At least at low levels. Every combat so far was absolutely carried by our parties fighter just beating the enemies into a pulp :)
this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2023
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It somewhat makes sense in universe though, if any guy who spends a few years in a magic school can best your guards/rookie soldiers without a sweat there would only be magic users!
I've always taken the opposite logic. If everyone could learn magic, everyone would be a mage, because magic should be powerful. If you can compete with magic with a sharp stick, why would anyone take the decades of study to learn magic?
I think it's canon that wether in DnD or PF anyone can learn arcane magic if they take the time to do so (and they have a way to pay for it, most people can't afford to not work for 5-10 years)
The thing is, even if someone has the money and the time maybe they don't want to spend it, especially if magical scrolls/wands can let you cast spells fairly easily.
To me it's the same thing as saying to some kid "you can learn to be a robotics engineer and in 5-10 years and $100k of debt you'll be able to make robots that can do anything for you, including being strong" and the kid just replies "That's cool, but I think I'll just go to the gym thank you"
Depends on the setting, in D&D. In Krynn, for example, you must possess an inborn aptitude (actually a blessing from the moons) to learn magic. Someone without it simply cannot learn it.
Magic users in dnd are far from that powerful. Most dm though are not experienced enough to deal with it.
This is incorrect. The magic user kits are generally fine and if the mages just stick to damage spells they are probably mostly in line with other classes for damage (worse single target, better aoe). But there are a lot of spells that are fairly game breaking when you move outside of damaging ones.
They're not game breaking if you correctly read the rule and prepare a bit against them.
Needing to cover half the world in antimagic fields is a sign that it is, in fact, too strong.
Only an idiot needs anti-magic fields to fight magic.
Eh, I'm experienced as fuck, and once you learn Simulacrum it's basically over.
Also, forcing the DM to "deal with" you is power; narrative power. An "OP" fighter requires you to add another enemy, or increase some HP, or higher athletics DCs. The types of things they can do barely change. As a wizard levels up, you have to account for their powers in more and more scenarios until your entire prep time amounts to "how can I make this interesting and not just something the wizard negates?". Every midboss needs to either know counterspell or have an abjurer on staff. Anywhere you don't want the PCs to go has to be covered in guards and wards and forbiddance. Every fight needs legendary saves and the ability to reshape the battlefield to become meaningful.
The fact that with enough effort you can negate their power isn't proof they're not powerful, it's proof they are.
Simulacrum. Lvl7 spell. Extremely long casting time and very expensive. Once you got this, you're an archmage.
Your problem in this case is the scope of the story. At this stage, you cannot think merely of an encounter by itself. How you get to the encounter is the whole game. And you cannot be passive either.
You are mistaken on one point: the dm doesn't deal with a player, a vilain deals with a character. That's a significant difference.
Which goes back to the archmage bit: if a pc is an archmage, a vilain can't ignore it. It's like Sauron can't ignore Gandalf. The story becomes about the vilain versus the players' characters. Exactly like in any comics where it more often goes into tier3 than the classic fantasy.
As for the fighters, there is one discrepancy in dnd 5e between martials and spellcasters : spellcasters are given their tools in their class progression while martials need to seek their strategic power into the game.
But this is unfairly putting things actually : a wizard needs a lot of things in the game too. Like the materials for your simulacrum. This means that spellcasters merely have more guidance on what they should seek in the world than martials. Martials players should merely look at the downtime activities to know what they can look for.
Sure, you can add an enemy to counter the martial, but what will you do against the army he recruited?
That is what tier3 is about. That is what 5e rules do to the game. You may not like that. Then pf2e is certainly better for your table as far as I understand.
The problem with 5e is that people don't understand what tier3 and 4 are about.
If you want to see what tier3 is about, you should have a loot at what kind of humanoid are still in this tier in the monster manual.