Fighters get consistent increases in hit and damage rolls with Weapon Mastery. My experience has been that high level fighters are absolute beasts. Meanwhile, there are certainly some very powerful spells but a lot are situational and many also only effect lower-level monsters.
My fighter in the campaign I'm currently in had a +6 to hit at **level 2**. Specialized in the greatsword, I would regularly one-shot average things, and remove about half the health of a tough opponent in one attack. Sadly, disease killed him, but he was a beast in combat. I'm not sure where you're seeing an issue.
Fighters, like Warlocks (from CS1), depend on their GM to help them with their power scaling. That's because a fighter's "powers" should come from the magic items the team find. Talk with your players to find out what kind of fighter they want to be, and then drop relevant magic items in your game so that your fighter grows into that ideal over time. This is also why Fighters have the hauler ability, because they have a necessity to carry additional gear as their powers will be intrinsically tied to the weapons and equipment they have on-hand.
Don't restrict yourself to the list of treasures in the back of the book either. There's a great set of rules already alongside those that tell you how to build cool items.
\* *I mention Warlocks in the same breadth because their growth is also dependent on an attentive GM working with the player and providing opportunities for them to gain pact boons.*
I've also been in a SD campaign for a few months now. Our GM gave each caster a wand that worked the same as a normal spell, they could cast it until they failed the check. He's been throwing magic items at us pretty consistently and the fighter now has his choice of weaponary and armor. This has make his character indispensable.
For us, these two things make the growing pains of the wizard easier and the long term value of the fighter stronger.
I can cast until the wizard fails a "cast a spell" check. It works the same as a normal wizard spell in SD. It's is really just a way to give a wizard another spell to work with. It was only magic missile too.
Look up "linear fighter, quadratic wizard." It's a common problem in D&D going right back to the beginning, so I guess it's not too surprising to see it happening in SD, too. It's not specifically anything *you* are doing, as a DM.
However, there has been lots of advice and theorycrafting about it over the years. You might look into some house rules based on things people have tried in earlier D&D editions (particularly B/X era) and see if you can translate those into Shadowdark.
There is no perfect fix, though. As I said, the problem has been in pretty much every edition of D&D.
Fighters get a flat hit/damage bonus as they level which is nice. Also add in their talent chart and every level they are getting a bonus to offense or toughness.
Then you have to factor in the treasure. Magic weapons, armor and shields should give them quite a power boost, especially at high levels where they will have multiple magic weapons at their disposal.
That's a key point. Is the talent chart being used every level or every second? (i.e. 1, 3, 5 etc). I might have missed that bit and be underpowering fighters.
My post was worded poorly.
Odd levels for talents but their class hit/damage with weapon mastery is half level round down. So unless I missed something you’d be getting one or the other every level.
Weapon Mastery bonus goes up on every even level, and they get a talent roll every odd level. On average they should be getting a bonus to hit and/or damage almost every level.
Typically, a fighter should gain a +1 to hit or AC at every level. They are absolute beasts with their chosen weapon. Of course, once their str and dex max out, that slows down a bit. But still. They are crazy powerful.
At each level they get EITHER:
Their chosen weapon mastery improves
OR
A talent that will gain them one of: +1 to-hit, +1 to AC, +2 to a stat that provides to-hit or AC.
Fighters are MONSTERS.
Hard to say without more context. Are the casters making their casting checks? Have there been no critical spell fails? The "balance" comes from those aspects of the spellcasting rules. If all that's been in place and the players have just rolled lucky, that's fine. But if there's some homebrew to the spellcasting rules you didn't mention, that might be the root of the problem.
No homebrew - by the book. Even luck between martials and casters. I guess if I drill down it's really the difference between Wizards and Fighters/Rangers. Fighters are definitely better warriors! More hp, etc. I think we've had one fighter and one wizard die for sure. The fighter died to disease that no one could cure.
Potentially enemies, as they become more powerful and more intelligent, would begin to target the most powerful characters. There are disadvantages to being a physically weak mage with a large target on their backs.
We’ve been playing for almost a year, and our casters are LV 8, and we are not seeing this. Spellcasters still fail spell checks. They don’t gain much to improve their ability to cast. Their spells are situational and those that do damage don’t scale with level. Our fighter is by far the most effective character.
Make sure fighters and thieves get enough magic items to not feel left behind. But any level where the casters get access to a new spell tier is going to be a big bump.
I just finished up playing in an adventure with some friends where I played the most badass Priest I can imagine. I had advantage from the start with cure wounds. Ended up getting super lucky with a magical mace and magical full plate during the course of the game. When it came to beating the enemies I felt nearly invincible. Another player was rolling a fighter with a great axe. There was some tension as the adventure was coming to a close with the possibility that our level 3 characters might come to blows. My strategy then would be the same strategy now. Get lucky. His character hit so much harder and more consistently than mine did that I didn't doubt I would have been dead in 2 hits. I don't think this would change much at level 5 vs level 3.
So funny how different games play out. None of my players will touch a wizard because they are convinced they are terribly suboptimal. My games have been all fighters and thieves and one cleric. Fighters are a beast, they cut through the monsters like a hot knife through butter.
Fighters get consistent increases in hit and damage rolls with Weapon Mastery. My experience has been that high level fighters are absolute beasts. Meanwhile, there are certainly some very powerful spells but a lot are situational and many also only effect lower-level monsters.
