Warrior

balance

In a single player game you don't need to balance shit.
Just make all three clearly different from each other and viable, who cares if one is stronger than the other.
Make warriors twitch gameplay, casters powerful but high resource management, thieves stealth mechanics users.

This is why I think barbarian is just a better fighter.

I would just make the fighter a balanced melee class while the barbarian is hardcore glass cannon with big damage but fairly fragile.

I would make being a wizard a sort of risky thing to be or something to counter balance all that. Shadowrun kind of did it right with it's drain system but it's not punishing enough.

In a single player game you don't need to balance shit.

The opinion of the retarded.

Thief beats mage. Warrior also beats mage, and would beat thief but can't find thief because thief is invisible.

Classes should be playstyles, not difficulty settings.
I shouldn't be forced into trivially easy or nightmarishly difficult mode just for wanting to roleplay my favourite class.
Making them all equally powerful is impossiblke, even in a PvP game, but you should strive to make them as equally powerful as possible.

Correct.

I know!

Just make a lazy rock-paper-scissor mechanic where k***ht beat thief, thief beats wizard, wizard beats k***ht.

the Innkeeper class will never be viable dude stop trying

You make the Warrior the utilitarian class that plays the game the way it's intended
Whe Wizard the overpowered one who steamrolls everything and gets to do hilarious absurd shit (it must be the strongest one this is important)
And the Rogue the one who gets a couple niche skills and is underpowered in every other aspect, possibly unable to beat the game without exploits

Are you one of the retards who demands nerfs for sp content?

Making them all equally powerful is impossiblke, even in a PvP game, but you should strive to make them as equally powerful as possible.

Waste of effort. So long as they're all viable there's no point trying to chase the impossible.
Notice how you had to go all the way to the extremes to make your case: you know I'm right.

Mage melts armor from distance

Mage instakills squishy thief fags from distance

Mage teleports away from fast enemies

Mage has a shield against mages and projectiles

There. Perfectly balanced.

This is antithetical to a good RPG.

make it so the thief can absorb more damage than the warrior with the power of dodge tanking and absurdly high ac scores. Also make sure to give him higher potential damage than the mage with multiple stacking critical damage multipliers and a to crit percentage that soo low it is borderline guaranteed to proc at least once on one of the gazillion hits he gets for free because he uses two dinky little daggers instead of a large, functional sword, and of course, give him an exclusive one hit kill attack if he ever bothers to use stealth.
The mage and warrior can suck a dick idk

Ur mom is antithetical to a good RPG.

No, just make Fighter = Hack N Slash, Mage = Strategy game with summons, manipulation, buffs and debuffs and Thief = Stealth game.

No.

No, I know you're wrong because you cry about nerfs.

Warrior

Nigger

Mage

Incel virgin cracker

Thief

Kike

make Mage OP

make Warrior weak as fuck and a meme

make Thief OP

Bethesda are so good at balance

The premise is retarded in first place. Someone capable of violating natural laws by causing fantasy shit to happen is definitely a much more powerful combatant than a dude with a melee weapon. A thief is not supposed to be even interested in combat in first place.

You don't.
Balance is a meme.
If they're all fun, that's what matters.

>Mage

Incel virgin cracker

Sounds based.

Someone capable of violating natural laws by causing fantasy shit to happen is definitely a much more powerful combatant than a dude with a melee weapon.

Being able to light a candlestick is violating natural laws but it doesn't make someone powerful. Dumb argument.

Too woke for me, i wont buy your game

Mage gets a femboy dress

Thief gets BDSM leather gimp suit

Warrior gets... steel plates to his body

Whats with this subtle anti-warrior bias in video games?

Warrior: generic all-rounder
Mage: poor survivability, strong AoE
Thief: poor survivability, strong single target

warrior

they fight, better than anyone else. They hold ground, manipulate enemy positions (draw them in, push them away, knock them down etc). The most low maintenance class, they are steady and reliable damage dealers and protectors.

thief

the utility/item class. Any class can toss a bomb or set up a trap but they do it by far the best. They can carry more items (and loot), they use them more efficiently, and they also have their own specialized tools exclusively for their own use. They spot and disarm traps, find hidden passages, scout the enemy, etc.

wizard

class with the most potential but the most drawbacks. They can pretty much do anything whether offensively, defensively or utilitywise, but only one thing at a time and they are highly vulnerable while doing so. The most powerful but least flexible class

cleric

Backbone of the party, support class that does a bit of everything. They can fight and hold ground, though not as well as the warrior. They provide utility with their spells, though not as much as the thief. They have a small selection of impactful spells like those of the wizard, but not as potent and not able to be casted as frequently.

t. never played a ttrpg in my life

it never feels balanced. always feels like these games are designed with warrior first, as a base, then the others are added on later and they feel gimmicky. warrior is always the easiest to play and takes the least amount of effort but tends to be the most powerful. they have lots of armor so they can take everything, and they dont require any ammo or resource.

meanwhile mages fucking suck. no armor so they are squishy as fuck, and constantly run out of magic so they are resource starved. on top of it all, their spells are often not even that powerful anyway, and tend to do pitiful damage compared to melee weapons

and thiefs usually suck too. sneaking around in stealth usually feels so slow and takes forever, and often when you are detected, steahtlh is no longer an option and you have to resort to close combat. but since you are a thief, you probably have really shitty armor and weapons. and there are always going to be situations where stealth is not an option.

If one is capable of supernaturally focusing some amount of heat remotely, which lights a candlestick, there's nothing preventing him projecting that same heat inside a target person's skull. You don't need to cause that much brain damage to kill, 10 deg Celsius increase from normal temperature already destroys brain cells.

But that's not even the point, because a wizard deciding to be a wizard in combat already implies him having special magical means of combat. Without those, he would just arm himself with the same generic weapon and armor as a normal tard.

warrior

beats you in a straight up fight

mage

beats you in an unfair fight

thief

beats you before a straight up fight can happen

A thief is not supposed to be even interested in combat in first place.

This
A Thief's only things for combat, should be swiftly exiting combat as quickly as possible.
"Thief" is not a combatant.
You might make the case that "assassin" is, but an assassin is pretty rarely a nasty knife man in a leather condom hat, choosing to get into melee combat with someone to go for "backstabs". Again, their combat focus should be "get the fuck out", because if the enemy is getting a turn, they fucked something up.
You might make the case that "Archer" is, and... I'd agree with you. But an Archer is a Fighter, not a Thief. An Assassin might use a bow, but they're not an archer. Again, if they're in a position where the enemy is taking their turn, they fucked up, and are trying to exit combat as quickly as possible. An archer is gonna sit there with a fuckhuge draw strength bow and ruin your day a few times per minute, then probably pigstick you with an arming sword if you get in to bully him.

