Everyone is Magic - Magic Level Progression

[Kaelik]

It isn't a problem if your game tells you that fighters are garbage. "Old School" DND (as opposed to thing things OSR people tell you is old school) was a game where like 90% of your characters died right away, and you couldn't possibly stop that. Most of your characters were garbage, and died, and Fighter was the class you played if you had garbage stats. If you had good stats, you'd be a Paladin or a Monk or a Wizard, depending on what stats you rolled well in.

The problem is that the games started presenting Fighters as equal team players, and then people believed that (even dumb OSR people).

Now, the game is totally better if you don't have to churn through a bunch of garbage PCs to get to the one you want, but the obvious change is, that when you removed the parts of the game that guaranteed garbage PCs, you removed the garbage PC class at the same time.

[Voss]

Voss appears to be of the opinion that planeswalkers should consider a ravine a challenge worthy of table time. That's barely true at level 1.

Or you're as stupid as he is. I'm pointing out that magic allows the casters to carry the party over challenges that they'd normally have to do. Giving that out to more people doesn't change that. Fucking around with BAB, skill points and caster levels for shit classes doesn't change that.

But giving the shit classes shit casting at non-level appropriate power level doesn't fix anything either.

The only fix is giving the shit classes level appropriate abilities when they actually matter. Giving someone fly at level 10 or 12 (which a lot of later stuff and paizo stuff does) is still a bullshit ability, because mass fly, air walk or whatever has already been online, and casters have moved on to teleporting and other crap.

The real solution revising the shit classes, throwing the shit classes out, and/or telling noncasters to just go straight into one of the decent prestige classes at level 1 (dropping pre-reqs and all that bullshit), so they can get level appropriate abilities starting at level 5 or 6 rather than 10-12.

[violence in the media]

Voss appears to be of the opinion that planeswalkers should consider a ravine a challenge worthy of table time. That's barely true at level 1.

Not disagreeing with this, but at what level should all the things that are real challenges or difficulties in our world become trivial in D&D land? Or are we just arguing that "crossing over to the outer planes" is the higher level equivalent of "crossing the ravine" when attempting to get to the quest location?

I mean, if "finding away across this ravine" is a bullshit challenge, so is "finding a way across this planar boundary."

[deaddmwalking]

If you start with the assumption that a spell of a particular level is 'level appropriate' you are certainly implying that giving those spells to another character 2-4 levels later they are necessarily not receiving level appropriate abilities. But that's not entirely true. A 5th level wizard gains 3rd level spell slots, but they also get an additional spell slot for a 2nd level spell. Abilities have a 'life span' often of several level. It's possible to conveive of a package of abilities that are sufficiently robust that adding spells at a later level reallybdoes allow that character to be viable. Gut instinct indicates itnis true for every class but the Fighter who is just too hampered by poor skill selection and the sheer number of feats available relative to the number that any get.

Regarding challenges, a ravive or other obstacle isn't a challenge unless you must engage. Outside of a time limit, going around or crossing safely is a non-event. If one player can absolutely cross with a rope, everyone can cross safely given enough time. Unless there are defenders or some other 'extra danger' environmental challenges are often...not.

A swift moving stream is a couple of rolls with your friends holding you securely by a rope - success is inevitable you're just figuring out how long it takes. Throw in a giant catfish with swallow whole and now there are elements of a challenge.

[Kaelik]

If you start with the assumption that a spell of a particular level is 'level appropriate' you are certainly implying that giving those spells to another character 2-4 levels later they are necessarily not receiving level appropriate abilities. But that's not entirely true. A 5th level wizard gains 3rd level spell slots, but they also get an additional spell slot for a 2nd level spell. Abilities have a 'life span' often of several level. It's possible to conveive of a package of abilities that are sufficiently robust that adding spells at a later level reallybdoes allow that character to be viable. Gut instinct indicates itnis true for every class but the Fighter who is just too hampered by poor skill selection and the sheer number of feats available relative to the number that any get.

More specifically, it really annoys me to see people say, still, in 2016, that "fly is a third level spell, so flight is a 5th level ability."

Overland Flight is a 5th level spell. So if you just say "and you have a fly speed" that's at least equivalent to a 9th level ability.