, but on a second to second basis - the time frame of people actually swinging sharpened metal rods at your face - it's not that deadly. You can run through a bonfire if you really want to. You won't even get hurt. This isn't news or anything, middleschool children can do this.

You know what happens when you run through a spear? There is nothing inherent about fire that makes it a better weapon than steel. Indeed, I cannot think of a single time anywhere where a one-one-one match between someone armed with fire and someone armed with some kind of material weaponry was won by the guy trying to set the other guy on fire. Fire takes a really long time to kill people. Hell, it takes a really long time to hurt people. So long that a proper knife fight is pretty much over before anyone on either side would notice that they were on fire. Then you can consider stopping, dropping, and rolling.

Fire is only ever meaningful as a weapon because of its indirectness. Yu set fire to a bunker not because fire beats sniper rifle or even fire beats bayonet. It doesn't. You use fire against a bunker because you can send the fire around corners and through cracks to spend many many "combat rounds" burning those guys to death when neither side can directly attack the other. And I think we'll all admit that fire beats "nothing." Setting a man's apartment on fire while they are asleep is a decent enough way to kill them. Setting their apartment on fire whle they are beating you with a baseball bat is not.

-Username17

[Murtak]

In a case where your fire weapons are inaccurate and not hot enough to melt coins in an instant, then, yes, other weapons would be far more effective. However, in D&D land, where you can accurately create tremendous bursts of fire that are clearly very hot (for fire), a fireball will win out.

We have a measure for fireball deadliness. Namely, HPs vs damage dealt. A fireball is clearly incapable of one-shotting anyone even remotely level appropriate and will in fact take 3 applications, even on non-resisting characters, to kill anyone with even a modicum of resilience (d8 hit dice, 14 CON score).

Meanwhile a very basic melee threat (level 6 fighter, STR 14, +1 Greatsword) has two attacks each, for a total of 4d6+8 vs a fireballs 6d6 damage. An Orc Barbarian with a greataxe clocks in at a much scarier 2d12+20. And our friendly neighbourhood ranger with a longbow deals 3d8+9, also at range.

Now, fireballs deal area damage, and that can be a nice thing to have. But fireballs are less deadly than everything else on a battlefield.

[SunTzuWarmaster]

6d6 average - 21
2d12+20 average - 33
3d8+9 average - 22.5

Murtak, your point isn't exactly made. Mostly because your fighters aren't doing the damage that they should be doing:

I would use the Ranger class that someone wrote up (because I love it!), but that doesn't seem very fair. So let's use a Tome Fighter as our archer model. We have the combo before. Point Blank Shot + Blitz. Use Blitz to provoke an AoO on every shot to add BAB->dmg. A level 6 fighter can be assumed to have Blitz (6 feats, he'd better!), and can use his ability to cherry-pick a feat for the combat to be an archer today, so no issue with either of these assumptions. He has a Magic bow (because he'd better dame well have one).
Attack Bonus - 6(BAB)+DEX+3(PBS)+2(magic)=11+DEX/9+DEX. Probably something around +13/+11 at range 30.
Damage - d8(arrow)+STR(4?)+BAB+BAB = d8+16.
Two nonmagical arrows can reasonably be assumed to deal an average of 41 damage from a non-specialized character. This drops to 29 average damage from within 120 at a -3/-3 penalty.

A specialist will be doing DOUBLE this damage through Improved Rapid Shot (Tome Ranger), Darts, Sniper, or a number of other options.

So we move on the the Tome Barbarian. We assumed this was made by a player that doesn't take TWF because he doesn't think that it is in character. So, what does he have? Blitz, Combat School, and Great Fortitude, because those 'represent him'. I currently DM this character, it is his second time at D&D.
Attack bonus (raging)- 6(BAB)+STR+2(CS)+2(Rage)+2(magic) = (+12/+10)+STR. STR can be reasonably assumed to be 18 (16 + item). Character is question is a half-orc, and has a 22. So this looks like +16/+14, which hits 15% more than arrows.
Character doesn't Power Attack, because he is a noob.
Damage = 2d6+(1.5*STR)+3d6+2(magic)+2(rage)+2(CD) = 5d6+6. Average damage in a round is 47 to a character who is admittedly sucking this up. If the character took a stupid -3 penalty to attack, this would be jumping back up to 59 damage in a round.

A character that was specialized (why isn't he?!), would have Whirlwind attack instead of Blitz, and would be doing 29.5 damage to everyone in a 30' move action instead of dazing opponents. If Whirlwind is not your flavor, TWF will flat out double the average damage (but won't stun, YMMV).

New numbers:
Fireball - 21 damage to an area
Archer - 41 damage to a target (or split to two targets). 82 (up to 4 targets) with Improved Rapid Shot.
Melee - 47-59+stun (suboptimal)-(more optimal) OR 29.5 to everyone within reach in a 30' move (Whirlwind) OR 94-118 (TWF) single-target.

