Crenshinibon wrote:It all depends on when the boxing match starts though. If we're going all out hackslash, no abilities whatsoever, then a fighter would be a to defeat most characters (with the exception of a Barbarian).
If the bard is allowed to buff himself up, then it would undoubtedly win a full on melee fight, even if the fighter spams his or her abilities. That goes double for a mage.
But then again, sorcerers and mages shine everywhere. xD
But for me, the real point is that while bards are way up there with the most powerful classes, they're also very fun to play.
Mages and Sorcs do not shine until around level 5-8 at least. Before that they have just too few and too weak spells, too few hitpoints and atrocious fighting stats and totally restricted in weapon choice and no armor even if you give them perfect rolls on all 3 physical stats they still suck big time and do not give the party much beside an occasional sleep, web, Colour Spray and a stray missle to finish a near death.
Sure they have some buffing utility and are good to keep on identfying items.
In 3rd edition the shine through a high feat gain as well but that's beside the point.
While the last two facts about their combat prowess do not change dramatically the first two parts increase exponentially and some of those spells can make a wizard quite deadly in melee combat and that is without some multi classing munchkin with a certain infamous fighter kit.
Tensers, Improved Haste, Shapechange, Stoneskin, Mirror Image, Black Blade or MMMs all are nice tools for more fighting like approach to combat.
Just compare Level 7-9 spells with all the other spells before. The difference is to a degree staggering.
Same cannot be said about Figher types which more or less scale linearily getting 1/2 extra attack at level 7 and if I remember correctly at 13.
Masteries scale similar from 1-5. The difference is very noticable but not even remotely to the degree a wizard scales from level 12-14 upwards.
By the way I think mages are a little bit stronger than sorcereres in certain level intervals due them getting certain spell levels a level earlier. Or rather the difference isn't very noticable and the decision heavily hinges upon if you do like to spam the same spells over and over or do you want a big selection of spells and like to change often. I am a big fan of the second option and ditched 2 sorcerers at level 15-17 in the underdark which means I deleted them out of complete boredom and went back to my mages.
The differences would be even less if Bioware would not have nerfed the spell progression table and give Sorcerer full power at 20 already and give him much more spells afterwards which isn't even available in normal 3rd edition rules at epic levels.
At certain keypoints wizard is undoubtedly stronger imho. Especially when Triggers and Contingencies are obtainabale first time.