Scrolls are cheap. Magic items, such as the Hat of Disguise and Slippers of Spider Climbing, are also cheap.Rogues are cheaper and add to the overall skill set of the party. Not to mention their resources.
I must respectfully disagree here. A Rogue in the party is very expensive at a rather high one-fourth your gold split. It'd be fine if the Rogue was a hireling that was costing 100gp or so, but taking a chunk of party wealth seems much more expensive to me. From my perspective it would be much more efficient to have Wizard than a Rogue, because not only will the Wizard get roughly equal skills thanks to an INT investment he still has other abilities. While the Wizard will start behind at only 6-7 skills, as he gets higher level that will increase dramatically to 10-13 skills, which unlike 3.5 are retroactive and will usually be more than a Rogue recieves. On top of this considerable amount of skills, a Wizard can prepare a few a spells that invalidate certain skills which helps to further widen the gap. Dispel Magic instead of Trapfinding, Spider Climb instead of Stealth, and Tongues instead of Linguistics.
On the limited nature of spells versus the unlimited nature of skills, lets look at your lock picking example. The fact that the Rogue can perform this task an unlimited number of times only matters to the extent that the task needs performed. If there is only 3 Locked Doors in an adventure path than the Rogues ability to Disable Device over 9,000 times is no real benefit. Even worse, if there is no lock to pick, the Rogue has wasted an entire skill investment, while the Wizard has lost one spell prepared. Now, a 2nd level spell slot is valuable and I'm not trying to underplay the limited amount of spells a Wizard gets, but lets look at the actual amounts. A Specialist Wizard at Level 3 can easily have 4 2nd Level Spells (1 base, 1 school, 1 bonus for high INT, 1 of your bonded object). At level 3, yes preparing Knock is very a large investment (unless you just know it and bonded object it when needed).
Lets look at how pricing preparing Knock is at 5th level though. Now the Wizard has potentially four 3rd level slots to throw around (1 base, 1 school, 1 bonus for high INT, 1 of your bonded object) and now has four 2nd level slots even without bonded object. Now preparing Knock is a much smaller investment. This continues as the Wizard gets access to higher spells, the "cost" of having these spells prepared gets lower and lower.
I personally see skills are being more valuable than spells due to their permanent investment nature, which is likely the source of my disconnect. Would it be fair to say that Pathfinder considers Spells a more valuable economy than skills? If so is it due to spells limited nature?
I think calling them dead weight is a little exaggerative, but if you had the choice between a rogue, a ranger, and a wizard who would you rather have, eh?
Depends. Who else is in the party? What kind of campaign are we running? Who's playing the character in question? I can't really answer the question with a lot more information to put it into context.
I think calling them dead weight is a little exaggerative, but if you had the choice between a rogue, a ranger, and a wizard who would you rather have, eh?Depends. Who else is in the party? What kind of campaign are we running? Who's playing the character in question? I can't really answer the question with a lot more information to put it into context.
You can answer it with a general preference. Its not min-maxing here.
This statement makes no sense. I think you're confusing "high magic" with "banal magic". Consider Conan. The world is high magic. Casters can do stuff that Pathfinder wizards can't. But, magic in Conan is not banal, because it is not common. It is reserved for the amazing.
Pathfinder is a high magic game. The answer to the problem of balance is not to jealously protect the niche of weaker characters.
Conan is one of the more common examples of a low magic setting. Most of the characters have little to no magical ability. And most of the dramatic magic is reserved for the big bad guy. High magic MEANS common magic. Low magic means rare magic. It has no bearing on what magic is able to do, just on its availability, in particular to the main characters.
In pathfinder there are classes, basic classes, in the core rules that are literal miracle workers. The cleric can bring people back from the dead for christ sake, and that isnt even peak progression of magical abilities. There are no deep dark rituals that need to be sought out, you just get it by choosing the class. That is high (read: common) magic. If you look at rpgs designed to simulate conan's universe they are decidedly different then that. They are low magic games because the path to magic is more complicated then 'take a level in wizard'
Rogues are cheaper and add to the overall skill set of the party. Not to mention their resources.
I respectfully ask that you justify that statement. How are Rogues cheaper when the party is constantly dragging around that dead weight, spending resources on that dead weight, and dividing treasure with that dead weight?
How is the rogue adding to the overall skill set when any class that has Int as a prime req will have more skill points?
Rogues are free--an extra party member means extra treasure in the hoard, since there needs to be enough to keep everyone at WBL anyways.