"Thief" is a fucking cancer on game design, because all Thief is doing is taking common sense away from everyone else to justify its own existence. Thief archetypes tend to employ even more magic than the fucking wizards, by petulantly demanding weirdo bullshit like alternative stat scaling, nonsense interactions like sneak attack damage, bows requiring zero strength, magically having daggers and a starched T-shirt be as damaging and protective as an arming sword or mace and chain, or doing a poop walk in broad daylight to turn invisible.

Rock, Paper, Scissors.
Give each class powerful skills and advantages, but also major weaknesses you can feel.
Equalize their damage as much as possible.

warrior is guy swinging a stick but wizard is goku

maybe the worst thing modern D&D created

This archetype should simply be called "saboteur" or "commando", but the point is that it's as good of a warrior as a generic warrior, except using different kit for a different role. But apparently, this will just ruin the immersion.

just make thief

the problem with that is then every aspect of the game has to be considered with thieves in mind, and then you start drifting into imsim territory where studios go to die

Delete thief and merge mage and warrior into spellblade.
Problem solved.
Also, for fucks sake, DELETE spears, hammers, axes, bows, crossbows, daggers, thrown weapons and guns. Real spellblades use SWORDS exclusively.

It is given by all those generic fantasy tropes, that wizards are rare valuable specialists and not a life path that a generic infantryman can take instead of being a sword and board guy. It should work at the level of a strategy game, or even tactics where you manage human resources. It unravels at the level of an rpg where you control a single character, but the very concept of traditional rpg is arbitrary as shit in first place.

Simple and reliable, but without upper level flourish

Complex and finicky, with near limitless potential

Not in the game

Fighter is for learning the mechanics of the game at a basic level. It's for being someone coming to grips with their surroundings, and finding simple, reliable ways to survive and contribute. However, a Fighter is, ultimately, a man. There are limits to his mortal form and earthly abilities. A fighter will, inevitably, begin to resort to magic as he reaches his own peak. The ceiling he couldn't reach before shatters as he starts finding some magical equipment that isn't just a +1 to something, or a handful of simple spells to augment his abilities. He'll start to be confident in what he knows, and use that confidence to explore and learn more. Eventually, he will realize, that magic is the way. He's spent too much of his potential mastering something he realizes is a dead end.
So he respecs/rolls up a new character, as a wizard. The wizard has all the fundamentals of the Fighter down, just without the reliability of those fundamentals. The wizard has to use everything he learned as a fighter to survive until his magic starts progressing. And then, it happens. He crests some limit, and the game stops being him vs the world, but an open question of how much he wants to achieve. The question stops becoming how will he meet the challenge, but what set of tools are the ones to gain the most information to use later.

Once you're at the point where you can consistently manage the proper draw weight, extra strength doesnt make a difference.
Bows should be dex scaling but need a minimum strength (and dex) stat to use them.

And that is exactly the WORST way to design a game.
I wanna play a warrior because it is FUN and COOL. I don't want to have my endgame potential capped arbitrarily only because I didn't pick the meta class.

>If one is capable of supernaturally focusing some amount of heat remotely, which lights a candlestick, there's nothing preventing him projecting that same heat inside a target person's skull.

Or maybe they cant because magic might be unable to physically alter unwilling targets, Or perhaps because "magic" itself is a underliyng physical quality which is inherent to all living creatures and the mage merelly follows a system that can manipulate it in order to create a desirable outcome, while other classes simply use it in a more unrefined or hyperfocused way.
How "supernatural" or banal a mage's powers are is up to the setting, and any somewhat competent author can find a virtually infinite amount of ways to make mages perfectly in line with other classes.

Do you want a design with something resembling common sense, or a completely arbitrary ruleset? Because in case of latter I don't see how it's even a problem, you can just have a high level warrior play like in those "kill 1000000 chinamen" musou games because he has special warrior powers from lifting extra hard or something.

AD&D came out over 30 years ago and in that wizards had a lot of flaws compared to fighters

took longer to level up

strongly suggested they don't get to pick their own spells and barely had any/day

could literally die in 1 hit for the first several levels

fighters get actual perks besides increased numbers as they level up and exclusive use of the best magic items

it encouraged the setup of fighters do most of the work and the wizard saves for a climatic moment to do something really important. AD&D was also the inspiration for all the original rpg video games like ultima and wizardry that got translated to japan and inspired the jrpg, which is why to this day jrpg/fantasy anime have a very similiar setup of cool hyper competent sword guys and magic being big fight enders instead of the dumb shit you see in BG3 where you spam spells till the fight ends, rest and do it again for the next fight.

a wizard deciding to be a wizard in combat already implies him having special magical means of combat

for some reason this doesn't apply to fighters though. a fighter deciding to fight big monsters with a sword is actually just on the level of a regular footsoldier that can barely kill another man instead of having any kind of true talent

Mage is unarmored and requires setup (rituals and buff stacking) but once ready they can quickly destroy anyone in their path, especially the slow plodding warrior
Thief is fast, stealthy, can steal things including buffs, and has high burst damage that can delete unarmored squishies but is lacking in sustained combat
Warrior has good survivability and sustained damage, which makes them good at fighting thieves, but is lacking in mobility

I want a design where my favourite class is actually fun to play from the start to the end of the game and not gimped in the long run because the dev decided to be a massive entitled asshole.

Pretty much the problem with all of these is that... it's just a fighter. It's the archer problem; these are just things a Fighter should be doing, that the thief/rogue/whatever pries off and has to come up with imaginary rules for why the fighter can't do them. The fighter can't use stealth, because, well, he just can't. The fighter can't use a ranged weapon because, well, he just can't.
Saboteur has a better case for existing as its own thing, but, either this is a role that's not really in combat (laying traps beforehand), relies on convenient tools like support grenades that, logically, ANYONE should be able to use... or it's a wizard.

So
You want to do magic, but don't want to do magic?
Like, magic, but not that fucking "magic".
I'm struggling here.

str starts weak but scales the best numerically, especially for defenses
int is godlike early and has great utility but scales very poorly so it becomes more of a support role late
dex scales slightly worse than str but has niches like increased range/stealth/movement that make it occasionally better

Mage should be balanced with all the other classes, instead of letting them break the game over their knee there should be limits to their magical power

NOOOOO MAGE IS THE SUPER SPECIAL OP CLASS I WANT TO FEEL POWERFUL

OK fine, then warrior and thief get to push past human limitations and do anime bullshit to be on par with mage

NOOOOO THAT'S STUPID ONLY I GET TO HAVE FUN

Why is the high INT class played exclusively by faggots?

I want a well designed game where the classes are mostlöy equal in power level.
I get thet it's impossible to 100% balance such different playstyles, but you should at least try to do so as well as possible.
If you just go in with the mindset of "my favourite class is going to be the STRONGEST one of them in the end of the game all and the other classes are going to be SHIT" that's just abyssmal game design.

