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Old 07-11-2018, 10:27 AM   #122
VIVIT
 
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Join Date: Jun 2018
Location: The Wired
Default Re: The Problem With Magic

Quote:
Originally Posted by kirbwarrior View Post
I've yet to GM or play in a campaign with default Magic where the wizard wasn't basically better in almost everyway to any other character... in almost any system. The progression really seems to be (from worst to best) Warrior -> Rogue -> Wizard -> Face. Maybe I'm doing things wrong, but it really seems that Rogue and beyond can just avoid combat and get to where they want with their respective skills (just as Wizard does for Rogue and Face often gets better results than Wizards if with less spectacular effects). The only time this seems to be false is when both GM and Player force the moment to be combat without a way to avoid it (which has always felt artificial).
This is class-based thinking. Skills to avoid combat are something that any adventurer who values his hide would have, even if they do specialize in the fighting. One of the biggest complaints people had when the thief class was introduced to OD&D was how the thief's d% sneaky and lockpicking skills implied that fighters, MU's, and clerics couldn't sneak around or pick locks. Up until that point, things like that were handled with a d6 roll, with a base chance of success of one-in-six. One great thing about GURPS being classless is that there is no such implication anywhere. Buy whatever skills you want! You might not have the niche protection that classes give you, but you also don't have the tiered imbalance they often bring with them.

You're also making a lot of assumptions about the nature of the adventure. A face in particular is powerless in many situations, because although combat may be avoidable in that situation, a face might not be able to help avoid that combat. What can a face do against a dire wolf? A face can only help avoid certain types of combat encounters, and is very vulnerable in any combat encounter that does eventually happen. And if no combat encounters ever happen at all, maybe combat is a little too easy to avoid. Combat doesn't ever have to be unavoidable for it to sometimes happen, it just needs to be difficult enough to avoid that sometimes it happens! Again, what's so artificial about dire wolves?
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