Also, what does your assertion that rogues are a "dead weight" assume rogues are doing in combat? I'm pretty sure that a scroll of Knock is not going to be damaging enemies or flanking.
It's the Schrodinger's Wizard fallacy: A wizard always has the exact right spells/scrolls/wands for any situation. Unfortunately for its proponents the Schrodinger's Wizard assumes either infinite foreknowledge or infinite wealth, neither of which should be the case. The Wizard is certainly (in my opinion) an incredibly versatile class, with access to spells that can do almost anything. He can certainly do things the Rogue can do. He can certainly do things the Fighter can do. About the only class he can't quite do the same things as is the Cleric. But he can either do one of the jobs several times, all of the jobs a scant few times, or he can do his own job (control and buffing, with a side-order of damage) whenever it's needed. The one thing he cannot do, no matter how hard anyone tries to argue otherwise, is do the same job as another class all of the time.
Here's a test: a party of 5th level adventurers is trapped inside a dungeon. There are an unknown (well, I know) number of locked doors between the party and the exit. The dungeon has traps and monsters, like any good dungeon should. Which is better for the party to have: a Rogue skilled at Disable Device, or a Wizard with as many wands of knock as he can afford (which is 2)?
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In your experience, clearly they have -- but I'd respectfully suggest that this may be an artefact of the fact that, in your games, that playstyle is already assumed by default, and that everyone is already "on board" with it.
Well considering that my games, playstyle, and assumptions are based on over 30 years of play experience, 7 of which running organized play with the 3.5 ruleset, and over a decade of lurking on message boards, reading playtest feedback, teaching and introducing tabletop games to game design students (most of which grew up solely on computer games), and designing these types game experiences, I think I'm going to run with it.
But thanks for the advice.
Rogues are cheaper and add to the overall skill set of the party. Not to mention their resources.
I respectfully ask that you justify that statement. How are Rogues cheaper when the party is constantly dragging around that dead weight, spending resources on that dead weight, and dividing treasure with that dead weight?
How is the rogue adding to the overall skill set when any class that has Int as a prime req will have more skill points?
Rogues are free--an extra party member means extra treasure in the hoard, since there needs to be enough to keep everyone at WBL anyways.
Also, what does your assertion that rogues are a "dead weight" assume rogues are doing in combat? I'm pretty sure that a scroll of Knock is not going to be damaging enemies or flanking.It's the Schrodinger's Wizard fallacy: A wizard always has the exact right spells/scrolls/wands for any situation. Unfortunately for its proponents the Schrodinger's Wizard assumes either infinite foreknowledge or infinite wealth, neither of which should be the case. The Wizard is certainly (in my opinion) an incredibly versatile class, with access to spells that can do almost anything. He can certainly do things the Rogue can do. He can certainly do things the Fighter can do. About the only class he can't quite do the same things as is the Cleric. But he can either do one of the jobs several times, all of the jobs a scant few times, or he can do his own job (control and buffing, with a side-order of damage) whenever it's needed. The one thing he cannot do, no matter how hard anyone tries to argue otherwise, is do the same job as another class all of the time.
Here's a test: a party of 5th level adventurers is trapped inside a dungeon. There are an unknown (well, I know) number of locked doors between the party and the exit. The dungeon has traps and monsters, like any good dungeon should. Which is better for the party to have: a...
Ah yes, I to remember all the Dungeons where I started from the middle and worked my way out that had more than 7 locked doors. Wait... no... that situation has never come up and is highly unlikely. You basically invented an unrealistic situation and somehow expect it to justify your point. No one here is talking about Schrodinger's Wizard (seriously people leap this way to quickly), but rather a Wizard who is intending to fill the Rogues role in the party and how they would go about doing it. Now if you can find me an published Pathfinder Adventure that has lets say 7 locked doors in it I would be more willing to consider your point.
It doesn't matter if it's one locked door or a thousand. It doesn't matter if it's on the way in or the way out (and seriously, you've never had a party trapped inside a dungeon, say dumped to a lower level by a trap? Okay, but it's happened to me). The simple fact of the matter is that every single spell the Wizard uses to be a better Rogue is one spell he's not using to be a Wizard. Sure, have a Knock spell or three on scrolls. That's practically expected. But loading up on the "Rogue replacing spells" seems (to me) to be a waste of the versatility of the Wizard. Backup Rogue, certainly. Make the Rogue better (buffer), abso-frickin-lutely. But if I had a Rogue in the party, having a Wizard go out of his way to "out-Rogue the Rogue" - when he can't do so indefinitely, anyway - especially when he can load up on other, more versatile, spells, seems (to me) to be a sub-optimal choice.
