Alchemist's Fire won't touch *incorporeal* swarms, though; you need blast spells for that. But we've got decent Burning Hands coverage on this group, at least.
Plany...it was an inside joke.
You couldn't understand.
(Plus I made sure to have Channel...on BOTH characters in this AP)
It's gonna suck when it's an incorporeal swarm of diminuitive oozes that are immune to fire.
As long as it's not a legion of Devil-Bound(Horned Devil) Army Ant Swarms, I'm all fine.
(plus, last time the character was a pure controller, and we had no blaster whatsoever...plus it had walls to retreat into against non-instants)
Eh... but nobody ever actually makes blaster characters anymore, because their damage output is so underwhelming.
Except psychics, those guys fry everything. But are also terrible against swarms. (yesterday I sent a team of two psychic duelists against my IRL party, and they managed to OHKO each of the party fighters, though the wizard ultimately got them with magic jar.)
Underwhelming damage output? Thats min-max talk.
Blasters are made for FUN, not for optimization.
Still, the point was, to make it more clear: We had no "blast spell" whatsoever in the whole party.
And let me quote:
Alchemist's Fire won't touch *incorporeal* swarms, though; you need blast spells for that. But we've got decent Burning Hands coverage on this group, at least.
Oh. Yep! You are 100% correct in these points. Okay then.
Truthfully, I don't mind that Blasters are rarely on top of the DPR lists. I mean, there'd be nothing left for classes like the Fighter if they were. XD;
THEM'S FIGHTING WORDS
WHY MUST EVERYONE ON THE FORUMS CONSTANTLY INSIST ON TRASHING THE FIGHTER, WHICH HAS ALWAYS BEEN ONE OF THE MOST INTERESTING, VERSATILE, AND POWERFUL CLASSES IN ALL OF PF
/endrant
Seriously, though, while wizards get pretty good at high levels, a well-built 10th-level martial character will have a LOT more combat options, save-or-die, and lockdown/battlefield control abilities than a 10th-level caster.
I may be wrong, but I think what Rednal meant was that in terms of pure utility, a caster wins.
In terms of stuff to do outside combat, skill monkeys and casters win.
What's left for the martials, mechanics-wise, is to shine in combat.(I do, however, contest the battlefield control part in your list...that's still casters)
If they were to be outperformed in that aspect, too, it would be a sad day for martials.
If my interpretation is correct, you are actually in agreement.
The problem is the lack of non-combat options. XD
True, Fighters didn't get over that until WMH (although Lore Wardens and Eldritch Guardians are okay). Still—rangers, monks, and to a lesser extent brawlers and barbarians have plenty they can do outside of combat.
I do, however, contest the battlefield control part in your list...that's still casters)
There's a bit of a rock-paper-scissors of it... casters might be better at locking down fighters. But an optimized martial character can effectively ruin a dozen enemies' ability to fight at the same time, or completely lock down a few casters simultaneously, and do it without having to worry about guessing enemy saves.
(And no caster dispels magic even 1/5 as well as a monk with a bandolier of dispelling shurikens)
Honestly, this would just turn into the form game, so not going there.
Simply said, in OVERALL battlefield control, and in my experience, casters win, courtesy of each having a wider range of possible tricks. YMMV(and one big part may be easy availability of equipment you seem to need for your Martials to pull of their tricks - possibly that's a group-specific aspect shifting the power balance).
I love magic! My wife loves swording things in the face. Everything works itself out.
The big difference as I see it, between martials and casters, is that casters have a wide variety of resources and preparations they need to choose from, resulting in trying to meticulously predict any situation and then often being frustrated by preparing the wrong tools or managing resources badly. Martials, on the other hand, are more fixed in the tricks they can perform, but can do most of those tricks many times, at any point, without worrying about using them up.
As someone who prefers improvisation to preparation in RPGs, I'm more a fan of martials (and when I play casters, I almost always go spontaneous). I also like the general flexibility, and the fact that martials can handle a wider range of enemies than most spellcasters can.
* * *
(I should mention I *don't* consider Child-of-Planes to be a martial character; he's a melee DPS, but since he's got nothing to do other than attack or cast spells, he's not at all built the way a typical martial character should be)
But also, there are are melee DPS classes—barbarian, swashbuckler, medium, etc. Fighters can build for melee DPS, but it's *not* what they excel at; a real fighter (unless they're a weapon master) wants to do battlefield control.
Even with Spontaneous, there's so many shenanigans the Shadow Spells alone let you do, with improvisation...
the problem I see with martials is that you are significantly held back by dependence on magical equipment to excel at things. That eats into their budget and can leave dangerous weaknesses. If you instead opt to patch those up, you lose even more of the options you are "buying", effectively.
But I already suggested to simply consider it table variance and assume everything works out in mysterious ways. *shrugs*
Yeah... and I've got enough of that. Just, we've got no characters at this table I'd consider "actual martials," and I think that actually applies to every rednalgame I'm in. Huh.
Your Northlands-Saga had, actually, a stated preference for Martials.
Only didn't get in. Would have loved to play a build that effectively dual-wields throwing axes as switch hitter. -_-
Northlands has weapon-DPS characters, but none of them actually really use any combat maneuvers, reach, switch-hitting, or any of the other tactics I'd think of as "martial." But I'm weird about these things.
