Fighter vs Wizard Power Growth

[PlzBreakMyCampaign]

How much is a feat worth? Excluding extremes like Leadership, I would gather its worth a 1st or 2nd level spell, depending on the feat. Indeed there are even feats that do this. Feats tend to be balanced differently than spells: a first level fighter that gave +20 to hit the next round would be considered far too powerful, but a first level spell that did so would be fine.

It is commonly recognized that a spell level one level higher is twice as powerful as the one below it. So a second level spell is worth 2 first level spells and a third level spell is worth 4 first level spells, etc. Now we look back at feats. I considered using the numerical relationship to approximate a simple caster's total spell power growth to that of a feat-based one.

We've all heard about Linear Fighters (y=x) and Quadratic Wizards (y=x^2). In the long run chassis differences like BAB or weapon proficiencies matter little. But just to be fair, we are ignoring Wizards' bonus feats, crafting magic rings, etc. Here's the data to show that in the simplified long-run actually worse than that: RAW Wizards main gig is exponential while RAW a Fighters' doesn't even break the reflexive line.


As you can see, RAW Wizards have a exponential regression of about Y=1.5*e^(.4x). For 9th level spells at Level 17 the non-rounded exponential equation is still close (it's only off by 100).

RAW fighters tend towards y=.5x. Only the first level is an outlier.

Now onto how my Fixed classes in the Metacompendium line up:


Fixed wizards are now only cubic at y=.154753(x^3)-1.94672(x^2)+9.85724*x-13.2572. The margin of error is only two! Even at ECL 19! Yes ECL20 allows 8th level spells, but by then there is no need to compare adventuring PCs against one another as the campaign is over. If we were to force an exact exponential regression we only get Y=1.02167e^(0.376364x), which is clearly not a good fit: it's off by a whopping 800 at ECL19.

Fixed Fighters are now above the reflexive line at y=x+2. There actually start off as designed: better than low level casters until said casters get 3rd level spells. ECL7 shows a noticeable gap before ECL8 shoots off as expected. There is no ECL9 when using my C8 variant; mutliclassing is more than necessary for mundanes at those levels, it's forced.

So the next time someone mentions Linear Fighters & Quadratic Wizards, I'm going to correct them: "Ah ah ah," I'll say. "You can get it down from Exponential to Cubic if you use my Metacompendiums' 3e fixes."

[Maelphaxerazz]

 

How much is a feat worth? Excluding extremes like Leadership, I would gather its worth a 1st or 2nd level spell, depending on the feat. Feats tend to be balanced differently than spells: a first level fighter that gave +20 to hit the next round would be considered far too powerful, but a first level spell that did so would be fine.

It depends, since there are feats that give multiple spells, and they're considered none too great. For example, touch of summoning, touch of deception, touch of captication, spell hand, soul of the north, night haunt, necropolis born, and insightful each give one 1st level spell and two cantrips, Summon Earth Elemental gives a 2nd-level spell if you work alone but higher if you get help, master of shadow and highborn drow both give a cantrip, a 1st level spell, and a 2nd level spell, godsight gives two 1st level spells and three cantrips, celestial bloodline gives four 1st-level spells, and Lolth's Blessing gives four 3rd-level spells.

Then there are dragonmarks. The least mark of detection actually offers True Strike at 1st level (not as a fighter bonus feat, but as a feat nonetheless), and the higher dragonmarks offer higher-level spells, up to 7th level in the case of Greater dragonmarks. It is a general rule that the higher up in the "feat chain", the more powerful the feat, which needs to be accounted for in any feat-to-spell comparison. Fiendish Presence gives a 1st-level spell, a 2nd-level spell and a 3rd-level spell and Fey Presence gives a 1st, 3rd, and 4th; but their higher-up counterparts Fiendish Legacy and Fey Legacy give three 4th-to-5th level spells each.

Furthermore, all these spells are actually spell-like abilities, which means they are silenced, stilled and eschewed of materials. That has some value as well.

Therefore, I would recommend valuing feats higher in value compared to spells. The weakest of these spell-granting feats are a least dragonmark giving one 1st level spell, but even that is worth a 2nd level spell due to the benefits of spell-like abilities. The rest are worth more.

Note than I am not disputing your basic thesis. All I am saying is that the assumed value in the calculation is too low, which exaggerates the results. Everyone agrees that wizards gain power much faster than fighters, yet the calculation has to fairly assess the value of a feat to be useful or accurate or the reader.

Good work, anyhow. 

[Kaelik]

All of this misses the basic point of feats. Feats stack. If you have weapon focus, weapon specialization, greater of both, rapid shot, elf's greatest archery, the great elf shooter, woodland archery, ect, they all stack on all your actions.

Fighters suck and Wizards rule, but any method that assigns a specific static value to feats and spells or spell levels is going to be wrong on first principles.

[SorO_Lost]

All of this misses the basic point of feats. Feats stack.

I think you kind of missed the point. Fighters progress linearly doesn't mean not at all.

Of course Feats stack, that's what slowly bumps the Fighter up from simply 1[W]+Str to say +2 from Specialization or +4 (total) with Mastery or +6 (total) from Greater Specialization. That's called liner progression and if the Fighter didn't have that he'd have "no progression". Also, The actual Spells (not spellcasting it's self) have an inherent linear progression that's essentially free. Like your typical Evocation Spell improves it's Range and deals an extra d6 every Level/Feat/Item/Buff a Spellcaster obtains. Spells also stack with each other and I'm not just talking about how you can Grease & Web someone or even how any Swift Action Spell doubles the fun each round, I mean there are a dozen directly helps your next Spell Spells. Like Whispercast provides you with both one time access and the benefits of the Still Spell & Eschew Materials Feat at the cost of a low level Slot or Spell Enhancer bumps the next Spell's Save DC by +2.

