The discrepancies between martial and magic


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


This is not going to be what you think.

I love casters, I've played sorcerers, wizards and witches and will be embarking on my first cleric in a couple of months after we are done current campaign.

In the two campaigns I'm in now though I've tried to set up debuffs and battlefield control. I love that.

The problem is, by the time I've spent a round on haste, then a round on summons and or a control or debuffs, the martial have destroyed things and come my initiative I am resigned to saying " you guys seem to have this under control " whereupon I get to put up with friendly jibes of "when you gonna pull your weight'

Let's be honest... Haste is nice but they would have torn &%!t up without it.

The two campaigns I'm in are not home brew, one is WotR, the other is RotRL.

In both we are around half way and in both I'm wondering what it would be like to hang with the cool melee guys.

What am I missing? Yes they are optimized but so am I. Do these AP's just make it easy on martials?

Do things get harder for them after 11+ maybe and I'm being impatient? Even if that's the case, it sucks I feel useless for the first half of my career.

Lol, I'm not even sure what I'm asking. Just typing out loud I guess.

Dark Archive

It is a time honored tradition that at early levels the guy with the sharp stick will usually outperform a caster who can do a few simple parlor tricks, where late levels that same caster is re-writing reality while the guy with the sharp stick has to rely on said re-writen reality (i.e magical buffs or gear) in order to compete. That being said there are ways to get a early caster to brawl with the best of them, but it sometimes requires specialization that isn't necessarily everyone's style.

As far as your character, from what it looks like, it looks like you're a support caster, at least for now. What I would do is lead with your summon spell so you have a critter that can get in the melee and fight with your martials, and THEN cast haste. This has the added benefit of letting your critter get the benefits of haste too ;) Third round debuff if you have to, or summon more things if you dont.

And support characters make or break encounters in my opinion. There have been more than enough times our party bard has made the difference between confirming a crit or not. Don't be so hard on yourself ;) high level, you'll be slinging the big flashy stuff while their sword arms are getting tired.


Things do get harder on Martials at higher levels. That being said, if you're playing a buffer/debuffer/controller primarily, why would you be surprised if the Martials are doing all of the damage? It is what they are designed to do after all. And the faster they kill encounters, the less spells you have to spend and the more encounters / day you can (in principle) burn through, which is seldom a bad thing.

That being said, what you're complaining about sounds like an action economy issue. What does the rest of your group look like? Is there anyone else who can cast Haste? How much do your martials benefit from Haste, compared with a battlefield control spell? Is there any way your DM would be willing to flip the bird to WBL and let you pick up a Lesser Quicken metamagic rod so you could do both?

Also, how is your DM running the enemies in the AP? If monsters are charging your martials, then standing in toe-to-toe and eating a full attack, this is going to be very advantageous for (most) martials.


Your problem is action economy. Stop spending so many rounds buffing while actually in combat and open with CC on the first turn. Imagine if the fighter spent his first round drawing out and sharpening his weapon, the next round saddling and mounting a horse etc.... that's basicially what you're doing.

Haste is only necessary if you need more damage output from martials. Sounds like they don't need the help.

Summoned monsters should be cast AFTER crowd control, not before. Remember the summoned monster gets to act immediately on your turn once it comes out. Your opening move at low levels should be colour spray, glitterdust etc. Your primary job is to deny opponent actions. After those actions are denied you can summon, blast etc.

Wait... you played a witch and had difficulty contributing outside of buffs?.... were you using the slumber hex?

How optimised are you, exactly? First turn slumber is not exactly high level stuff for a witch. Did you use dazing or persistent spell on the sorc?

I'm getting a 'not really that optimised after all' kind of vibe here.


First off yes the dms love love martial and most everything charges into their waiting blades.

When I was the witch I used slumber... Which was great for the one enemy. Then all the martial hit their turn and things were taken care off.

I think the issue is party make up and DM love for martials


malaketh wrote:
First off yes the dms love love martial and most everything charges into their waiting blades.

FWIW, have you considered tracking just what % of the party's damage is actually coming from Haste extra attacks and +1 to Attack? It might end up being far from "when are you going to do something," and more like "the caster is upping our damage by 30%, we're just too dim to realize it." I'm just wondering why they're giving you a hard time. I know that if I were a martial in your group, and you were Hasting me with the DM running monsters like that ... I'd be the best buddy you had.


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Sounds like your GM is happily playing his enemies mindlessly.

"Sure wish you would pull your weight." Has never been said to a caster in my games.

