I like them to be a little crunchy on the outside, with a mushy center.
But seriously-- a d6 hit die for mages feels like a bit too much.
I'm a GM, and one of my players created a witch. When he used the elite array, he put his high stats in Intelligence and Dexterity. Understandably he didn't want it to be too easy to die, so he put his third-best stat in Constitution.
So with a 13 Constitution, he started with 8 Hit Points (6 max hit points plus +1 CON mod plus +1 favored class bonus). This would put him not that far below the paladin in our group, who emphasized Strength, Dexterity, and Charisma before emphasizing Constitution and has 12 hit points.
It just doesn't feel right to me. I'm thinking that next time I should dock arcane casters (wizards, sorcerers, witches) downward to a d4 hit die.
I like a lot of changes that Pathfinder made to D&D 3.5, but I'm not sure I subscribe to beefing up the hit dies of casters to d6. I just like there to be a lot of differentiation between the classes, and I like having arcane casters be vulnerable at earlier levels so that they "earn" the great power they get at higher levels. I know that the witch has a much lower AC than the paladin, but I want the player with the witch to feel even more careful than he currently does when moving her around the battlemat. (Yes I'm sadistic that way!)
I wasn't on these boards during the playtesting phase of Pathfinder, but was the vulnerability of casters a big issue then? I'm just wondering, and also I want to know if other people feel like I do.
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Totally disagree
I don't see why an arcane caster would be squishier than a random commoner. If you cite their years cooped up studying books, well that would relate more to constitution than innate squishiness imo. And you're welcome to stat your mages with con less than 10. I wouldn't, but that's just me, and YMMV.
I see where you're coming from, I just disagree a little... I think any member of an adventuring class should be at least as hardy as a standard human being.
Don't forget, everything was also beefed up a bit, so weapons cause more damage, spells cause more damage, natural attacks cause more damage, etc. etc.
Also, by putting resources into Con, they're taking it away from Str (not that big a deal), Wis (good for Perception and Will saves) and Cha (good for interacting with folk). A high Wis can detect danger before it's near, and a high Cha can help avoid a dangerous encounter.
Also, if you make mages too squishy, then your players will be relunctant to play them, and you won't have any mages to squash! :-O
I had already house ruled d6 for casters before PF. As mentioned above, with increased strength bonuses to damage, there was alot more damage going on in 3.5. It was kinda ridiculous for casters to have less HD than commoners and fey. Also the difference between d6 and d10 will quickly become apparent in a few levels. First level characters are all rather squishy, I say give'em a break.
I wouldn't make them weaker than commoners - I guess I would just go by the hit dice in 3.5, which had commoners at d4 also I think.
That's a good point about Pathfinder monsters being deadlier, too. But I guess I'm also looking at a deadlier kind of campaign. I could also design the encounters differently, or have them start as apprentice characters. Of course I don't want to do anything or go for a certain "feel" if my players disagree.
Be careful how deadly you make it. I'm in a game on Sundays where people die every game. It's a lethal game but honestly, not a lot of us are having fun with it. We've spent so much on reincarnate that it'd actually be more cost effective to just stay dead and roll up a new character. Hell I'm still trying to pay off the negative level I got and I think I'm just going to get my cleric kill to roll up something else.
There is such thing as too much lethality and a d4 hit dice just seems too little. It's bad enough that you are a bit limited with your spells at level one, but with everything that can kill you at that level, that minus 2 HP really begins to make the caster classes look less fun. I can see everyone's first feat being Toughness. Or they could make a Synthecist and just not worry about HP. And can you imagine the strain on the cleric to try and keep the wizard alive? Not to mention, d4s roll terribly. They don't roll so much as they plop on a table miserably. I just don't think it'd be worth it to be honest.
Making the unarmored characters even more fragile is REALLY going to discourage their use, I'm thinking.
Also remember, the range of most witch hexes is 30 feet, which is well within a move and an attack roll for most monsters. So witches can't stay TOO far back from where the melee is, so they need a little bit of beefiness, especially since their defensive abilities are pretty much lacking.
EDIT:
I hate d4s too, Odraude. I try to avoid them as much as possible, and roll d8s and halve them if possible.
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I like my wizards like I like my coffee... covered in bees!!!
Wizards in 3.5 were too squishy, in my opinion.