But while Feats stack liner at the cost of having to take Feats & Spells advance for free, Spellcasting advances quadratically. Like a prime example is Arcane Fusion, a single 5th level Slot converts to a 4th level Spell and a Quickened 1st, or a 5th for two 4s within the same Action. The example Sorcerer didn't just get an extra 4th's level of effect or an extra d6 to roll from a linear progression, he got both & a series of Slots worth double of each 4th he had before.

[Endarire]

What PMBC's post doesn't take into account (beyond what was explicitly stated) is how being a martial character at low levels (especially 1-4) means higher HP, more proficiencies, reliable damage, and stuff that's likely to matter more than a low-level caster's number of spell slots.  (Both are useful in the right contexts.)

Then, casters get level 3 spells, a caster level of 5+, a buncha spell slots, and perhaps some other abilities, and, suddenly, being able to stab things in their face (without being able to cast crowd control, utility, or/and buff spells) is looking less and less useful.

To put things in perspective, I considered playing a martial character in a campaign where foes were generally melee and the need for lots of DPS was a thing.  I played a Wizard instead who did crowd control, buffs, and some gishing because polearms and haste.  Then my party reached a part that required we have Resist Energy or the equivalent to get by an electrified floor.  A couple teleport spells later - after we went to town to recover, craft items, sell, and reprepare spells - we got through the area with no damage to ourselves.  Treantmonk would be proud!

For another example, I was considering making another gish character, a NG Dragonborn Fire Elf WhirlPounce Barbarian1/Wizard5/Incantatrix3/Abjurant Champion5/Spellguard of Silverymoon5/Full Casting+1.  Even with fractional BAB (which I assumed), I was concerned that I didn't hit the benchmark of 16 BAB, but that I could if I swapped the build's last 6 levels for Eldritch Knight, which loses a caster level @1.  The build as-is gets to character level 14 with level 13 Wizard casting before needing to decide on Eldritch Knight.  How likely is the extra iterative attack at -15 accuracy to be useful at character level 20 when I could have just gotten more spells?  How much does the BAB bonus matter at this level?  At low levels, the Barbarian level grants lots of stamina, but now I probably have all the spells I can likely cast in a rest period and more.

[Kaelik]

All of this misses the basic point of feats. Feats stack.

I think you kind of missed the point. Fighters progress linearly doesn't mean not at all.

The entire point is that your system fails to measure their scaling how they actually scale.

If your system rates a character with twice as many feats as twice as good, your system is wrong. A character with twice as many feats is not twice as good. Any system that measures all feats as worth the same fails to address to the issue that having 20 feats is not twice as good as 10 feats. Which sure makes it sound like they don't scale linearly at all. And that's the point. Fighters don't scale linearly at all. But they scale so shittily, and the combination of quadratic scaling from more feats with the problem that you have to actually go find all those feats, and then the game runs out of feats and all your feats are worthless makes people think that because they suck more later that they must scale in a way that makes them lower later. That's not what actually happens.

Fighters scale quadratically, because their feats stack with each other so that each feat makes all previous feats better.

Wizards scale by fuck off breaks. The power of a level 9 Wizard is completely unrelated to the power of a level 11 Wizard by any possible function. So just because the Wizard numbers that are totally pulled out of their asses are higher, people decided to call fighters "linear" even though they are textbook quadratic.

[SorO_Lost]

Fighters scale quadratically, because their feats stack with each other so that each feat makes all previous feats better.

I suppose that's a subjective view point.

Like if you shift just a hair to either side it can be said Weapon Specialization doesn't improve Weapon Focus because in all honesty it doesn't. Very few Feats actually improve an existing Feat rather each Feat improves or provides new usages to an already acquired ability. Like at it's heart Focus/Specialization simply linearly improve the Fighter's Ability to swing a weapon. In other words, X+Y+Z not (Y*Z).

Through in some specifics, like Manyshot, the end result of granted ability may be a multiplier in the end result. Sort of like how BAB multiplies your damage through it only increases your number of attacks by +1 at a given level.

[Maelphaxerazz]

Like if you shift just a hair to either side it can be said Weapon Specialization doesn't improve Weapon Focus because in all honesty it doesn't.

It does. A +2 to damage means that each individual hit that Weapon Focus gives you (that is, each hit that you would not have hit if you had not taken Weapon Focus) deals two more damage than it would have without Weapon Specialization. Thus when you take Weapon Specialization, the benefits of Weapon Focus are (marginally) more useful.

It doesn't improve Weapon Focus very much, but it does improve it.

[SorO_Lost]

 
Maelphaxerazz you missed the entire point that post was trying to say and I'm not even sure how to rebreak it down for you to even simpler terms.
1. Weapon Focus improves your chances to hit with a certain type of weapon.
2. Weapon Specialization improves the damage you deal with a certain type of weapon.
3. Weapon Specialization does not improve Weapon Focus.
It's Weapon + Feats not Feat*Feat*Feat*...
That help?

