Do martial characters really need better things?


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i gravitate toward martial characters not only dont i mind caster being overwhelmingly more powerful than martials i expect it, yeah a wizard can break the game post lvl 10 but he'd never reach that lvl without the big bad fighter watching his back and to me that's part of the fun a fighter has to rely on the wizard the same way the wizard had to rely on the fighter early on
now i do believe there are some disparities among martial themselves and i do believe they have some mechanics that were purposely held back
(fighters bravery and cavaliers tactician come to mind) but overall i enjoy the shift of power on the mid/high levels and also you have to admit it so rewarding when the fighter downs that sneaky invisible flying firebomb hurling alchemist with a lucky shot of his bow


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In combat? No, not at all. They have many nice things and there's been a huge amount of power creep / lowering-of-level-where-rocket-tag-is-an-issue since the release at Pathfinder.

Out of combat? They could use a few things, yea.

Liberty's Edge

Well, you could find out how most people feel about it by reading this nearly identically named thread. The biggest problems with the martial caster disparity is that at a certain point, reasonable challenges for the standard fighter/rogue/cleric/wizard group are practically impossible for teams with different make-ups. That and the problem martials have (especially the fighter and barbarian) being able to contribute something outside of combat, instead of just tuning out until the next time initiative is rolled.


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Deighton Thrane wrote:
Well, you could find out how most people feel about it by reading this nearly identically named thread. The biggest problems with the martial caster disparity is that at a certain point, reasonable challenges for the standard fighter/rogue/cleric/wizard group are practically impossible for teams with different make-ups.

Wha?

I assume what you meant was, "at a certain point, reasonable challenges for the standard Cleric/Wizard/Druid/Summoner group are practically impossible for teams with different make-ups."


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Cheapy wrote:

In combat? No, not at all. They have many nice things and there's been a huge amount of power creep / lowering-of-level-where-rocket-tag-is-an-issue since the release at Pathfinder.

Out of combat? They could use a few things, yea.

Even in combat. Compare what a Sorcerer gets at 12th level to what a Fighter gets.


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Biztak wrote:
i gravitate toward martial characters not only dont i mind caster being overwhelmingly more powerful than martials i expect it, yeah a wizard can break the game post lvl 10 but he'd never reach that lvl without the big bad fighter watching his back and to me that's part of the fun a fighter has to rely on the wizard the same way the wizard had to rely on the fighter early on

This is patently untrue. While a lone wizard can't compete with Wizard + Fighter- especially at low levels- a group of four full casters does just fine without a true Martial. I'd actually argue they generally do better, especially if its a diverse swath of Full Casters. [Druid or Cleric or Battle Oracle fills the Fighter's Shoes best.

This is supposed to be a game, which means every character should be roughly comparable at all levels of play.


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As a caster player I like to summon monsters to pickup the martials and place them in full attack range.

I will not play a martial in PF. I like playing martials but I will do so in games where their abilities matter.

I've gotten to the point that I consider any character that likes to full attack a martial, including magi and warpreist. I won't pay them. If it doesn't have 9th level spells, I'm not playing it outside of a one shot.

Dark Archive

This is why there are no Wizards, Sorcs, or Clerics in my games. And why Shamans, Witches, Oracles, and Druids are all cut back to six level casting. It's much easier to deal with a party that doesn't have full casters at all. The six level casters are generally better balanced anyway.


Legio_MCMLXXXVII wrote:
This is why there are no Wizards, Sorcs, or Clerics in my games. And why Shamans, Witches, Oracles, and Druids are all cut back to six level casting. It's much easier to deal with a party that doesn't have full casters at all. The six level casters are generally better balanced anyway.

Hunters FTW! :D

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It's not that the fighters need "better" things, it's that they need some more/different things to be able to do.

Look around at some fantasy adventure games' poster/ad art (whether RPGs or not). Find the ones where there's a group of heroes in combat against a dragon. There's usually a mage in the back, maybe also an archer, and then some melee fighter types up front. Now, look at the dragon. What's it doing? Is it up in the air, out of reach, shooting fire from a distance? Or is it squatting down next to a 10-20ft high ledge that the martials are standing on, conveniently bowing its head down into their reach in a nonsensically contrived pose just so the fighters can engage it?