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So with a 13 Constitution, he started with 8 Hit Points (6 max hit points plus +1 CON mod plus +1 favored class bonus). This would put him not that far below the paladin in our group, who emphasized Strength, Dexterity, and Charisma before emphasizing Constitution and has 12 hit points.
This is, in large part, restricted to 1st level. Assuming average rolls, the cap widens significantly and, by 5th level, your Paladin has 42 HP to the Wizard's 30. And it keeps going, with the wizard gaining two less per level than the Paladin.
Also, Paladin HP are deceptively low (usually lowest of the melee classes) due to the need to raise Charisma, and the coolness of Lay On Hands (Swift Action Healing) making it less needed (if he uses all his LoH on himself a 2nd level Paladin with Cha 14 will have the equivalent of 30 HP to a Wizard's 14). A 1st level Barbarian is likely to have something like double the Wizard's HP, and more when raging. A Fighter's will be between the two, but more likeluy on the Barbarian's end of the spectrum.
So, in summary, it's not so much that Wizards are tough as that first level Paladins are a little squishy.
I thought witches live in the wilderness because they are shunned by towns-folk? doesn't that make them hardier then your average library bookworm wizard? but inherently less social since they are shunned to begin with?
So your Paladin has always been quicker and thus never took many beatings during training sessions (dex > con), what's so bad about this?
Your percieved discrepancy is about attributes, not about class hit dice.
If that Paladin being squishy buggers you... maybe see if he wants to take the toughness feat? what did the Paladin take for favored class bonus?
in 3.0 and .5 you always had to be extremely lenient wth arcane casters at first level because they wouldn't survive the first orc that got close to them with their lousy 5 to 6 hit points.
At higher level you will see the difference isnt that big anymore. On average they get one extra hit point per level, in return a lot of spells are less powerful than before. Enemies are more dangerous, combat characters have more punch (weapon/armor training for fighters, rage powers and medium armor proficiency for barbarians, etc.), rogue types have also gotten more hit points.
Yeah, squishy mages can lead to ridiculous situations. In 3.5, we once got our 1st and 2nd level PCs (mostly mages and priests, with me playing a 1st level rogue with 6 hps) knocked out by a bunch kobolds, and the wizard's familiar ended up killing the majority of the kobolds while the PCs were bleeding out. It was a bit less than heroic.
D4 for hit points was much too low - some casters died by mere looking on an unsheathed dagger or enemy sneeing on them. I am very happy with the HD normalization in PF.
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In Pathfinder any character, including a spellcaster, can choose to build for hit points. It is just a matter of prioritizing.
I have a caster build with an 18 con + toughness: he starts with more hp than most warriors. Is this wrong? No! I have devoted resources to survivability that could have been spent elsewhere. I am slightly less effective in other areas but have little fear of being one-shotted.
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You could just tell the caster to roll another character since you plan on punishing the him for trying to be less squishy instead of being more offensive or using his FCB for skills.
Question: Why shouldn't the witch get a tangible benefit from prioritizing his resources towards his goal for his character instead of yours?
Lets look at some actual numbers. I would ignore favored class bonus and Con, as well as feats like toughness, since these are all resources that each player can decide to invest in or not. A wizard might take all three and a Fighter might take only Con or none at all depending on the build, s lets just look at the HD.
At level 10, your Pal would have a hp of 10+9d10; Max of 100 and average of 59.5. A Wizard would have 6+9d6; Max of 60 and an average of 40.5. If you go 1d4, the Wizard would have 4+9d4; Max of 40 and average 26.5.
That is a big difference. A Paladin has on average as many hp as a Wizard can get if he rolls all Sixes.
A CR 10 spell caster, or a level 11 Wizard, can cast a fireball of 10d6 for an average damage of 35 at least 5 times a day. He can cast an Empowered fireball for 15d6 for an average damage of 52, 3 times per day. A young adult black dragon can do 89 damage in one round.
So that means that a wizard is likely to die in EVERY SINGLE ENCOUNTER!!! Even with a d6 and 14 CON and Favored Class bonus and the Toughness feat, his average hp is only 100. So after, investing significant resources in hp, he can still be outpaced by a Paladin that invests nothing in HP.
The d4 just forces a Wizard or other Squishy to spend feats and other resources just to stay alive.