(click to show/hide)

Edit - Also I feel like the whole pro-Fighter side is missing a giant sign in the room. It's not that Fighters get a form of progression different than Wizard's form of growth. But the Wizard gets the fighter's form of growth on top of his own. Like at the 15th level the Wizard gets two Feats, a CL increase that improves every Spell he has, a whole new frigging Spell Level, and hell even his often forgotten about Familiar gets an increase to it's Natural Armor & Intelligence. It's like back on that 9th-to-10th level Sorcerer, he goes from say using Orb of Fire for 9d6/rnd & limited to 3/day or a mere 36d6/day to casting Ball Lightning and managing it with his Move Action while throwing Fireballs with his Standard or up to 20d6 per round with a staggering 300d6/day without even counting those 4ths Slots and lower thanks to the Spell being a DoTer. And for as terrifying of a power surge that sounds like he still has the added linear progression of Feats. Like imagine of those Fireballs were nested within an Arcane Fusion and his Feats were Empower & Easy Metamagic or some other combination that's a heck of a lot more useful than purely kicking out Evocations like a Warmage. Spellcasters, specially the Wizard with his Bonus Feats or Spell buffs and PrC options, have all the benefits of Feats on top of casting.

[Maelphaxerazz]

SorO, it is you who missed the point, and not I.

Weapon focus increases your chance to hit with a certain weapon. This is valuable to the fighter because that hit deals damage. Any effect that increases the amount of damage that extra hit will deal makes that extra hit that much more useful. If you need that broken down into simpler terms, here you go:

1. Weapon focus improves your chance to hit with a certain type of weapon. This is valuable because you deal damage more often.
2. Weapon Specialization increases the amount of damage you deal.
3. Thus, whereas before you took Weapon Specialization the extra hit dealt X amount of damage, now it deals X+2, thus the benefit of Weapon Focus is greater than it was before, because the additional hits it gives you are more meaningful.

Breaking it down further: target has AC 10, you deal 1d10 damage on a hit and your AB is 1. You deal damage on a roll of 9 or higher, so your average damage is 11/20*5.5=3.025. If your AB is 1 higher, your average damage increases by 0.275, while if your damage per hit is 2 higher your average damage increases by 1.1. However, if your AB is one higher and your average damage per hit is two higher, then your average damage increases by 1.475. This is greater than 1.1+0.275. This demonstrates both how two feats can work together to be more than the sum of their parts, and how weaker feats are prerequisites for stronger feats. Both factors make feats non-linear. It is feat+feat+feat only if the feats do not have synergy. Weapon Focus + Skill Focus (Diplomacy) is feat+feat. Weapon Focus+Weapon Specialisation is (feat+feat)*synergy factor.

And please, do not mischaracterize my post as "pro-fighter". Nobody is pro-fighter here, the fighter is a bad class and it is much weaker than a wizard. However, what PlzBreakMyCampaign is trying to do is express the power difference in numbers, and that is only valid if one takes into account how feats work.

[IlPazzo]

Well, as long as Fighters have a polynomyal growth, exponential Wizard does not care.

[SorO_Lost]

SorO, it is you who missed the point, and not I.

Nah, it's still a subjective view point. It's not necessarily wrong, but it can only been seen from one angle.

Like I said, no one is disputing the concept that something like Battle Jump doesn't double your damage, rather the diminishing value of Feats prevents them from being multiplicative. Like look at your example, increasing damage and hit rates at the same time produces a multiplicative effect. This has squat to do with the Feats them selves, rather where they are applied because the two areas them selves multiple each other.

Take Specialization and Greater Specialization by them selves without relying on a none-Feat interaction to multiple them. A Dagger goes from dealing 1d4 to 1d4+2 for a +80% increase in damage, adding Greater to this only increases damage by another +44%. This is because the +2 bonus has a diminishing value the more times it's added and it's the same for everything.

Even Lik knew that when he said 20 Feats isn't as twice as great as 10 Feats and it is in part thanks to that. By the time you've tried adding that 20th Feat on you've used the same type of Feat several times and have been dealing with a diminished return on several of them. The only real error to be had here is thanks to Feats becoming less and less useful a Fighter's progression continually scales slower the more levels he has. Literally the exact opposite of the point you're trying to make, but as long as you stick to very few Feats that are spread over areas that are multiplicative to each other it gives the appearance that the Feats multiply.

IlPazzo's statement about Feats being polynomyal is a more honest statement than you're point is. A couple Feats seem like they add a lot, but adding a bunch of Feats to that doesn't help as much. Because each Feat's value is different based on every external factor. In other words, Weapon + Feats.

[faeryn]

I'm sorry, but I just have to say this... where the hell are you pulling these numbers out of for your calculations? Honestly, looking it all over it comes across as an arbitrary set of numbers put into a calculation to create an implied power variance that in truth is no where near as out of balance as you try to make it out to be.

Lets look at this from an ACTUAL numerical standpoint shall we. Both starting at Lv6 with 16 in their key attribute (Int & Str respectively)

Fighter gets 2 attacks at +9/+4 (6bab+3strmod) and deals [w]+3 base damage per hit... You've got at least 7 feats to work with, I'm only going to factor the 4 fighter bonus feats to get the best impression of the classes capabilities.. Depending on if your going TH or TW you will either have Power Attack or TWF as one of those feats... odds are your going to have Weapon Focus & Weapon Spec as two of the remaining feats... so using that as a base we've got two sets of results.

TWF - 3 attacks at +8/+3|+8 and deal [w]+5/[w]+5|[w]+3 damage netting 3[w]+13 damage per round

TH - 2 attacks at +4/-1 ~ +10/+5 and deal [w]+6~12/[w]+6~12 damage netting 2[w]+12~24 damage per round

Not to mention, you still have 3 more non-class feats to further improve that along with any number of enchantments you could add to your weapon(s)...

