Not all spells, magic items, or even spell-using classes, are born equal. Some spells, most of them in fact, are placed on weird non-linear, non-logical scales which puts a spell like fireball at the same level as stinking cloud, despite them not being even close to each other in power. A lot of other spells are needlessly repeated, such as the cure and inflict lines of spells, and many others are horrendously unclear or very strange in their effects. Magic items, on the other hand, range from incredibly vital to totally useless, and with standard Wealth By Level being incredibly favourable to some classes and not others. Additionally, the charging of gold for them makes strip-mining the setting a good thing, and large dragon hoards a bad one. As for spell-using classes, just compare the w