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I'm not saying Pathfinder is broken. Far from it. I like the group dynamic and think a good GM can make wonderful challenges for a FULL PARTY even though there is power and/or utility "tier" disparity between the individuals of that party.
But, if we wanted to rig the system to smooth out that disparity, what changes would we make?
Can we do it without turning every martial class into into weird magus/jedi/ninja/wizards?
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It's actually not that hard.
Give 20th level wizards the typical power of a 5th level caster in the current system.
You are either going to have to power martials up, or power casters down. Or both. Unfortunately, powering martials up significantly means magic, or pseudo-magic (a lot of "anime" type stuff would fall into this category). If you don't want that, weaken casters till they suck as badly as martials.
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Put the "extraordinary" back into Ex abilities. Look at the Barbarian. Options on that scale for everyone and beyond at higher levels.
I would give all classes some kind of rogue talent or some such system where they could get a handfull of utility powers probably earlier than the casters get them but with a few more limitations. obviously these powers should usually have some kind of scaling ability to becomes more useful over time, just like spells.
I believe Kirth said it better than me.
something along the lines of them coming up for a level when certain things shouldn't matter any more, like around the level a wizard can get teleport, a fighter can get a flying mount, a rogue gains access to some magical items that allow him to fly/teleport/access to an network of people who can quickly get him places and the ranger becomes friends with an eagle. these are options just like getting teleport is, so that the role could be filled by any class or party member.
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Give 20th level wizards the typical power of a 5th level caster in the current system.
Yeah, I was hoping for something more along the lines of "Here's a couple quick house-rules..." and not quite so much "Here's how to destroy half of the CRB and 2/3 of all the Advanced Guides and 3/4 of all the Bestiaries..."
Already did this to some extent. Condense some of the major feat chains into scaling feats that scale with BAB, Use Stamina + new feats that specifically use stamina for Extraordinary abilities.
Give 20th level wizards the typical power of a 5th level caster in the current system.Yeah, I was hoping for something more along the lines of "Here's a couple quick house-rules..." and not quite so much "Here's how to destroy half of the CRB and 2/3 of all the Advanced Guides and 3/4 of all the Bestiaries..."
If it was that easy, someone probably would have already done it.
Its a fundamental problem with the system. I wouldn't hold out for any "quick fix".
To support what's already been said,.... make martials unrealistically superhuman as well as casters. What kills martials, from what I see, is a concern for realism, especially at high levels.
Give them anime-style maneuvers and superheroic tricks. If what you mean by "weird magus/jedi/ninja/wizards" is people with the ability to do things that can't be done by an Olympic athlete,... then you've overconstrained the problem. An "ordinary" fighter should be able to do things at level 20 that would be considered impressive in a wuxia film or a Sly Cooper video game; a rogue should be able to charm Artemis, the goddess of chastity, out of her underwear. A barbarian should literally be able to punch a hole in a dam, and a monk should be able to stand in a rainstorm without getting wet because his AC is so high the drops can't hit her.
Alternatively, play E6, so no one gets nice things at all.
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I put my KISS theory (way to do it without blowing up the system) in your other thread - but I'll put it here - re-edited to be a bit clearer.
1. Get rid of things which allow casters to replace martials. Getting rid of the huge self-buffs/polymorphing and summoning monsters would probably do it.
2. Get rid of long-term/immediate action defenses.
3. Make casters vulnerable when casting. Make it so that virtually all spells take at least a full round action to cast; a few rare spells might be as many as 3-4 rounds. (Teleport/Plane Shift/high level spells which dominate the battlefield.)
These three things together would make it so that casters still pull out nearly all of the craziness that they currently do - but they'd be reliant upon their martial buddies to keep them safe while they do it.
Oh - and probably get rid of most divination spells and/or make them far easier to beat. They tend to break plots too easily.
(The other option I see is to blow-up the class system and re-balance from the ground up.)
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I find that giving out Mythic ranks to martial characters every 4 levels goes a long way toward balancing the game.
I just don't allow Mythic Power Attack or Mythic Vital Strike. Every other mythic martial option is pretty much fine.