The wizard with their 3rd level spells is likely using Fireball which they can cast 3x per day at 6th with 16 Int and has 4 feats, 1 from class. Given that you only have up to 3rd level spell slots you're not really going to be able to use any damage increasing metamagics such as Empower or Maximize spell. So your wizard bonus feat choice won't really factor for much at 6th level, at best it'd probably be craft wand to craft low cost wands of fireball with...

Fireball - deals 6d6 damage in a 20ft radius... That gives you a total damage range of 6 (1 enemy, all 1s) to 1,584 (44 enemies, all 6s)... realistically you'll only encounter an average of 5 enemies in radius and an average of 18(6x3) damage each for a net average of 90 damage.

However after 3 rounds that damage is reduced down to the capabilities of 2nd & 1st level spells and any magic items they may have. Assuming they took craft wand they'll have up an extra 50 rounds of 5d6 fireballs giving them an average of 15(5x3) damage per enemy for a net average of 75 damage across an average of 5 enemies.

So at 6th level you've got Fighters dealing up to 3[w]+13 /2[w]+12~24 damage per round vs Wizards dealing 6~90 damage per round for 3 rounds and 5~75 damage per round on subsequent rounds. When put into situations where AoE against more than 2 foes is a factor then yes wizards are indeed exponentially stronger, but in 1ob1 or 1on2 a fighter performs just as well.

If the supposed exponential power growth of wizards is figured via versatility, then a similar set of comparisons can be made for a fighter who again can repeat their action round after round endlessly whereas a wizard has a limited resource. It's not until late game when the limited resource of spell slots becomes abundant enough per spell level as to become negligible.

If on average a fighter were to miss half (bad case scenario) of their attacks and combat were to last for 5 rounds per encounter then we are looking at an average of 8[w]+32 (TWF) or 5[w]+30~60 (THF) damage per encounter for fighters and 84 damage per enemy per encounter for wizards... If we assume the fighter's using a 1d6 weapon then we've got +24 average for [w] per encounter for 68 (TWF) & 54~84 (THF) damage per encounter... and all of this is before even factoring in critical hits.

So the way I see it a Fighter and a Wizard are really on almost equal footing at lv6... The simple fact that a fighter's power level can be almost even with a wizard with 3rd level spells at 6th level is proof enough in my eyes that the power curve for wizards is no where near as steep as it is generally accepted to be, nor is the fighters progression truly linear either.

Comparing at 20th level and even a single hand fighter with 16 str exceeds the strength of an empowered maximized fireball with 160 damage per round vs the 90 damage of the fireball... If you use metamagic cost reductions you can get that fireball up to 180 with by adding Enhanced to make it (20d6)x1.5... if your cost reductions keep that Enhanced Empowered Maximized Fireball below 9th level slot then you could bump it up to 210 by adding in Fiery (20d6+20)x1.5... but that's entirely circumstantial and would involve using non-class feats &/or prC to accomplish... so we're looking at 90-100 within the confines of the wizard class alone.

Also I really have to correct ya'll on that claim of wizards being "quadratic"... you realize if wizards were quadratic their power would peak and then decline at the same rate it originally grew... so a "quadratic" wizard would be strongest at level 10 and weakest at levels 1 and 20... considering that they do NOT ever lose power (no one does) the term ya'll were after was exponential... Fighters I would actually argue to be cubed as they start with an exponential growth that eventually tapers off to a logarithmic growth, thus they are cubic. Properly graphic a fighters power will create an s curve. Here's a resource for ya'll to observe how different types of graphs curve, as you'll notice Quadratics create a parabola, not a simple curve, and cubed (cube root) start exponentially then curve back off again. http://sosanko.weebly.com/uploads/3/7/4/1/37411349/1285243_orig.png

[IlPazzo]

I have two conflicting ideas for my reply. Here's both.

The troll one:
You guys realize any attempt to quantify the "power" of a character with a scalar quantity is flawed because of the set of builds being non-ordered?

The sane one:
You guys realize any attempt to quantify the "power" of a character is somewhat arbitrary so none of you can be completely right?


I like what PBMC really does with this post. I think the point is not in the actual "measure" of power of a wizard or a fighter. I think it's more to show that his "fixed classes" rework addresses and somewhat manages to fix the well known problem of fighters and wizards growing at rates much too different.

[faeryn]

I have two conflicting ideas for my reply. Here's both.

The troll one:
You guys realize any attempt to quantify the "power" of a character with a scalar quantity is flawed because of the set of builds being non-ordered?

The sane one:
You guys realize any attempt to quantify the "power" of a character is somewhat arbitrary so none of you can be completely right?


I like what PBMC really does with this post. I think the point is not in the actual "measure" of power of a wizard or a fighter. I think it's more to show that his "fixed classes" rework addresses and somewhat manages to fix the well known problem of fighters and wizards growing at rates much too different.

But it really doesn't even do that... his post claims 6th level wizards to be leagues stronger than 6th level fighters, which simply isn't true... the most powerful spell a 6th level wizard is capable of has an output that is only marginally stronger than a fighter who misses half their hits... even at 20th with 9th level spells a wizards actual power doesn't exceed a fighters by large quantities, in raw damage a fighter outclasses a wizard at 20th, a wizards real power at 20th is in their non-damaging spells which are troublesome to quantify, and any attempt to do so would honestly be arbitrary... in fact, looking over what a wizard is capable of at each spell level I'd like to change my earlier statement from my last post... Wizards are Cubic & Fighters are Cubed... why? Wizard power starts off strong and temporarily plateaus around midgame before ramping back up late game, whereas fighters start off with a slow exponential power climb that eventually plateaus. I can't nor will I attempt to place any actual points on a graph, but in all honesty I doubt an accurate graph would actually show anything more than a marginal power gap.