That is the caster/martial disparity in a nutshell.


Jiggy wrote:

It's not that the fighters need to be better at the things they do, it's that they need some other things to be able to do.

Look around at some fantasy adventure games' poster/ad art (whether RPGs or not). Find the ones where there's a group of heroes in combat against a dragon. There's usually a mage in the back, maybe also an archer, and then some melee fighter types up front. Now, look at the dragon. What's it doing? Is it up in the air, out of reach, shooting fire from a distance? Or is it squatting down next to a 10-20ft high ledge that the martials are standing on, conveniently bowing its head down into their reach in a nonsensically contrived pose just so the fighters can engage it?

That is the caster/martial disparity in a nutshell.

Nah, that is the group engaging in a tactical situation of their choosing that forces the dragon into an enclosed space. :D

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alexd1976 wrote:
Jiggy wrote:

It's not that the fighters need to be better at the things they do, it's that they need some other things to be able to do.

Look around at some fantasy adventure games' poster/ad art (whether RPGs or not). Find the ones where there's a group of heroes in combat against a dragon. There's usually a mage in the back, maybe also an archer, and then some melee fighter types up front. Now, look at the dragon. What's it doing? Is it up in the air, out of reach, shooting fire from a distance? Or is it squatting down next to a 10-20ft high ledge that the martials are standing on, conveniently bowing its head down into their reach in a nonsensically contrived pose just so the fighters can engage it?

That is the caster/martial disparity in a nutshell.

Nah, that is the group engaging in a tactical situation of their choosing that forces the dragon into an enclosed space. :D

Not sure whether you're serious or not, but if you are, then I'll point out that very often the art displays plenty of open space where the dragon could be fighting from, but he's instead choosing to carefully hold his face within striking distance of the martials.

But anyway, that was just supposed to be a sort of shorthand illustration of the point.

The point is that what martials need most is not so much to be better at stabbing things, but rather to be able to engage the game/setting/narrative in meaningful ways other than just stabbing things.


Jiggy wrote:
alexd1976 wrote:
Jiggy wrote:

It's not that the fighters need to be better at the things they do, it's that they need some other things to be able to do.

Look around at some fantasy adventure games' poster/ad art (whether RPGs or not). Find the ones where there's a group of heroes in combat against a dragon. There's usually a mage in the back, maybe also an archer, and then some melee fighter types up front. Now, look at the dragon. What's it doing? Is it up in the air, out of reach, shooting fire from a distance? Or is it squatting down next to a 10-20ft high ledge that the martials are standing on, conveniently bowing its head down into their reach in a nonsensically contrived pose just so the fighters can engage it?

That is the caster/martial disparity in a nutshell.

Nah, that is the group engaging in a tactical situation of their choosing that forces the dragon into an enclosed space. :D
Not sure whether you're serious or not, but if you are, then I'll point out that very often the art displays plenty of open space where the dragon could be fighting from, but he's instead choosing to carefully hold his face within striking distance of the martials.

Maybe the 'good guys' are about to smash a clutch of eggs and momma dragon is trying to stop them?

Nah, I know what you are talking about. Fighters suck. All my characters have bows, melee is too unreliable, and who wants to melee something that can claw/claw/bite/wing/wing/tail slap you? Yikes.


Is the major complaint basically that Fighters can't fly? Luckily there's a potion for that!


Devilkiller wrote:

Is the major complaint basically that Fighters can't fly? Luckily there's a potion for that!

As a class ability?

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Devilkiller wrote:
Is the major complaint basically that Fighters can't fly? Luckily there's a potion for that!

Not quite.

Putting aside for a moment the various other issues, let's look at the flight example.

The complaint here isn't so much "fighters can't fly" as it is "fighters can't engage different types of opponents, such as flying ones". Letting the fighter fly would be one way to address it, but not the only way (and not necessarily even the best way). Other ways might include:
• For him to be able to switch to his backup bow without taking such a hit to his effectiveness as to cripple him (not saying Plan B should be just as effective as Plan A, just that Plan B shouldn't be embarassing to attempt).
• For him to be able to use his fantasy hero leg muscles to jump far enough to cross whatever's keeping him from his target (long chasm, sheer altitude, whatever). In the case of jumping up to a flying target, this would also include being able to strike a target mid-jump without a feat tree.
• For him to somehow incentivize his opponent to come closer, such as by having extra defenses against ranged attacks/spells such that the enemy might think closing in on him is their only practical option.
• For him to be able to strike a flying foe in such a way as to force them to the ground, without it being negated by a Fly check that pretty much every flying creature will auto-succeed.
• For him to at some point in his 20-level career gain the ability to defeat a CR 3 incorporeal enemy.

