Also the CMB/CMD makes combat manoeuvres much harder to pull off against many monsters, especially at higher level, unless you invest heavily in them.
This is a key point because in 3.5 a focused tripper was virtually guaranteed to succeed on their trip attempt against enemies, whereas in PF this is not the case.
Funny thing is that Trip still sucked since you couldn't use it against flying enemies, and a bunch of stuff was just too large/immune/had too many legs.
Very true, but it didn't have an especially high investment in 3.5 and it remains equally useless against all those things in PF as well.
Funny thing is that Trip still sucked since you couldn't use it against flying enemies, and a bunch of stuff was just too large/immune/had too many legs.
Actually in 3.5, you can use it on flying (causes them to stall) and creatures with many legs work.
So PF nerfed Tripping badly.
I don't mind the Greater Teleport nerf. Not having bar-igura able to kidnap 'port people to the Moon and leave them there, as well as the making the succubi spend a long, boring six months flying instead of teleporting, evens it all out nicely. SOme places you shouldn't be able to reach with an easy spell. Yes, Greater Teleport nerfs teleporting monsters more then wizards. Who'da thunk?
Worldwide range to places that have only been DESCRIBED to you is pretty awesome all by itself.
The real nerf to spellcasters would simply be casting time and ability to be interrupted. Everyone plays a lot differently when it's easy for anyone to make you lose a spell, yet wizards weren't considered underpowered in 1 or 2E, either.
==Aelryinth
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Greater Teleport used to be able to get you to the moon or other celestial body with its unlimited range. However, its range suddenly became limited when Paizo came out with the Interplanetary Teleport spell.
Guess which group still reads "range unlimited" as unlimited.
It's one of the few things that I don't really care what the devs say. Either change the spell or don't. A new spell doesn't change what a spell means.
For example, I'm on the plane of air with greater teleport. What constitutes the planet I am on? Where does Interplanetary teleport come in then?
Where I see Interplanetary teleport being useful is it allows you to try on teleport to a star, if it isn't a planet you don't teleport. Also pointing at a star and teleporting with greater teleport only puts you where the star was by the time the light reaches you. So you would need some serious astronomy knowledge to accurately teleport to other planets via greater teleport. BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN THE RANGE IS SUDDENLY LIMITED TO THE SKY!
The nerfs to warriors from 3.5 to PF are obvious and well-documented: less Power Attack potential, Improved Trip now requires twice as many feats, etc.
I was under the impression that the new Power Attack's damage potential was greater than the old one's.
Also Improved Trip still only needs Combat Expertise and STR 13.
On a return by - to + in damage, PF's Power Attack is better 1:1.
However, 3.5's Power Attack is unlimited in the - up to your BAB, and then with SHock Trooper you could choff it off to your AC as a penalty, keeping your full To hit.
SO yes, PF gets -6/+18 at high levels. At that same level, 3.5 could have -20/+40, or -20/+80 if you were a Frenzied Barbarian. If you were charging, it was +80 damage, -20 to AC...but since everything died to you on the charge, AC was irrelevant.
An Enlarged Charging Frenzied Berserker at higher levels could easily do 240+ pts of damage per swing, with Supreme Cleave enabling him to keep the attacks up if someone died, to everything in a circle 50' across. And of course he got 5 attacks, and had a base TH of +50's.
===Aelryinth
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Well thanks for pointing that out! Now I know, and knowledge is power!
Well, the game is better if you ignore that horrible rule anyway.
I don't mind the Greater Teleport nerf. Not having bar-igura able to kidnap 'port people to the Moon and leave them there, as well as the making the succubi spend a long, boring six months flying instead of teleporting, evens it all out nicely. SOme places you shouldn't be able to reach with an easy spell. Yes, Greater Teleport nerfs teleporting monsters more then wizards. Who'da thunk?
Worldwide range to places that have only been DESCRIBED to you is pretty awesome all by itself.