Warrior and thief should be able to use magic to enhance their strength or dexterity beyond human limits on par with mage

NOOOO I WANT TO BE SUPER SPECIAL BUT NOT TOUCH THE THING ADDED TO THE SETTING THAT MAKES PEOPLE ABLE TO BE SUPER SPECIAL

I don't really understand what people are talking about in this thread, in pretty much every video game melee builds are the strongest and/or fastest way to play.
Stop projecting your D&D brainrot, even in most actual D&D games melee is still the best way to play because the devs give you tons of magic items instead of you being stuck with longsword +1 despite being a level 10 fighter

umm but if you use magic items you're not a melee character anymore

and if a wizard eats mundane food he's now a mundane character

don't pretend like suggesting you do anything with magic besides throw fireballs doesn't get pidgeonholed as "anime"

please kys coomer brained cretin

Depends. In Souls or Salt and Sanctuary, melee is definively the most fun and powerful way to play. In Skyrim, stealth archery beat both melee and magic. In games like Morrowind, magic is king.

Warrior

Best in combat, uses strength/carry weight to assist out of combat. The frontline combat is centered around, with plenty of melee and ranged weapon options to fit any situation.

Mage

Vulnerable in combat, uses utility magic to assist in and out of combat. Takes advantage of elemental weaknesses most easily. Scales into powerful spells that ignore armor, but requires team support due to cast time and interruptions.

Thief

Alright in combat, excels outside of combat or in preparing before combat. In party based games it might be useful to have the thief provide stealth assistance to other party members when sneaking as a group. Easily bypasses front line to reach backline, but cannot take on front line directly.

Warrior

Above average hp, atk and def. Low res. Average speed. Can use all physical weapons(spears, polearms, daggers, axes, swords, greatswords, bows)

mage

High mag, res. Low atk, speed, def, average hp. Can use regular swords(NOT greatswords), daggers(won't do much if the sword isn't magic enchanted). But mostly uses books/staffs/wands.

thief

Low hp, def. Average res, atk. High speed. Can use swords(NOT greatswords), daggers, bows. Can stealth and has high evasion, crit chance. Stealth attacks always crit. Crits damage modifier is higher than all other classes.

Keep in mind this is only for these 3 classes. If you would've added ranger or barbarian or differentiate between warrior and fighter and barbarian- then I would change things more.

You don't, let the designers come up with as many cool features for each class as they like, whatever ends up OP is OP, if players want to challenge themselves with the weaker classes let them.

The dumbest person in this thread

Wizard>>>>>>>>Fighter/Warrior>>>>>>>A pile of dogshit>>>>>>>>Thief
There you go

Classes should not be difficulty settings. They rae playstyles.
If you want difficulty settings, thed adda ctual difficulty settings.
I don't want to be forced to play mage or something for the medium difficulty because warrior is either OP or worthless.

Game has no hammers/blunt category.

Shit game. Will not play.

Don't feature them. No warrior-mage-thief, no balance, no problems.

Make magic rare and hard to obtain, and also dangerous to even the user.

Don't feature them. No warrior-mage-thief, no balance, no problems.

I like to think of proper fighters like roman legionaries. Trained in more formal battlefield tactics, and at least basic building and logistics tasks.

or you just go play rock, paper, scissors if that is what you want, while we play an actual rpg

This if I wanted rock, paper, scissors class balance design I'd just play some shitty mobile game.

warrior

elf, their affinity for nature prevent them going berserk route and get better armor and weapons made from animals

mage

mere mortals, their life span is what prevent them to archive the greatest magic

thief

dwarf, robust, heavy and not agile body

Just make them 3 completely different styles of gameplay.
Mages are overpowered but let you find creative solutions to every problem, pure power fantasy sandbox
Fighters are straightforward, middle of the road
Thieves are underpowered and HAVE to find unorthodox solutions to problems and avoid direct confrontations

and the other classes are going to be SHIT"

That's... not how it is.

The goal is that it's a continuum. There AREN'T different classes to balance, there's just the player's experience.
This is already something that almost always happens in these games. Players often start with more simple, grounded classes to learn the basic mechanics of the games, then transition to classes that use that understanding to bound off into more intricate game design and mechanics, with more potential. The more advanced classes require the fundamentals that more basic classes rely on and teach as prerequisites to function. It's a natural progression. You learn the intricacies of managing stats, meters, ect with classes that are more forgiving in those metrics, before moving on to classes that are much more demanding in those executions, but instead offer more.
You can, absolutely, stick to and enjoy any class you like, and them being unbalanced doesn't harm that. You can roleplay as anything you want.
Almost always, what happens otherwise is exceedingly strange, immersion breaking justifications for why a dude with a hammer is scaling into bludgeoning a lizard the size of a barn to death, that always boils down to "actually they're just wizards, too", or trying to explain why people don't die after stabbed in the face a dozen times.

Playstyles and difficulty are closely related. Some class fantasies are basically reliant on being very powerful, or the underdog.

That's why class progression/prestige classes/etc exist so you don't just have to make entire archetypes noob bait or deliberate trap choices to be discarded once you know how to play the game

Balance warriors like dark souls
Wizards like Dragon marked for death or magicka where there's spell inputs and memorization
Thief balanced by actions, being caught adds a shitty GTA wanted system to you in the town making you have to play in shadows, at night and have markets unaccessible

1. You seek the dungeon at the top of a great mountain with no path to its summit

Warrior: Scales the mountain

Mage: Levitates up to the summit

Thief: Fires grappling hook, swinging from one foothold to the next

2. You reach the dungeon but the entrance is locked

Warrior: Breaks down door with sheer retard strength

Mage: Unlocks the door with a spell

Thief: Deftly picks the lock

3. In the depths of the dungeon there's a giant beast guarding the treasure

Warrior: Attacks the beast head on

Mage: Summons a daedroth and turns invisible

Thief: Shoots a poisoned arrow from stealth for x32 damage

4. You've won the treasure! It's the beautiful Princess of the land! She swore to marry the brave hero who rescued her from the beast!

Warrior: /kneels, tips platedora "m'lady"

Mage: Familiar with the Princess' nocturnal activities and the abundant stench of beast seed in the air, makes a mental note to cast a spell of Resist Disease before any potential coitus.

Thief: "I'm gay."

weapons made from animals

What?
The only weapons made from animals are bone clubs and they are just worse than steel maces.

Rock paper scissors gameplay can be fun, so long as each player has 100 hands they can all use independently, there are variants of rock, paper, and scissors that change matchups, and may circumstantially do better at the cost of circumstantially doing worse, and sometimes Paper can turn into an origami pair of scissors because the player folded it just right, while rock sometimes turns into graphite, and draws dicks on Paper's face

ITT: "Smart but lazy and underachieving" magefags make the intelligence class the best one

Almost always, what happens otherwise is exceedingly strange, immersion breaking justifications for why a dude with a hammer is scaling into bludgeoning a lizard the size of a barn to death, that always boils down to "actually they're just wizards, too"

It's because he is an extremely strong and skilled elite warrior who can dodge the dragons attacks, break its legs, then climb over the tail on the dragons back and then raise the hammer over its head and crush the skull into bits, just like in a badass action movie.

