In your opinion, is a low-level gaming experience better?

[Civil War Man]

Quick question. I'm assuming Tome of Blood, or some other warrior-centric sourcebook, has some Wizard Slayer-type class. Something that gives a fighter SR and other bonuses to kicking mage ass. I've always enjoyed the concept of a wizard hitting a fighter with Mordenkainen's Giant Spell of Doom or Power Word: Fuck You only to have the fighter laugh in his face and then shove a sword into his eye socket.

Obviously, SR has flaws when it comes to balancing, but IMHO it is a start.

[Mr Bean]

SR is nice idea but wait! There are spells that ignore SR, for example the common Summon monster Level X.

Go back to the mentioned Fly+Invisibility combo, is he beating spell resistances? That's okay, there are spells that reduce SR but summons ignore SR since they are actual creatures for the most part. So now your melee(Or even ranged equiped) anti-caster has to deal with not only the caster, but ten DIRE BEARS. Or four Greater Elementals, ect. See the Wizard slayers give up some better attacks in order to be more anti-caster. Which means if you throw enough bears at them, they will die.

And that's only one of the potentional combo's casters can throw. And that's the issue, Even dedicated Wizard Slayers are mostly one trick pony builds+whatever magic they can get their hands on. If plan A falls they are pretty much dead, while the Caster has many more options.

[consequences]

Epic is just ridiculous anyway.

You forgot to mention that because of the save-or-dies, high-level casters are pretty vicious against other high-level casters as well - it basically comes down to whoever shoots first.

Nah, it really comes down to who has more Intensified Spell Turnings and Absorptions online at the start of the battle. and who shoots first after they're gone

[Civil War Man]

SR is nice idea but wait! There are spells that ignore SR, for example the common Summon monster Level X.

Go back to the mentioned Fly+Invisibility combo, is he beating spell resistances? That's okay, there are spells that reduce SR but summons ignore SR since they are actual creatures for the most part. So now your melee(Or even ranged equiped) anti-caster has to deal with not only the caster, but ten DIRE BEARS. Or four Greater Elementals, ect. See the Wizard slayers give up some better attacks in order to be more anti-caster. Which means if you throw enough bears at them, they will die.

And that's only one of the potentional combo's casters can throw. And that's the issue, Even dedicated Wizard Slayers are mostly one trick pony builds+whatever magic they can get their hands on. If plan A falls they are pretty much dead, while the Caster has many more options.

As I said, SR isn't perfect, but it is a start. At least it makes it so the wizard can't just hit the fighter with an arbitrary number of save-or-dies while all the fighter can do is sit there with his thumb up his ass.

[Lusankya]

I believe that in D&D, the different classes are also the best balanced in levels 5-10. In the early levels, the fighter-types are pretty much owning the game, while the wizard is hiding behind a rock wishing that he and his 5hp could do something once he's exhausted his magic missile. On the other hand, non-casters get seriously gypped later on, because spells tend to get exponentially more powerful, while feats scale linearly (assuming they're that great to begin with, and to be honest, most of them aren't).

D&D fixed some of the balance issues with fighters when they introduced the Book of Nine Swords aka Tome of Battle. Having a 15th level warrior who can make two attacks on all adjacent opponents with a +4 bonus to each strike really makes up the difference. The Maneuvers outlined in the Tome really give warriors an edge up in the BadAss area... so much so that the MagicUser dual-classed just so he could deal out some of the pain like I was.

So once I buy the core books, I can then pay another $60 to fix some of the balance problems that exist in the core books. Fuck that shit. I'll go buy something that's a less blatant rip-off. Like a PS3.

[Mr Bean]

So once I buy the core books, I can then pay another $60 to fix some of the balance problems that exist in the core books. Fuck that shit. I'll go buy something that's a less blatant rip-off. Like a PS3.

Bad comparison, if you said a "Wii" you might be right. But for the cost of a PS3(Even the low end 400$ one) you could get all three core books, plus Tomb of battle, plus PHII, plus Arms and Armor, plus another.

If your willing to buy secondhand toss in all of the above plus all six "Complete Books" (Psionics, Scoundrel, Mage, Adventurer, Arcane, Fighter you get the idea).


Now if Wizard would acutal go through with the promise of pure digital verions you might be able to get all the 3.5E stuff for under 200(Not counting moduels or one off books)

But I digress

[Lusankya]

So once I buy the core books, I can then pay another $60 to fix some of the balance problems that exist in the core books. Fuck that shit. I'll go buy something that's a less blatant rip-off. Like a PS3.

Bad comparison, if you said a "Wii" you might be right. But for the cost of a PS3(Even the low end 400$ one) you could get all three core books, plus Tomb of battle, plus PHII, plus Arms and Armor, plus another.

If your willing to buy secondhand toss in all of the above plus all six "Complete Books" (Psionics, Scoundrel, Mage, Adventurer, Arcane, Fighter you get the idea).


Now if Wizard would acutal go through with the promise of pure digital verions you might be able to get all the 3.5E stuff for under 200(Not counting moduels or one off books)

But I digress

I said "less blatant". At least with the PS3, Sony's making a loss from the console iteslf.

The argument that it's ok that the core books are unbalanced because you can give WotC (the same people who produced these unbalanced books in the first place) more money to give you a supplement that makes it less unbalanced has so many levels of retarded that I could build ten skyscrapers with it.