Okay, so I have this idea. The idea that a lot of the martial vs. caster disparity argument is coming from an analysis of the numbers, and theory-craft, but not necessarily from actual game play experience. It's not a tested thought, but just go with it.
What if we (and by we I mean someone else with way more PbP GMing experience -- I'll eat popcorn and watch) started a PbP campaign that was just simply an arena of combat. On one side we have people who create martial characters, and on the other casters. Then we drop the approved characters (I think there should be some kind of community approval protocol) into the arena, roll for init, and let the sparks fly!
Good idea? I didn't put this in PbP recruitment, because I'm not even sure I, or anyone, would want to, so at this point it's nothing more than an idea, it's not even really an interest check.
I'm sure someone would have fun with it, not me, but someone.
Not sure if PbP is the right venue, as a caster has plenty of time between posts to plot, I think a face-to-face (or roll d20) game is the way to go.
I'm sure someone would have fun with it, not me, but someone.
Not sure if PbP is the right venue, as a caster has plenty of time between posts to plot, I think a face-to-face (or roll d20) game is the way to go.
Martials would get that same amount of time to plot. :)
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You're missing the entire debate.
The fighter and wizard enter the arena. The wizard plane shifts to West Palm Beach and has mojitos. The fighter is still stuck in the arena -- so he fights whatever leftover critters they decide to put in there with him, and maybe even eventually fight his way out, and then spends the rest of his life wondering what ever happened to the wizard.
The disparity exists precisely because the wizard isn't confined to the arena.
You're missing the entire debate.
The fighter and wizard enter the arena. The wizard plane shifts to West Palm Beach and has mojitos while the fighter starves to death in the arena, or leaves and fruitlessly searches for someone who isn't there.
The disparity exists precisely because the wizard isn't confined to the arena.
This. Even if the wizard stays "in the box", a Diviner who can cast Geass w/ Limited Wish is gonna win anyways.
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Wouldn't it just be easier to wait for someone to post a martial that has even a vaguely plausible chance against Arkalion and just declare casters the winners in the meantime?
Sure, but plane shift has a 5-to-500-mile off-target landing. So the wizard actually plane shifts to Ave Maria and has mosquitoes.
Not a problem -- if he's high enough level to plane shift, he's high enough level to teleport, too. Starting at 17th level, he actually lives in a private demiplane and sends an astral projection to the arena, if he feels like it.
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Yeah, that'd involve a martial showing up, and martials don't have a great track record for that.
I mean it's grossly simplifying all the advantages a wizard would have such as being able to divine everything about the fighter from their combat abilities to what they had for breakfast for the past 10 years, as well as every other amazing thing they can do.
But hey, arena match vs. some scrub knight who's talking about how their blade 'perishes all mages' would be fun until magic woke them up to a new world of pain.
You're missing the entire debate.
The fighter and wizard enter the arena. The wizard plane shifts to West Palm Beach and has mojitos. The fighter is still stuck in the arena -- so he fights whatever leftover critters they decide to put in there with him, and maybe even eventually fight his way out, and then spends the rest of his life wondering what ever happened to the wizard.
The disparity exists precisely because the wizard isn't confined to the arena.
Okay, I'll give you that, but then, in your scenario, the martials win by default, so they are crowned victorious. If the caster waxes philosophical and thinks he/she actually won because they are enjoying mojitos or mosquitoes, that's fine, but the winner in that scenario is actually the martial left to claim the laurel wreath. :)
Edit: Also, let's say the arena has warm up matches. We could pit a series of lower levels at each other first. First up level 2 fighter vs. level 2 Wizard! :) Then it works its way up to the high levels.
Come on work with me Kirth!
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Okay, I'll give you that, but then, in your scenario, the martials win by default
I'm not seeing how that follows, in the context of an actual game. When we play, the "arena" is a dungeon or urban maze or chain of events or whatever. The martials are pretty much stuck with it. The casters can bypass it and go straight to the end.
Even if for some reason you ignore that and insist that it be an actual literal arena, the wizard teleports away and sends planar bound demons to teleport back in and fight for him. Or sends an astral projection of himself. Etc. His power stems from the ability to pick the battlefield and the terms. The martials don't get anything even vaguely comparable.
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The idea that a lot of the martial vs. caster disparity argument is coming from an analysis of the numbers, and theory-craft, but not necessarily from actual game play experience.
Well, there's your first mistake. There have been entire threads created by those who don't believe in the disparity specifically to ask "Have people really seen this, or is it all just theory?" (and then dismiss every post in the deluge of examples as being the result of playing the game wrong rather than any issues with the ruleset).
