^

I actually think that the different xp requirements for each class in 2e AD&D is an ace feature, VetMicheal. Think about it: the ratio of thieves vs. folk w/genius level intelligence (17-18 on the 2e ability score scale), and even folk w/exceptional level intelligence (15-16), is about 65:2. And perhaps even that's being generous. Thus it makes perfect sense to me that 40,000xp in 2e AD&D will make for juss a 6th level mage, but the same amount of xp would make for a 7th level thief! In terms of mental prowress, It's much harder ---and of course more rare --- to be a genius (or even exceptional), than it is to steal! :OD

Of course, bards are the exception to the rule, having some rogue skills but even more mage abilities, yet using the rogue's xp table for leveling up! I think they deserve it though, provided they show that they're awsome at what they do (which of course would mean they'd need at least 15's in at least 4 ability score catagories; no easy feat, especially considering if you have 14 in juss three catagories, you're above average in terms of the human race). It's truly a fair assessment that bards were the 'prestige class' of pre-3e AD&D, as bards --- rather, exceptional bards --- are much more rare than exceptional fighters, rogues, clerics, and perhaps even rarer than exceptionally or genius level mages.

I hope I don't come off like I'm trying to correct you for every last thing you write. You juss bring up alot of interesting discussion points within this thread. And your assessments are often well thought-out.

Says the guy who plays Bards... <JK> I agree that the level of genius needed to be a real mage should be rare - and that the intricacies of magic (plus the fact that mages can make stuff out of thin air...) demand higher XP requirements. I was just saying its wonky b/c of the different scales needed for each class can be hard to keep track of, esp compared to other games.

The other factor to this is the simple undeniable fact that, from the actual gameplay perspective: it sucks.

I'll agree that it's got a certain amount of logic behind it, as far as 'realism' goes, but when you consider it from most other perspectives...

1: For PnP games, it requires the DM and players to keep track of a lot more information that is, honestly, rather needless.

2: Also for PnP, it serves to vastly magnify (for some characters) the penalty for missing a session because life got in the way.

3: from the video game perspective, it's just that much more work for the developers, too.

4: also from the video game perspective, when you're playing a combat driven game, you want your characters to generally be the same level. (this is also one of my complaints with the 2e multiclassing system)

5: from the perspective of both: Mages are already the most likely character to die at early levels. They're beyond squishy, this is an arbitrary mechanic to keep them weaker even longer.

"But Zolgar, it's because they're so powerful late game!" You know what? I hate the severity of that mechanic in D&D, and it's even worse in 2E. 2E, 3E and 3.5 all take the stance of "Game balance? Isn't that making someone get raped for 5 levels then become useful, or being good for 5 levels then become useless?"

Despite being a D&D player, and having a stack of D&D books that if all bought at retail value would cost over a grand.. I have a lot of gripes with how D&D works.

Re: 1) Depends on the DM. For some, it enhances their game. For others, it doesn't.
Re: 2) It's not my place to comment on one's commitment to real life or their commitment to their gaming sessions.

Re: 3) It's the devs responsibility to not make a half-assed game. Bioware from 1995-2007 would 100% agree with this, and they proved it in their products in that time frame. However, since being named w/EA, not so much. :OD

Re: 4) In real life, it's impossible to get everyone to be generally the same level, juss like how not every private in the army can make it to captain. I can't think of one example to disprove that statement, and if there is, it's an anomaly (kinda like a bard with at least 15 in four ability scores is an anomaly, in a better way of course!).

I personally feel that the best games do their best to reflect 'real life' things, no matter the fantastical or sci-fi settings. It's part of what has gotten the best cRPG's their success. Of course, that's juss my personal view. YMMV.

Re: 5) I don't think it's an arbitrary mechanic so much as it reflects intelligent bi-pedal behavior (I would say 'human behavior,' but saying that fails to include the elves, dwarves, gnomes and orcs! ;op). How many people who earned full academic scholarships to Ivy League schools also have it in them to play football or basketball in the Big Ten, Big East or Pac-10 in NCAA Division 1? The answer is very few. Hence, I don't have a problem with the way 2e AD&D rules handles mages.