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Remove WBL and Expected gear. Basically R.I.P. christmas tree effect. Possibly eliminate all items that grant flat bonuses, i.e. no more stat belts/bands/+weapons/+armor or shield.
Mathhammer the whole system from the ground up. CMB vs CMD saves VS DC's Attack VS AC all need redone.
Rewrite the combat rules, eliminating the idea of Reality or "making sense". Write it solely as a game and use specific game terms none of this attack action vs attack as an action nonsense or wield vs wield.
Rewrite the magic chapter and spells to lower overall power level and remove "Gotcha" spells such as Simulacrum, Create Undead, and Planar Binding.
Rewrite skills to be worth something and to be something a character can be based around.
Rewrite weapons and armor so that there are valid weapon choices beyond 1 or 2 per category and more than one best armor choice.
Condense and enhance feats so having more is a good thing rather than "Yeah I can trade for another Rage power/Exploit."
After rewriting all of this mathhammer again.
And just to be clear do all of this with the focus on creating a readable, understandable, and internally consistent rule-set, not a setting. All of this should be done based on what makes the game work not on "reality" or "this book was cool" or "I don't/do like that."
This is how you get Martial ~= Casters
I put my KISS theory (way to do it without blowing up the system) in your other thread - but I'll put it here - re-edited to be a bit clearer.
While I also don't have a problem with how Pathfinder currently is, I like a lot of these suggestions. It makes casters match more closely with what I would expect instead of being gimicky.
Design Manager
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Give 20th level wizards the typical power of a 5th level caster in the current system.Yeah, I was hoping for something more along the lines of "Here's a couple quick house-rules..." and not quite so much "Here's how to destroy half of the CRB and 2/3 of all the Advanced Guides and 3/4 of all the Bestiaries..."If it was that easy, someone probably would have already done it.
Its a fundamental problem with the system. I wouldn't hold out for any "quick fix".
If one assumes that the game is supposed to start out "Lord of the Rings" and eventually be "Naruto: Shippuden" (which if you're a 2/3 or full caster, it does), then the issue is less the system itself and more that there is a fundamental disconnect in the way the game currently values at-will and limited use abilities that causes characters with exclusively at-will or "always on" options (primarily feats) to never be able to ascend out of the Lord of the Rings phase.
Currently, the game says that a Fighter's Weapon Focus is worth the same amount to a character as 3 cantrips, 1 first level spell, an arcane bond, a static skill or magic power boost, and an offensive ability useable 3+ primary ability score bonus times per day. That's obviously not true, but it's indicative of the problem: Every feat is weighted as though it's Whirlwind Attack or Thunder and Fang, when the reality is that only every 3rd or 4th feat, at best, is going to be that potent.
So the quickest solution without delving into massive changes to the complex magic system, is to either condense blocks of feats until they're actually equivalent to what the more magical characters are getting at each level, or dip into 3pp resources and see if you can't find some feats that manage to amp their RoI by being more situational, like a spell, without being so situational that they may never be used in a given campaign.
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If you want a good quick fix that doesn't change the game drastically, there are two things you can do that solve a good deal (if not all) of the disparity.
1. Full attack/standard does not exist. Nor does spring attack. If you are a fighter with 2 attacks, you have two attacks. As long as you have movement left, you can attack and keep on moving and split attacks between targets.
2. Combat feats scale with level. Is this feat a prerequisite for something else? Then it's granted automatically once your BAB reaches the appropriate level. Also combat expertise is dead as it should be.
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A hypothetical Anzyrfinder would address this issue through the following:
1. Restrict casters to more focused lists of effects. No more "You can learn all the magical schools."
2. Remove the truly egregious magic spells outright (Simulacrum) and tone down some of the other effects (Gate).
3. Martials get actual combat techniques ala Tome of Battle/Path of War.
4. Martial combat techniques start breaking reality at 7th level. Think short range teleporting at 7th level and work your way up from there.
5. Skills should become epic at 10 ranks in. 10 Ranks in Escape Artist would let you escape out of force effects and 15 Ranks would let you escape planes of existence for example.
Mind you this would be a fairly drastic rework hardly suitable for easy conversion.