So no, it's not about theory, it's about actual gameplay.
What if we ... started a PbP campaign that was just simply an arena of combat.
And there's your second mistake. The caster/martial disparity is not exclusively—or even primarily—about who's more potent once you've rolled initiative. The biggest element of the C/MD is about how the character gets to interact with the world. Past the lowest levels, the ability to keep engaging the narrative gets progressively more skewed toward magical solutions: you start facing more and more obstacles/situations where getting through is either literally or practically restricted to having the right spell in your scroll library.
So no, even if (somehow) the fighter beat the wizard in the arena, that wouldn't resolve the C/MD.
The idea that a lot of the martial vs. caster disparity argument is coming from an analysis of the numbers, and theory-craft, but not necessarily from actual game play experience.Well, there's your first mistake. There have been entire threads created by those who don't believe in the disparity specifically to ask "Have people really seen this, or is it all just theory?" (and then dismiss every post in the deluge of examples as being the result of playing the game wrong rather than any issues with the ruleset).
So no, it's not about theory, it's about actual gameplay.
What if we ... started a PbP campaign that was just simply an arena of combat.And there's your second mistake. The caster/martial disparity is not exclusively—or even primarily—about who's more potent once you've rolled initiative. The biggest element of the C/MD is about how the character gets to interact with the world. Past the lowest levels, the ability to keep engaging the narrative gets progressively more skewed toward magical solutions: you start facing more and more obstacles/situations where getting through is either literally or practically restricted to having the right spell in your scroll library.
So no, even if (somehow) the fighter beat the wizard in the arena, that wouldn't resolve the C/MD.
Jiggy, you're taking this too seriously. Why not just say, "yeah, I'll roll up a sweet mage-hunter martial and enter that arena!"
This is supposed to be about fun, and getting people in the community to roll up characters and fight "each other." Stop the debating and start crafting the character concepts.
Work with me people!
The other thing you're overlooking is that Fighter vs. Wizard shouldn't be an Arena Fight. It should be a dungeon crawl, showcasing all the things that Wizards do that mundanes don't.
And let's face it, the Fighter just can't handle half the things a Wizard can. Unless the challenge bleeds, or it's a door that needs battering down, The Fighter just don't have the capability to remove an obstacle in their path.
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I'm sure someone would have fun with it, not me, but someone.
Not sure if PbP is the right venue, as a caster has plenty of time between posts to plot, I think a face-to-face (or roll d20) game is the way to go.
This statement actually plays to the power of the wizard as a whole.
A wizard can do more with the same amount of time than a fighter can. If a fighter has a week to prepare for a fight, they'll be maybe 5%-10% better, nothing unreasonable, maybe they can get some custom gear made to make things easier on themselves.
A wizard with a week to plan can RUIN any encounter, meaning the wizard's time is just that much more valuable than the fighter's.
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If you think the martial/caster disparity can be solved in an arena, then you're missing the whole idea of what this disparity really is.
Get enough rocket-tag going on, the martial can win initiative and kill the caster in round 1, or the caster can win initiative and kill the martial in round 1. But if the caster is ever in this position, he's already failed as a caster - done his whole job so badly that he deserves to lose that initiative roll and die.
Casters rule the world because of what they can do out of combat and/or to win the combat before initiative is ever rolled. In other words, casters are in the stands making the meat puppet martials fight battles for their entertainment; they're not down in the arena because they have no reason to be there and countless ways NOT to be there.
Jiggy, you're taking this too seriously. Why not just say, "yeah, I'll roll up a sweet mage-hunter martial and enter that arena!"
This is supposed to be about fun, and getting people in the community to roll up characters and fight "each other." Stop the debating and start crafting the character concepts.
Work with me people!
Because if it wouldn't prove anything, and wouldn't change anyone's minds. It would just be, at best, an optimization competition, and there are much better realized optimization competitions.
That's besides the fact that Arena fights are so damn boring. It's basically asking people to engage in the worst type of encounter that a GM can come up with. "You're in an open field. Fight."
The idea that a lot of the martial vs. caster disparity argument is coming from an analysis of the numbers, and theory-craft, but not necessarily from actual game play experience.Well, there's your first mistake. There have been entire threads created by those who don't believe in the disparity specifically to ask "Have people really seen this, or is it all just theory?" (and then dismiss every post in the deluge of examples as being the result of playing the game wrong rather than any issues with the ruleset).
So no, it's not about theory, it's about actual gameplay.
