...youve clearly never BEEN in a party WITH a dominated combat monster martial PC.
someone who puts all their stats into str and con who youve already buffed and has that awesome 8 wis.
then he eats through your precious resources much faster in a single encounter than buffing him for the day and covering his weaknesses every would.
That's called optimizing towards the wrong thing. The martial wasn't optimized towards having a passable will. If you looked at the guides for martials you would know that for the ones that don't naturally have a good will they don't advise dumping it. Simply put, if a build using a class with a naturally low will save is dumping wis, then whoever is making the build screwed up. The Barbarian is amazing for a martial partly because of superstition, which makes their saves actually really good versus the majority of really dangerous effects. You know, the class that is widely regarded as the best martial by optimizers. And even then wis still gets a 10 or 12
And as you mentioned at 5th level with precious few spells, martials are still clearly carrying the party, and the difference between an 18 and a 14 str havent really set in yet.its at 12th level where it becomes a major issue, and above... and casters dont know what to do with their 2nd level spells by then anyway.
You didn't read my post, did you? 25-35% less damage is huge. It's the difference between a two round kill and a three round kill. By the time casters can afford to waste slots making up for your atrocious primary stat, you will have a belt anyway so it won't help much.
As for martials carrying casters...BAHAHAHAH. No. Just no. In the game I am GMing, the martial(UnMonk) has been generally the weakest party member, the 3/4 BAB generalist martial caster(the inquisitor) has been a constantly solid performer and the two fullcasters (witch and druid) fluctuate between "kinda OK", "encounter is easily solvable by greatsword swings, so lets conserve spells and not contribute much" and "I DECLARE THIS ENCOUNTER OVER *casts first spell of the fight*". Amusingly, the only time the casters have been useless when they were badly needed was when another caster crippled both of them with an entangle in the suprise round. Even then, the monk had a bad time without support while the Inquisitor managed much better (probably due to not needing to spend a turn beside natural attackers before doing semi-decent damage). This has been going on since we started the campaign, which they were level 3 at.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Arcanists laugh at the idea of not having the right spell lol.
I'm not arguing that Martials don't need better things
Like i mentioned above it may well be higher point pools by class
But I think that would only be a bandaid
Especially for the fighter it used to be feats
But fear choice is still lacking in that regard and too many people
Cry when the fighter gets feats unacessible by others
A lot of you would be very disappointed playing casters at lower levels in my campaigns
Things just don't work out like you say they do
8-12th is were most people agree the disparity between the classes takes over
As for 25-35% less damage, casters can low roll all session long and do worse than that
At my table we had the infamous 11 damage lightening bolt from a witch three sessions in a row
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Blasters are the WORST casters...
Low levels?
Color spray, sleep, hideous laughter, fear, Sleep Hex, charm... lots of options open. 3/4 BAB full casters like the Oracle or Cleric has it.even easier since the difference in BAB and HP isnt very huge yet (2hp and 1 bab). Once you hit level 3 it just gets worse...
Blasters are the WORST casters...
Low levels?
Color spray, sleep, hideous laughter, fear, Sleep Hex, charm... lots of options open. 3/4 BAB full casters like the Oracle or Cleric has it.even easier since the difference in BAB and HP isnt very huge yet (2hp and 1 bab). Once you hit level 3 it just gets worse...
That's true with the 3/4 bab casters
But the low level spells don't get off as much without saves
At higher levels it's more likely the targets fail saves
Casters at lower levels are also easier to take out or interrupt and they have even fewer slots
At higher levels they are much more inaccessible to take out and have enough self buffs to deal with it
And you're saying 16 is hard to beat?
How often is a 16 ac defeated?
Pretty often.
Which means it's just as likely to save vs that spell
At higher levels some of those spells are neigh impossible to save against
And how many nuke slots do you have at level 1-3?
So between three and five encounters
And that's if you memorize only that spell
Which almost never happens
No shield? No Mage armor? No nothing else?
In reality you have 1 or 2 battle stopping opportunities
Design Manager
|
Level 1:
Wiz 1, +1 [Stat Bonus Spell] + 1 or 2 [Stat bonus spell] + 1 [Specialist Slot] + 1 [Bonded Object]Most level 1 wizards have 4 spells per day, some have 3 and others have 5. I can't ever see myself playing a level 1 wizard with less than 3.
It's also worth mentioning that during levels 1-3 there's very little difference between the accuracy of a 3/4 BAB class and a half BAB one. Also, Point-Blank Shot helps out with rays and similar spell effects, so it's not a terrible feat for a caster to take. During a Rise of the Runelords playthrough we did, the elven Void wizard in our group used gravity bow and her racial proficicency with longbows to contribute just as effectively in combat as anyone else, kept a couple defensive scrolls on hand, and still had at least one major spell for every encounter we ended up running into. We ran on a 25 point buy thinking it would be more beneficial to the martial characters in the group (we had a Fighter (Viking), a Rogue (Scout), and a Warder (Hawkguard) in the group), but really all it did was give the wizard enough DEX to compete with the Hawkguard as a primary ranged combatant in addition to the usual spellslinging awesomeness until she'd hit a level where using her bow was just super inefficient compared to her other options.
A fighter can have an ac of 20 at level one and 15 hp without half trying hard
How many goblins are finishing him off in 1-2 encounters?
The wizard however is as close to death from one shot as the goblins are from color spray
That sounds like a 50/50 gamble
Not a show stopping all star
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
More to the point that's simply talking about one member of the full caster crew.
A witch can sleep hex all day long and still wizz at the enemies immune or lucky.
Druid has a murder pet and plenty of melee on its own to make its longevity legitimate.
A cleric has 1st level domain powers that remain viable all the way to 20.
A shaman, well, a shaman can do pretty much all of the above.
And then you throw in oracles, arcanists, and now psychics into the mix.
It's actually been quite a while since ive seen anyone play a straightforward wizard.
More to the point that's simply talking about one member of the full caster crew.
A witch can sleep hex all day long and still wizz at the enemies immune or lucky.
Druid has a murder pet and plenty of melee on its own to make its longevity legitimate.
A cleric has 1st level domain powers that remain viable all the way to 20.
A shaman, well, a shaman can do pretty much all of the above.
And then you throw in oracles, arcanists, and now psychics into the mix.
It's actually been quite a while since ive seen anyone play a straightforward wizard.
witches can be one shotted just like wizards at level 1...a stray arrow or spear thrust and their done.
oracles, druids, clerics, decidedly more hardy.
and no there is barely a difference combat wise between them at level 1 and a full BAB character.
Id say the only difference would be a human fighter with three feats....properly built he can be amazing until level 4-5 when everything else pretty much catches up.
this whats makes e6 popular... maritals are relevant.
you see TONS of rangers and even fighters in E6 campaigns.
In normal ones there are a few rangers... maybe a barb or two... and then... crickets.
there's a REASON for that... because martials DO need better stuff.
most wizards i even see built go for 17 or 18 in int and then add their racial bonus for a 19-20.
They can STILL do this with low point builds too. they dont NEED 20 or 25 points.
you get a 15 point build youve got wesley the farm boy for a fighter and raistlin majere for a spell caster.
at 25 points you have the dread pirate roberts for a fighter and raistlin whose not sick as a spell caster.
point buy has a decidedly lower effect on a spellcaster build than it does a martial.
be that as it may, i prefer low point build/low fantasy games and martials or 3/4 classes.
I think part of our disagreements on how effective various tactics are is a matter of playstyle.
I almost never GM with and have seldom played in dungeon crawls, 'turtling' by taking up doorway/hallway space is almost never an option.
I dont think we DO disagree.
I think what im saying is fighters are decent and viable at low to mid levels.
and youre saying spellcasters have way more power.
the only thing we disagree on is im saying martials are vialble at low levels.... and I think youre syaing they arent at all?
Whats hilarious about your analogy is it's the same person from the same story at different times being represented by different point buys rather than different levels.
what do levels do?
give you more power.
What do extra stats do?
give you more power.
whats a side effect of leveling up?
getting more stats.
wesley the farm boy at level 1 with a 10 point build.
He could easily BE the same character to start out with at level 1 with a 25 point build that he would be at level 3 with a 10 point build.
more str, con and dex make a huge difference at low levels.
as for the wizard, the only thing that changes is he doenst make any sacrifices for his phenomenal cosmic power.
meh... I think that party would be boring because of the thunder stealing thing.
I never said casters were dead weight... Im just saying if you go beyond level 6-8 martials become rapidly superfluous, with the rare exception of the barbarian or the occasional super archer build.
but I have seen more than once a pair of orcs whittle through 2nd level casters like they were titans.
MOST APS see TPKS at two points.... the first book (because the maritals arent good enough to protect the party, or there are no maritals) and the fourth book (because the martials have become a liability)
Level 1:
1 [Wizard] + 1 or 2 [Stat bonus spell] + 1 [Specialist Slot] + 1 [Bonded Object]Most level 1 wizards have 4 spells per day, some have 3 and others have 5. I can't ever see myself playing a level 1 wizard with less than 3.
Add about 6 uses of a level 1 school power to that.
|
Design Manager
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
That's been done already, it's called Martial Maneuvers. Look into Tome of Battle [Book of Nine Swords] or Path of War.Not quite what I meant, I meant you take the entire pathfinder system for "spells known", and "spell slots" and add this kind of ability to all of the classes, subtracting the amount that class has of "spells known" already, and adding a bonus for one of those 3 stats as the current system does for Int, allowing players to insert maneuver specific feats(no static bonuses, only turn/attack specific abilities like PA or Cleave or Improved cleave) that you then count as having for pre-requisites, however you can only use them in a limited fashion as though they were spells.
That way you bring every class up(including the wizard to an extent, as they could get only the "bonus" with 0 slots built in), however the non-casters get far more uses out of it, and as it would essentially be the = of spells for those casters they would most likely not benefit from essentially free partial combat feats over magic.
Pure martials like the fighter would not just get more attack options, they would also free up a lot of extra feat slots better used for static bonuses, it would also allow you to essentially dump rarely used maneuver ability's into a place where you can use them as often as they are useful... which might be rarely/never, just highly useful when you can use them ability's.
I think that that's fairly difficult to implement under the current system without completely changing the way feats work. It also actually undermines the Fighter by devaluing his advantage in feat tree completion. You potentially raise the floor a bit, but don't actually change the class hierarchy at all. It also creates a problem when it comes to determining prereqs, retraining, and for people who maybe want to use said feats more than a couple times per day.
I did put together a combat system that kind of combines your idea with Path of War though, divorcing maneuvers and disciplines from specific classes and giving multiple ways to graft them directly into the combat system in a way that self-balances against casters by subtracting their spells from their potential maneuvers. Full casters end up locked out completely, and the higher your BAB and the less spellcasting you have the more maneuvers you have available. Operates under the same basic principle but without requiring retooling of the feat system.
|
Design Manager
|
in what way would it "devalue" the fighters feats? you still need to meet the pre-requisites to get the feat in any form... this includes class restrictions, further, to gateway higher level feat slots would likely be high BAB requirements, also keep in mind this would be declared attack/action type abilities, not things like armor proficiencies, nimble moves or toughness(which the fighter could then spam to fill out his feats).I think that that's fairly difficult to implement under the current system without completely changing the way feats work. It also actually undermines the Fighter by devaluing his advantage in feat tree completion. You potentially raise the floor a bit, but don't actually change the class hierarchy at all. It also creates a problem when it comes to determining prereqs, retraining, and for people who maybe want to use said feats more than a couple times per day.
I did put together a combat system that kind of combines your idea with Path of War though, divorcing maneuvers and disciplines from specific classes and giving multiple ways to graft them directly into the combat system in a way that self-balances against casters by subtracting their spells from their potential maneuvers. Full casters end up locked out completely, and the higher your BAB and the less spellcasting you have the more maneuvers you have available. Operates under the same basic principle but without requiring retooling of the feat system.
Toughness, Nimble Moves, and proficiencies aren't combat feats, so the Fighter has just as many of those as anyone else, even under your proposed change. In fact, since the Fighter has the best starting proficiencies, it actually means that classes like the Rogue who start with relatively terrible proficiencies benefit more than the Fighter, since they can grab their Improved Dirty Trick for free and snag feats that would otherwise not be worth it, like Toughness or Armor Proficiency (Medium or Heavy). The Fighter also already has the issue of most feats he can grab at high levels being hot garbage anyways, unless he's using a really feat-intensive style like sword and board or archery. Those combat maneuver and variant attack option feats are generally the type of feat he can grab with his bonus feats, and represent his one real advantage. Generally, Fighters are the only character that can afford to effectively master more than 1 type of combat maneuver. By handing them out for free, you remove that advantage by giving it to everyone else, and take away the Fighter's low level "supremacy", leaving no area of the game at all where he gets to have an edge.
Um... fighter fairly similair proficiencies as Pally and Cavalier... only diff is that fighter can use a towershield,.. BIG WHOOP lol. Sadly tower shields.suck hard...
|
Design Manager
|
Um... fighter fairly similair proficiencies as Pally and Cavalier... only diff is that fighter can use a towershield,.. BIG WHOOP lol. Sadly tower shields.suck hard...
And the Paladin and the Cavalier both have superior class features to the Fighter, so my point about the suggested change doing nothing but raising the floor universally while further marginalizing the Fighter continues to stand.