It's typically. "Sweet gods! Help! The little bastard's got me by the scrotum!"

Grand Lodge

malaketh wrote:
First off yes the dms love love martial and most everything charges into their waiting blades.

So, given these tactics, have your martials learned to use reach tactics? That's the way to exploit charge-happy opponents ...

Really,it sounds you are making a fine contribution and they just don't notice. I second what Cheburn said: actually track how much extra damage you contribute. Count your bardsong, the haste, other buffs, et cetera. I'd not be surprised if you were pulling 20-30% of total damage. I'd also not be surprised if some martial-happy group members were ignorant of this, because it's not altogether obvious that many small numbers add up to big numbers.

As you all level up the casters come to dominate more and more. Sure, the martials still do the damage, but without your Fly spell they could never have reached the foe.


You know, the more we "talk out loud" about this the clearer things are becoming. Perhaps that's why I posted.

They don't notice. They are ex mmo players and brand new to the game.

I was mired in a pity party perhaps but man I wish I could play with some vets sometimes.

Oh well.. At least I have a table to play at and time will do nothing but make us all better players and GMs.

I appreciate the thought experiment. It helped.


malaketh wrote:

This is not going to be what you think.

I love casters, I've played sorcerers, wizards and witches and will be embarking on my first cleric in a couple of months after we are done current campaign.

In the two campaigns I'm in now though I've tried to set up debuffs and battlefield control. I love that.

The problem is, by the time I've spent a round on haste, then a round on summons and or a control or debuffs, the martial have destroyed things and come my initiative I am resigned to saying " you guys seem to have this under control " whereupon I get to put up with friendly jibes of "when you gonna pull your weight'

Let's be honest... Haste is nice but they would have torn &%!t up without it.

The two campaigns I'm in are not home brew, one is WotR, the other is RotRL.

In both we are around half way and in both I'm wondering what it would be like to hang with the cool melee guys.

What am I missing? Yes they are optimized but so am I. Do these AP's just make it easy on martials?

Do things get harder for them after 11+ maybe and I'm being impatient? Even if that's the case, it sucks I feel useless for the first half of my career.

Lol, I'm not even sure what I'm asking. Just typing out loud I guess.

AP's do not handle optimized parties well, and mythic destroys WotR.

Killing things in 3 to 4 rounds is standard. I would save the summons, and just go with haste. If you are severely outnumbered or you need to control the battlefield in some way the summons can be used.


malaketh wrote:

First off yes the dms love love martial and most everything charges into their waiting blades.

This is also part of the problem. If the GM used better tactics than playing into their strengths the fights would be more difficult.


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I've experienced this problem with casters. It's good strategy to conserve spells for when they're really needed - especially with prepared casters, whose options decrease every time that cast a spell. That means in an easy battle, the best tactic is to cast no spells at all and let the martials handle it. But if the martials are well optimized and the GM is running standard CR opponents, most battles are easy battles. So the wizard or cleric has to choose between wasting their best spells on opponents who were about to die anyway, or saving them up for a crisis that probably won't occur.

Dark Archive

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Matthew Downie wrote:
I've experienced this problem with casters. It's good strategy to conserve spells for when they're really needed - especially with prepared casters, whose options decrease every time that cast a spell. That means in an easy battle, the best tactic is to cast no spells at all and let the martials handle it. But if the martials are well optimized and the GM is running standard CR opponents, most battles are easy battles. So the wizard or cleric has to choose between wasting their best spells on opponents who were about to die anyway, or saving them up for a crisis that probably won't occur.

See, I do the exact opposite. 'Pop it dont drop it' is my phrase of the day. (that being said, I usually play spontaneous casters). Even if the resources could probably be better spent on tougher fights, I do take into account that I'm playing a game that is meant to be fun, and I want to use my flashy powerful stuff, dang it! Opportunities for that don't come up every session, like you said. This does not stop me from casting Summon Monster VII on a horde of paper tiger goblins and convulsing in hideous laughter as the T-Rex eats every single one of them. Wasteful? Absolutely. The monk could have probably wiped out the camp all by himself by standing there and letting them swarm him, then punching all of them once. The look on my GM's face as I tell him that I drop a T-Rex in the middle of the goblin camp anyway? priceless. No kill like overkill.

Of course, that may just be a playstyle preference. ;)


First of all if the DM runs WotR (at books 3+) even remotely close to printing then your character might as well not exist.

Secondly, can you give us your builds and levels for both adventures?

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