Originally posted by ThorinOakensfield:
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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
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain - It's time to roll the dice.