Innkeeper as a summoner who calls in the debts of his patrons to fight for him...

Of course the class that doesn't exist is the strongest.

I don't. Balance is anti-SOUL.

No
The real wizard teleports through the door.
Or disintegrates the wall beside the door and goes around.

Warrior is almost me except fir the last one.

Wizard not saying "no way fag" and teleporting away leaving the princess behind the moment he realizes she's a thot with at least 4 different types of stds

Unrealistic

Each get their own minigame in combat
Warrior gets a rhythm game
Mage gets Papa's Pizzeria
Thief gets Tetris

ummmm why is the guy who can use magic more powerful than the guy who swings a sword??

mage but with a sword and armor

mage but with a staff and robes

mage but with a dagger and rags

Boom, balanced.

Magic SUCKS

Based and magepilled

break its legs

He's not strong enough to, and even if he was, he's not massive enough to serve as a fulcrum for the force he's exerting, so still can't. He probably can't even succeed in bruising the dragon.
He cannot strike hard enough to break the legs of a dragon, any more than a terrier can strike your leg hard enough to break it. It's not a matter of strength, it's a matter of physics. If the bones of the dragon can support the dragon, then they're strong enough to resist any amount of force something several orders of magnitude lighter can exert, and forces even close to approaching those requirements would destroy the warrior more than they destroyed the dragon.
He cannot crush the skull for similar reasons, and cannot remain on the back of the dragon, who can just lean to a side, or shake the warrior off like a person shakes a spider off of them.
No sword is long enough to actually slash any vital organs, MAYBE a spear could pierce organs from very particular angles.
In order for the warrior to beat the dragon, he needs magic. Magic to be stronger than he should physically be capable of being. Magic to have a weapon durable enough to survive being swung in such a way. Magic to not just die from hitting his head when he falls off the dragon's back.

Now, the warrior could probably use a machine to get over some of these limitations, but we're not talking about harpooning dragons from the back of a train, now are we?

Magic does the job.
But it just isn't as BADASS, MASCULINE, ADRENALINE FUELED and overall just FUN as DECIMATING YOUR ENEMIES INTO BLOODY CHUNKS WITH A HUGE WAR HAMMER!!! FUCK YEAH!!! WOOOOOOH!!!

This is a female-coded post.

Warriors use chi to do magic.
Mages use mana to do magic.
Thieves use magic artifacts to do magic.
Remember to mix and match for monk-thieves and artificer-mages and spellblade-warriors and everything else.

Magic is even less physically possible. It's called "fantasy" for a reason.

Mage is the best at all three roles. He can just buff himself with magic to be stronger and more skilled then the warrior. Warrior spent his whole life training and the mage just wiggles his fingers and becomes a Greek god instantly. He can turn invisible, use illusions, and magically open locks to be a better thief then the thief. He could steal the clothes off your back and you would be convinced you are still wearing them. You just cannot balance that without taking all the mages fun spells away and leaving him with only fireballs and shit.
So really the warrior and thief need to adopt a bit of magic themselves if they are to stay relevant. They would have the advantage of not needing to use spells to buff their already existing talents, so they could focus on magic that covers their weaknesses instead. Thief could use shield spells so he isn't so damn squishy. Warrior could give himself a speed boost so his bulky armor doesn't slow him down. Both need magic to protect themselves against the mage. Things like silence or counter spells.

*casts the DECIMATING MY ENEMIES INTO BLOODY CHUNKS WITH A HUGE WAR HAMMER spell I learned by doing magic bench presses at the wizard gym*

Agreed. Make it scifi and have cool gadgets.

You sound lame

Yes
The difference is that mages aren't pretending they're NOT magic, while fighter types usually are.

If mages aren't bound to the law of physics, why should fighters be?
It's fantasy, not history fiction. In history fiction, mages do not even exist.

because mages can use magic while fighters cant

Because then they aren't fighters, they're mages that pretend they're fighters, duh.

Fighter is best in direct combat
Mage is middle ground, limited by reagents or casting speed
Thief does out of combat shenanigans to tilt it in his favor

Doesn't just cast a spell to turn all your enemies inside out while making a giant blood fountain with their entrails

What if they just made the mages weak and magic suck?

Warriors do stamina management with big fuckoff stagger
Mages do mana management with big fuckoff nukes
Thieves backstab, apply DoTs, and run away to hide until the enemies keel over

Warriors have high base stats and access to the most types of weapons and armor
Rogues have a naturally high agility and the widest breadth of skills representing thievery, hunting, assassination, etc.
Mages have powerful spells that are limited by a need for careful resource management.

And fighters can crush dragons, giants and divine beings limbs and skulls with their great strength and weapon skills while mages can't. Jzst like in the old legends of hercules or the classic fairytales of the prince slaying the dragon.

no u

I accept your concession.

Fighter begs the Mage for buffs.
Mage buffs the Thief so he doesn't get his hands dirty.
Thief bribes the Mage with money he stole to buff him over the Fighter.

Warriors can withstand more damage or completely block attacks with their shield
Mages can hit multiple targets at once with their magic
Thieves are faster and better at dodging

Hercules needs the buffs of a high-level mage's dna

The Prince needs the buffs of a mage (or the dragon was just a jobber)

the worst thing modern D&D created

Lmao. Gandalf and his fellow wizards are demigods for a reason.

Skill based gaming is better than class based gaming. Cyberpunk 2013 wiped the floor with AD&D back in 1988. Classes are too restrictive. All RPGs stem from Dying Earth, but even the wizards there would be considered multi-classing. Cugel the Clever wants to become the top dog wizard, but he uses stealth and guile all the time.

Fighter doesn't need any of that shit.
Just grind some more to overpower the monsters solo and keep some potions and scrolls of escape when things go the wrong way.

High Resource Management

Mage

Thief

Fighter

Low Resource Management

You're assuming he's using a regular ass sword to fight a dragon, the warriors always stack up on enchanted or blessed shit
you don't need to be a party entertainer to wield them

I prefere games with more free character building too, but in the end, you are either gonna fall into one of the archetype or a custom mix of them no matter what you choose. Like, my custom Elder Scrolls character is just 70% warrior, 30% thief

Please MageCHAD just a few potions and scrolls to save me... I need to go grind my skills, to reach the peak of the human physique, all so I can still be weaker than the ogre and slower than the goblin...

M-Money? Oh, well, I got paid pocket change to beat up some hobos in front of a crowd, since I have no actual life skills...

W-What do you mean you have an exclusive trade deal with ThiefCHAD?

No, the warrior just has great supernatural strength, endurance and reflexes, honed from years of training because it is fantasy and not tied to real life physics so getting powerful enough to beat a dragon in melee is possible.

Right, so the real classes are Mage's Familiar, Mage, and Mage's Familiar.

So the Warrior is really just a Mage who got his magic by using a natural ritual to strengthen his body into the supernatural?