So allow me to rephrase my question: What's a better combination to have in a party - a Rogue and a Wizard who has all the spells that let him "replace" the Rogue but precious few others, or a Rogue and a Wizard who has a broader and more versatile selection of spells?
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You can answer it with a general preference. Its not min-maxing here.I think calling them dead weight is a little exaggerative, but if you had the choice between a rogue, a ranger, and a wizard who would you rather have, eh?Depends. Who else is in the party? What kind of campaign are we running? Who's playing the character in question? I can't really answer the question with a lot more information to put it into context.
I really agree with Bill here. It depends on the player and group to a very large extent. Some players "grok" certain classes better than others. I have a friend who is amazing playing rogues. Amazing as in "thank goodness Tom's rogue was here otherwise we would have lost the AP" amazing. The same player is pretty lousy at playing spellcasters. I have another friend who played spellcasters for years "because they're better than everything else" and he was terrble at it. We still tell stories of his epic spellcasting fails. Then once he played a fighter in a one-shot, and he was incredible at it. We were literally speechless that the player who had been basically our groups bumbling idiot suddenly brimmed with competence and effectiveness. Using maneuvers at exactly the right time, when to power attack, etc. I'm okay at playing a fighter but I can only dream about being as good as this guy one day. Different players are good at different things, and that often informs what they will best play.
You can answer it with a general preference. Its not min-maxing here.
I don't have a general preference. It's virtually all contextual. There are a lot of factors that will enable a particular character to fit in and be a preferred choice. The most important one being - what the player wants to play.
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So allow me to rephrase my question: What's a better combination to have in a party - a Rogue and a Wizard who has all the spells that let him "replace" the Rogue but precious few others, or a Rogue and a Wizard who has a broader and more versatile selection of spells?
There's a third option: A wizard with rogue replacing spells and a normal wizard.
It doesn't matter if it's one locked door or a thousand. It doesn't matter if it's on the way in or the way out (and seriously, you've never had a party trapped inside a dungeon, say dumped to a lower level by a trap? Okay, but it's happened to me). The simple fact of the matter is that every single spell the Wizard uses to be a better Rogue is one spell he's not using to be a Wizard. Sure, have a Knock spell or three on scrolls. That's practically expected. But loading up on the "Rogue replacing spells" seems (to me) to be a waste of the versatility of the Wizard. Backup Rogue, certainly. Make the Rogue better (buffer), abso-frickin-lutely. But if I had a Rogue in the party, having a Wizard go out of his way to "out-Rogue the Rogue" - when he can't do so indefinitely, anyway - especially when he can load up on other, more versatile, spells, seems (to me) to be a sub-optimal choice.
So allow me to rephrase my question: What's a better combination to have in a party - a Rogue and a Wizard who has all the spells that let him "replace" the Rogue but precious few others, or a Rogue and a Wizard who has a broader and more versatile selection of spells?
The two Wizards obviously, because he can 1. Replace the Rogue and still 2. have spells that give him versatility, which 3. Lets your other Wizard be even more versatile. Also, if the Wizard standing in for the Rogue really has to unlock doors ad nauseam, he does have the option of investing skill ranks in Disable Device, which as covered above he will get only slightly less skills than a Rogue at early levels, and more skills than the Rogue at later levels (thanks to retroactive skill points). Traits even let the Wizard hijack the skill onto his list, so he would be only slightly less effective at it. So yes, I would vastly prefer a Wizard to stand-in for a Rogue. The better question I think is why wouldn't you?
So allow me to rephrase my question: What's a better combination to have in a party - a Rogue and a Wizard who has all the spells that let him "replace" the Rogue but precious few others, or a Rogue and a Wizard who has a broader and more versatile selection of spells?There's a third option: A wizard with rogue replacing spells and a normal wizard.
Does that happen at people's tables in ongoing campaigns?
I wouldn't enjoy playing a "wizard with rogue replacing spells".
So allow me to rephrase my question: What's a better combination to have in a party - a Rogue and a Wizard who has all the spells that let him "replace" the Rogue but precious few others, or a Rogue and a Wizard who has a broader and more versatile selection of spells?There's a third option: A wizard with rogue replacing spells and a normal wizard.Does that happen at people's tables in ongoing campaigns?
I wouldn't enjoy playing a "wizard with rogue replacing spells".
Just making an observation. In the realm of "is the rogue is replaceable", two wizards is probably better than 1 wizard and 1 rogue. Has nothing to do with whether or not people play it that way.
Conan is one of the more common examples of a low magic setting. Most of the characters have little to no magical ability. And most of the dramatic magic is reserved for the big bad guy. High magic MEANS common magic. Low magic means rare magic. It has no bearing on what magic is able to do, just on its availability, in particular to the main characters.
No. High Magic means that the world is shaped, at least in part, by magic.
Lord of the Rings is high magic despite the fact that Gandalf demonstrates little but the ability to swing a sword, speak with birds, and cast a flashlight.
Ok rather then argue over symantics of the terms high magic and low magic. Let me rephrase. Pathfinder is a common magic game. It is intended to be common magic. Half of the classic party has simple and abundant access to magic(cleric and wizard). In the game, there are 3 classes that do not have access to significant supernatural abilities as part of their class, the cavalier, fighter, and rogue. Everyone else gets magic (or supernatural abilities) as matter of course. The base assumption of the game is that characters will have hundreds of thousands of gold pieces in magic items by the end of their careers. It doesnt get more common then that.
Asking this game to make magic 'less common' is asking for a fundamental change to the game. You are better off with a different foundation, pathfinder isnt a good starting point.
So allow me to rephrase my question: What's a better combination to have in a party - a Rogue and a Wizard who has all the spells that let him "replace" the Rogue but precious few others, or a Rogue and a Wizard who has a broader and more versatile selection of spells?There's a third option: A wizard with rogue replacing spells and a normal wizard.Does that happen at people's tables in ongoing campaigns?
I wouldn't enjoy playing a "wizard with rogue replacing spells".
The question was "Which can fill this role better.", not "Which would you prefer to play." The latter question is highly subjective, while the former can be compared based on the abilities each class provides. I for example would prefer to play Wizard over a Rogue regardless of the answer to the first question, but my preference does not speak at all to whether Wizard fills the Rogues role better. I can perfectly understand that not everyone would enjoy managing a spellbook and would prefer to just roll the dice and add their numbers. There is nothing wrong with either play style, both are valid. That's why I find the imbalance between the two problematic, because even though I enjoy the spellbook management, I would like people who do not to be able contribute equally.
Just making an observation. In the realm of "is the rogue is replaceable", two wizards is probably better than 1 wizard and 1 rogue. Has nothing to do with whether or not people play it that way.So allow me to rephrase my question: What's a better combination to have in a party - a Rogue and a Wizard who has all the spells that let him "replace" the Rogue but precious few others, or a Rogue and a Wizard who has a broader and more versatile selection of spells?There's a third option: A wizard with rogue replacing spells and a normal wizard.Does that happen at people's tables in ongoing campaigns?
I wouldn't enjoy playing a "wizard with rogue replacing spells".
No, I understood your argument.
I just wondered what actually happens. Do those people who think wizards are much better than rogues and fighters find that nobody plays rogues or fighters in favor of multiple wizards?
So allow me to rephrase my question: What's a better combination to have in a party - a Rogue and a Wizard who has all the spells that let him "replace" the Rogue but precious few others, or a Rogue and a Wizard who has a broader and more versatile selection of spells?There's a third option: A wizard with rogue replacing spells and a normal wizard.Does that happen at people's tables in ongoing campaigns?
I wouldn't enjoy playing a "wizard with rogue replacing spells".
In my experience (woohoo, anecdote!) players tend to talk to each other and pick classes that a) they think will be fun and interesting to play and b) are designed to fulfil a specific niche in the incredibly broad range of possible skill sets. Right now I'm running a game with no rogue or wizard in the party. They're going to have a heck of a time dealing with traps. In my other game (same group of players) which is currently on a short break, the player of the 20th level wizard said to me "you know, I could probably tweak my spell selection and do everything that anyone else can do. I'm not going to, though. I have far too much fun doing the things only the wizard can do, I don't see the point".
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I just wondered what actually happens. Do those people who think wizards are much better than rogues and fighters find that nobody plays rogues or fighters in favor of multiple wizards?
I'm also extremely curious about this. In the games I've run, I haven't seen any class get played more or less than any other due to power issues.
In my experience (woohoo, anecdote!) players tend to talk to each other and pick classes that a) they think will be fun and interesting to play and b) are designed to fulfil a specific niche in the incredibly broad range of possible skill sets. Right now I'm running a game with no rogue or wizard in the party. They're going to have a heck of a time dealing with traps. In my other game (same group of players) which is currently on a short break, the player of the 20th level wizard said to me "you know, I could probably tweak my spell selection and do everything that anyone else can do. I'm not going to, though. I have far too much fun doing the things only the wizard can do, I don't see the point".
Cheers. I like anecdotes - I've been playing since 1979 and have gamed with the same six people for the vast majority of that time. It's good to hear how others do it.
Asking this game to make magic 'less common' is asking for a fundamental change to the game. You are better off with a different foundation, pathfinder isnt a good starting point.That's why I specifically said "Pathfinder 2.0". Having magic be common causes too many problems in the game.
Having magic be common doesn't cause too many problems. The strength of magic and its occurrence is determined by design. Similarly the strength and powers martials have.
Christopher Anthony, Steve Geddes:
In my group, yes this is the case though not always multiple Wizards. Many people who liked Rogues have found Inquisitors, Bards and Alchemists to be superior and now mostly play those classes. I am a big fan of Tome of Battle and heavily encourage its use to help bring Fighters (Warblades) and Monks/Rogues (Swordsage) up to more balanced level. That is not to say that people do not dip into Fighter 2 for some bonus feats, or Rogue to qualify for a PRC. It also does not preclude people from playing a Rogue to achieve some very specific result, but in general yes the Fighter is non-existant at the tables I play at (unless we're playing 3.5 then Dungeoncrashers and Zhentarim Fighters make appearances).
I have an excellent story about the exact moment when a new player to the game realized at level 13 that Monk was no match for the other classes (3.5). The campaign ended well for him, but the realization stuck with him.
In my group, yes this is the case though not always multiple Wizards. Many people who liked Rogues have found Inquisitors, Bards and Alchemists to be superior and now mostly play those classes. I am a big fan of Tome of Battle and heavily encourage its use to help bring Fighters (Warblades) and Monks/Rogues (Swordsage) up to more balanced level. That is not to say that people do not dip into Fighter 2 for some bonus feats, or Rogue to qualify for a PRC. It also does not preclude people from playing a Rogue to achieve some very specific result, but in general yes the Fighter is non-existant at the tables I play at (unless we're playing 3.5 then Dungeoncrashers and Zhentarim Fighters make appearances).
Thanks. Do you guys know the rules well?
One of the reasons I like fighters is just they're easy to play without having to look stuff up at the table. I wonder whether system mastery explains the disconnect I experience in these sorts of discussions.
Having magic be common doesn't cause too many problems. The strength of magic and its occurrence is determined by design. Similarly the strength and powers martials have.But its bad design. When the scullery maid reaches for her potato peeler +5 and adventurers light up like Christmas trees when Detect Magic is cast, when magic trumps skills easily and often, when magic becomes so game winning and awesome that almost every class has spell casting abilities to increase its appeal, then magic stops feeling magical.
Well, that wasn't my point. The hyperbole isn't needed. My point was that magic could be toned down, rather than making it rare. Lots of games I've been in have tried to make magic more rare, but rather than make it rare make it less powerful and overwhelming. At the same time the mundane skills of martials could be brought up so they have more options. In particular at later levels where you'd be almost super human.
But its bad design. When the scullery maid reaches for her potato peeler +5 and adventurers light up like Christmas trees when Detect Magic is cast, when magic trumps skills easily and often, when magic becomes so game winning and awesome that almost every class has spell casting abilities to increase its appeal, then magic stops feeling magical.
Having magic be common doesn't cause too many problems. The strength of magic and its occurrence is determined by design. Similarly the strength and powers martials have.
It's not bad design if one of the design goals is "create the gaming feel people have gotten used to".
I like very low magic games. However, that's clearly not the most dominant sector of the PF fan base.
Stealth v. Invisibility
At level 20 you can have 20 skill points invested in stealth for +23 if it's a class skill. Invisibility gives +20. Until level 17 someone with maxed out stealth is less stealthy than someone with the same dexterity and invisibility and no stealth. Still, even for them the spell contributes more than the skill investment for most of the game.
At level twenty a rogue can have 20 ranks, a +3 skill bonus, a +6 skill focus bonus, +5 from a competence item, +10 from a high Dex (if you go that route) for a +44 bonus - before invisibility or anything else. They can move at full speed without penalty. Finally, they can do so without compromising key skills in their nitch such as various knowledge skills, spellcraft, and so forth. I think that's a little better than the +20 from invisibility, which again is completely negated by a wide variety of level 2 spells that have extremely long duration's at that level (and are sometimes permanent).
Invisibility can help other people be stealthy in a pinch, but it isn't really a replacement for stealth at any level, for all the reasons I noted earlier and the above.
Of course anyone can take stealth and int based casters have a lot of skill points. So do bards and inquisitors and for the latter it's a class skill.
I play a skill monkey wizard in my long running (5 years so far) Saturday night campaign. I've never thought "Oh man, I've got so many skill points, I can freely invest them in all the skills". In fact, trying to cover the rogue nitch for a few years when we didn't have a rogue resulted in my wizard tanking her knowledge skills and having difficulty making up the difference in various other skills. Just covering diplomacy, perception, and disable device left me with virtually nothing left to dump into sense motive, bluff, stealth, use magic device, and so forth. My knowledge skills (other than arcana and the planes) are both very low for my level - by more than ten points in fact.
In theory an intelligence based caster has a plot of skills. In reality they've got an awful lot of ground to cover on their own in terms of knowledge skills, spellcraft, perception, and so forth before they can start stepping on the rogue's toes.
Disable Device v. Dispel Magic
Yes, it's a potentially useful skill, but anyone can take it. The DCs for nonmagical CR appropriate traps and locks don't require trapfinding by design so it's really Dispel Magic v. Trapfinding. So, how many magical traps do you really encounter? Remember, int based casters have a lot of skills.
Three magical traps in the last two weeks, if I recall correctly. It tends to be kind of hit or miss though, and the kind of thing the party runs into more of when we have a rogue who can disable them.
Charm Person v. Diplomacy
Yep, charm has downsides, but only if you use it on someone public or are interested in influencing uncharmed people close to the victim. A handful of demagogues brought down the Tzar and with charm person you can control a lot of demagogues thanks to the day/level duration. You can't tell someone is acting strangely due to enchantment if you didn't know them before someone charmed them into action. A well placed memory lapse can even give you multiple tries so you can use it on targets with better will saves.
First of all, nothing in the rules says anything at all about requiring you to have spent time with someone before detecting that they are enchanted with sense motive. It's a flat a check, with no mention of such prerequisites.
Second, is your argument really that charm replaces diplomacy, but you can only use it in private with one person, if you don't want them to interact with anyone else?
Finally, I didn't bring this up earlier, but let me point out that for many campaigns using tons of enchantment spells on others to make them do what you wish is not really going to fly - especially against innocent people you just need some kind of favor from. If the party fighter gets into a bar fight, are you really going to use charm on the guards who break it up into letting him go? What about on the disagreeable innkeeper who doesn't want to tell you if someone is a client? I've seen enchantment at many tables compared to torture and rape, since you are effectively using force on someone to make them do what you want.
Unfortunately it's based on a stat that is pretty much THE dump stat for everyone that isn't a charisma based caster.
This might be a root cause of a lot of our disagreements.
I don't understand the idea behind the dump stat. Or rather, perhaps better stated, I don't agree with the idea. I haven't since I was a teenager and I was building super characters with the highest possible scores in their nitch... and complete ineptitude in every other regard. I don't find that to be an entertaining way to play the game, and even with low point buys I always tend to end up with more well rounded characters. Charisma in particular is almost never a dump stat - mostly because I don't enjoy playing social rejects, shut-ins, and plain jane characters.
The same is largely true of the people I play with in both of my games at the moment. Generally speaking we don't approach the game from a "how can I build the most mechanically powerful character" perspective. Instead we go with the "How can I build the character I want under the rules?". We've got two fighters, a wizard, a sorcerer, and a rogue/bard in one game and a magus, two wizards, a witch, and an arcane trickster in the other. I think only one of those characters has even average charisma - and it's the witch. I do know that one of the wizards in the second game rocks a 9 con and a wisdom in the 20s, while both of my wizards pack charisma scores in excess of 20.
Those are the best possible examples in favor of skills, however.
No, they're good ones. Best possible are circumstances in which the spells in question don't work at all, instead of have drawbacks. For example, climb vs. a fly spell in a hurricane or climb vs. spider climb in an antimagic area (like the Starstone). I think something lost is that skills tend to always function. It doesn't matter if you have your gear, spell components, are dealing with antimagic, or are at the end of a grueling twenty encounter day (that took a full year OOC to play out). Your climb, diplomacy, and disable device still work.