I could go on, but hopefully you get the picture. The complaint is not "fighters can't fly", the complaint is "fighters can't meaningfully engage".

Oh, and if your solution is such that when the fighter dies, a commoner with sufficiently high stats could loot his body and accomplish the same things, then your solution isn't really a solution.


Flying is kinda lame, as a spell I mean.

I love magic carpets, giant eagle mounts and airships, but not flying itself. I can mess with the others, but not with the spell without being a total lameass.

But that is beside the point of this thread.


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Umm, it's a fighter, it's all about proper equipment. Get a bow, get a flying mount, get Winged Boots for 16k - or simply ask your teammates. It's a team game, after all.

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Gear is not a class feature of the fighter. If a fighter with winged boots dies and a commoner finds the boots, the commoner can fly just as well as the fighter. As I said earlier, that's not a solution. In fact, it's a demonstration of the problem: in order for the fighter to participate, you have to reach outside of his fighter-ness and add something to him.

As for being a team game:
A team game is one in which the fighter and the wizard both know that their best chance of success is to work together. Pathfinder, however, is a game in which the fighter often doesn't get to engage at all unless the wizard ignores his own best chance of success in favor of instead helping to keep the fighter in the game. That is not a team game.


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Let my Hero harpoon a dragon and drag it into the ground.


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I wish you could do.some awesome stuff like run on walls...

Or a ru, jump, slash... but thatbis too weeaboo...


Scavion wrote:
Let my Hero harpoon a dragon and drag it into the ground.

Heh, good luck with that strength check even if the GM allows it.

D&D[3E at least] and PF have RIDICULOUDLY inflated monster stats, while the supposed heroes are lucky if they're within 3-4 modifier points with magic augmenting them, frequently more like a 6+ modifier gap.


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Note the OP didnt ask about Fighters, he asked about Martials.

A Ranger is certainly a Martial and has scads of Skills and other stuff to do, besides combat. Even has spells.

A Paladin is a great healer and can remove conditions- besides being a mighty Smiting machine.

Bloodrager, Swashbuckler, Slayer, Cavalier, Brawler & Gunslinger are all certainly Martials and can do other stuff.

Magus, Warpriest, are also arguably martials, despite their spellcasting.

So, that leaves just the Fighter. Yep, he can pretty well do one thing really really well- Kill. (Sure- a human with a measly int of 12 does get 4 Skp a level, which means he's not totally left out skill wise, and there are some interesting archetypes, like the Eldrich Guardian).

And you know what? That's exactly what some players want and like. There's like three dozen classes now. Why can't just one- [b]ONE![b/] be the plain vanilla killing machine that a good number of players want to play?


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A Fighter is generally expected to have gear. Most of them wouldn't function very well without armor and a weapon. I'm sure there are certain Fighter builds which would work well naked, but I don't think that's the base assumption.

There are at least two Fighter archetypes I can think of which offer options for flight without magical gear, but I think it is for the best that those options are contained within archetypes rather than bundled into the base class where they might force players who don't really want magical or quasi-magical (alchemy, ki powers, etc) flight for their PCs. I think that adulterating the Fighter’s “fighter-ness” with mysterious flying and leaping abilities would be a greater affront than allowing the Fighter to be a physical combatant who might need to use equipment to deal with certain problems.

Deciding that options which exist via feats or equipment aren't valid would limit a lot of characters. I guess those limitations could come into play against a player's will in certain games where the DM is very tightfisted with treasure and the PCs don't work together (or perhaps don't include any casters), but I hope that those games are either few and far between or a mutually agreed upon exercise in "gritty low magic adventuring" (or something along those lines)

I think that a team game could certainly include a conversation like:

Fighter: "Witch, cast Fly on me right now so I can go attack the Erinyes in melee!"
Witch: "Give me 375gp and I'll make you a potion of Fly so I don't have to waste my actions in combat. Why don't you just shoot her with your bow?"
Fighter: "I didn't buy a bow..."
Witch: "You have that bow from the last Erinyes we killed, use that!"
Fighter: "That only does 1d8+6 damage since the devil is immune to the fire. Chances are that I'll do no damage at all."
Witch: "Use Deadly Aim!"
Fighter: "I didn't take it. I had to focus solely on achieving the highest DPR possibly under ideal conditions and therefore have no backup plan."
Witch: "Fine, I'll summon a monster to kill the darned thing. It attacks about as well as you do anyhow. Are you happy? Are you happy that you made me show you how useless you are?"
Fighter: "Can I ride on the summoned monster?"
Witch: "Sure, can you make a Ride check?"
Fighter: "No, I spent all my skill ranks on Knowledge (Dungeoneering) so you wouldn't have to."
Witch: "Oh to Hell with it. Ice Tomb! Haha! I win!"
DM: "Does the ice break when the Erinyes falls to the ground?"
Witch: "Nobody knows..."

@Scavion - I really wish that harpoons worked more like I'd expect them to. The idea that you'd need to score a crit to get your harpoon to stick in a whale seems pretty odd and disappointing to me. I actually wrote up some harpooning house rules for a whaling session a while back where the party had to hunt down a Great White Whale to help a ghostly captain's spirit rest (we aren't fans of whale hunting in real life, but it seemed appropriate to the adventure)

@DrDeth - I basically agree with much of what you said, but I'd honestly like to know more about why people feel martial classes aren't satisfactory outside of combat. It seems to me like anybody can put some ranks into social skills and participate in roleplaying, and that's how most of the out of combat time in my groups is spent. Maybe other people have some different experiences which can help me understand the problem though.


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DrDeth wrote:
And you know what? That's exactly what some players want and like. There's like three dozen classes now. Why can't just one- ONE! be the plain vanilla killing machine that a good number of players want to play?

Because he's not nearly good enough at it to justify his failings everywhere else.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. If you want a vanilla killing machine the Fighter as presented isn't it. Write a Juggernaught class with massive power and massive resilience and simple math and you're good to go.

This class needs a few things.

1: High Attack Bonus [Fighter does this well.]
2: Flexible Combat Options [Fighter kind of sort of does this, but Weapon Training and the Weapon Specialization Chain tend to trap him in one weapon or group of weapons with decreasing potency.
3: High Damage Output [Fighter does this fairly well but it is far too easily shut down.]
4: Resilience to Magic [Fighter fails this hard. All good saves with rerolls or something along those lines is what I'm looking for here.]
5: Resilience to Damage [Fighter fails this lightly. Fighter has good AC if built for it, but he still takes a lot of damage and can't fix it himself. Fast Healing is a good idea. Perhaps a little damage reduction.]
6: Mobility [Fighter fails this one too, barring a few limited archetypes and the use of a few frowned-upon magic items.]

EDIT: had to fix Dr. D's coding so it wouldn't screw up my post.


Throws up


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Beating A Dead Horse wrote:
Throws up

*Beats with a stick*

Iz I fighter yet?


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I support 100% of what kyrt-ryder said.


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Honestly things wouldnt be so bad if there were good ways of disrupting movement or forcing an enemy to remain in your "threatened" area.


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Devilkiller wrote:
Is the major complaint basically that Fighters can't fly? Luckily there's a potion for that!

As a GM, my issue is more how things scale unless you arbitrarily lock your players into low-level only campaigns over and over again.

I feel like the expectation for what a martial character of fairly high level should do is make full attacks every single turn in combat they're not attempting a combat maneuver, and out of combat, they roll skills.

The expectation of what a magical character of fairly high level should do is whatever the @%*# they want to. On the basis that they will run out of ways to warp the world around them.

Eventually.

If you build the adventuring day around THEM instead of the martial guy.

And your players aren't starting to get tired of every single campaign being a massively long treadmill where a single adventuring day takes forever but you're on a tight time limit for how many days you can complete the campaign in, otherwise they're going to start looking for ways to control the length of the adventure day.

I feel like it's not great game design that the barbarian at level 10 is able to pounce on people in combat and give them the stink-eye out of it while jumping around pretty darn good, while over HERE his 10th-level wizard friend can fly, transport the party a thousand miles with a snap of his finger, and still be good at killing enemies and removing noncombat obstacles before he starts to feel his slots getting tight, and his pal the cleric can resurrect the dead, ALSO alter the landscape, and is free to look up and directly ask me questions about the situation at hand.

It's a double standard when one set of classes is built for COMBAT COMBAT COMBAT while another set of classes is built for anything else, but INCLUDES combat awesomeness if you're any good with your spells. It's certainly not helping that for the most part new material for martial characters is mostly about just doing more damage or doing it in a different WAY, which isn't the problem. Martials have plenty of damage, the problem to be solved is giving more utility so that magic is not so darn mandatory for solving problems when you're not allowed to hit them.


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I'd definitely support the Fighter getting a better Will save and or the effects of failed Will saves being less traumatic. You can be stoic about a lot of stuff, but being unable to control your PC for hours on end gets to be a drag pretty quickly.


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DrDeth wrote:

Note the OP didnt ask about Fighters, he asked about Martials.

A Ranger is certainly a Martial and has scads of Skills and other stuff to do, besides combat. Even has spells.

A Paladin is a great healer and can remove conditions- besides being a mighty Smiting machine.

Bloodrager, Swashbuckler, Slayer, Cavalier, Brawler & Gunslinger are all certainly Martials and can do other stuff.

Magus, Warpriest, are also arguably martials, despite their spellcasting.

So, that leaves just the Fighter. Yep, he can pretty well do one thing really really well- Kill. (Sure- a human with a measly int of 12 does get 4 Skp a level, which means he's not totally left out skill wise, and there are some interesting archetypes, like the Eldrich Guardian).

And you know what? That's exactly what some players want and like. There's like three dozen classes now. Why can't just one- [b]ONE![b/] be the plain vanilla killing machine that a good number of players want to play?

I think the common theme of the non-6th level caster classes you've named is that they have 4+ skill points per level by default. If that's what denotes utility in a class, that's a problem. See, skills would be awesome and a real asset to compete with magic if they were a little more impressive in what they could do. A level 20 adventurer with max ranks in Acrobatics and an adjusted +35 to their check does not even have a 50% chance of succeeding on the check to tumble safely past a CR appropriate monster. That's without a -10 penalty if they want to book it while doing so. As you encounter rarer and more powerful creatures in your travels, the DC of Knowledge checks to identify them and pinpoint their weaknesses is only going to go up. That means, unless you're pumping up those skills another way or have a good Int mod on top of your ranks, the probability you're going to succeed on a check never really gets better. At max ranks of Intimidate, it's still use your standard action to only inflict shaken for one round by default against a DC which scales off of the targets HD. Despite being available at level 1, Use Magic Device is all but impossible to use successfully on a consistent basis until you have at least a +10 in the skill (and that's for the really low-ball DCs). Skills are good to have and everyone should have them, but they're sadly nowhere near the power or versatility of spells, even at 20 ranks.

As for the fighter: fine, let it be a simple, non-magical killing machine. But why does it have to otherwise be boring and no stronger at this task than other melee classes, like the barbarian or the paladin? If all it's ever going to do is one thing, it needs to excel at it without needing the aid of the spellcasters. without needing to wear an entire flea-markets worth of magical items, and without needing an associates degree in 'system mastery'. If the wizard is the savant of arcane lore and magic, the fighter needs to be the best damned murder machine in the game. He should be an expert in any weapon he picks up, be able to turn his armor into a second skin that a dragon would nod at in approval, put the shield bashing skill of the Spartans from 300 to shame, and be an enduring and resilient juggernaut on the field of battle. Otherwise, why give it a name that suggests that nature in the first place???


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Devilkiller wrote:
I'd definitely support the Fighter getting a better Will save and or the effects of failed Will saves being less traumatic. You can be stoic about a lot of stuff, but being unable to control your PC for hours on end gets to be a drag pretty quickly.

The only appropriate reaction to a dominated character is to hand the character sheet over and take a nap.


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Jiggy wrote:
Pathfinder, however, is a game in which the fighter often doesn't get to engage at all unless the wizard ignores his own best chance of success in favor of instead helping to keep the fighter in the game. That is not a team game.

Fly upgrades an (in this situation) useless fighter to one who can reliably do at least one attack per round.

Fly upgrades an already strong caster to one who can pursue his opponent a bit better (after all, many spells are ranged and don't care about height).
So what's the better deal for the party?

It's the responsibility of everyone involved to pull it. The caster player should consider buffing the martial. The martial player should open his mouth and ask for it, if necessary. And the GM should encourage such teamplay (usually with recommendations) - and penalize egocentricity (usually with monsters picking on the character's weak side). If the sorc in my group would pursue a retreating wyvern alone through the air, three more would pop up and hunt him back to the martial - so the group can beat them together. If the sorc manages to beat these three wyverns alone, he will get three dragons next time. Till he learns to rely on mates. A lesson which wouldn't hurt some martial player either.

Luckily the player is rather a teamplayer. Appreciating him buffing others helps with that.


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SheepishEidolon wrote:
If the sorc in my group would pursue a retreating wyvern alone through the air, three more would pop up and hunt him back to the martial - so the group can beat them together.

If these three other wyverns weren't already planned for, this is a bigtime douchebag move dude.

Quote:
If the sorc manages to beat these three wyverns alone, he will get three dragons next time. Till he learns to rely on mates. A lesson which wouldn't hurt some martial player either.

Note to self, don't play with Sheepish Eidolon as GM.


kyrt-ryder wrote:
SheepishEidolon wrote:
If the sorc in my group would pursue a retreating wyvern alone through the air, three more would pop up and hunt him back to the martial - so the group can beat them together.

If these three other wyverns weren't already planned for, this is a bigtime douchebag move dude.

Quote:
If the sorc manages to beat these three wyverns alone, he will get three dragons next time. Till he learns to rely on mates. A lesson which wouldn't hurt some martial player either.
Note to self, don't play with Sheepish Eidolon as GM.

I think his point was that going off alone is a bad idea, and bad things can happen.

Whether or not those encounters were planned is irrelevant. The PC would be dead (or in trouble) either way.

Lets assume they were planned, and look at it again.


What is WBL was adjusted by party composition? Fighters (who are more reliant) get a much bigger allowance to balance the need for more items. It would be a raltively easy house rule - just add the cost of the Big 6 on top of the current WBL.

I would say give Fighters a class ability to reduce the cost of magic items but that can just be used for everyone in the party.


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You're never going to solve martial/caster disparity with Pathfinder's magic system. At best you could return full casters to their older edition roots (hard limit their spell selection, increase casting times to a full round action or higher the more powerful the spells get, introduce more spell drawbacks, etc) and that would mean that casters wouldn't dominate quite so hard.

4th edition had the right idea, limiting the usefulness/capability of spells and giving 'powers' to martials that didn't make them mages but gave them something more than a basic attack. It was a clumsy attempt at re balancing but WoTc was on the right track with AEDU.


alexd1976 wrote:
kyrt-ryder wrote:
SheepishEidolon wrote:
If the sorc in my group would pursue a retreating wyvern alone through the air, three more would pop up and hunt him back to the martial - so the group can beat them together.

If these three other wyverns weren't already planned for, this is a bigtime douchebag move dude.

Quote:
If the sorc manages to beat these three wyverns alone, he will get three dragons next time. Till he learns to rely on mates. A lesson which wouldn't hurt some martial player either.
Note to self, don't play with Sheepish Eidolon as GM.

I think his point was that going off alone is a bad idea, and bad things can happen.

Whether or not those encounters were planned is irrelevant. The PC would be dead (or in trouble) either way.

Lets assume they were planned, and look at it again.

I've bolded the part that confirmed my suspicions and locked down my refusal to play with a GM of that type.


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alexd1976 wrote:
kyrt-ryder wrote:
SheepishEidolon wrote:
If the sorc in my group would pursue a retreating wyvern alone through the air, three more would pop up and hunt him back to the martial - so the group can beat them together.

If these three other wyverns weren't already planned for, this is a bigtime douchebag move dude.

Quote:
If the sorc manages to beat these three wyverns alone, he will get three dragons next time. Till he learns to rely on mates. A lesson which wouldn't hurt some martial player either.
Note to self, don't play with Sheepish Eidolon as GM.

I think his point was that going off alone is a bad idea, and bad things can happen.