==Aelryinth
You know that even with the addition of interplanetery teleport (which bring rules issues since the greater hasn't been errata'd) you still don't need 9th level spell to travel to other planets, you just need 2 7th or 5th (if divine) level spells instead of 1. You plane shift from the material plane to another plane of your choice and then you plane shift again to the material plane and you are 5-500 miles within your intented destination; then you use whatever form of travel you wish for those extra miles, it's just that you have the scenic route instead of just going to your destination.
| 1 person marked this as FAQ candidate. |
You know that even with the addition of interplanetery teleport (which bring rules issues since the greater hasn't been errata'd) you still don't need 9th level spell to travel to other planets, you just need 2 7th or 5th (if divine) level spells instead of 1. You plane shift from the material plane to another plane of your choice and then you plane shift again to the material plane and you are 5-500 miles within your intented destination; then you use whatever form of travel you wish for those extra miles, it's just that you have the scenic route instead of just going to your destination.I don't mind the Greater Teleport nerf. Not having bar-igura able to kidnap 'port people to the Moon and leave them there, as well as the making the succubi spend a long, boring six months flying instead of teleporting, evens it all out nicely. SOme places you shouldn't be able to reach with an easy spell. Yes, Greater Teleport nerfs teleporting monsters more then wizards. Who'da thunk?
Worldwide range to places that have only been DESCRIBED to you is pretty awesome all by itself.
==Aelryinth
Distant Worlds explains why that doesn't work. The 5d100 miles is based on going back to an anchoring planet that resonates with the caster. If you are moving somewhere else, the error grows far larger and you will wind up in the Dark Tapestry, so far from anything that you will die.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
People don't dip 2 levels of MoMS for power attack...I think most of the erratas have been fine.
Take the crane wing fix, as an example. It isn't a discussion on "Casters vs. Martials", it is a matter of internal balancing of martial characters. One option shouldn't be vastly better than the others, if it is, it probably need fixing.
Power Attack...
Argument now invalid.(For things that are vastly better than everything else)
Because it is free. If crane wing didn't have any prereq, people wouldn't dip for it either. So this is totally faulty logic.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Dazing Spells existence is a pretty awful disparity between Casters and Martials.
Apparently Crane Wing ruined more games than that.
In before but Casters are supposed to be able to ruin games, not Martials.
|
The game is balanced with the.assumption of a four person party each with fifteen point buy (that is what the devs of the APs use, anyway), assumes that characters use relatively balance stat arrays (17 or 18 total in casting stat at level 1), and assumes that characters don't have immediate access to stat items, as the player has to find the item, craft the item (taking many days), or buy the item (often by selling double the item's worth in other treasure).
Being a strong caster costs just about all of your resources, be it feats, stat points, and money. Being a strong fighter does as well; but where old crane wing is powerful in itself, strong caster options aren't. Give level 10 Valeros old Crane Wing as a bonus feat and give level 10 Seoni Dazing Spell. Who gets more use out of their bonus feat? I'm not saying that there isn't a caster/martial disparity. But caster things tend to need focus to be good and martial things don't, which means that it is easier to adjudicate martial feats and archetypes.
| 7 people marked this as a favorite. |
Umm... the answer is that Seoni gets more out of Dazing spell since it can work on pretty much any spell and she only needed to invest 1 feat in it, while Valeros blew a ton of his feats to a get an option that was only "ok" even before the nerf. So... I'm going to have to give this one to Seoni, by leaps and bounds.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Being a strong caster costs just about all of your resources, be it feats, stat points, and money. Being a strong fighter does as well; but where old crane wing is powerful in itself, strong caster options aren't. Give level 10 Valeros old Crane Wing as a bonus feat and give level 10 Seoni Dazing Spell. Who gets more use out of their bonus feat?
Are you kidding me? Give 10 Seoni Craft woundrous item, and DOUBLE their Wealth By Level. Who gets more use out of their bonus feats?
I'm not saying that there isn't a caster/martial disparity. But caster things tend to need focus to be good and martial things don't, which means that it is easier to adjudicate martial feats and archetypes.
If you aren't joking, this is the most misguided argument in the history of this forums.
A martial DOES need to focus to be good. To be able to trip someone, a martial has to learn combat expertise, and improved trip, and probably fury's fall other complementary stuff to get a big bonus. A caster just need True Strike. Which is a 1st level spell that they can buy as a scroll, for 25 gold pieces. And that's to trip people, which is something *the fighter is supposed to be good at*
So wait, how do creatures not originally native to the material plane work.Distant Worlds explains why that doesn't work. The 5d100 miles is based on going back to an anchoring planet that resonates with the caster. If you are moving somewhere else, the error grows far larger and you will wind up in the Dark Tapestry, so far from anything that you will die.You know that even with the addition of interplanetery teleport (which bring rules issues since the greater hasn't been errata'd) you still don't need 9th level spell to travel to other planets, you just need 2 7th or 5th (if divine) level spells instead of 1. You plane shift from the material plane to another plane of your choice and then you plane shift again to the material plane and you are 5-500 miles within your intented destination; then you use whatever form of travel you wish for those extra miles, it's just that you have the scenic route instead of just going to your destination.I don't mind the Greater Teleport nerf. Not having bar-igura able to kidnap 'port people to the Moon and leave them there, as well as the making the succubi spend a long, boring six months flying instead of teleporting, evens it all out nicely. SOme places you shouldn't be able to reach with an easy spell. Yes, Greater Teleport nerfs teleporting monsters more then wizards. Who'da thunk?
Worldwide range to places that have only been DESCRIBED to you is pretty awesome all by itself.
==Aelryinth
An excellent question, and never explained. But I suppose the answer to that question will be the same as the answer to why in the world all mephits speak Taldane, the common tongue of Avistan. Perhaps it's because those are just the mephits with the strongest connection to Golarion for some reason, and the same with the outsiders who plane shift there.
Distant Worlds explains why that doesn't work. The 5d100 miles is based on going back to an anchoring planet that resonates with the caster. If you are moving somewhere else, the error grows far larger and you will wind up in the Dark Tapestry, so far from anything that you will die.You know that even with the addition of interplanetery teleport (which bring rules issues since the greater hasn't been errata'd) you still don't need 9th level spell to travel to other planets, you just need 2 7th or 5th (if divine) level spells instead of 1. You plane shift from the material plane to another plane of your choice and then you plane shift again to the material plane and you are 5-500 miles within your intented destination; then you use whatever form of travel you wish for those extra miles, it's just that you have the scenic route instead of just going to your destination.I don't mind the Greater Teleport nerf. Not having bar-igura able to kidnap 'port people to the Moon and leave them there, as well as the making the succubi spend a long, boring six months flying instead of teleporting, evens it all out nicely. SOme places you shouldn't be able to reach with an easy spell. Yes, Greater Teleport nerfs teleporting monsters more then wizards. Who'da thunk?
Worldwide range to places that have only been DESCRIBED to you is pretty awesome all by itself.
==Aelryinth
Ok i just read that, it goes against RAW but it's forgivable since this is a rule specifically for Golarion where interplanetery teleport is in core book for PFRPG.
Also it might be the fact that Sutter is trying to cover the issues created by the interplanetery teleport in UM.Anyway thank you Rogue Eidolon for bringing this to my attention.
|
|
Greater Teleport used to be able to get you to the moon or other celestial body with its unlimited range. However, its range suddenly became limited when Paizo came out with the Interplanetary Teleport spell.Guess which group still reads "range unlimited" as unlimited.
It's one of the few things that I don't really care what the devs say. Either change the spell or don't. A new spell doesn't change what a spell means.
For example, I'm on the plane of air with greater teleport. What constitutes the planet I am on? Where does Interplanetary teleport come in then?
Where I see Interplanetary teleport being useful is it allows you to try on teleport to a star, if it isn't a planet you don't teleport. Also pointing at a star and teleporting with greater teleport only puts you where the star was by the time the light reaches you. So you would need some serious astronomy knowledge to accurately teleport to other planets via greater teleport. BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN THE RANGE IS SUDDENLY LIMITED TO THE SKY!
The best way to look at this is in terms of dimensions. Just because you can move infinitely in a straight line doesn't mean you can move into another plane of existence.
The most trouble we have with PF is how much people take this piss out of the wording. It's called "selective reading", it means that you are reading into something more than you should be.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The best way to look at this is in terms of dimensions. Just because you can move infinitely in a straight line doesn't mean you can move into another plane of existence.
Um, teleport, greater teleport, and interplanetary teleport all work in ordinaly 3 dimensional space. Other planets aren't other dimensions.
Give level 10 Valeros old Crane Wing as a bonus feat and give level 10 Seoni Dazing Spell. Who gets more use out of their bonus feat? I'm not saying that there isn't a caster/martial disparity. But caster things tend to need focus to be good and martial things don't, which means that it is easier to adjudicate martial feats and archetypes.
If you do that the poor Valeros first has to take crane style with his next feat because whithout it his bonus feat doesn't work.
Seoni on the other hand either just start lobbing dazing spells or she takes the additional traits feat and learns magical lineage to make the bonus feat even better. Which way she goes, she's better off than Valeros.|
|
The best way to look at this is in terms of dimensions. Just because you can move infinitely in a straight line doesn't mean you can move into another plane of existence.Um, teleport, greater teleport, and interplanetary teleport all work in ordinaly 3 dimensional space. Other planets aren't other dimensions.
Uhhhh, planes of existence are not "planets".
I was under the impression that the new Power Attack's damage potential was greater than the old one's.Not really - 3.5's Power Attack let you decide for yourself what the damage to accuracy balance would, there were various options available (like Leap Attack) to improve the scaling of Power attack, be and with certain feats (primarily Shock Trooper) you could completely sidestep the accuracy penalty.
Though for what it's worth, personally I'm happy the leap attacking shock trooper barbarian has been toned down.
Imagine a Warforged doing that...
However, material that doesn't exist in PF shouldn't count in a comparison.
Also Improved Trip still only needs Combat Expertise and STR 13.3.5's Improved Trip was broken into two feats in Pathfinder, Improved and Greater trip. If you want the same effect Improved Trip gave in 3.5, you need both feats.
Trip's not an opposed Strength/Dexterity check anymore. If you don't factor that in the comparison, it's not valid.
It should also be noted that 3.5's Improved Trip was available at level 1, whereas Greater Trip comes online at level 6 due to the base attack bonus requirement.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Uhhhh, planes of existence are not "planets".The best way to look at this is in terms of dimensions. Just because you can move infinitely in a straight line doesn't mean you can move into another plane of existence.Um, teleport, greater teleport, and interplanetary teleport all work in ordinaly 3 dimensional space. Other planets aren't other dimensions.
Other planets are not planes.
You can't really make the argument that teleport only works on a 2D plane, because then we would need spells like vertical teleport.
Not really - 3.5's Power Attack let you decide for yourself what the damage to accuracy balance would, there were various options available (like Leap Attack) to improve the scaling of Power attack, be and with certain feats (primarily Shock Trooper) you could completely sidestep the accuracy penalty.Imagine a Warforged doing that...
However, material that doesn't exist in PF shouldn't count in a comparison.
...Then you're not getting an accurate read of the relative power of the two feats.
You can't really make the argument that teleport only works on a 2D plane, because then we would need spells like vertical teleport.You can connect any two points in a 3D space with a straight line.
So we are back to planets being in the equation.
I will concede that planets move and you probably only teleport to where you thought the planet was, thus the 9th level spell is useful for it's accuracy.
But by no means should greater teleport not work when you try to teleport to a different planet.
I will concede that planets move and you probably only teleport to where you thought the planet was, thus the 9th level spell is useful for it's accuracy.
Is that really how that works? Because that'd make teleporting onto a moving object like never work wouldn't it?
Also couldn't you scry for an accurate picture of where the planet is right now instead of looking up into the sky and being like, "Imma go.....THERE!"
A textbook picture would also function for that wouldn't it?
I will concede that planets move and you probably only teleport to where you thought the planet was, thus the 9th level spell is useful for it's accuracy.
Is that really how that works? Because that'd make teleporting onto a moving object like never work wouldn't it?
Also couldn't you scry for an accurate picture of where the planet is right now instead of looking up into the sky and being like, "Imma go.....THERE!"
A textbook picture would also function for that wouldn't it?
Scrying you are seeing the actual place (it may be hard to scry on a planet). That place is where you think it is so you can port there accurately. Same for moving objects.
Now looking at the sky, pointing towards a star, and trying to teleport to it only takes you to where that star was when in made/reflected that like which would have been millions of years ago in many cases.
I will concede that planets move and you probably only teleport to where you thought the planet was, thus the 9th level spell is useful for it's accuracy.
Is that really how that works? Because that'd make teleporting onto a moving object like never work wouldn't it?
Also couldn't you scry for an accurate picture of where the planet is right now instead of looking up into the sky and being like, "Imma go.....THERE!"
A textbook picture would also function for that wouldn't it?
Scrying you are seeing the actual place (it may be hard to scry on a planet). That place is where you think it is so you can port there accurately. Same for moving objects.
Now looking at the sky, pointing towards a star, and trying to teleport to it only takes you to where that star was when in made/reflected that like which would have been millions of years ago in many cases.
It's just not a martial VS caster debate without this falacy. You cannot scry a location. You can only scry individuals. If someone you know of is on another planet, congrats, you've been able to circumvent the rule. But other than this rule, divination spells only show you people you know of and items you have touched.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It's just not a martial VS caster debate without this falacy. You cannot scry a location. You can only scry individuals. If someone you know of is on another planet, congrats, you've been able to circumvent the rule. But other than this rule, divination spells only show you people you know of and items you have touched.
I will concede that planets move and you probably only teleport to where you thought the planet was, thus the 9th level spell is useful for it's accuracy.
Is that really how that works? Because that'd make teleporting onto a moving object like never work wouldn't it?
Also couldn't you scry for an accurate picture of where the planet is right now instead of looking up into the sky and being like, "Imma go.....THERE!"
A textbook picture would also function for that wouldn't it?
Scrying you are seeing the actual place (it may be hard to scry on a planet). That place is where you think it is so you can port there accurately. Same for moving objects.
Now looking at the sky, pointing towards a star, and trying to teleport to it only takes you to where that star was when in made/reflected that like which would have been millions of years ago in many cases.
Someone you know, or someone you have heard about (with a +5 to the Will Save).
If you have heard there's a Jedi Master in a planet called Dagobah, that's enough to scry for it
In a Star Wars campaign, sure. But how many Golarion based people would know people with poor enough Will saves to allow for them to travel to other planets? Most the alien races are said to be so long on Golarion, they're unaware of anyone on their home planets, so there goes that idea.
It's just not a martial VS caster debate without this falacy. You cannot scry a location. You can only scry individuals. If someone you know of is on another planet, congrats, you've been able to circumvent the rule. But other than this rule, divination spells only show you people you know of and items you have touched.
Relax mate. I meant scrying as a shorthand for divination magic.
Nobody mentioned Golarion until you.
In a Star Wars campaign, sure. But how many Golarion based people would know people with poor enough Will saves to allow for them to travel to other planets? Most the alien races are said to be so long on Golarion, they're unaware of anyone on their home planets, so there goes that idea.
If you have fought some guys from the Dark Tapestry and beyond, it's not so hard.
To put it otherwise: yes, few people know about it. It's a very high DC knowledge check. Tell me how high, and I'd tell you how you can beat the DC ;)
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
A thought...
You cannot, no matter how hard u try, nerf casters and martials equally. Martials are largely based on a succession of feat chains or a handful of top tier feats mixed with good quality class features. Casters on the other hand tend to have spells and be built on those spells. Even if someone says nerfs a spell or a lot of spells, there are so many blue rates spells among the guides that its impossible to nerf the caster.
Furthermore, the feats based on casting tend to support virtually any spell in ur entire list as long as u meet prerequisites, which is usually minimal when compared to combat feats. Also, consider that if glitter dust was just abolished, great I still have invisibility and how many other spells to cast half a dozen times?
I feel that feats are already less than most spells and when any feat or feat chain gets dumbed down it makes a controversial situation more problematic. And as I said we have too many spells for a caster to truly b dumbed down. U could make the arguement that if every caster lost every class feature he would still be as good as a martial character.
Casters and martials don't have to be equal. I don't think anyone playing 3E or PF expects that to ever happen. All we want is to close the gap a bit, and for martials to actually be better than casters in some situations (other than the "days you have like a dozen encounters but infinite healing" scenarios that almost never happen). At the very least, since PF is a modified version of 3E, we should at least expect the gap to not expand even larger, like it DID. That's seriousl not asking for much.
And it does not have to be that way. Caster feats can be nerfed. Noncaster feats can be buffed. The paradigm of martials having to burn a bunch of feats they don't even want just to get to the end of the chain for the one they want CAN die in a fire like it should have long ago. If a feat requires Dodge, Mobility, and BAB +4...what is the harm in just making it require BAB +4? You're not getting it any earlier than you could have before. But now you actually have those other 2 feats to spend on whatever you want.
These are pretty basic, simple requests. That for some reason fall on deaf ears.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
There cannot exist any level of parity why these to game rules exist:
* arcane casters that can learn unlimited number of spells
* divine casters that have instant access to all spells available for their level
* non-casters that must allocate limited character resources (feats) to gain new abilities.
Since I do not expect the above to ever change, I conclude parity is and will always be unobtainable.
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
There cannot exist any level of parity why these to game rules exist:
* arcane casters that can learn unlimited number of spells
* divine casters that have instant access to all spells available for their level
* non-casters that must allocate limited character resources (feats) to gain new abilities.
Since I do not expect the above to ever change, I conclude parity is and will always be unobtainable.
Right. It's impossible to ever have total parity between the two camps. So if I were to make a feat letting wizards quicken all their spells as for free and another one that doubles their caster level for all spell parameters....