We're all weird in our own way ^_^
Also, as I'm not in, I could only judge from recruitment, where it was stated as such *shrug*
Right. I tend to break down character roles into:
-Skills (rather than a dedicated role, characters should combine some quantity of this with other roles to be useful, and this one can be broken down further)
-Offensive caster (your typical wizard, shadow sorc, etc—targets enemy saves)
-Defensive caster (cleric, bard, etc—targets allies)
-DPS (character who focuses on things with damage); can be AoE (wizard, alchemist, reach barb, jabbing monk), single-target (barb, magus, ranger, cavalier), high-accuracy (gunslinger, swashbuckler), or low-accuracy (medium, melee druid, rogue); targets AC
-Martial specialist/tank (but "tank" means many things to many people); focuses on keeping party alive, restricting enemy movement; usually targets CMD, but may also focus on unsaveable abilities or bluff/intimidate/specialty equipment; can be AoE (lore warden, snap shot archer, reach monk), or single-target (dirty trick specialist, grappler monk, kineticist, investigator, brawler)
Because martial specialist characters require far, far more feats than DPS characters in order to be effective, it's a role mostly limited to fighters, monks, and brawlers, though kineticists, investigators, and plenty of archetypes get unique abilities that make them decent at it. Since most players have a thing against fighters and monks, though, you rarely see them played, which is why most people don't realize how incredibly powerful a Dirty Trick/Grapple Maneuver Master can be (the answer is: far better than any wizard at enemy lockdown.)
Right, okay. Solution: i've been using a bad definition of "martial." Good talk.
Still, I've never seen a martial-controller character in any Rednalgame, which is interesting because the feat tax means they really excel in gestalt.
Oh, I know it's a setting-specific thing.
I just meant to say despite your bias, I already made a pure martial for you, by request(even if setting-specific), no less. ^_^
Instead of SWAT-ing it up, why not just Shadowrun the place? Run in, intimidate/fast-talk anyone in the way, and then anyone who wants to fight gets handled nonlethally because killing would be too much paperwork.
Now that I've got my swords, Child can do non-lethal melee DPSing, although hmm it might be harder for the rest of y'all. (Isen, got a sap?)
I'd be all up for that, except in that case I would want to stat up a rigger/decker, and as far as Lomrick is concerned, it WILL be wetwork.
Not having played Shadowrun, would it be simpler for Isen to quickly peruse the premises and return with evidence of wrong doing?
Heh. Okay, Shadowrun tactics (which feel oddly appropriate now):
-Proceed room-by-room or floor-by-floor. Sneakiest guy goes first (or sends drones/familiars if he has them), but always stays within shouting range of the rest of the team
-The best spells are spells that disable enemies.
-If possible, steal enemy uniforms/appearances or just simply try to talk your way through combat before actually fighting it.
One reason being, at least in the editions I played, the immense lethality.
A single burst could incapacitate or kill you. And back then, Initiativ-passes meant unless you had wired reflexes/move-by-wire/the adept power the name of which i forgot, that cybered enemy could get up to four bursts off before you get to act again.
Hence my preference for rigging(then again, I was a Rigger/Decker/Physical Adept/Face...because GM did not want me to focus on one aspect). If things go wrong, thats expensive, but not lethal. My Renraku Stormcloud with a heavily modified sniper got most of the teams kills, I believe.
Amusing anecdote: One time, I was decking and still busy with Black ICE when the team retrieved a person we were to extract. I was sitting in our Roadmaster, with a lynx ordered to shoot anybody not part of our team trying to enter the car.
They pushed the extracted guy into the car...and he got greeted by a full burst. Mr. Johnson was NOT happy.
@Reddie: I think the majority consensus is to use stealth. I'll gladly wait with Vincent, spend some time talking while Plany Scouts and Isen keeps watch, or something like that.
Either way, no new input came, so I think stealth it is.
Happy to sneak.
Starfinder! D:
@GM Rednal
Could I potentially use Ears of the City to gather information about Relstanna, specifically hoping to find out that she is being held here and was taken against her will?
Since it's only observation, not actual interaction, the interpretation could also extend to those who did the abducting talking among themselves. Such as guards of the mansion, Lomrick's lackeys, the one's who did the deed. Or those who were with Relstanna or provided the information to Catrix, simply confirming that it indeed is most likely Lomrick had her taken and brought here...
If it's simply to put Vincent's mind at ease regarding breaking and entering, I think there may be some lee-way in interpretation?
(Also, the DC may always scale up significantly. If he casts on me(courtesy of perception being higher), I would have 3 rounds to make it but there's no guarantees-)
A chance is good enough for me!
@Rednal: Vincent confirmed the question picks in gameplay.
Mentioning it here because there's some overlap with my other Rednalgames—sorry I've been busy; the last month has been crazy and involved a lot of travel, and I've got jury duty coming up so I might continue being busy for a few more weeks.
Alternatively, would displaying your racial insensitivity by using various slang words describing minorities work to get out of jury duty? I mean, it's no crime to be a cliche redneck(unless your daughter is your niece, too), but they could hardly expect a fair judgement unless only people of your own socio-economic demographic were involved in the crime.
My argument against arresting me is always 'you'll never find anyone who can classed as my peer, so I can't be tried. And that mean's you can't stop me stealing all the gold, Batman!'
It's worked so far.
For me "That is a very interesting theory. But can you prove anything?" worked out great so far.
Come, Rednal. Join us in our larceny.
D: