eelot |
Hello everybody, long time player, first time poster here.
I've been scouring the net for the last couple of weeks looking for a way to bring martials up to par with casters with minimal work (no huge revisionist shopping list of things and no new system/completely reworked classes to learn).
As such, I have come up with two separate ideas (including utilizing both at the same time) I'd like any advice and insight into these proposed changes. The final intention of these revisions are to expand the total versatility of martials in relation to casters.
My first proposition is to grant additional feats to the martials. Casters (as in full casters) gain no bonus feats. I was also thinking of granting extra feats to the partial caster (tops out at 4th or 6th level spells). I also want to keep the fighter king of bonus feats even with this patch so they would be getting even more feats. All in all I was thinking 40ish feats to fighters, something like 25 to 30ish feats for non-fighter martials and 15 to 20ish feats for the partial casters. These are all by level 20.
The other proposed fix is to make it so combat feats naturally scale. The draft of the "errata" is as such:
Whenever you acquire a combat or style feat that is the prerequisite for potential future feats, pick a particular branch of future feats. You automatically gain the feats from that branch whenever you meet all other prerequisites of those feats. If there are multiple feats that share the same prerequisites, pick only one of those feats and all future feats that branch off from that one. Also, when you pick a feat that is the only prerequisite of another feat or feats (such as Point-Blank Shot and the feats Charging Hurler, Far Shot, Precise Shot and Focused Shot), you gain that feat (or only one of those feats if there are multiple such as with the Point-Blank Shot branch of feats).
kyrt-ryder |
This won't legitimately bridge the gap, but it will reduce it a bit, particularly if you open the floodgates to 3.5 and 3.0 feats as well.
The game suffers from 'there's a feat for that' syndrome which significantly reduces a martial character's viable options to little more than 'hit it with a stick', options explicitly called out in their class features [which quite frequently just augment 'hit it with a stick' although Barbarians, Paladins and Rangers get some additional tricks they can take/use], or at most 1 additional option that cost them way too many feats.
Interestingly enough, I have playtested a [2 bonus feats per Fighter Level and more skill points and Weapon Training applies to ALL weapons rather than selected weapon groups] Fighter 'quick fix' and it performed fairly well. No where near the breadth of options that a caster gets, but he was very good at delivering his damage payload under many many circumstances. HOWEVER the more feats you require the player take, the more they need to understand the game [and be willing to study dusty tomes... I mean the SRD... to find and select all those feats he's accruing] thus increasing the System Mastery requirement.
Xethik |
I think these may help, but do not solve the problem of casters being able to alter the course of the game massively (aka narrative power) while martials being really good at hitting things.
Have you looked into the E6 system? It's somewhat similar, but you cutoff leveling after a certain point and instead hand-out feats rather than levels. If you can find a sweet spot where martials and casters are both good at their respective role and not able to outperform the others, things work out well. You could even give bonus feats to the martials everytime an E6 feat is gained if you wish.
Trogdar |
Feat scaling is a good start. I wouldn't give tonnes more feats because it becomes a game of book keeping after a while. I would definitely give martial classes a second good save and extra skills, then open up other, more fantastic, uses of skills after a certain rank investment. This does effect casters some, but it really is kind of a drop in the bucket for them and a pretty significant buff to non casters(with their larger pool of ranks). Basically every non caster without sixth level casting or more gets two more ranks to work with.... Fighter could probably use four more.
Atarlost |
Quick fix: all non-casters get a strong will save. All casters lose their will save. Yes, that means wizards have no decent saves. Wizards should not have strong saves in a setting with Lovecraftian elements and Golarion has Lovecraftian elements.
Slightly more involved fix: Mundanes and monks get three good saves. 4 level casters, 6 level divine casters, and SU-heavy non-casters other than monk get two good saves. Arcane 6 level casters and divine full casters get one good save. Arcane full casters get no good saves.
eelot |
A little more background:
Me and my group started playing Pathfinder something like 5 years ago. Each of us do have a lot of system mastery. Usually I am the one GMing and I am a very generous GM who lets a LOT of things slide that I really shouldn't. As such, I do allow extremely high powered games (higher point buys than the highest recommended, extra traits, mythic tiers, 3rd party stuff though not epic as no one has experience and I understand the unbalancing the prospect comes with) which typically involve planet and plane-spanning save the cosmology type of campaigns. However, I still see too much of a disparity in the martials and the casters.
I realize that the disparity is inherent in the system and would require an entire rework. I am just looking for quick fixes to close the chasm (despite knowing it will never completely be closed). We play with psionics and I have offered path of ar characters but no one has taken it up yet (whenever I get the chance to play, I play casters as I do in all RPG's; I love breaking physics). I have also offered to open the 3.x gates but most of the time the players reluctantly choose such options as they feel that pathfinder holds enough glut of its own without 3.x. We all also have little system mastery of 3.x since we really started with pathfinder (although I do have much more than the others).
And when we feel like a low-powered game we play PVP conflict roleplaying with a pool of about 50 5th level characters.
Don't know if this really clarifies anything but I do appreciate your guys' speedy replies! Extra skill points, weapon groups in place of singular decision for weapon focus etc and altered save progressions are noted. The campaigns I run usually are lovecraftian (more so than my group tends to enjoy). Any suggestions on how many extra feats might be appropriate? I was also wondering about adjusting WBL so martials are generally richer. Any experience with this kind of fix and how ECL is affected?
kyrt-ryder |
You want quick and dirty?
Every non-caster player gets either a Path of War Initiator Progression of the class you feel most appropriate [with its accompanying maneuver recovery mechanic] or Psychic Warrior Manifesting Progression [but no class features whatsoever of either of these], whichever is more appropriate to their character concept at no cost whatsoever to the character. This progression advances every level the character takes a non-casting class.
If you're feeling generous to Gish Types you might allow this to advance during levels when a martially oriented prestige class sacrifices caster levels. Possibly only via a feat.
Then your players have the option to choose whether or not to use their bonus special powers, but they don't have to worry about choosing some weird class they aren't familiar with and can take their time mastering the new system.
EDIT: you might couple this with 1 feat per point of BAB [and for the love of all that is holy make sure Monks and Rogues are full BAB classes] rather than the standard 1st level and every odd level thereafter.
RogueMortal |
Grab Mythic. Allow PCs to gain mythic ranks with the caveat that they must subtract a number of mythic ranks equal to their total "tiers" of spells available. For example, Cantrips through third level spells would take a -4 to mythic rank while a ranger with only first level spells takes a -1. Options like Barbarian's rage powers, Rogue's Minor Magic or general Su qualities of the monk may take some fiddling to balance.
DualJay |
Changing saves/more feats does not fix the problem. Maybe bringing in feats from 3.5 would do the trick, but as it is, the real issue is as follows (in very general terms):
Martials should be Superman - able to go in and slug it out with the best, basically always. Instead, they're like... some lame, less powerful flying brick. I dunno, don't really read comics that much.
Casters should be like Batman. Powerful and versatile, but not so deadly as Superman. If they get prep time - time to plan, pick the write spells, scribe scrolls - they'll be stronger than Superman. (I'm not going to argue the Batman vs Superman thing because I honestly don't care.) Instead, they're more like Batman with Superman's body.
Other classes should fall somewhere in between or be force multipliers (like the bard and the skald).
And when they all work together, they are unbeatable.