I've Misplaced My "Gruntle"

[ThorinOakensfield]

Originally posted by Xyx:
<STRONG>I feel a mage should be more like a thief. A utility kind of guy. Someone that banishes ghosts that are immune to weapons, removes protective runes from treasure chests, polymorphs into a bird to deliver a message, dispels enemy enchantments... Not someone who mows down orcs by the hundreds.</STRONG>

I agree there. Raistlin comes to mind, for me. Even though he had some deadly offensive spells, most of those he casted were like 'sleep' or some divination spells to help his friends through, but still had one or two lightning bolts up his sleeve.

[Ancient Evil]

How often can your mage cast his "allmighty" spells? What if he can three times that fireball but have to kill 5 hordes of Orcs? Pissing off the orc boss with melf's acid arrow?

[Xyx]

Someone that can only cast three Fireballs should not go around and p1ss off five Orc armies...

[imprt2nr]

Originally posted by ThorinOakensfield:
<STRONG>
I agree there. Raistlin comes to mind, for me. Even though he had some deadly offensive spells, most of those he casted were like 'sleep' or some divination spells to help his friends through, but still had one or two lightning bolts up his sleeve.</STRONG>

Ok, i have a few things to spew out, first off, most of the famous books featuring wizards with these great abilities were written as a story, some great hero, elminster and raistlin are probably 2 of the most famous D&D wizards, but you have to keep in mind that these are chronicles of one person out of several millions inhabiting faerun or krynn, for every one super character (which most books are written like that) there are several thousand non super character types, mostly played by npc's. the whole point of being able to be powerfull in a D&D game is because you are getting the chance to play someone above the norm. after all, when would an alchamist truly wish to go on adventure, they are in reality business men looking to make some money off people who use their products. another point id like to make, raistlin was powerfull, VERY powerfull, but, at a price, the test he took costed him his health, so, character creation wise, the DM basicly said, "ok, you can have an 18 int, wis, and cha, BUT your going to pay penulty in str dex and con" the reason raistlin survived was because of his brother.

now, on to more spew, i normally play thieves and rangers in most campaigns, however, i am going to back up the magic users in this arguement. Mages are not utility people, nor should they ever be, mages are supposed to have powerfull spells, they are supposed to be able to kill you at high enough level, since when does magic take a step aside to a sword? yeah swords can look pretty, cut people up and gives you a fair duel, but then, who said mages were supposed to chivalric? The thing about magic is that it is one of those things that, like in real life power, corrupts. Consider people like bill gates and steve jobs modern day mages, these guys were not athletes, or gymnists, or olympians of any sort, so they found magic, magic in computers, and because of people like them, our lives got a HECK of a lot easier. Same with mages, unless your barbarian is just plain STUPID, no one in their right mind would want to tackle a horde of orcs by themselves, i dont care how good your character is, no one can deffend themselves against 15 orcs, so wizards let the barbarians have an easier life by fireballing the orcs down to 6 or 7.

I'll state once more that i play thieves, and my job normally as a thief in a party is search for traps, pick locks and find sercret doors, but in battle, if there is a really tough NPC that my group is fighting, my job is to slink away from the fight, move around the fight, and come out of the shadows with a backstab for double to quad damage, there by probably killing the NPC, or if not, putting a serious hurting on them. I think that people are forgetting the roles of PC's in parties, every one is all "gung-ho" about getting in a room and hacking and slashing, that they forget to think, become organized and be a smart party, instead of a dumb party. I am in a live gaming group, and we got some dumb hack and slashers in it, their characters more often than not charge into a situation relying on thier "buffness" and wind up dead, rerolling new characters and repeating the whole thing again.

one last rant - i hate 3rd edition rules

[Xyx]

If you look at Lord of the Rings, you'll see a wizard that makes 99% of his kills with his sword...

[Outsider]

If you want to complain about overpowered magic, your target should not be the lowly mage. I mean, sure he gets time stop and then deals you 96d6 points of fire damage all in the same round with no save. (3E rules) But, those kind of abilities don't come until 17th, 18th level (sorcerers suck because of the slower advancement in spells). The true death dealing machine is the 11th level cleric. A single harm and a quickened inflict light wounds will instantly kill anyone without spell resistence with no save. How many 500 hp dragons and 19th level fighters have fallen to the cleric with an AC of 18 and 54 hit points.
So, if you're going to complain about magic users- Pick on the clerics.

[Durwyn]

3 things

first-sorcerers do not suck. They get spells 1 level later than mages, and if you pick your spells right you can always have the right spell on hand.