What if we ... started a PbP campaign that was just simply an arena of combat.And there's your second mistake. The caster/martial disparity is not exclusively—or even primarily—about who's more potent once you've rolled initiative. The biggest element of the C/MD is about how the character gets to interact with the world. Past the lowest levels, the ability to keep engaging the narrative gets progressively more skewed toward magical solutions: you start facing more and more obstacles/situations where getting through is either literally or practically restricted to having the right spell in your scroll library.
So no, even if (somehow) the fighter beat the wizard in the arena, that wouldn't resolve the C/MD.
Jiggy, you're taking this too seriously. Why not just say, "yeah, I'll roll up a sweet mage-hunter martial and enter that arena!"
This is supposed to be about fun, and getting people in the community to roll up characters and fight "each other." Stop the debating and start crafting the character concepts.
Work with me people!
Arkalion is still waiting on that remotely plausible chance of victory Fighter... and will likely continue to wait.
Well, sure, you can DM-nerf the casters under control, and DM fiat that the martials get to do everything cool, and all is honey-dorey. But in these debates, people are arguing that, "Gee, wouldn't it be nice if the rules themselves led to that kind of game play, instead of the DM having to force it in that direction?"
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Jiggy, you're taking this too seriously. Why not just say, "yeah, I'll roll up a sweet mage-hunter martial and enter that arena!"
This is supposed to be about fun, and getting people in the community to roll up characters and fight "each other." Stop the debating and start crafting the character concepts.
Work with me people!
To me, I see it as a string of fighter jobbers slowly stepping up to the reigning world heavyweight champion Arkalion while the mage beats their chest and screams "Who's next?!", the crowd cheering for mundane blood to be spilled.
I mean I have no problem with this at all, it sounds awesome. That's just what it sounds like to me.
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Man, you all are some serious buzz-kills.
Can we not step outside of the argument's parameters long enough to imagine how much fun that PbP arena would be? I get it the title and OP are a little deceiving, but that's because I wanted the troop of regulars to enter this arena. ;)
Think, just for a moment, if you would or would not have fun in the scenario I imagined. I think I would have fun just watching a Kirth Gersen 7th level caster versus a Jiggy 7th level martial, or vice versa...
Have fun with it, and work with me people.
Man, you all are some serious buzz-kills.
Can we not step outside of the argument's parameters long enough to imagine how much fun that PbP arena would be? I get it the title and OP are a little deceiving, but that's because I wanted the troop of regulars to enter this arena. ;)
Think, just for a moment, if you would or would not have fun in the scenario I imagined. I think I would have fun just watching a Kirth Gersen 7th level caster versus a Jiggy 7th level martial, or vice versa...
Have fun with it, and work with me people.
I'm just waiting on an opponent.
To me, I see it as a string of fighter jobbers slowly stepping up to the reigning world heavyweight champion Arkalion while the mage beats their chest and screams "Who's next?!", the crowd cheering for mundane
Awww... shucks. Thanks.
I should echo the sentiments above though that Arena's are not particularly conducive to understanding disparity and without even the most basic of rules to go on this isn't a very good format.
I should echo the sentiments above though that Arena's are not particularly conducive to understanding disparity and without even the most basic of rules to go on this isn't a very good format.
Of course arenas aren't meant to understand disparity, they're meant to open your opponents bowels and make his entrails into his extrails. I'm saddened that people came in here and said, you're clueless, and that your idea is flawed from the jump.
That saddens me because: Duh!
My imagined arena would never end the martial caster disparity debate, nor should it! But it might be hella fun to watch, and it might provide a great diversion for some of us that love such things.
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Man, you all are some serious buzz-kills.
Can we not step outside of the argument's parameters long enough to imagine how much fun that PbP arena would be? I get it the title and OP are a little deceiving, but that's because I wanted the troop of regulars to enter this arena. ;)
Think, just for a moment, if you would or would not have fun in the scenario I imagined. I think I would have fun just watching a Kirth Gersen 7th level caster versus a Jiggy 7th level martial, or vice versa...
Have fun with it, and work with me people.
You've got a misleading thread title then.
It's really up to the point where you have to factor in level, gear restrictions, and other such things or else you're just asking people to build random characters in hopes someone will build another one to compete with them.
Also you're asking one person to take the notably weaker of the two, which isn't really that enticing an option for a lot of people know they're going into things with the weaker option.
Like if this was your plan, you might need to flesh it out a bit before asking people to just go wild. I mean are we talking all martials/mages, or just fighter/wizard here?
