Have you ever felt that casters often get the best non-spell toys?
Not just cool gimmicks that let you KO someone without dealing a point of damage, but things that completely nullify advantages that martials of the same level would get- e.g., if a martial gets auto-crits and increased crit multipliers, the corresponding caster gets immunity to crits. Or multi-use abilities that perform exactly what martials would get. In particular, the regular monk's 20th level Slow Fall Any Distance, which is in almost all ways worse than a Sky Druid's 2nd level ability of Sky's Embrace, which is effectively constant feather fall. With the exception of the Monk and a certain undead Antipaladin archetype, I'm pretty sure most martials don't grant immortality as a class feature.
I'm pretty sure my opinion on this is clear, but I'd like to hear what other people think (respectfully, without waking up the mods)
Yup. That's why my personal projects with homebrew classes always include class features that extend your maximum lifespan with the justification that "brawling with supernatural baddies have toughened up your vitality enough to let you live a few centuries," at the very least... (Plus add Timeless Body and be even better with this; if you can't guarantee living in this world for more than a century, why can't you dream of being so in a fantasy world?!)
And adding gradual immunities to ability damage/drain, charm/compulsion effects, death attacks, energy drain, and petrification for just being badass. Now this is what I'd proudly declare as my personal taste for a hypothetically "decent" non-caster...
My Self wrote: Have you ever felt that casters often get the best non-spell toys?
Not just cool gimmicks that let you KO someone without dealing a point of damage, but things that completely nullify advantages that martials of the same level would get- e.g., if a martial gets auto-crits and increased crit multipliers, the corresponding caster gets immunity to crits. Or multi-use abilities that perform exactly what martials would get. In particular, the regular monk's 20th level Slow Fall Any Distance, which is in almost all ways worse than a Sky Druid's 2nd level ability of Sky's Embrace, which is effectively constant feather fall. With the exception of the Monk and a certain undead Antipaladin archetype, I'm pretty sure most martials don't grant immortality as a class feature.
I'm pretty sure my opinion on this is clear, but I'd like to hear what other people think (respectfully, without waking up the mods)
Not to disagree with your basic thesis, but I dislike your examples.
One, the fighter armor master archetype also gets immunity to crits and sneak attacks as their capstone, and they're as much non-casters as regular fighters.
Two, the monk's slow fall feature just sucks and is outshone by any number of things. But the any-distance cap isn't the class capstone, perfect self is. So I wouldn't bother comparing anything to slow fall. (OTOH perfect self is pretty crappy for a capstone....)
Three, agelessness isn't much of an ability mechanically speaking, really. How often does your GM say "OK, now we're moving ahead in time 100 years, at which time... oh, you've died of old age? Well, make a new character." It's basically flavor. Now true immortality, like the monk of the four winds gets, that's worth something in-game.
Fuzzy-Wuzzy wrote: Three, agelessness isn't much of an ability mechanically speaking, really. How often does your GM say "OK, now we're moving ahead in time 100 years, at which time... oh, you've died of old age? Well, make a new character." It's basically flavor. Now true immortality, like the monk of the four winds gets, that's worth something in-game. Agreed that immortality is very inconsequential , yet it's often a capstone for classes(Like the 20th level wizard arcane discovery) so it's the kind of thing that I think wouldn't be a bad thing to make available to them.
Also, while I think the flavor of the Monk of the Four Winds is awesome, there is a Druid Archetype that gets it's capstone at level 5, albiet with a once a week restriction & weakness to death effects, but it is sort of the point that casters do get a lot of Martials capstones earlier on.
Fuzzy-Wuzzy wrote: My Self wrote: Have you ever felt that casters often get the best non-spell toys?
Not just cool gimmicks that let you KO someone without dealing a point of damage, but things that completely nullify advantages that martials of the same level would get- e.g., if a martial gets auto-crits and increased crit multipliers, the corresponding caster gets immunity to crits. Or multi-use abilities that perform exactly what martials would get. In particular, the regular monk's 20th level Slow Fall Any Distance, which is in almost all ways worse than a Sky Druid's 2nd level ability of Sky's Embrace, which is effectively constant feather fall. With the exception of the Monk and a certain undead Antipaladin archetype, I'm pretty sure most martials don't grant immortality as a class feature.