There are games which pulled off having no classes. Cataclysm, Arcanum, Fallout, Kenshi, CoQ, and VtMBL come to mind.

store.steampowered.com/app/502750/Quest_for_Glory_15/

The three archetypes have fundamentally different solutions to problems. A warrior kicks down the door and kills all the bandits in order to save the princess. A wizard might use illusions or teleportation to abscond with the princess from within. A thief uses disguise, stealth, and a bit of skullduggery while relying on combat as an absolute last resort.
As for balancing, most games fail to give the wizard a meaningful magical reagent cost. Wizards should need stuff and time to cast their magic (eye of newt, acorns, whatever). Fighters should always beat thieves in a straight up fight. Thieves should have lots of ways to make fights unfair.

they don't but they kind of do
at first they might give you a blank slate but you can skew your build towards a "class" of some sorts

Nah, I just loot the potions and scrolls that I need from the dungeons I explore and loot them from the bodies of the numerous magecucks I kill on my journey.

all these uppity magekeks

Lmao as if you fags will EVER-EVEN IN A FANTASY- EVER reach arcane knowledge/wisdom so ancient and so powerful to best something as great as a Dragon. You want to bring reality in this fantasy and prevent these braindead grugs from somersaulting with a giant sword into the skull of a dragon. I am certain that you intcels are too low IQ, undedicated, unmotivated, wise or cleaver, or apathetic lacking ambition and courage to ever discover; let alone cast true dragon-besting magic spells.

The best you will do is basic fire/lightning spells.

I visited an altar, a god asked me for a favor and after helping him, he gave me the "Magic? Lol, Lmao" shield

Warrior is your tankchad

Mage is your big dick damager and buffer

Thief gets you more loot

There everyone is happy

Warrior is good at combat and mediocre at everything else

Thief is good at utility and mediocre at everything else

Mages...uhh let's just give them a huge diverse selection of spells that they are good at everything.

Don't do this.

Only mages are sllowed to break the laws of physics and warriors have to follow them, even though it's fantasy and in real life, mages don't even exist.

Maybe if you see builds themselves as classes. I guess that could be applied to IRL as well. I've messed up because my old-ass parents went for autist build for me during character creation.

This
If the fantasy of being a fighter is contrasted against being a mage, then the fighter just being a mage that uses only pretty specific kinds of magic is lame for that fantasy.
You're NOT a warrior or a fighter, you're a mage pretending to be a warrior or fighter.
You're NOT fighting by your own strength, you're just a weird, larping mage.
I have no problem with battlemages and the like, because again, they're not pretending they're not mages. They're just a mage opting into weapons, armor/whatever, instead of a mage locking themselves in a chastity cage for immersion.

Aren't they pretty much the same in the end?
Just some stats you prioritize over others

That's what the thief does. The fighter dies miserably to his first mimic, as the magic creature chews his non-magic face off and the thief shakes his head, knowing he would never fall for it.

Why would you define "magic" within the context of the setting based on real life physics that's retarded

I don't need you, Mage I need things from! I have another god (read: Mage) who gave me things I needed!

Heracles is actually using divine magic, though. Normal people cannot do what Heracles did, because Heracles is a demigod. Not figuratively, literally.
And almost always, the prince or knight slaying the dragon needs a Merlin, because normal people cannot, in fact, kill a dragon with raw strength and just being that good. They need a Merlin, or a magic sword from a watery tart, or a potion. Magic.

You don't.
Classes are stupid.
DnDfags are retarded
Your sacred cows are false idols.

The problem is that Mage fags always talk like they're perpetually at max power and that the magic they use is always completely free if any form of rite or ritual and can be used at will, and can instantly kill or do anything.

Pretty much that annoying kid on the playground who won't go along with the stuff the other kids want to do because he has an "invincible force field".

Yes, breaking the laws of the natural world is magic. By doing so, you're a mage. If you aren't a mage, you aren't breaking the laws of the natural world.

Now the Fighter is begging for change on the street corner and hoarding basic supplies?

pathetic small mage hands wrote this

Laws of the natural world in a fantasy setting aren't going to be the same as in real life

alternatively mage corpses keep generously donating their shiny trinkets

Warrior is simple, has a lot of health, does a lot of damage, but has to do it within arm's reach. Spends all his dosh on potions and gear repair.

Wizard does ridiculously high damage in large areas, eg everywhere on screen. Has to be alone because would kill companions. Magic isn't controllable. The more you use it, the more it randomly happens by itself. You can't go to towns, talk to people or trade. Else everyone there tries to kill you to end your reign of terror. You miss out on story entirely and instead hear wizards own suppositions of what is happening and reasons to go on. Don't use magic is the real goal. So you can get laid.

Dick ass theif is sneaky, religious, and weak. Is ignored and pretends that it's stealth. Nobody wants anything to do with your mischievous mug. Nobody wants the association. Because of that you're in control of when you engage in combat. At least when not being rejected or defended from. Shoot arrows, hit things that aren't prepared, run away. Good for players who don't want any threat. Want to be the bad guy. Other scum will try and team up with you in schemes to steal from others, in the fantasy of improving their station. Delve into under worlds where people don't hide their immorality from you, sure you're on their side, and see an opportunity as it's available. Any taking your interest.

For me it's the Warrior/Thief hybrid class

Nah, I just loot the potions

The Thief already nicked those

and scrolls

You can't read or cast those

that I need

Uh oh

from the dungeons I explore

The Thief and Mage already finished theirs, and are already in yours

and loot them from the bodies of the numerous magecucks I kill on my journey

That wasn't a body, it was an illusion, that exploded into snakes, poison, and big dicked tarantulas when you touched it. While you were busy dying of poison and fighting snakes and penis spiders, the thief picked your pocket and split the money 60/40 with the mage.

Fightercuck malding. Maybe you'll get an enchanted sword if you keep grinding at the lumbermill for currency, wagie.
This Fightercuck DELUSION can be ruined in many ways.

MageCHAD's items are enchanted and only work for him.

MageCHAD's magic bodyguard summon kneecaps the Fightercuck as he approaches.

MageCHAD gets stabbed in the back, carries on with his day because he is already immortal.

Now, if this Fightercuck was just looting weaker MageCHAD bodies that died against more powerful foes, I could understand it. But then he's just a worse thief.

A case study

Clive

Your big damage and burly tank. Slow, guaranteed to move at the end of the turn. Most enemies are susceptible to physical damage. His unique Lock-On gives him higher, damage but later on its wasteful to use when setting up Finest Arts with him is the biggest damage in the game.

Gallows

You need to expend opportunity cost that could be spent doing some utility like buffing or healing if you want to attack. Useful for enemies with elemental weaknesses but otherwise you can do better with buffing. His unique skill is the only way to get AoE magic.

Virginia

Fastest party member by far, guaranteed to always go before everyone else. Low physical damage, middling magic damage - best suited to use for support by giving people items. Her unique skill is the only way to get AoE items which lets her double duty as a secondary mage if Gallows has to do something else.