Whether or not those encounters were planned is irrelevant. The PC would be dead (or in trouble) either way.

Lets assume they were planned, and look at it again.

Here's the description of a wyvern:

Wyvern wrote:

Wyverns are nasty, brutish, and violent reptilian beasts akin to more powerful dragons. They are always aggressive and impatient, and are quick to resort to force in order to accomplish their goals. For this reason, dragons generally look down upon wyverns, considering their distant cousins nothing more than primitive savages with a distinct lack of style or wit. In most cases, this generalization is spot-on. Although far from animalistic in intellect, and capable of speech, most wyverns simply can't be bothered with the subtlety of diplomacy, and prefer to fight first and parley later, and even then only if faced with a foe they can neither defeat nor flee from.

Wyverns are territorial creatures. Though they occasionally hunt in small groups for large prey, they are generally solitary creatures, hunting in areas ranging in size from 100 to 200 square miles. Wyverns have been known to fight to the death among themselves for the right to hunt a territory rich with prey.

Although constantly hungry and prone to mayhem, a wyvern that can be befriended (usually through a delicate combination of flattery, intimidation, food, and treasure) becomes a powerful ally. They often serve giants and monstrous humanoids as guardians, and some lizardfolk and boggard tribes even use them as mounts, although such arrangements are quite costly in terms of food and gold, for few are the wyverns who would willingly serve as steeds for lesser creatures for long.

So, yeah, it doesn't make a lot of sense for those other three wyverns to just sit there and watch until one tasty human happens to pass by. They're dumb, violent, nasty creatures and the scenario SheepishEidolon laid out stinks like hell.


kyrt-ryder wrote:
alexd1976 wrote:
kyrt-ryder wrote:
SheepishEidolon wrote:
If the sorc in my group would pursue a retreating wyvern alone through the air, three more would pop up and hunt him back to the martial - so the group can beat them together.

If these three other wyverns weren't already planned for, this is a bigtime douchebag move dude.

Quote:
If the sorc manages to beat these three wyverns alone, he will get three dragons next time. Till he learns to rely on mates. A lesson which wouldn't hurt some martial player either.
Note to self, don't play with Sheepish Eidolon as GM.

I think his point was that going off alone is a bad idea, and bad things can happen.

Whether or not those encounters were planned is irrelevant. The PC would be dead (or in trouble) either way.

Lets assume they were planned, and look at it again.

I've bolded the part that confirmed my suspicions and locked down my refusal to play with a GM of that type.

The approach may be heavy handed, but the lesson is a good one. I usually plan for ambushes, so if you played in my game and did this, the repercussions would be likely very similar...

So I don't understand your objection.


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My objection is the GM abusing his powers to try to 'teach those filthy players a lesson!'


kyrt-ryder wrote:
My objection is the GM abusing his powers to try to 'teach those filthy players a lesson!'

On that we agree.

I don't like abusing my power.

It's too easy.

Unlimited resources? Durh, who wins that one? GM.

No, I plan ahead (even if on the fly)-if PCs 'defeat' the encounter, they get rewarded.

But someone going off alone has chosen to isolate themselves, and should not complain if they wind up facing an encounter that was planned for the entire group.


alexd1976 wrote:
But someone going off alone has chosen to isolate themselves, and should not complain if they wind up facing an encounter that was planned for the entire group.

I have no complaints against this. My complaint was merely about Sheepish Eidolon deliberately stacking more things against a player because of his behavior rather than as part of a normal encounter intended to challenge the party.


kyrt-ryder wrote:
My objection is the GM abusing his powers to try to 'teach those filthy players a lesson!'

And, what do you think why he does that?


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In theory the sorcerer will run out of spells.

In practice the Fighter is just a poorly designed class that struggles to contribute.

If you're planning to punish a player for playing his character then it's definitely not a game I want to be in.

Now if you wanted to give the Fighter a better class or special gear to bring him up? By all means go for it dude.


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I think a GM stacking things against the sorcerer who has the potential to wipe out three wyverns alone by throwing three dragons against him is proof enough that the Pathfinder system is unbalanced.

In an ideal system, the fighter would be just as competent as the sorcerer, and SheepishEidolon would have no need to throw three dragons at the sorcerer to begin with.

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