[SorO_Lost]

I'm sorry, but I just have to say this... where the hell are you pulling these numbers out of for your calculations?

I assume you mean the dagger example because somehow when I bring up diminishing returns you can't grasp the concept.

The base damage of a dagger is 1d4 which is fairly small. Adding +2 to the damage produces 4.5/2.5=1.80. Increasing the Dagger's small range of damage by two is a fairly huge deal for it. However the new value of the weapon is 1d4+2, improving again by a static increase of +2 doesn't do as much because the damage range it's being added to is larger than before even while the extra bonus has remained the same. In anotherwards, 6.5/4.5=1.44.

It's the same for any given type, static increases to damage like Melee Weapon Mastery on top of that would be 8.5/6.5=1.30. Taking Battle Jump doubles your damage but Headlong Rush after that only adds another +50% thanks to two doubles turning into a triple. What I mean is 1x2 equals 2, but 1x2x2 becomes 1x3 or 3, 3/2=1.5. Increasing your attack bonus by +1 improves your odds of hitting by +5% but adding a +20 bonus to attack cannot improve your odds to hit above 95% so some of the value is depreciated to becoming meaningless.

Unless a stack of Feats expressly tap into a multiplicative effect, such as Power Attack & Two-Handed Fighting or Hit & Damage, the end out come of applying multiple Feats slowly and surely has less and less of an effect. This inherent diminishing value only appears in later levels after you're already tapped into everything you could like Power Attack scaling your damage up through Leap Attack & THF and Shock Trooper bringing your chances back up. It will never appear in a small model of abstracts there are never carried through.

Now I'm not sure what you mean by his posts claim a 6th level Wizard is leagues better than a 6th level Fighter seeing how my caster examples have been higher, I think that's directed at PBMC through I can obviously think it applies to me since I think the same thing. You're still focused on damage, a Fighter can ubercharge for X but a caster can only chuck a Fireball for 6d6 damage. Well if the Fighter can optimize why can't the caster? Shivering Touch deals 3d6 Dex damage which is often enough to totally disable even a the mightest of unbuffed none-Cold Immune True Dragons. Druids can access Venomfire for +6d6 per attack for six freaking hours and we're not even talking combinations yet. Like a Ring of Mystic Fire + Wreath of Flames + Girallon's Blessing, the Wizard & his Familiar now have four attacks at their highest BAB that deal 1d4+5d6+Str, if two attacks hit they can Rend for 2d4+5d6+(Str+50%). Lesser gishing things at 14 Str yields a potential of 12d4+55d6+11+(Familiar's Str*4+(Str+50%)), well over two hundred on average, damage per round. But I digress and there is enough points to argue without getting into a 6th level Wizard vs 6th level Fighter debate. But the fact is, much like the recent Cleric vs Druid or Wizard vs Psion debates the only reason side opposing me thinks their is larger is because they have no goddamn clue what the other side is actually capable of. Even a two inch penis looks huge if that's all you've ever known in your life.

[faeryn]

It's not the dagger example, I comprehend that fine... I have no question about small static bonuses having diminishing value. I was referring to the original post, and even further back to the old threads about "Linear Fighters & Quadratic Wizards"... the numbers for the quantification of their power are as far as I can tell 100% arbitrary.

I provided the math for damage since that's the only actual quantifiable value... well the only quantifiable value that isn't expressly linear across all classes that is (HP & Saves are expressly linear)... a truly accurate graph of power would take all aspects of a class, graph their values per level individually, then graph an average of all aspects for each level and that average would be the accurate level of power for said class... however there are a myriad of non-quantifiable aspects of each class, and numerous other aspects that are difficult to quantify accurately.

Looking at what actually can be quantified both classes, within the confines of the class itself, are in fact fairly close to each other in power. The greater number of attacks per round for Fighters actually works to keep their output on par with the nuking abilities of Wizards. I'm not saying that Wizards aren't arguably more powerful, just that the power gap that is believed to exist is no where near as extreme as it's made out to be. That power gap is a gross exaggeration... I'm also saying that Fighters can actually out perform Wizards in a chosen task within the confines of the class. The main aspect for Wizards that does say that they are indeed higher power than Fighters is the simple fact that they can spread out their capabilities and become extremely versatile with little to no sacrifices, whereas a Fighter must choose to specialize in one field or another or be considered sub-par on all of them.

The damage aspect is likely why I have seen numerous times people push for wizards to take a battle field control perspective since the damage of mundanes is actually on par and can eventually even surpass their own. However, one can make the arguement that a Fighter can actually be more suited to battle field control than a wizard even. When it comes to grapples fighters have an upper hand in initiating grapples, while wizards have an upper hand in the ability to grapple multiple targets... however the wizards ability to grapple multiple targets plateaus and even dies off completely around mid game when their ability to initiate grapples stagnates and reaches a point where it's simply not possible to fail the opposed grapple check. Then there's anything with a saving throw, following class progression alone you lose the ability to reliably use much of anything with a saving throw around lv5 and then almost completely around lv15, that's a giant chunk of wizard spells that are virtually unusable mid to late game... and all of this is before you even factor in optimization for both sides... which BTW the defending end has far more and far better optimization options.