2nd-picture this scenerio: a mage is walking through a dungeon. His barbarian companion is trying to smash down a door while the thief and cleric watch. The mage has no spells casted on him. A few goblins hear the comotion and sneak into the hallway. They attack using Javelins covered in poison. They throw there Javelins at the mage. 1 hits and brings him to uncousiness and then the poison finshes him. Thus, a rogue or even a fighter can take a mage down when hes not prepared, even at high levels.

3rd-clerics are annoying but there are ways to deal with them.. he he he

[The Stranger]

I think that perhaps there is a certain amount of short sightedness on the part of people who complain about the 3E rules. Can you please let me know what is wrong with them exactly? Don't just say you hate them, don't say that the 2E rules are better and don't complain just for the sake of complaining!

There is nothing wrong with the new rules set. As a matter of fact, most of the changes that we, as players and fans, requested are in the rules! Any race for any class, any multi-class and they even brought back the old school characters for us AD&D 1E players (monk/barbarian/half-orc) If you don't want to learn a new set of rules that is fine but that dose not make the new rules bad, It makes you lazy! By that way of thinking there would be no new computers (P2-P3-P4 processors) There would be no cell phones, there would be no progress! The originals worked fine!

[Invincible121]

Mages may get slightly over-powered sometimes.
But if you think about it they need the extra ofensive power to make up for the lack of physical ability.
They mostly don't have the skills to the damage in 'hand to hand' combat, not even in the higher levels, and the magic offsets that and makes it fairer.

[Xandax]

There will always people some way of saying that one char. is to powerfull over another.
But it is generally my experience that most time it is the player and not the class that is the "turning point".


Also remember that this game is a roleplaying game, it is not a frag-fest CS/Q3/UT game where combat is the prime motivater and the biggest gun is the most importent.
This is about roleplaying ones character with strenght and weakness.

[The Stranger]

You tell it Xandax!!! I'm with you! I plan on playing a Bard or a Rogue. I don't go for the Mages myself.

[Kokiwon]

Yes wizards can become quite powerful but a fighter of a similar level could take him out very quickly (even con mages). I think that a fighter has the advantage in a face to face fight if he strikes quickly with feats (or whatever the special abilities are called) massive damage will be done to the mage and the mage will not be able to cast protection spells while being hit. But if the wizard isn't given the opertunity to cast a few spells he will most likely win. I think that this evens things up.

[Nippy]

Originally posted by Kokiwon
Yes wizards can become quite powerful but a fighter of a similar level could take him out very quickly (even con mages). I think that a fighter has the advantage in a face to face fight if he strikes quickly with feats (or whatever the special abilities are called) massive damage will be done to the mage and the mage will not be able to cast protection spells while being hit. But if the wizard isn't given the opertunity to cast a few spells he will most likely win. I think that this evens things up.

I agree with you to an extent, the problem is, Mages can set up contingencies and use feats that increase spell casting speed and knock out a quick Abjuration spell, the Mage has an advantage if it is given a chance...

[Kokiwon]

If you think back to BG2 and throne of Bhaal what was the easiest way to kill the powerful mages. It was to sind you fighters in and have your sling people and archers shooting the mage so he will fail to cast anything and spells from you mage weren't even needed accept maybe magic missiles and powerword stun (or what ever it's called). When I fought like this I couldn't even tell if the mage was powerful or not. Yes you did have a party with you but the mage was almost always a much higher lev than your party members.

[fable]

Originally posted by Xandax
There will always people some way of saying that one char. is to powerfull over another.
But it is generally my experience that most time it is the player and not the class that is the "turning point".

Also remember that this game is a roleplaying game, it is not a frag-fest CS/Q3/UT game where combat is the prime motivater and the biggest gun is the most importent.
This is about roleplaying ones character with strenght and weakness.

I think it's about the philosophy of the environment designer. Powerplayers will always seek ways to advance. RPGers will always seek methods of roleplaying. Chatters will always seek a Disneyesque environment to stop and talk about OOC things. Unless you remove advancement, it's tough keeping out the powerplayers, and roleplaying tends to get pushed to one side.

The problem I have with a graphical construction model is its visually static quality. In a text-based model, I can create entire cities revolving around cultural concepts that are foreign to the "Medieval Lite" style of AD&D, which we'll also find in NWN. I can put glowing rhymed moral couplets in exquisite calligraphy on apartment complex walls. I can create woven, seven-pointed rugs out of translucent fibers. I can hit the whole thing with an earthquake, and slot in new descriptions of damaged buildlings at once. But I can't do any of these things with a graphical construction set. However good it is (and mind you, the NWN construction set sounds great), I'm limited by the limitations imposed by AD&D's semi-monopoly. And I can't change that environment quickly, or add new elements to it.

I guess what I'm saying is that it sounds like a wonderful place to have fun, but not the be-all of roleplaying. MUCKs and MUSHs would still seem to offer more of that.