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Jan 2, 2013 -- 7:16AM, Maxperson wrote:

Jan 1, 2013 -- 10:06PM, Tony_Vargas wrote:

Balance is balance.  It's a quantifiable characteristic of any game system.  Sometimes it's harder to quantify than others, sometimes there are qualitative aspects - but it's not some totally subjective moot point.

It kind of is subjective.  You say that all balance is objective.  Okay.  So how many hit points of damage in a given round = the stunned condition?  How many hit points + stunned = Paralyzed?  How much damage per round and/or conditions = the ability to fly during combat? 

You can't quantify nearly everything that you can do in combat.  You just can't, at least not without coming up with subjective arbitrary numbers for everything that doesn't have damage numbers hard coded into them.  Balance is incredibly subjective.  People are going to place their own values on stunned, paralyzed, flight, etc. and weigh their own subjective numbers against damage gain/loss before deciding what to take.      

Thank you Max for helping me explain this.  Plus, this doesn't even begin to relate to a rogue whose social skills are outstanding.  How much combat should he have to give up for that?  How about healing?  How about being great at skills?  I've said this before: combat is one pillar, but there are two others and that need to balance as well to hold up the entire roof.  They all need to be balanced, not only within themselves, but with each other.  And that's where it becomes even more subjective.  Why?  Playstyles.  Some only care about combat.  Some only care about RP.  Some DM's throw skill checks out like a kid eats candy corns (those things are gross!).  Very very subjective.

Should they make their best effort for balance?  Absolutely.  Will it be balanced to some and not others?  Absolutely.

I think that this is a very intriguing question of weather every class should have the ability to cast spells just as a normal progression of thier class. 

My instinct is to say no, but it think that to fully answer that question requires for the player and the dm to know the endgame of his world and player progression, and the overall role of magic in the story univerese. But I think that every character may eventually need to.

That said I think we have to know what is magic, as as been mentioned several time in this forum, unfortunatley this is defined differently for each setting I feel and each dm will run with it differently, for me I veiw magic in the following way.

Magic is the power of creation, its the unatainable ubber force that keeps the galaxy and all planes going, weather you can see it, interact with it, use it or not, is unimportant but its there, its what makes everything work on some level. Does this mean "sceince is irrevelent in D&D, or things like biology and chemistry dont matter, the answer is no. As opposed to our own reality, in D&D, the power of magic is extremely apparnet, its exists and can be evoked, its is the actual explaination for exisistence. Just as much as physics is the underlyying sytem of thought we use to explian how our world works, magic takes is a step back further and is the reason that physics can be observed. So a person with knowledge about phyiscs in D&D could do some amazing engineering feats, or apply that knowledge to dive into chemical knowledge...ect, but a person with knowledge of magic can maniuplate the universe at its base and produce effects otherwise held impossible by physics. But for the spellcaster physics is still relevent they have just learned how circumvent the rules of thier plane by having some knowledge of the magical underlyings of thier plane.

 I like to take a very mystic approach to magic, that none but a "supreme" being in the D&D universe knows exactly how magic works, or has the complete understanding of what it is and what it can do, this includes D&D's Gods, Arch-fiends and devils, and  Primordials. But what these ancient beings have is vast superior knowledge of magic and ability to use magic compared to those who occupy thier realms,they have the ability to crete races of other beings so clrearly thier is a knowledge gap between us and them but they are not all powerful, they know more about the secrect of magic than others do. And I feel those sectrets are jealously protected. It was magic that created  these beings and set them on a course to be able to develop magical understanding, or as many beings and creatures in the D&D world are, they were created with a natural "magic abilities" or knowledge. For those beings though it would not really be magic to them but thier own physics, that magic could enhanced or reduce. I think of this as well I'm pretty sure despite the "physics of it" angel can fly, a human would say that's magical, but would an angel say that, probably not, ist something all angels can do. But what is something non-physical rendered an angel incapabale of flying, well that may be some thing magical in the eyes of the angel. 