Yeah, squishy mages can lead to ridiculous situations... the wizard's familiar ended up killing the majority of the kobolds while the PCs were bleeding out. It was a bit less than heroic.
THAT'S AWESOME! What type of critter was the familiar? too funny.
Here is a list of defenses you have to evaluate before Deeming a character squishy. some PCs can easily compensate for these deficiencies with other defenses on the list.
Hit Points
Armor Class
Saving Throws
now for some unusual defenses that can also contribute
Damage Reduction
Energy Resistance/Immunity
Immunities to specific conditions
Fast Healing/Regeneration
Spell Resistance/Immunity
Miss Chances
Critical Hit Negation
Reach
Combat Reflexes
you need to factor all of these, not just Hit Points alone.
Yeah, squishy mages can lead to ridiculous situations... the wizard's familiar ended up killing the majority of the kobolds while the PCs were bleeding out. It was a bit less than heroic.THAT'S AWESOME! What type of critter was the familiar? too funny.
A weasel. Not a dire weasel, but a regular-@$$ pocket-sized weasel.
I like them to be a little crunchy on the outside, with a mushy center.
But seriously-- a d6 hit die for mages feels like a bit too much.
I'm a GM, and one of my players created a witch. When he used the elite array, he put his high stats in Intelligence and Dexterity. Understandably he didn't want it to be too easy to die, so he put his third-best stat in Constitution.
So with a 13 Constitution, he started with 8 Hit Points (6 max hit points plus +1 CON mod plus +1 favored class bonus). This would put him not that far below the paladin in our group, who emphasized Strength, Dexterity, and Charisma before emphasizing Constitution and has 12 hit points.
It just doesn't feel right to me. I'm thinking that next time I should dock arcane casters (wizards, sorcerers, witches) downward to a d4 hit die.
I like a lot of changes that Pathfinder made to D&D 3.5, but I'm not sure I subscribe to beefing up the hit dies of casters to d6. I just like there to be a lot of differentiation between the classes, and I like having arcane casters be vulnerable at earlier levels so that they "earn" the great power they get at higher levels. I know that the witch has a much lower AC than the paladin, but I want the player with the witch to feel even more careful than he currently does when moving her around the battlemat. (Yes I'm sadistic that way!)
I wasn't on these boards during the playtesting phase of Pathfinder, but was the vulnerability of casters a big issue then? I'm just wondering, and also I want to know if other people feel like I do.
So let's see. Your wizard with an above average (but same as Paladin) Constitution is 4 points behind at 1st level? Well golly gee whiz, that's the average damage of a random person slapping somebody with a longsword. (1d8+0 = 4.5 average damage). Heaven help the lad if he takes a bigger weapon hit. 4 hit points is pretty huge at 1st level. In fact, it's more than the Toughness feat gives. The Paladin in question has more than a feat's worth of HP on the wizard. :P
So later down the line, at 20th level, the Paladin has 10+(5.5*19)+(ConMod*20) Hp, or 134.5 HP. The wizard? 92.5 HP. I know which one looks more likely to survive a full attack (the Paladin deals +18 damage with power attack alone, so with a +10 strength and +5 weapon, he's dealing enough damage in his first 3/4 attacks to kill the wizard without counting his base weapon damage or other benefits).
In fairness, the Paladin and Wizard in question seem to have the same Con mod, and both took their FC as HP. So the only diference really is class.
Which was sorta my point actually. Well that and that Fighters or Barbarians will likely have more Con and the Palading has LoH.
What I was trying to say:
that witch spent some time training to be resilient (living in forests and such, no sitting around in a library)
while the paladin who trained to fight evil every day, trained as much as the witch, but for somebody who dishes it out with weaponmaster to learn how to swing a sword, he sure has a low con
as you said yourself: a fighter or ranger would have trained more... so it's more about how the paladin took dex as his priority over con, imho.
If the paladin's low hp bugger you, you should rather suggest he dumps dex and pumps con... or takes toughness to make up for it. Monsters in Pathfinder hit harder, and you said yourself, it's the low hp of the paladin that's the problem, not the high hp of the mage, as you seem to think mages are fine vs fighters and barbarians:
So, in summary, it's not so much that Wizards are tough as that first level Paladins are a little squishy.
Paladins have always had a MAD problem... they have to take Charisma as well. Since a Paladin can wear heavy armor, he should reconsider his dex or take toughness, imho.