* note, a single-weapon sword+board Knight will do more damage if he has high AC or was ignored the previous round (6d6+d8+STR = 29.5*2 without feats)
* A TWF (katana+tonto) samurai will do MUCH more damage on a Kiai! (d8+STR+2(magic)+1(subtle cut)+2(Combat School)+6(PA) = 15.5 + 14.5 = 30 damage to everyone in a 30' move. OR 46.5 on a single crit. (can be part of Whirlwind). Up to 180 (quatruple-crit). Or 60 damage (single target, no crit, TWF). Or 91 damage (single target 4 attacks, 1 crit). Assumes a x3 weapon (reasonable).

Fireball in these examples is a solid option, in that is is doing slightly worse damage than a Whirlwind attack (from Barb, Fighter, or Sam) to something like 3 times the area from a MUCH further distance away. It remains a legitimate option at level 6 when fighters get their second attack, when fighting multiple enemies and looking for damage. Single-target characters (Knight, Barb) will be close to triple this damage to a single target with a status effect or FIVE times this damage without a status effect, depending on feat selection, with the option to do more at further self-risk or accuracy (Blitz, PA).

It is hardly more powerful than a sword (never), and I don't appreciate that you switched your argument midstream (from 'better' to 'wider area' damage).

[SunTzuWarmaster]

Quasi-related, this is today's w00t shirt:

$10
www.shirt.woot.com

[Parthenon]

[EDIT: removed stupid bitching at Frank about a mistake]

---

To me, Frank's post shows that building up a fire is slow and that the fire needs to be affecting them for more than 5 seconds. It would mean that magical fire needs to be insanely hot, last a couple of seconds, be on a par with Greek Fire in continuing to burn or be terrifying because it causes second degree burns that cause a huge amount of pain and need a couple of hours of healing to remove.

Which of course it isn't. It would be really interesting and cool if a fireball lasted until the beginning of your next round and did initial damage and then damage to whoever is within it during that time but it doesn't. And second degree burns either screw over PCs because NPCs don't survive the combat or get instantly healed with a Cure Light Wounds.

[Username17]

Sorry, I actually linked the wrong video. All the Youtube things look the same, and I copypastaed the wrong one. At least I didn't link This one.

I was looking at a lot of archery videos. Not specifically for the rant about swords vs. fire, because of course archery is only peripherally similar to stabbing people with a sword. You see a lot of guys who are frankly not that good who can get a better rate of fire than 1 per D&D combat round.

But it was supposed to be a link to this guy, who simply fires one every two seconds for a substantial period of time.

-Username17

[Orion]

Elennsar --

Your reaction to the spat between me and PR reveals why you don't get along with the rest of us: you have a different understanding of what constitutes civil discourse.

Most of us around here don't get up in arms about "obscene" words and expressions; we take them in stride, which is why your defensiveness bothers us. Now, PR tends to take the profanity to levels nobody else here would dream. I gotta, say, I was a little bit pissed at being told to "guzzle santorum." But you gotta understand, it's different from accpetable behavior here only in degree.

If he had told me to go suck a bag of cocks, I would have taken it completely in stride. That kind of thing around here, in our particular subculture, is actually respectful disagreement, and if you want to get along here you'll take it as such.

Finally, my post to PR was absolutely vitriol-laden. I was super pissed at him, about as pissed as I've ever been at someone on the interwebs. And while I've calmed down a little, I still kind of am. PR and I have clashing personalities, clashing tastes, clashing... pretty much everything. But that's not the point. The point is that if you judge by *what was said* rather than *how it was said* m post was absolutely hostile and offensive.

[Ganbare Gincun]

It is hardly more powerful than a sword (never), and I don't appreciate that you switched your argument midstream (from 'better' to 'wider area' damage).

I think that his final sentence was meant to try and highlight the reasoning behind PR's argument. It seems that PR believes that AoE spells are better then face-stabbin' because they can inflict a moderate amount of damage to multiple targets from long range. The source and type of the AoE damage is irrelevant - we could be talking about fireballs, acid splashes, concussion damage, whatever. We're really just talking about a chunk of damage being tossed on a group of people in a very large area.

And frankly, this tactic isn't really that impressive in and of itself - it's only when you use other spells (like ones that grant you flight, let you wall off portions of the battlefield, or otherwise mitigate enemy attacks) in conjunction with the application of multiple AoEs that you start to yield damage comparable with face-stabbin'. It's the ability to keep people from attacking you while laying down the AoE goodness that makes this a viable tactic, not the power of the AoE spells themselves.

If a given AoE spell applied a status effect, that would increase its effectiveness somewhat - after all, if someone is set on fire by a spell, they are probably going to be taken out of combat for a few rounds while they put themselves out - but the 3.X D&D Fireball spell just does straight "fire" damage without imparting any additional effects (despite the fact that the spell description says that it sets fire to combustibles - like skin, clothing, and hair, for example).