Jet

He does whatever else you need. Doesn't really have a dedicated role which is kinda the point. Set up debuffs, shoot, use more items if necessary, whatever. His unique skill is Accelerator which lets him get first move in a given turn so you can get more damage, items, spells, etc. in case of emergency.

Keep dreaming manaboy. I'll break you in half

Ever heard of selling your shit to someone else?

*casts spell of limp penis and noodle limbs, easily outspeeding you with my enchanted robes of haste*

they're perpetually at max power

Yes, just as the fighters are fantasizing about killing dragons, not wrestling for their life over a dagger with a goblin in a ditch, while a second goblin bites their leg.

dude really posted "you're not a real man" to accuse another man of behaving like a woman

Peak irony.

Why would anyone bother selling to the Fighter when the Thief is clearly a better deal?

actually has a brain

has utility

less physical ability isn't too bad because you can buff him

has more money from looting better valuables faster than the few lucky fighters ever could

And I'll cast "homoerotica intrusivo", now you will be plagued by gay, intrusive thoughts for the rest of your life.

The Problem is that you idiots keep letting the mages talk talk talk when that's where his power comes from. Just cover his mouth and a Mage is pretty much helpless.

My mage has a second mouth on his invisible familiar that he can speak from, what now? Also

implying you'll ever meet my mage in person and not simulacrum #52961

Both those struggles are cool in their own way though. There literally are fantasies just about Fighters really good at killing Goblins and nothing else.

Every Mage fantasy is about secretly being overpowered and having abilities that make them unstoppable.

This reads like something off encyclopedia dramatica.

Probably not the best example, but I will always love how Final Fantasy XI managed THF in general.

Crit damage from behind (Sneak Attack)

Bonus damage if attacking behind a party member, giving aggro to the person in frong

Can steal items

Can steal buffs

Can steal aggro from other party members

Nigga, there's a whole process to going after a dragon
it isn't as simple as go to cave > fuck lizard
ever heard of going on an adventure, towercuck?

Every mage gangsta until its opponent use a spell scroll of silence

Fighterfags hate him because he spoke the truth

"Stealing" Spell effects, along with Metaphysical stuff in general, is one of my favorite gimmicks for Thieves in fantasy.

Anyone remember when Cyberpunk 2077 was announced there were always threads on Anon Babble asking what class people were going to play? Before we knew they weren't using the class system from the RPG. None of the classes were "the best", everyone was happy with their own thing, people weren't always trying to put each other down. It was a breath of fresh air compared to fantasy class threads. I think D&D has a lot to answer for.

Warrior

Doesn't die in a single hit.

Mage

Probably the most useful party member just because he actually gets AoE attacks and can end random trash encounters in a single turn. Dies in a single hit.

Thief

Theoretically has big dick single-target defence-piercing physical attacks with better damage numbers than the Mage, but chances are he'll waste turns using the STEAL command to get you extra gold and items. Dies in a single hit, but unlike Mage he's fast and has a decent chance to dodge attacks.

take two turns

Of course it's the mage that cheats

You forgot their most essential role. Treasure hunter, which got them into every high level NM party always even if they did literally 1 damage a hit

That's because the classes in cyberpunk actually don't step on each others' toes. D&D classes do. There was a full edition of the game where Clerics were better at fighting than Fighters and people threw an enormous fit at the edition that actually put classes into roles and balanced them.

be me

mageCHAD

just got finished from my adventure in the astral realm, where I made an astral demon lord my bitch for some astral babes

on my way to the realm of suffering to pick up a new spell right now

see fightercuck on his way to some dragon lair

already exorcised it of uber powerful ghost dragons in the mirror realm a week ago, left the normal dragon to not deplete an endangered species

examine the fightercucks gear with my monocle of checking

ohnononono, an enchanted sword and NOTHING else, made by some shitter mage who had to sell to a fighter for some reason, probably a prank

no one needs pocket change that badly

cast spell of dragonimpregnate on him

a dragon comes out of my fingers and rapes him, screaming

fightercuck can't do anything, I enchanted my finger dragon against rudimentary spells

go back on my way to the realm of suffering, laughing knowing that the amount of dragons in the world will stay the same

be me

evil mageCHAD

peep in my scrying orb while my cauldron full of villainy stirs itself with a mage hand

looking in lesser mage's tower

he's blowing all his spell slots on illusion spells where he imagines being in the astral realm and casting "dragonimpregnate" (???)

misty step in his filthy ass room and counterspell his daydreams

prestidigitate a brown stain in his pants with a suspicious smell

leave

be me

EVILER mageCHAD

see some stupid loser mages fight over something petty, probably

stop time

teleport to each one

capture their souls

seal them both in my toilet forever

Every Mage fantasy is about secretly being overpowered and having abilities that make them unstoppable.

Not even close
There are TONS of stories in which mages are scraping at the edges of what a given setting has to offer, to come up with semi-competant results

He did say "robes of haste", anon

Make thieves hit faster, dodge easier and have a high crit chance. Also give them good loot to steal.
Give warriors high damage and the ability to destroy their enviroment.
Leave mages as they already are in most RPGs. They are fine

ect

t. Retard

Class/build diversity is important for replayability and every player getting their ideal flavor without getting punished. Severe imbalance also leads to a shitty community with faggots who jerk off the strongest class and shit on everything else.

oh yeah? Well I have an armour of magic reflect. Who's gay NOW? HUH?

mage also fights or engages in violence so is also fighter

Who made it for you? Your husband?

chloroform

Bill Cosby thief?

From the other mage who asked the same

Anything supernatural should be infinitely powerful

t. Retard
All powers have limits and conditions.

I always felt thief was a silly class because it implied that an intelligent mage does not know how to pick locks to doors and treasure chests. Thief should just be replaced with assassin since assassins are already required to know how to break into buildings

I cast my spell of bypass magic reflect duh

9 times out of ten they aren't balanced. And only the warrior is useable.

ok now imagine that it's an RPG with many different types of monsters and not some 1v1 fighting game with only 3 types.

Classes are more about locking you into a certain path. Builds come from freedom of choice more or less. Once you choose a class in Oblivion or Morrowind, that's it. Skyrim has no major and minor skills. You have freedom.

so you think everyone is dumber than the average locksmith

I use my comically huge axe to kill you

without getting punished

Where the fuck is the punishment in a single player game?

people will bully me online for playing a weak class

Jesus fucking christ anon.
No amount of class balancing is going to get rid of your insecurities you know.

Be me, guard.

Called to shoo away some weirdos hanging out behind the brothel.

Arrive to find some schizos shrieking at eachother and digging through the dumpster for discarded unmentionables.

One of them stepped on their baggie of shrooms in their struggle.

I don't get paid enough for this shit.

The guy whose spent his entire life in study of the arcane

Is somehow supposed to have time to learn how to pick complex mechanical locks.

I'm immune to comically huge axes because of my spell: anti-comically huge axes and also anti-anti-magic

Being a generic background character is its own special form of hell. Not relevant enough to shift anything yet still forced to endure for the sake of the cosmic narrative.

Why is the high INT class played exclusively by faggots?

I have asked myself this for decades. A truly smart person can make anything viable work, often reveling in variety and intellectual challenge. Only insecure retards need power handed to them on a silver platter.

The difference in their utility is that rogues focus on more mundane and practical skills, instead of cloistering themselves in their tower-basement for decades.

fuck off nonwizard guardcel we're engaging in MageCHAD discourse far above your pay grade
our business behind the brothel is perfectly legitimate and required for our debates

Balance is gay. Make each of them feel like you're playing their respective class, and then implement moments where each gets to do something cool and helpful that's thematic. Who gives a fuck if Mages have 90 unique actions, Thieves have 82, and Fighters only have 77? And who cares if the Piss-Out-Of-My-Ass build guide someone uploaded onto YouTube makes Thieves 7% less likely to die than the other classes, or if Fighters have a 12 second faster world record speed run time than the second highest class? This shit doesn't fucking matter.

Make it so mages can do everything warriors and thieves do but 1000x better. Magiclets belong in chains.

He can just cast summon: lock picking guide. Or even better, summon: lock picking spirit.

My sword goes through all defences, including anti comically huge axe immunity, it's not an enchantment, it's just very very sharp, so your anti-anti-magic doesn't apply.

Warrior and thief should be able to use magic to enhance their strength or dexterity beyond human limits on par with mage

No this is fine actually. Giving everyone magical abilities is a perfectly viable solution. That doesn't turn all classes into the "Mage" class.

Congratulations, you sold your soul to a demon over a chest that turned out to only contain half a potion of Intestinal Fortitude and 3 silver coins.

play Tales of Maj'Eyal and tell me that a berserker is a "Mage" class

*casts regeneration*
*casts levitate, floats just above your reach*
Alright, you got ONE chance to apologize to all mageCHADS before I turn you into figgy pudding.

"only" contain half a potion of Intestinal Fortitude

WORTH!!!

implying a mage can tank anything higher than a baby goblin punch

I don't speak to the dead

I cast summon: demon raper (specifically a rapist who rapes demons).
We either do this the easy way or the hard way, devil boy.

it kinda makes sense in world with magic that you put a make contents explode if a magic nigger tries to steal it spell.
but you still need physical mechanism to to open or lock the chest

I already had immortality cast on me this morning. You DO cast immortality on yourself, right...? OH NO I FORGOT YOU'RE A FIGHTERKEK AHAHAHAHA.
I've changed my mind, enjoy being a snail.
*turns you into a snail*

I summon Demon Rapper
Prepare to get schooled

Players often start with more simple, grounded classes to learn the basic mechanics of the games, then transition to classes that use that understanding to bound off into more intricate game design and mechanics, with more potential.

This isn't how people play at all. People just pick their "favorite" class, usually the flavor of fantasy they want to play the most.

another anon did this a while ago
vocaroo.com/11NfOAZwLgur

Kill mage

Go look at the note

Greetings, to my slayer. You have killed a clone made by my simulacrum. Well done! In between 30 seconds and two hours, I'll get back to you and we can discuss my terms.

Also, I prepared Explosive Runes today.

Wizards like Dragon marked for death or magicka where there's spell inputs and memorization

Make Wizardfags actually need to be smart and studious to play the class.

?
It's how literally everyone I have ever known has played.
You're weird.

Why are average foot soldier and reality warper presented like equally valid choices then

Do you want 3.5? Because that's how you get 3.5

Warrior is a direct combat master with staying power and many ways to attack.

Thief is the utility master that has many ways to assist outside of combat and many ways to do so in combat without directly engaging. A warrior should never lose to a thief in direct combat unless he's hilariously outleveled. An equal-level warrior should shit his pants if he has to approach a thief who has head several minutes to plan and prep ahead of time.

Mage goes even further than thief and is all prep. He has endless ways to manipulate the battlefield, but can be completely useless if he didn't bring the right tools to the fight. Also, he should be the heaviest and resources. Whoops, ran out of juice. Guess I better burn this scroll that cost the equivalent of a small piece of real estate just to stop this warrior from throwing some wood with a pointy metal tip at me.

Because they're both people :)
*casts stand around in a circle holding hands on everyone everywhere*
*casts sunny days and friendship*

Yeah, King Arthur was totally pretending that Excalibur wasn't a magic sword.

because in most games "reality warper" actually just plays like fire/ice/lightning turret

Actual imbalance usually takes the form of mages one shotting superbosses while thieves are mathematically incapable of defeating it at all, and such
Hell, old RPGs would have half of a class's skills just not fucking work, or do something completely different than the description says
Your disdain for overbalancing ignores just how bad just throwing shit in with 0 polish or testing in older games would get

Also, I prepared Explosive Runes today.

I understood that reference.

Pretty much that annoying kid on the playground who won't go along with the stuff the other kids want to do because he has an "invincible force field".

The funny thing is that DnD actually made a spell like that called Wall of Force.

Nothing can pass through it, not even if you are a ghost and go to the ethereal plane. Oh and it can't be dispelled. Oh and it's invisible, so you can't see it either. Oh and I can teleport through it, just because.

There's no argument that Wizards shouldn't be all powerful and good in every situation but they should definitely need to have a functional iq the games I listed are the best examples of good magic systems in gaming I've played. Open to suggestions though too I love good systems

If magic exists in the world, then you aren't breaking any of its laws, retard.

wrestling for their life over a dagger with a goblin in a ditch, while a second goblin bites their leg.

Nah, this is based as fuck. Great way to start a game.

I have always felt that devs who try to balance their single player game are fucking retarded and will never make a true masterpiece.
None of the greatest games of all time cared about balance, it doesn't matter. It's fine if players find some interactions that make broken builds that steamroll the game, thats part of the fun and actually enhances the experience.

Where the fuck is the punishment in a single player game?

You are punished by having a much harder time than you would if you picked the strongest class.

>people will bully me online for playing a weak class

Jesus fucking christ anon.

No amount of class balancing is going to get rid of your insecurities you know.

I do just fine, no need to project. This thread is from the perspective of a game developer designing classes. Ignoring the effect your decisions have on the playerbase is retarded.

Any more stupid questions?

Your opinion is retarded.

Yeah, when a group of friends new to a game start up, they all pick Fighter to get used to the system first. They don't go Fighter, Thief, Mage, Cleric, or pick whatever sounds cool. No one does that.

they should definitely need to have a functional iq

I wouldn't mind that tb h, I just want you to realize that you're exchanging a horde of fireball throwers for a handful of god wizards.
If you want class parity the last thing you should do is to encourage smart people to focus on a specific one made for them. It's gonnabe funny for THEM, not for the warriors.
As for balance, I'm a big fan of just adding the thief class as a whole into the warrior and giving him access to magic toys, and have the wizard be an alternate way to do the same shit all on his own.
Basically Morrowind, where there's a spell effect to replace every non magical skill, but with more action style combat to make it more engaging for warriors.

difficulty is punishment

Lmao. This from the mouth of a retard who thinks he's looking at the issue from a dev's perspective.
As if challenge runs weren't one of the top forms of engagement you see in game communities.