You can't really tell me that it's worth having ranks in Climb when Spider Climb and Fly exist.
Pretty sure I gave a few examples of how climb could be worthwhile above. Here's another - when you'r chasing someone and don't have the time to stop and cast a spell.
I've played more wizards than anything else, and I love not having to worry about keeping Knock prepared or on a scroll because we don't have a rogue. I love knowing I can stop preparing a Summon Monster spell or two every day because the new armor the fighter just got is the bee's knees, and he's going to take hits that much better. If my fellow party member can cover something one of my spells do, then I can get another spell to cover something we couldn't have without him. -He- is the one adding versatility to the group, not me! His presence and skill set are the very conditions I require to bring the new component to the group, so without him, there is no new component.I feel like most people miss this.
Amen. Even at level 15 I rarely have enough spells to cover all of my bases in a way that I'd like. When another party member takes over something it's usually a sigh of relief that escapes me. Not only do they free me up to focus on other things, they also usually do the job they're meant to do far better than I did with a few spell band-aids.
I'd like Pathfinder 2.0 to remove all spells which replace skills (including stuff like teleport and fly). If a character wants to fly, they can train a hippogrif or the like (it'll make animal handling actually useful). I'd also increase skill points by level by about 2. I'd also expand the equipment available to include -mundane- gear to help with common problems such as flying enemies. This will make skills more valuable and make magic feel more magical (instead of common, like it does now).
I'll be honest, I don't think I'd play such a game. A big part of the game appeal to me is that there are multiple ways of solving every problem.
Incidentally, I do think the rogue is a little weak right now relative to most other classes. I think it's a combat weakness though, rather than a skill weakness. While sneak attack can dish out a lot of damage in a short period of time, the weak attack bonus of the rogue, low armor class, and the battlefields in a lot of adventures tend to make getting into a melee flanking sneak attack position a little bit tougher than I'd like and a little too costly if you can't get off a full attack. It's almost enough to make me long for the old 3.5 days of DC 15 tumbles.
That's why I specifically said "Pathfinder 2.0". Having magic be common causes too many problems in the game.
Asking this game to make magic 'less common' is asking for a fundamental change to the game. You are better off with a different foundation, pathfinder isnt a good starting point.
Magic being common doesnt cause problems. Magic being powerful AND mundane abilities NOT being powerful is the problem. In addition, I dont believe that asking the next iteration of pathfinder to completely abandon a basic premise of the game is wise. See 4E for details on that one.
It was a drastic departure from 3rd edition, nut just in terms of rules structure, but in terms of the concept of the game. The whole reason pathfinder exists is because paizo wanted to keep telling the same kind of stories they did with 3rd edition, and couldnt with 4E. What you are asking for would require a similar kind of change, requiring the kind of stories being told to change.
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No, I understood your argument.
I just wondered what actually happens. Do those people who think wizards are much better than rogues and fighters find that nobody plays rogues or fighters in favor of multiple wizards?
I wouldn't think that multi-wizard parties are that common, no. I'm trying to think back over the years to remember if we've ever had more than 1 of the same class in any of our games.
Usually, we all discuss before hand. "Oh, you're gonna play a fighter... Cool, I'll play a Barbarian instead".
I would think that if we wanted to do a mage that replaces a rogue, we wouldn't play them as a straight wizard. Probably some sort of arcane trickster, or at the very minimum, a level dip or two into rogue to get the trap-finding and class skills started.
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In your experience, clearly they have -- but I'd respectfully suggest that this may be an artefact of the fact that, in your games, that playstyle is already assumed by default, and that everyone is already "on board" with it.Well considering that my games, playstyle, and assumptions are based on over 30 years of play experience, 7 of which running organized play with the 3.5 ruleset, and over a decade of lurking on message boards, reading playtest feedback, teaching and introducing tabletop games to game design students (most of which grew up solely on computer games), and designing these types game experiences, I think I'm going to run with it.
But thanks for the advice.
Stephen, I don't think Kirth is downplaying your play experience - I think he's saying that your extensive play experience informs your playstyle more than the rules as they currently exist - and then suggested something he thought might help evaluate if the rules, in and of themselves, push playstyle in a direction other than your extensive playing experience pushes you.