Even with versatility options at the wizards disposal, the action economy quickly reigns them back in. You may be able to play several different roles very effectively, but at any given moment you can only employ a single one of those roles. Sure you may have some options to improve your action economy but that would only really at best double your capability by letting you perform the same role twice or split your effort between two roles. Which I won't argue isn't a potentially huge boost in power, but those options have costs as well. Sure you can overcome those costs, but doing so requires stepping outside of the confines of the class itself.

If we are measuring the power growth of the class then everything must be within the confines of said class. Feats for measuring must be pulled from the bonus feat lists of both classes, feats from general levels and otherwise are ignored, items are ignored unless provided by a feature of the class (such as wizards crafting scrolls, wands, potions etc...), but you have to be reasonable with wizards crafting magic items as well... use the wealth by level chart to determine how much one could spend on crafting at any given level... and probably cut that value in half since they are reasonably likely to buy items as well as craft them... plus within the confines of the class you won't actually be reducing the crafting costs any...

I just feel that there is so much data that is completely ignored and even more that is utterly misconstrued via outside optimization that no one has yet to provide an accurate representation of the power levels for each class... sure you can raise the power level of some classes by a greater degree than others, but in a direct comparison is the disparity between the classes really truly as large as it's commonly believed to be? I honestly don't believe it to be, and from everything I can find they truly are very close in power.


FYI: the reason I dismiss outside optimization is because for every option you've got outside of the wizard class itself to optimize wizards, you've got an equally potent option that can be applied to a fighter. Outside optimization can eventually even blur the lines between classes. A fighter could for example, get access to a small assortment of spells to boost their melee prowess with the right selection of feats, prCs, and other classes. Even magic items provide equal benefit to a fighter as they do a wizard, the difference being that a wizard may come to rely on magic items more often due to having a limited resource for their spells. Outside optimization just muddies the results and can be used to create bias, whether intentional or not. One might believe that a wizard has a greater range of optimization than a fighter, but that doesn't make it true, a fighter can be optimized to be just as powerful as the most optimized wizard if one knows what they are doing. The fact that many believe wizards to be unmatched in optimization and fighters to have little to no optimization options just furthers my point, outside optimization invalidates comparisons of class power due to bias.

[PlzBreakMyCampaign]

stuff
Good work, anyhow. 

Ty. So yeah, 1st or 2nd level spell. Good research though. Which of the two I chose wasn't arbitrary, but it wasn't perfect.

I'd like to note, that I did the calculations based off of a 1st level spell correlation. Just double the fighter height if using a full 2nd level spell correlation. Although I guessed that it was a bit low, I was assuming a shotgun approach: random character build fighter (doing fighter stuff) vs random character build wizard (doing wizard stuff). I was therefore going for an 'average' rather than a upper/lower limit. But why 1st level rather than 2nd level spells correlation? Because even the "meh" spells can be helpful. "Meh" feats are a very, very good way to build a crappy mundane character, ie, for all the picky choices we assume imply wizards, they actually are far more forgiving of random wizardy things (spell selection) than fighters are (with feats).

If you chose a high estimate of feat = 2nd level spells, the fighter line's height is obviously doubled. This puts fighters' progression just below the wizard one at level 8. Does anyone feel the need for me to recreate such a picture? I can imagine it very easily. The shape doesn't change, just the f(x) = g(x) point.

All of this misses the basic point of feats. Feats stack.

So do buffs. 

a martial character at low levels (especially 1-4) means higher HP, more proficiencies, reliable damage, and stuff that's likely to matter more

All true. I believe I hinted at that, but the reason that I didn't factor them into the visual examples is that they ... kind of come out in the wash, as it were. For instance an average of a few more HP doesn't matter much past the first few levels. The would mathematically be the case even without lower levels being "swingy", unless intense design-decisions were made to balance damage up the CR range (obviously this is not the case in 3.5, see RTS's/mmo's for that).

My party reached a part that required we have Resist Energy or the equivalent to get by an electrified floor.  A couple teleport spells later - after we went to town to recover, craft items, sell, and prepare spells - we got through the area with no damage to ourselves.  Treantmonk would be proud!

As long as the DM is upfront about this, and the party is cooperative, I see this as good DM'ing, assuming it were in addition to challenges rather than instead of them. Basically the more you make the wizard blow through spells before the real difficulty begins, the better.

he still has the added linear progression of Feats

Exactly. It is something I've purposely glossed over in order to keep the examples and math simple. Consider it the analogue to the marginal chassis improvements fighters get.

then your average damage increases by 1.475. This is greater than 1.1+0.275.

That is correct but you'll notice those numbers a still pretty close. There is a very, very minor synergy that makes fighters technically, a very, very slow quadratic growth. But this is still true of a commoner with VoP decent feat selection, so it's not that disruptive to the simple model I've illustrated. Remember that I'm shooting for a sensible average, not extremely realistic upper and lower bounds with medians, etc. You are more than welcome to adjust the numbers and recreate a more accurate regression, but I don't think that it will be all that different in the long run.