Difficulty is good and engaging when it is voluntarily chosen, retard. A new player getting "Nightmare" mode when they think they are picking "Normal" is shit design.

There's no argument that Wizards shouldn't be all powerful and good in every situation

Yes there is; it's called resources. A mage shouldn't be all powerful for the same reason a warrior doesn't have infinite strength, infinite damage, or infinite HP. All mages having infinite magical power doesn't make sense at all

It's simple actually:
warrior is about using one or two tools
mage is having a ton of tools that only work at the right moment
thief is about very nice glass tools that shatter if you aren't careful
You will know you have succeeded when warriors complain that they only hit things with their tools, mages complain that they weren't given every tool ever, and thieves complain that their tools are broken after chucking them at the wall.

Classes/archetypes as prebuilds

Fighters are split between smaller subclasses like soldier, knight, merc, etc

Mages and rouges have similar subclasses

You're given feats, equipment, and a boost to some stats, but once you start it's all free form from there.

In practice every class is about using one or two tools because those tools are so much more useful than all the others

Difficulty is never excessive in comparison, it's only excessive in the absolute.
By your reasoning, nerfing the stronger class makes the game easier for the weaker one.
You're just trying to disingenuously pull unrelated shit into the mix.

Since these days no one wants to actually make the magic users think carefully about their spell slots, the next best alternative is to make them very likely to be actively dangerous to the party like in Warhammer (either one). Better hope your wizard/psyker knows what they're doing or they WILL drop a half-dozen bloodletters on your healer.

Difficulty is never excessive in comparison, it's only excessive in the absolute.

There is no logical reason why difficulty can't be excessive in comparison, even if it isn't excessive in the absolute. If you start a new job at the same time as a coworker and you are lifting 100lb boxes while they are lifting 10lb boxes, your job is excessively difficult in comparison, even if your job is still technically doable.

But even from an absolute perspective, playing the game as an underpowered class is absolutely more difficult than playing it as an oveepowered class.

By your reasoning, nerfing the stronger class makes the game easier for the weaker one.

That's a sleight of hand and not what I said at all. I'm saying having gross imbalance unfairly levies a punishment (i.e. opportunity cost) on the player unknowingly picking the underpowered class. Nerfing the stronger class absolutely DOES reduce the opportunity cost of not picking the OP class.

You're just trying to disingenuously pull unrelated shit into the mix.

Literally none of what I'm saying is unrelated. You just keep trying to deflect.

be me, necromancerCHAD

see wizard corpses some guy left behind after engaging in magical shittery

raise some skeleton mages

fuck yeah skeleton mages

I'm fine with this too, if magic is universal to all classes and brings everyone to the realm of demigods, everyone wins.

Key: + = Strong, ~ = Middling, - = Weak
Mages: + Damage, + Utility, + Range, - Defense, - Mobility, - Sustain

Snipes with nukes.

Has a spell for any situation.

Can't run for shit.

Built like a wet tissue.

Anything they do is limited by MP pool.

All their good stuff is gained late game (including teleport).

No good armor.

Warriors: + Damage, - Utility, - Range, + Defense, ~Mobility, + Sustain

Howitzers for biceps.

Runs like a charging bull.

Has to run up close to deal damage.

Built Ford Tough.

Can swing his weapon for days.

Their core skill set is learned early on.

Can't solve a problem if violence isn't the solution.

All the best armor

Thieves: ~ Damage, + Utility, ~ Range, ~ Defense, + Mobility, ~ Sustain

Secondary effects are the major damage dealer.

Range-y but not as much as the Mage.

A tool for any occasion.

Runs circles around every one.

Not as bitch-made as the mage, but no where near a tank.

Longevity is limited only to inventory, which they have a lot of.

Core skills all throughout progression.

Maxes out at low end of high armor.

By having more to the gameplay than just combat. Video game developers have never played DnD.

Muh dialogue choices!

They always feel like shit, because they must, by necessity, be very limited, and thus, player.thinking and skill is depreciated.

inb4 "AI will solve this!!!"

Look at the retard who thinks the chatbot is a real person.

I need to know what genre of RPG we're talking about. My answer is different if you're asking me a Dark Messiah type game versus an Oblivion type game.
What I can tell you is that everyone who tries to answer this question by saying what they would do with the class is oversimplfying what RPGs are really about. FPSs are not the weapons, platformers are not your jumping mechanics, beat em ups are not the stages. They are, if I may borrow , the opponent you are facing in rock paper scissors. You want to balance the classes, your mind must be focused on having the encounters in the game allow for each.
I don't care if thieves have complicated backstabs if a warrior can beat the game without relying on gimmicks.

Wizards trivialize many non-combat situations as well, shit like knock or feather fall exist and give stupid amounts of utility.

They should just remove all non-magic skills.
All classes should be magic. It should just be a question of what type of wizard you are.

Warrior is just a wizard with strong enchanted armor / wards and conjured weapons.
Mage is essentially a caster / summoner specialized
Thief is just a wizard with knock / illusion spells / magic acrobatics

All multi-classes are just linear combinations of different schools of magic.

but he uses stealth and guile all the time.

As a wise sonic poster once said, rogues are the protagonist class.

sneaky

use guile/wits

nimbler/smaller then their enemies

From Paul Atreides to Rincewind, to even Conan and Robin Hood, our heroes are swashbucklers who face off against fighters and win through superior brains.
If a game offer that kind of rogue to me as a choice, I would be up for it.

Your opinion is intelligent.

warrior has armor/weapon deterioration

mage has limited mana/spell slots

thief has steal/stealth and/or crits/status

be me

wizard

cast fireballs/lighting/all sorts of stuff

can tear off the flesh off an orc's skull

I have no way to bash open a chest with my spells

can't just, you know, command the chest to open itself up

excessively

By virtue of what? You can do it, and it's not gonna get any easier if the other guy also has to lift the same weight.
So how is it excessively hard by comparison? You're just butthurt the other guy has it easier than you.

more difficult

You keep going back and forth between more difficult and too difficult, do you even realize it?
It's not the same fucking thing.

not what I said at all

Of course it's not what you said, that'd be retarded of you. It IS however the necessary implication of what you said.
The fact you can't enjoy something if you know someone else got it easier is literally a you problem. You're basically bragging about being a meta slave in sp.
Trying to argue opportunity cost on account of difficulty inherently implies that whoever plays on the hardest difficulty is knowingly making his experience worse.

Warrior is strong mage is magic and thief is fast end of arguement