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Currently, the game says that a Fighter's Weapon Focus is worth the same amount to a character as 3 cantrips, 1 first level spell, an arcane bond, a static skill or magic power boost, and an offensive ability useable 3+ primary ability score bonus times per day. That's obviously not true, ...
Actually, I think that might be true, but that gets into the linear fighter quadratic wizard problem. A feat might well be worth a level one spell (or even more), but a level two spell is worth two level one spells, a level three spell worth two level twos (or four level ones, by equivalence), and so forth. (I base this on the number of things that give you "one spell of level X or two spells of level X-1").
Doing the math, this means that a 17th level wizard's 9th level spell slot is worth more than five hundred feats. The ten bonus feats that a fighter gets over an entire career pales in comparison.
Similarly, a feat is worth four skill points (based on the number of +2 to two different skills feats out there); the 9th level spell is therefore worth more than two thousand skill points, which puts the 20th level rogue [who has a 120 skill point advantage over the wizard] to shame.
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Book of Nine Swords/Path of War system.
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^^^
This... funny this is that that book kinda fixed the disparity between mundane vs magical and we see how well it was accepted... People STILL complained, saying "its too weeaboo" or "it is to magical! it makes no sense!!!"
THIS my friends is the problem of trying to "fix" mundanes...
^^^
This... funny this is that that book kinda fixed the disparity between mundane vs magical and we see how well it was accepted... People STILL complained, saying "its too weeaboo" or "it is to magical! it makes no sense!!!"
THIS my friends is the problem of trying to "fix" mundanes...
Indeed. There's a portion of the fanbase that thinks a level 20 mundane character doing something they couldn't personally replicate in real life = the game is RUINED FOREVER!!!
Well that and when mundanes are tightly tied down to this false idea of "realism" so they are limited in just what they can pull off...
The rules don't allow martials to jump straight up 50 ft because it is considered "unrealistic" by many people but an frail man can float up 100 ft with nary a thought and it is considered perfectly fine. This stubborn hold on "Well that is way to unrealistic" is what crushes any hope of cool things for martials...
Like people think it would be unrealistic for even a level 20 fighter specializing in hammers or picks to be able to have any burrow speed at all without magic but there is the old Folk Tale of John Henry who beat a Drilling Machine in pounding a hole into a mountain. And this is a RECENT folk tale (i.e. one from the industrial age, not the black ages or things of that sort)... Something like allowing a burrow speed for martials with WEapon Focus (Hammer Group weapon or something) would be cool! But people would scream "UNREALISM!!!!"
I mean like... Tales like Paul Bunyan or John Henry would be cool to do! A guy who masters his trade and can do extraordinary things beyond the conprehension of men, but sadly in PF as it is, they are limited to Mythic level 20 Martials...
This... funny this is that that book kinda fixed the disparity between mundane vs magical and we see how well it was accepted... People STILL complained, saying "its too weeaboo" or "it is to magical! it makes no sense!!!"
Yup. I said something similar upthread: "What kills martials, from what I see, is a concern for realism, especially at high levels."
Like people think it would be unrealistic for even a level 20 fighter specializing in hammers or picks to be able to have any burrow speed at all without magic but there is the old Folk Tale of John Henry who beat a Drilling Machine in pounding a hole into a mountain. And this is a RECENT folk tale (i.e. one from the industrial age, not the black ages or things of that sort)... Something like allowing a burrow speed for martials with WEapon Focus (Hammer Group weapon or something) would be cool! But people would scream "UNREALISM!!!!"
That's not a folk tale. It's a true story.
It wasn't a drilling machine. It was a steam powered track-layer that was supposed to replace rail workers. It was essentially an pneumatic sledge hammer that traveled along a track driving rail spikes.
There was an open challenge to any man to drive more spikes faster than the machine could. John Henry accepted the challenge, beat the machine, and promptly died of a heart attack.
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Like people think it would be unrealistic for even a level 20 fighter specializing in hammers or picks to be able to have any burrow speed at all without magic but there is the old Folk Tale of John Henry who beat a Drilling Machine in pounding a hole into a mountain. And this is a RECENT folk tale (i.e. one from the industrial age, not the black ages or things of that sort)... Something like allowing a burrow speed for martials with WEapon Focus (Hammer Group weapon or something) would be cool! But people would scream "UNREALISM!!!!"That's not a folk tale. It's a true story.
It wasn't a drilling machine.
Nope. I'm fairly sure that the John Henry of legend that tunneled through the mountain was racing a drilling machine.
I'm also fairly sure it wasn't a true story.
Similarly, I'm fairly sure that the King Arthur that had a magical sword named Excalibur wasn't a true story, even if there was a historical king named Artos or something similar. I'm fairly sure that the d'Artagnan that served Louis XIII, brought the Queen's jewels back from England, and eventually became Marechàl de France was not a true story, and was a different d'Artagnan than Charles de Batz-Castelmore d'Artagnan who never rose above Captain-Lieutenant of the Musketeers.
I'm also sure that Paul Bunyon, leader in the Papineau Rebellion, was not a hundred feet tall, didn't have a big blue ox, and so forth. That's kind of the point. Folk tales -- and fantasy -- are not limited by what really happened or could happen.
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^^^
This... funny this is that that book kinda fixed the disparity between mundane vs magical and we see how well it was accepted... People STILL complained, saying "its too weeaboo" or "it is to magical! it makes no sense!!!"
THIS my friends is the problem of trying to "fix" mundanes...
Clearly these people have never read any Celtic mythology.
One Celtic hero has a sword made of rainbows that could cut the top off mountains.
Another once got so angry that when his friends dumped a barrel of water on him to calm him down, the water exploded and boiled away instantly.
The problem being that modern people have been raised on a strict diet of "these things are separate" whereas for ancient people magic was realism: it explained the way the world worked by following logic.
No, that's not it. For ancient people, magic was still magic -- someone throwing a fireball or jumping fifty feet in the air would have been just as miraculously surprising to them as it would be to us. Fionn mac Cumhaill was no more realistic to the Celts than Stormalong the Sailor or Spider-man is to us.
The problem is that some people want La Morte d'Arthur, some want Lord of the Rings, some people want Conan, some people want Jason and the Argonauts, and some people want Doctor Strange in their fantasy. And Pathfinder does a really poor job of pouring those together.
It's as if King Arthur's Round Table included Sir Gawain, Frodo Baggins, Hercules, Iron Man, and Doctor Manhattan.... and then people wonder why Sir Gawain gets overshadowed.
Yeah, I do. Did you know that the real Richard III and Shakepeare's character are different, too?
You're missing my point entirely.
John Henry is not actually a very good legend to compare high level martial characters to. Even at his most inflated, he's still too grounded in reality. At best he's a guy with a high strength, and adamantine hammer and a few Sunder related feats.
Now Pecos Bill, there's a high level martial.
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I heartily recommend using the Spheres of Power system to replace magic. It makes things a lot more even.
Yeah, I was hoping for something more along the lines of "Here's a couple quick house-rules..." and not quite so much "Here's how to destroy half of the CRB and 2/3 of all the Advanced Guides and 3/4 of all the Bestiaries..."
*looks at the smoking crater, the flame fizzling on the tip of his finger* Whoops, a little too much sulphur in the bat guano......
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let martial's move and full attack in the same round. Casters can move and cast in the same round. Eliminate Combat expertise as a feat requirement. Kill WBL it just plain needs to go it makes for crummy high level AP's and really hampers non-casters beyond level 10. Make feats like weapons focus and weapons specialization scale with BAB. Give Sneak attack a feat to let sneak attack damage multiply on a crit. Give an improved crit feat that increases the Crit Multiplier on a crit.. Give sneak attack a feat to change the die type from d6 to d8.
End the move or damage dichotomy.
The game is far more mobile in practice than the designer seemed to have accounted for in theory.
Nerf parts of the caster's current advantages, then people can see that martials do already get some pretty nice things and the nicer things we give them won't have to tear apart the system.
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End the move or damage dichotomy.
The game is far more mobile in practice than the designer seemed to have accounted for in theory.
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is.
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Just use Path of War.