But if it bothers you that much, then you can always roleplay a character with an exceptional physical profile who starts out in a fighter class, who then somehow became exceptionally smart and thus switched his class to mage! Thus he can be a mage who can take punishment! Or you can roleplay a demihuman with either the required ability scores or exceptional ability scores who is a fighter/mage multiclass. Or join me & VetMicheal and play the bard class! Mine casts spells and can take punishment in a fight!

If you've read the books you got, you prolly already know this, but juss forgot! :oD

This has NOTHING to do with leveling speed. It's all about stats, or maybe class. Your typical mage has very low strength and con, and usually a low dex, too. Those are what would give someone the ability to play sports. Now if you want to take the idea that doing 'smart things' requires one to expend more time and focus on it than getting equally good at doing physical things.. you're wrong.

People who go to school on sports scholarships usually spend as much, if not more, time practicing and keeping in shape as the 'smart people' spend studying. With very few exceptions, if one wishes to excel at something, they need to put their life in to it.

You may try to argue that some things take more time in college than others. This is true, but that is simply because in some fields, there is only so much that can be learned in a school before you need to learn things in the real world. Besides which, D&D is more akin to real-world learning anyways.

The variable amounts of XP required to level up depending on class is, as I said prior, a pointless and arbitrary game mechanic that really doesn't serve any true purpose, and would not have been missed by anyone if it had not been part of the game (2E) originally.

And as for your comment about multiclassing:
Maybe if 2E multiclassing rules didn't suck.

People always go on about how great 2E is.. honestly, as near as I can see, it's nostalgia making them blind. >.>
(yes, I'm a 3.5 player, but I actually think 3.5 sucks too, not as bad as 4E though.)

I'm all too aware of putting your life into something in order to excel at it. I'm fully aware of the work ethic needed to succeed both in business & in sports, both amateur & pro.

I don't know how you missed this, but I was responding to your statement of how mages are initially weak in fights. Thus, I stated there aren't too many Ivy Leaguers (my simile for those studying magery in the BG world) who can also play football or basketball in the Big East (my simile for those studying martial skills in the BG world; I mentioned the BIg East, Big Ten & Pac-10 to show the level of sport being played --- it's higher than the level of sport played in the Ivy League division, juss like the Ivy League is a higher level of academics than most other schools). I used that simile to show how the 2e game logic of mages being initially weak in fights isn't as far fetched as it seems. They need their bodyguards.

Of course, there's always some driven mages who also spend time in martial training (either at the expense of studying magery if their ability scores aren't high enough; or for rarer individuals, working on it without it hindering their mage prowess if they're exceptionally gifted). I was simply saying it takes an exceptional person to be able to study both at an Ivy League school and also play effectively at the level of sport played in the Big East, juss like (in the BG world) it'd take an exceptional mage to hold his/her own in physical fights to the death.

Anyways, if the game isn't for you, that's perfectly fine. Plenty of other good games here on GoG. :OD

I got to pitch in and say how much this rings true to me. Given that your typical CRPG dungeon will have monsters around every corner, I always find it odd whenever my characters have to rest for a full eight hours every three battles. Just how big is this dungeon when my characters end up spending weeks and weeks inside? This happens in every RPG, not just D&D-based ones.

And now you're telling me that the typical frequency of battles in CRPGs that encourage eight-hour rests every ten minutes is uncommon in tabletops. That...explains a lot.

Well, its not quite that ...
Gaming sessions (at least all the ones I've been to) have mostly involved side conversations, orders for food and/or drink, talking about the day, speculating on critters in the game, debating game mechanics, rules lawyering, and other banter which significantly slows down the gameplay.
Additionally, players roll one die to hit, another die to damage, another die to save, another die to...well, you get the picture, in essence, the time difference between encounters in PnP games vs. CRPG games is that each player is busy doing something else in addition to playing. Even games where the DM (ME) kept a tight rein on stuff, there's lag time in deciding spell/ability, rolling dice, addition or subtraction, and so on so....the result is an hours-long session that covers one, maybe two battles.
In CRPGs this all happens instantly and there's no distracting banter to slow it down.