It is feat+feat+feat only if the feats do not have synergy. Weapon Focus + Skill Focus (Diplomacy) is feat+feat.[/quote]I expect fighters to do this a bit just like I expect wizards to take (sometimes) take toughness before retraining it out. Over the average, it would 'pull them down' but it still isn't enough to make me fret about the combinatorics where this lowers ... you get the point.

it's still a subjective view point.

rather the diminishing value of Feats prevents them from being multiplicative

A couple Feats seem like they add a lot, but adding a bunch of Feats to that doesn't help as much

This is also correct. There are many circumstances where feats that should create even bonii to add another 'chunk' just don't. As an example, at your 10th feat, it doesn't seem like each feat is a nice even, 10% of your power. This is due to the fact that it's hard to find feats that combine in the ways we would like (there is no 10th tier fighter feat, for instance), so I'm just overlooking this part in my simplification.

Quadratics create a parabola, not a simple curve, and cubed (cube root) start exponentially then curve back off again. http://sosanko.weebly.com/uploads/3/7/4/1/37411349/1285243_orig.png

Look in your picture at the right half of the y=x^2 curve. Now look at the OP. It looks kind of similar huh

But yes, for theoretically negative levels I would have been just specific about which polynomial progression fit. Thank goodness I didn't have any datapoints to map to it. You're welcome to provide some, though.

You guys realize any attempt to quantify the "power" of a character with a scalar quantity is flawed because of the set of builds being non-ordered?

Yes, that's why I'm only comparing class features (spells vs feats), rather than adding wbl, attribute distributions, etc. Or as soro mentioned, feats+weapons. I'll again invite you to actually map a more detailed model, which we know would be very difficult due to the ordering problem.

[PlzBreakMyCampaign]

Split for emphasis and readability:

I like what PBMC really does with this post. I think the point is not in the actual "measure" of power of a wizard or a fighter. I think it's more to show that his "fixed classes" rework addresses and somewhat manages to fix the well known problem of fighters and wizards growing at rates much too different.

Thanks! It started as that, but any practical 3.5 exploration the community does should reference the MetaCompendium in some way ... in my humble opinion 

his post claims 6th level wizards to be leagues stronger than 6th level fighters, which simply isn't true... the most powerful spell a 6th level wizard is capable of has an output that is only marginally stronger than a fighter who misses half their hits... even at 20th with 9th level spells a wizards actual power doesn't exceed a fighters by large quantities, in raw damage a fighter outclasses a wizard at 20th, a wizards real power at 20th is in their non-damaging spells which are troublesome to quantify, and any attempt to do so would honestly be arbitrary

Hold the phone. Where did I say I was comparing whole builds? I'm comparing progressions with what I consider to be a mildly standard rubric of a feat being equal to a 1st (or 2nd) level spell. I'd say damage outputs are nice, but they aren't really. I'm comparing the usefulness of the progressions to a character.

You say its all arbitrary, but in my relative model, I'm not doing anything that out of left field, nor do I think it's as cut and dry as blasty (aoe ranged) wizards compared to (melee single target) fighter dpr. You don't have to like my rubick, but you haven't invented and used a better one, nor you proven it impossible to do so.

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It's not the dagger example, I comprehend that fine... I have no question about small static bonuses having diminishing value. I was referring to the original post, and even further back to the old threads about "Linear Fighters & Quadratic Wizards"... the numbers for the quantification of their power are as far as I can tell 100% arbitrary.

I provided the math for damage since that's the only actual quantifiable value... well the only quantifiable value that isn't expressly linear across all classes that is (HP & Saves are expressly linear)... a truly accurate graph of power would take all aspects of a class, graph their values per level individually, then graph an average of all aspects for each level and that average would be the accurate level of power for said class... however there are a myriad of non-quantifiable aspects of each class, and numerous other aspects that are difficult to quantify accurately.

Looking at what actually can be quantified both classes, within the confines of the class itself, are in fact fairly close to each other in power. The greater number of attacks per round for Fighters actually works to keep their output on par with the nuking abilities of Wizards. I'm not saying that Wizards aren't arguably more powerful, just that the power gap that is believed to exist is no where near as extreme as it's made out to be. That power gap is a gross exaggeration... I'm also saying that Fighters can actually out perform Wizards in a chosen task within the confines of the class. The main aspect for Wizards that does say that they are indeed higher power than Fighters is the simple fact that they can spread out their capabilities and become extremely versatile with little to no sacrifices, whereas a Fighter must choose to specialize in one field or another or be considered sub-par on all of them.

The damage aspect is likely why I have seen numerous times people push for wizards to take a battle field control perspective since the damage of mundanes is actually on par and can eventually even surpass their own. However, one can make the arguement that a Fighter can actually be more suited to battle field control than a wizard even. When it comes to grapples fighters have an upper hand in initiating grapples, while wizards have an upper hand in the ability to grapple multiple targets... however the wizards ability to grapple multiple targets plateaus and even dies off completely around mid game when their ability to initiate grapples stagnates and reaches a point where it's simply not possible to fail the opposed grapple check. Then there's anything with a saving throw, following class progression alone you lose the ability to reliably use much of anything with a saving throw around lv5 and then almost completely around lv15, that's a giant chunk of wizard spells that are virtually unusable mid to late game... and all of this is before you even factor in optimization for both sides... which BTW the defending end has far more and far better optimization options.

Even with versatility options at the wizards disposal, the action economy quickly reigns them back in. You may be able to play several different roles very effectively, but at any given moment you can only employ a single one of those roles. Sure you may have some options to improve your action economy but that would only really at best double your capability by letting you perform the same role twice or split your effort between two roles. Which I won't argue isn't a potentially huge boost in power, but those options have costs as well. Sure you can overcome those costs, but doing so requires stepping outside of the confines of the class itself.