Who cares, amirite? I mean, so long as it isn't perfectly balanced, why should we care about balance at all? It's not like we're going to completely fix the problem no matter what we do, so f*** it. It wasn't balanced before, and wasn't balanced after. And all decisions on balance are clearly Boolean true/false.
I would rather see them nerf a bunch of spells than make too many changes to martials. The no save spells are the biggest problem in my experience. When you can affect another creature without a save in a party environment, they are done.
I don't have much problem with a caster on his own. All this talk of wizards or other casters being able to win by themselves is false. The problem occurs when the party paradigm is taken into account. A caster can wait for his party to engage the enemies which allows him to pick and choose points in the battle to unleash no save spells that pretty much end fights or make them trivial. That's annoying as a DM.
What I don't understand is all these players complaining martials are weak. That's not my experience at all. Fighters are fighters. They are boring and supposed to be. Their schtick is weapons and they do it very well. Not sure what else they are supposed to do. About all the archetype could use is more skill points to simulate the professional soldier.
Monks have an attack roll problem. No way to consistent boost it.
Rogues have a save problem. Two bad saves, both of them more important than their only good save, causes them to die or be incapacitated over and over again as you rise in level.
Most of the other classes are well balanced. Do a ton of damage and have a lot of versatility that makes for interesting gaming. There are times when casters shine unleashing incredible damage or effects on enemies. There are times when casters cast a spell and it does nothing. They feel like they wasted their round. While a martial has more reliable damage dealing capabilities. Casters often die if targeted by effects or martials themselves. Opponents generally plan to deal with casters in this fashion. They are just as intelligent as the players and know who has to die first for them to succeed. They plan appropriately to deal with their enemy.
I may be biased because I've played so long and have such an intricate understanding of how to challenge a party that designing encounters is easy. The only time I have a problem is when Paizo releases some new spell with no save that renders an enemy trivial like prediction of failure. That was a fun one when it was sprung on me. Make your save and it is permanent, miss your save and it lasts a round per level. -4 on just about everything unless you're immune to the shaken and sickened conditions. Unreal that Paizo allowed this spell past their rule checker. They did. It messed up one my encounters.
I wish Paizo would have a lot better oversight with spells. They could use some nerfing. Martials are fine as is. Caster spell options are the big problem. The gap could be closed with some serious clean up work on spells.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I would rather see them nerf a bunch of spells than make too many changes to martials.
WTF?
| 14 people marked this as a favorite. |
Fighters are fighters. They are boring and supposed to be.
Don't you find something wrong there? It's a game. It's supposed to be fun. Playing a fighter is not a job, you aren't payed for it. It shouldn't be boring. I can stomach fighters not being powerful or balanced. But being boring isn't acceptable in a game
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
You just described the Warrior NPC class. Not the Fighter class.
And that's a big part of the problem.
+1 andreww
The martial vs caster arguement is a sad thing to bring up over and over. Martials want to feel awesome and casters always seem to do more than them. Well, the overshadowing is not what people make it out to be. Casters are good at performing their set of magic and usually get some nice bonuses like bloodline immunities or oracle curse tremor sense, blah bla blah. This is how they work. Casters can maintain a set of options throughout the course of gameplay that are usually very diverse allowing them to achieve feats of greatest they couldn't normally perform like flying over a castle wall. Everybody know that if a 20th level fighter walks up to 20th level mage, the mage prolly wins even if he has no expensive components and neither have any magic gear. Even if the fighter has a magic armor and sword, flesh to stone or a powerful compulsion might suffice in securing a victory for the mage. The problem for mages is they have a limit. They aren't ACTUALLY good at everything, they are just good at emulating. A mage could prepare knock in every applicable slot but at the end of the day, the rogue/martial locksmith is the one who will always be good at picking that lock. Rogue never run out of disable device uses. Fighters don't reach a daily limit on cleave. Martials are always good at being martial and mundane. The real reason people are upset is because mages can cast big effect spells that for a moment out class anything a martial character is capable of, but ultimately, martial characters willalways be good at what they do.
My last session in a level 5 party our serenrae cleric fireballed a group of 6 orcs who were clumped up near a barracks entrance. One shotted them. About ten minutes prior, our ranger had in two turns killed 5 guys with no help or even a chance for backup (we weren't around) and the 6th guy he didn't kill fled. Guess what, our cleric has 1 fireball a day. The ranger always stays stocked on arrows like he should...