Still it is quite a pain in the arse to have to rest 8 hours every few minutes early in the game.

The thing about mages, is mages have to be weak at the beginning of the game. That makes it somewhat difficult to keep one around long enough. It's for play balance. In pure tabletop or any CRPG using the D&D rules, mages will become so powerful that they can disable entire groups, or even blow them to smithereens with one spell.

If Mages came out of the gate with instant death spells or being able to handle their own in melee, no one would ever play any other class. Who needs a fighter who can only take on a small group of enemies, when a level one Mage could fling around AOE attacks that kill the group without intervention?

Well, I haven't followed the whole discussion but Zolgar has a point if he hints at the fact that punishing low level characters for being overpowered at higher levels and then claiming it's for the sake of balance is a pretty weak excuse for a sloppy design. On the contrary, this reeks of an attempt to conceal that the balance is already seriously off. Why not try and make characters challenging and useful at all levels, never too weak, never too powerful? That's what I'd call balancing.

Anyway, I don't really have any issues with the D&D system despite its flaws, and I like playing mages, but if I see a flaw, I'm ready to admit it's there. ;)

The problem with doing that, is it's gotten to the point that it's what people expect. Mages are supposed to be weak as paper early, but then eventually able to pretty much blow up a planet later on.

If you retooled what a "mage" is inherently for any game of the type (and this goes for any game with magica systems) so that it's more of an even keel you'd have people going insane. It goes against the whole concept of what a mage character is.

Plus, to do that you'd have to make the mage less melee lackluster. Which would take the sparkle off melee characters. The mage would be able to do both roles, but the fighter would still only be able to do one role that now a magic character could do almost as well. So then to make up the fighter's new shortcomings, he'd have to dabble into magic as well. And now we're talking about all crossclass classes that pretty much do the same exact thing character wise.

I'm no expert on the various editions of D&D but haven't they already done that in the 4th? I might be mistaken but I think the German RPG system "The Dark Eye" used in the Realms of Arkania series has a completely different and more even balance, too.

Anyway, something else to keep in mind is that D&D was not made with single player computer games in mind. Actually, when I played Pen and Paper D&D in my youth, my mage was probably the most resource- and therefor powerful character of the group even at low levels. Sure, he completely sucked at fighting and could go down with one hit only, but he could also turn invisible, jump off a cliff without hurting himself, float in the air or tell his unseen servant to cover up his tracks etc. And that goes a long way in a roleplaying (as opposed to just roll playing) game with a good DM. It wasn't all about combat.

4E makes the mage IMO far more useful at lower levels. Perhaps even overpowered due to how at-wills work. But at the same time, other classes have at-wills they can spam as they want as well.

Mages are still brittle though. Unless you do some mad engineering, the idea of taking a level 1 mage and trying to melee is basically a good way to commit assisted suicide.

I just don't have a problem with how mages are handled. No matter how balanced a game is, there's always going to be those people who crunch numbers to find the "optimal build" or the "best class", and then that'll be all those people play. Playing a mage is an investment. You have to toil for ages grinding up those levels, but once the mage is unleashed it's a wonderful thing.

Like I said, personally I have no issues with them either. I wouldn't say that the classes in D&D are well-balanced but I'm still having fun with them. I don't mind my mage being overpowered and in games like Neverwinterwinter Nights (3rd edition?) I don't even think they're weak on the lower levels, seeing that they can summon their own tanks (familiar & spell) and then shoot and cast from the backrow. I often see people posting that casters might have a harder time than the other classes but I've yet to see proof of that. I find it much harder and less satisfying to play a low level rogue in single player mode, never had much problems with a caster.

Both of them,