Of course everything which is blasted by an AoE spell will be probably be damaged and possibly completely destroyed. Aside from the raw damage advantage of surgical strikes, one of the other benefits of face-stabbin' is that you don't destroy the town that you're trying to capture or the gold that you're trying to steal. It's a lot easier to clean up blood spatter then it is to rebuild the smoking remnants of the village.

[Orion]

Need I point out that one could *easily* design a game in which fighters were the AoO class and Wizards were single-target?

For Fighters, we can accept that we're at high enouch levels of "anime" (or mythic) that they can step between raindrops, and kill ten people in five seconds. Or, make a combat round *really* long. If one round is 30 seconds, we can easily justify "whirlwind" type abilities where a fighter dances through a large area getting one attack against everybody. This also lets us put mass combat and regular combat into the same minigame.

For Wizard, focus offensive magic on curses that destroy one persons soul, not on energy blasting. If rounds are long, their spells just take forever to charge up.

[Parthenon]

Actually, I apologise Frank. The first half of my post was confrontational and stupid. It was obvious you'd just made a mistake. I should have just commented and suggested you change it. No idea why I got so bitchy.

---

I agree with others that magic being straight out better is stupid. While overpowered magic has its place, I think it would be better off in books than RPGs where a party of Fighters should be equal to a party of Wizards.

Here are a couple of my suggestions as to how to make magic and swordplay comparable.

• Make magic do less: remove some spells such as creation, conjuration and buffs and make transmutations take longer than combat.
  
  Give weapon combat more effective SoDs than magic- since they are only single target and close range they should be more effective than long range and multiple target spells.
  
  Make all magic concentration only: things like Entangle and Solid Fog become less impressive or would encourage more teamwork and buffs would be more likely to be used on melee guys.

I think the last could be very easily integrated and could remove things like the Cleric Archer very quickly. However it also removes a lot of buffs like Alter Self, Shapechange and Righteous Might.

[Psychic Robot]

As for guys with fire on "one-one-one combat"...

If the wizard has low HP, which you said he does, should that be enough of a disadvantage to balance things out?

Low HP, lower AC, and such.

That's the problem. "Guy with fire has advantages over guy with swords" =/= "fire beats swords (Period, full stop, end of discussion)" - if you're arguing the former, great. If the latter, not so great.

So:

Guy with fire has advantages.
Guy with swords has advantages.

Yes?

Yes. I was just saying, if the wizard has the same HP/AC/other defenses as the fighter, he is going to win because fire does more damage. This isn't going to be the case, unless the wizard is higher level, but that's how I see it working in my head.

More flamethrowers.

-Username17

The fireball sets fire to combustibles and damages objects in the area. It can melt metals with low melting points, such as lead, gold, copper, silver, and bronze. If the damage caused to an interposing barrier shatters or breaks through it, the fireball may continue beyond the barrier if the area permits; otherwise it stops at the barrier just as any other spell effect does.

Bonfires. They aren't as hot as fireballs.

[Orion]

PR, could you address my last post?

[Psychic Robot]

I'm assuming that you mean this one and not the one after it:

1st: Designers are human, they will make mistakes, the game is put together piece by piece and not always perfectly reconciled, etc. Some builds will end up stronger no matter what you do. That's before you get into house rules, or just campaigns with different challenge breakdowns.

Right.

2nd: Most games will for verisimilitude have to allow options to happen during gameplay that are not among the "supported" options. Your game might be balanced around people using weapons, but it's probably *legal* for the warrior to drop his sword and try to punch his opponent out. I'm fine with that being underpowered.

Right.

That said, each of these imbalances can and should be mitigated. The first is mitigated by avoiding introducing *deliberate* imbalances. There will be unforseeable imbalances in the product no matter what, so it's only *more* important to plug any known holes.

No 3e Toughness. I agree.

Second, look at what types of actions you expect people to want to take in the genre and try to support as many as possible? If you're playing a gritty cops & robbers game, dropping your gun probably should make you ineffective. If you're playing a Gun Fu martial arts game, it probably shouldn't weaken you dramatically, and in some situations (like when activating a rage ability) might even be optimal.

Agreed: genre is important.

In this case, if you *know* some players will want to play non-casters, why *wouldn't* you make sure it was as balanced as possible?

That's my translation of it. To be honest, balance doesn't mean to me now what it used to. I'm all for making wizards and clerics not gods, but I'm also okay with spells being able to do things that fighters simply can't replicate. Case in point: fly. Fighters don't get to fly without magic. It's one thing for them to be able to jump a dozen feet straight up or burst through a brick wall. But flying? I just don't see it. This automatically makes the guy who can cast fly have a huge advantage over the fighter. And I'm okay with that because wizards not flying is pretty shitty.