I'm pretty sure my opinion on this is clear, but I'd like to hear what other people think (respectfully, without waking up the mods)
Not to disagree with your basic thesis, but I dislike your examples.
One, the fighter armor master archetype also gets immunity to crits and sneak attacks as their capstone, and they're as much non-casters as regular fighters.
Two, the monk's slow fall feature just sucks and is outshone by any number of things. But the any-distance cap isn't the class capstone, perfect self is. So I wouldn't bother comparing anything to slow fall. (OTOH perfect self is pretty crappy for a capstone....)
Three, agelessness isn't much of an ability mechanically speaking, really. How often does your GM say "OK, now we're moving ahead in time 100 years, at which time... oh, you've died of old age? Well, make a new character." It's basically flavor. Now true immortality, like the monk of the four winds gets, that's worth something in-game. Yeah, some of my examples were rather iffy, and it's true that Slow Fall any distance isn't the real capstone, but it is a 20th level martial ability that is almost completely outshone by a 2nd level caster ability. My point wasn't just to compare capstones, but to compare non-casting class features in general. Things like how Lore Oracles can key all their skill checks to Charisma, Wizards automatically have intelligence as a key stat, and Sorcerers can switch to Intelligence, which means they don't have to be MAD to be good at knowledge checks, whereas Rogues, Fighters, Barbarians, Gunslingers, Swashbucklers, Brawlers, and Monks have very little support for knowledge checks and very few ways to boost it for in-combat checks.
Witch Flight Hex, gotten at level 1 is constant Feather Fall for self, with a swim skill bonus extra.
/cevah
Cevah wrote: Witch Flight Hex, gotten at level 1 is constant Feather Fall for self, with a swim skill bonus extra.
/cevah
Yet another way Monks don't get as cool stuff as casters.
:(
Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
My Self wrote: Have you ever felt that casters often get the best non-spell toys?
Not just cool gimmicks that let you KO someone without dealing a point of damage, but things that completely nullify advantages that martials of the same level would get- e.g., if a martial gets auto-crits and increased crit multipliers, the corresponding caster gets immunity to crits. Or multi-use abilities that perform exactly what martials would get. In particular, the regular monk's 20th level Slow Fall Any Distance, which is in almost all ways worse than a Sky Druid's 2nd level ability of Sky's Embrace, which is effectively constant feather fall. With the exception of the Monk and a certain undead Antipaladin archetype, I'm pretty sure most martials don't grant immortality as a class feature.
I'm pretty sure my opinion on this is clear, but I'd like to hear what other people think (respectfully, without waking up the mods)
I feel this way when I play a martial, but I also notice that when I develop a shocking grasp magus, I tend to run into electric-immune foes that much more often. In short... every class has that "grass is greener on the other side of the fence" moment.
LazarX wrote: My Self wrote: Have you ever felt that casters often get the best non-spell toys?
Not just cool gimmicks that let you KO someone without dealing a point of damage, but things that completely nullify advantages that martials of the same level would get- e.g., if a martial gets auto-crits and increased crit multipliers, the corresponding caster gets immunity to crits. Or multi-use abilities that perform exactly what martials would get. In particular, the regular monk's 20th level Slow Fall Any Distance, which is in almost all ways worse than a Sky Druid's 2nd level ability of Sky's Embrace, which is effectively constant feather fall. With the exception of the Monk and a certain undead Antipaladin archetype, I'm pretty sure most martials don't grant immortality as a class feature.
I'm pretty sure my opinion on this is clear, but I'd like to hear what other people think (respectfully, without waking up the mods)
I feel this way when I play a martial, but I also notice that when I develop a shocking grasp magus, I tend to run into electric-immune foes that much more often. In short... every class has that "grass is greener on the other side of the fence" moment. Except for maybe Synthesist Summoners and Druids. I'm pretty sure the grass is green wherever Druids go, unless they're Blight Druids. OK, so they're immune to flaming blasts, entangling vines, and lightning strikes? Time to turn into a bear and make their day unpleasant. If you weren't already.
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