tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8116962779728480800.post6015292037469626250..comments2024-03-25T03:52:40.426-07:00Comments on The Ongoing Campaign: Linear Fighters, Quadratic Magic-Usersfaoladhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03691952430041394614noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8116962779728480800.post-29775166747566041212018-12-24T13:34:18.602-08:002018-12-24T13:34:18.602-08:00@Marc17, I made some of those changes.
I changed ...@Marc17, I made some of those changes.<br /><br />I changed 'touch attack' so it was against normal AC, but granted spell level as a bonus to the roll. This comes pretty close to approximating the fighter BAB against armor (without iterative attacks, of course) while not totally nerfing armor.<br /><br />Second, I changed save DCs to "10 + max(spell level, ability modifier)". Int 18 wizard casting <i>fireball</i>: DC 14, instead of DC 17. At low levels it isn't that important, but being a fighter trying to beat a DC 29 spell is brutal, trying to beat DC 20 is almost plausible.<br /><br />Even more than increasing casting time (which I approve of) would be increasing preparation time. In AD&D, it took ten minutes per spell level to memorize a spell (which helps more in PC vs PC comparisons). In D&D 3.x, casting a spell provokes an attack of opportunity, which can help with spell interruption, but I'd be quite happy to see spell casting have to cross round boundaries, so people can try to act against it.Keith Davieshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08411665536982769550noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8116962779728480800.post-68014571432451956192018-12-19T18:01:05.672-08:002018-12-19T18:01:05.672-08:00Those seem mostly reasonable comments as well. Sti...Those seem mostly reasonable comments as well. Still, removing the portion of the game in which one of the major fighter abilities is of most value certainly did not help the class at all.faoladhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03691952430041394614noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8116962779728480800.post-80417340561582606462018-12-19T12:02:58.011-08:002018-12-19T12:02:58.011-08:00I will disagree somewhat. In AD&D, it wasn'...I will disagree somewhat. In AD&D, it wasn't a case of linear fighters/quadratic magic-users. It was a case of infantry and artillery. Wizards could do terrible damage but had many drawbacks that made them dead meat if engaged in close combat. The linear/quadratic thing came about when they got rid of all the things hobbling the Wizard, made most attack spells touch attacks negating the fighter's class feature of a high AC, and then further hobbled the fighter by taking away the best all round saves of the game. There's pretty much no game balance between character classes by design.<br /><br />I have my own idea about how to fix that. Re-add many of those hobbling features, get rid of a majority of touch attack feature of spells, increase the length of spell casting time so they can be interrupted, get rid of free spell picks at character level up. Also give back the best saves of the game to the fighter.<br /><br />I'm pretty down with the domain aspect of the game. There should be reasons that PCs want land and titles, and a wandering hero is pretty much little consequence to the greater setting no matter what level. Trouble is that every time they come out with a new edition, they change mechanics, dump the deeper part of the game, and about the time they re-address it with newly made up rules for such things (that are as filled with game breaking "bugs" and in need of errata as the last batch) about the time they restart the cycle.Marc17https://www.blogger.com/profile/05909235062679082058noreply@blogger.com