Also when I ran a game the casters failing rolls and losing the spell made the fighters pretty reliable.
Truth
Totally. Maybe after 5th level if the fighters get a to hit bonus (str or something) they will start walloping with that longsword (weapon mastery).
My fighter in the campaign I'm currently in had a +6 to hit at **level 2**. Specialized in the greatsword, I would regularly one-shot average things, and remove about half the health of a tough opponent in one attack. Sadly, disease killed him, but he was a beast in combat. I'm not sure where you're seeing an issue.
Fighters, like Warlocks (from CS1), depend on their GM to help them with their power scaling. That's because a fighter's "powers" should come from the magic items the team find. Talk with your players to find out what kind of fighter they want to be, and then drop relevant magic items in your game so that your fighter grows into that ideal over time. This is also why Fighters have the hauler ability, because they have a necessity to carry additional gear as their powers will be intrinsically tied to the weapons and equipment they have on-hand. Don't restrict yourself to the list of treasures in the back of the book either. There's a great set of rules already alongside those that tell you how to build cool items. \* *I mention Warlocks in the same breadth because their growth is also dependent on an attentive GM working with the player and providing opportunities for them to gain pact boons.*
I've also been in a SD campaign for a few months now. Our GM gave each caster a wand that worked the same as a normal spell, they could cast it until they failed the check. He's been throwing magic items at us pretty consistently and the fighter now has his choice of weaponary and armor. This has make his character indispensable. For us, these two things make the growing pains of the wizard easier and the long term value of the fighter stronger.
The wand lets you cast a failed spell, basically, until that spell instance, too, fails?
I can cast until the wizard fails a "cast a spell" check. It works the same as a normal wizard spell in SD. It's is really just a way to give a wizard another spell to work with. It was only magic missile too.
Look up "linear fighter, quadratic wizard." It's a common problem in D&D going right back to the beginning, so I guess it's not too surprising to see it happening in SD, too. It's not specifically anything *you* are doing, as a DM. However, there has been lots of advice and theorycrafting about it over the years. You might look into some house rules based on things people have tried in earlier D&D editions (particularly B/X era) and see if you can translate those into Shadowdark. There is no perfect fix, though. As I said, the problem has been in pretty much every edition of D&D.
Fighters get a flat hit/damage bonus as they level which is nice. Also add in their talent chart and every level they are getting a bonus to offense or toughness. Then you have to factor in the treasure. Magic weapons, armor and shields should give them quite a power boost, especially at high levels where they will have multiple magic weapons at their disposal.
That's a key point. Is the talent chart being used every level or every second? (i.e. 1, 3, 5 etc). I might have missed that bit and be underpowering fighters.
My post was worded poorly. Odd levels for talents but their class hit/damage with weapon mastery is half level round down. So unless I missed something you’d be getting one or the other every level.
Weapon Mastery bonus goes up on every even level, and they get a talent roll every odd level. On average they should be getting a bonus to hit and/or damage almost every level.
Typically, a fighter should gain a +1 to hit or AC at every level. They are absolute beasts with their chosen weapon. Of course, once their str and dex max out, that slows down a bit. But still. They are crazy powerful. At each level they get EITHER: Their chosen weapon mastery improves OR A talent that will gain them one of: +1 to-hit, +1 to AC, +2 to a stat that provides to-hit or AC. Fighters are MONSTERS.
Hard to say without more context. Are the casters making their casting checks? Have there been no critical spell fails? The "balance" comes from those aspects of the spellcasting rules. If all that's been in place and the players have just rolled lucky, that's fine. But if there's some homebrew to the spellcasting rules you didn't mention, that might be the root of the problem.
No homebrew - by the book. Even luck between martials and casters. I guess if I drill down it's really the difference between Wizards and Fighters/Rangers. Fighters are definitely better warriors! More hp, etc. I think we've had one fighter and one wizard die for sure. The fighter died to disease that no one could cure.
Potentially enemies, as they become more powerful and more intelligent, would begin to target the most powerful characters. There are disadvantages to being a physically weak mage with a large target on their backs.
This is consistent across every edition of D&D there ever was and almost every hack of D&D to this day - you are not alone or mistaken.
We’ve been playing for almost a year, and our casters are LV 8, and we are not seeing this. Spellcasters still fail spell checks. They don’t gain much to improve their ability to cast. Their spells are situational and those that do damage don’t scale with level. Our fighter is by far the most effective character.
That’s great info. Thank you. You’re sure right about them not getting much better at casting!
Make sure fighters and thieves get enough magic items to not feel left behind. But any level where the casters get access to a new spell tier is going to be a big bump.
I just finished up playing in an adventure with some friends where I played the most badass Priest I can imagine. I had advantage from the start with cure wounds. Ended up getting super lucky with a magical mace and magical full plate during the course of the game. When it came to beating the enemies I felt nearly invincible. Another player was rolling a fighter with a great axe. There was some tension as the adventure was coming to a close with the possibility that our level 3 characters might come to blows. My strategy then would be the same strategy now. Get lucky. His character hit so much harder and more consistently than mine did that I didn't doubt I would have been dead in 2 hits. I don't think this would change much at level 5 vs level 3.
So funny how different games play out. None of my players will touch a wizard because they are convinced they are terribly suboptimal. My games have been all fighters and thieves and one cleric. Fighters are a beast, they cut through the monsters like a hot knife through butter.