But because there is no complete understanding of magic, not even among the gods, there is not one way to learn it, or come to know its secrets. Aracne magic is achieved through rigrous pursuit, mostly slanted toard an academic leaning. Divine, which is still magic, is achieved through well divine sponsership and though found worthy by their gods and religious sects are given the secrets to channel the poser of thier diety, for better or worse. Sourcerous magic comes from a place within, predetermined by the magic of the plane to be present in certian individuals, and not in others,  what awakens this ability is attributed to many things but I feel would vary by plane. And their are numerous other souces but I feel that they all are derivates of these three methoods, you are given the ablity to do magic by someone/thing with more knowledge than you, you study and experiment with it, or you are lucky enough to be born with. And what you do with your magic, how you manipulate the physics of your plane is largely determines by one your own desires and the source of your magic. One could imagin that the type of magic attakcs of a preist of pelor and a follower of the elemental eye to be different but both are magical.

So I think the concern of should a fighter learn magic comes from what I have described above, the thought that at some point magic is heavily needed in a campaign. The question I have been thinking of is at what point, fluff-wise, even in the D&D universe, does the ability to skillfull and eficiently lop a creature's head off become laughably irrelavent? 

In recent articles about the revamping of monsters for the new addition we have seen tons of write ups that say can not be hurt by non-magic weapons, or must be a silvered weapon...and so on. Why, I think beacuse their is a recognition that at some point the dangers of the other planes, or the stuff of high level campaigns, becomes too much for fighter to handle.(that is my assunption) Could a person with 0 magic ability really kill a deamon just by stabing it, amybe in the material plane, but what about in the Abyss. Its a different plane, the physics are different, and you have now idea how to bend the physics to allow you kill that deamon with just a sword. You could cut off its head all day but in the end yo find that is not how this plane works.

I feel like the way the game has compensated for this scenario is by having a magic item system, mechanics wise. Okay so you fighter may have little to know idea about how that deamon works, but you have this magic blade which will twist the physics of the plane for you allowing you to still be useful, and your now magic armor is going to proctect you from its hellish attacks. I think that this is fine solution for the most part because it would be extremly unfair if only magic useres could fight such things, but I ask is it a cop out? In worlds/ situations that would really require magical knowledge is it okay to give someone a weapon that makes them useful as opposed to the person who "theoretically" has prepared themselves their entire adventuring career to be able to use magic? But is this is not an issue to you then I think original question if everyone should have magic is useless because, they can just give them the right equipemnt to substitute actual magical knowledge. 

Also on a small side note I think that magic users could be rendered just as useless, I think that enemies could posses knowledge to prevent your magic from working, beacuse well they know something about your magic that you dont, or the caster may find that thier understanding of magic does not quite work the same way in all planes. 

But what if you are concerned with this, what can you do. Unfortualtey I think this is mainly in the hands of the DM, does this mean that before adventuring in the atral plane that players are going to have try to "research" how to make themselves useful? Or maybe they have to learn the hard way and through trial and error. I see most these solutions worked out through non mechanical means, maybe the party goes on adventure that they learn how they need to adapt to their knew setting, the cleric learns some incantations that will allow his connection to remain, the wizard has to learn some new tricks, and even the fighter learns that he needs to new equipment and a spell that will render the flesh of his enemies vuneralble?I don't know or maybe this roleplaying time is just better spent adventuring so as in all games the players suspend their belief and continue to play as normal. I just dont think that makes alot of sense. 

But the million dollar question is, what are the mechanical answer of what I consider to be a magic inevitablity of the game. Perhaps pretige classes are the answer to this question. Okay fighters may never learn to cast magic, but several fighter related pretige classes do. They signify that the fighter is progressing as fighter but recognizes that their continuing adventures are going to require more than mortal means to be sucessful. does that dimish the pure fighter, I dont think it does, I think it adresses the fact that at a certain point magic becomes necessary. I think that allows teh game to have pure martial classes and pure caster classes without having every class be a mix of the two.

Overall I feel that magic is exteremly powerful as it manipulates the physics of the world you are in, know one has a complete understanding of the magic they use, and may find that in certain situations, that magic is needed or thier understanding flawed or useless. The mechanics of the game should support classes that are full rely and don not rely on the use of magic since that is the reality of the D&D game, some classes wil ineavitbly offer a mix, and allow options for non-magical classes to learn magic due its necessity, but this magic should mechanicallly work differently than spell casting classes, should not be powerful, and should be focused on aiding their class in situations in which their class would be useless if not for their magical training. I dont want to a fighter that can do what a fully dedicated spellcaster do magically, not even close.