If we are measuring the power growth of the class then everything must be within the confines of said class. Feats for measuring must be pulled from the bonus feat lists of both classes, feats from general levels and otherwise are ignored, items are ignored unless provided by a feature of the class (such as wizards crafting scrolls, wands, potions etc...), but you have to be reasonable with wizards crafting magic items as well... use the wealth by level chart to determine how much one could spend on crafting at any given level... and probably cut that value in half since they are reasonably likely to buy items as well as craft them... plus within the confines of the class you won't actually be reducing the crafting costs any...

I just feel that there is so much data that is completely ignored and even more that is utterly misconstrued via outside optimization that no one has yet to provide an accurate representation of the power levels for each class... sure you can raise the power level of some classes by a greater degree than others, but in a direct comparison is the disparity between the classes really truly as large as it's commonly believed to be? I honestly don't believe it to be, and from everything I can find they truly are very close in power.


FYI: the reason I dismiss outside optimization is because for every option you've got outside of the wizard class itself to optimize wizards, you've got an equally potent option that can be applied to a fighter. Outside optimization can eventually even blur the lines between classes. A fighter could for example, get access to a small assortment of spells to boost their melee prowess with the right selection of feats, prCs, and other classes. Even magic items provide equal benefit to a fighter as they do a wizard, the difference being that a wizard may come to rely on magic items more often due to having a limited resource for their spells. Outside optimization just muddies the results and can be used to create bias, whether intentional or not. One might believe that a wizard has a greater range of optimization than a fighter, but that doesn't make it true, a fighter can be optimized to be just as powerful as the most optimized wizard if one knows what they are doing. The fact that many believe wizards to be unmatched in optimization and fighters to have little to no optimization options just furthers my point, outside optimization invalidates comparisons of class power due to bias.

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@The lower level spells becoming useless late game (aka pulling the rug out from under the highest data points): I expressly compared wizards because they can 'use' the progression the most. Well, I could have compared beholder mages, but I didn't want everyone to yell how unfair it was. And they'd be right.

Wizards weren't chosen because they were higher tier. They were chosen because they expressly had parts I was ignoring (wizard feats) so people wouldn't think I was talking about more than one progression and that they allow for better theoretical 'shotgunning' of spell selection. Sorcerers on the other hand have no leniency. It would be like comparing adding a stipulation that the fighter wouldn't be allowed to pay for a psy ref later (or retrain if the DM is very kind). People would rightly point out that this was arbitrary and skewing the results. Thus its not fighter (with no psy ref) vs wizard, nor is it fighter vs sorc.

I don't expect much 'wobbling' in the progressions either. In general midgame spells aren't "worse" than the early game spells, even after adjusting for CR increases. You're welcome to convince me otherwise, but paying too close attention to one feature like grappling misses the forest for the trees. Yes grappling starts to level off for high level wizards. It's almost like there's a mid level spell that makes grappling not matter anymore...

The action economy stuff is irrelevant because it applies to fighters and everyone else, too. So its a factor we can (as I have) ignore. I'll explain why, but you are more than welcome to update the above if the accuracy matters to you. For example, I'm assuming a fighter that uses adds cleave to his repritoire gets to count it fully. It would be pointless to say "that feat isn't worth a whole feat, because the fighter can't do it simultaneously with a previous feat!" Yeah and a wizard still thinks of his progression as twice as powerful having 6 1st level spells rather than 3. Objecting this way would seem petty when it 'cancels out' from both sides of the comparison anyway.

It's not "that there is so much data that is completely ignored." You're just talking about things other than the classes' progressions. It's like looking at a diagram of circulatory system and saying that it's useless because it doesn't fully explain every system in the body. Sorry, I don't care about the lymphatic system right now. This is about the power growth of the single, main class abilty (casting vs feats). It's not about WBL or dipping or PrCs, or optimization ranges or whatever (ironically I have give the community useful info on all of those topics. You really need to go read the metacompendium). Go make your own charts for that. I could have made the thread title something really long like Fighter vs Wizard Main Class Feature Only Power Growth, but I kind of get the feeling you'd just come in and complain about how the name is too long.

Lastly, "outside optimization invalidates comparisons of class power" is something we'll have to disagree on. My base class info & tier comparison thread has been around for years and I never had anyone say "because there is a range that x class can have, you can't ever compare it to y class." Indeed you have many kinds of comparisons (minima, maxima, mode, etc), but the one that people think of a "normal" is the average ("mean"). I didn't specify and therefore assumed averages, not because it gives me the results I want, but because that's where the data lead me. This is why everything is phrased in terms of regressions: although I had a hypothesis wolfram alpha could have shown me different answers than I was expecting. I would have shared them all the same.

[Maelphaxerazz]

If you chose a high estimate of feat = 2nd level spells, the fighter line's height is obviously doubled. This puts fighters' progression just below the wizard one at level 8. Does anyone feel the need for me to recreate such a picture? I can imagine it very easily. The shape doesn't change, just the f(x) = g(x) point.

That covers part of my original point, but not all of it. The first feat in a typical feat chain is about equivalent to a second level spell, yes: however, the higher feats in the feat chain are worth more. Even in a low-optimization environment, fighters tend to pick feats higher up in the same feat chain rather than the start of another feat chain, if possible. So the first feat a fighter takes would be equivalent to a 2nd level spell, but the second and third would be higher. This continues until he completes the feat chain and must start another one. Thus the shape would be an upward-rising curve, followed by a plateau and then another upward-rising curve.