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Well, sure, you can DM-nerf the casters under control, and DM fiat that the martials get to do everything cool, and all is honey-dorey. But in these debates, people are arguing that, "Gee, wouldn't it be nice if the rules themselves led to that kind of game play, instead of the DM having to force it in that direction?"That's rather reduction ad absurdum isn't it? There's a big middle ground between "strict adherence to the RAW" and "DM nerfing fiat," which doesn't require the DM having to "force" anything. By that same token, the people who don't see the point of this debate don't care about "the rules themselves" providing a solution, because oftentimes they find a solution to already be present in the part of the game that the rules don't cover: the circumstances of play.
The circumstances of play? Here's the circumstances of play:
• My sorceress flying invisibly over to the hostage and DDoor-ing him to safety under the noses of the baddies, followed next round by my martial allies trying to fight their way past the enemies to get to the other hostages and stepping on the fire traps along the way (the traps I didn't even know were there because I flew over them).• My brother's cleric saying "Oh, it's gonna take us a couple days to get to the site? The day before we get there, I call up my deity and ask what we're likely to face, then the next day prepare spells that will specifically help with those obstacles." Meanwhile the martials in the party just carry their standard gear.
• The martials in the party saying "Look out, it's a golem! No help from the casters on this one!" Then my wizard conjures an extradimensional pit that it almost can't help but fall into, and the oracle blasts its hapless carcass with (Su) powers that don't care about SR.
• A party member magically peers through the wall and sees a cultist working on the wake-the-BBEG ritual, guarded by some mooks; also sees that the door provides a choke point so that the guards can keep us from disrupting the ritual. So I just DDoor the party right up into the cultist's face and wreck him in the surprise round.
• The forest is nasty and forces Fort saves every X amount of time while we travel in search of survivors, so the druid turns into a gargantuan creature and lets all the slowest people ride on her back, halving the number of Fort saves we all have to make.
• Someone attacks the ooze, and discovers that doing so splashes them with CON drain. My cleric walks up and teleports the ooze to Hell. And then we magically cure the CON drain.
The list goes on. And those are all real stories from actual games.
"The circumstances of play"? That's exactly the thing that casters have a near-monopoly on getting to interact with.
Well, sure, you can DM-nerf the casters under control, and DM fiat that the martials get to do everything cool, and all is honey-dorey. But in these debates, people are arguing that, "Gee, wouldn't it be nice if the rules themselves led to that kind of game play, instead of the DM having to force it in that direction?"
They can.. your problem is that they don't do it by default. Thing is WOTC in crafting 3.0 built up an appetite for caster/class toys in the player base that both WOTC and Paizo have learned that it's economically advantageous to keep satisfying.
We've inherited the game we had from 3.5 because Paizo, afraid of displeasing the grognards it had lured away from WOTC's shutting down of 3.5 gave us a game that for it's innovations is essentially a clone of the same game that had caster dominance as a feature. They did what they could in certain areas, but we have the game that Paizo made, because of their fairly accurate perception of what the players wanted.
That said if you were going to fault Pathfinder for being a game that GM's had to make work, you might as well tar that brush all the way back to AD+D. If you're saying that GMs have to work harder now than they earlier did to acheive that goal, I'd say that you were right. And again it's the product of the game we have as opposed to the game some of us might want.
No, this wouldn't be fun to watch.
You are, of course, entitled to your opinion.
Also, you obviously failed to note the post where I said, let's have multiple level fights, not just jump right to the 20th level. If people want me to actually start a PbP recruitment thread for this and "GM" it, I'd be happy to do that. Since GMing it really just means watching two characters go at it and occasionally arbitrating rules debates. Though, if the people showed up that I hope would show up, they'd know the rules better than I would.
Also you're asking one person to take the notably weaker of the two, which isn't really that enticing an option for a lot of people know they're going into things with the weaker option.Like if this was your plan, you might need to flesh it out a bit before asking people to just go wild. I mean are we talking all martials/mages, or just fighter/wizard here?
Now this is chatter I can get behind! Come on N. Jolly, you know someone out there would take the weaker, just to be the "underdog." :)
Now that you bring up the logistics, maybe we use this thread as the place to bounce those ideas off of each other. So, you tell me, do we go all martials/mages, or should it be constricted to just fighter and wizard?
I'd lean toward only fighter/wizard myself.
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My imagined arena would never end the martial caster disparity debate, nor should it!Let's End the Martial vs. Caster Debate... Arena Style!
Come on Jiggy, you know that was written with tongue firmly planted in cheek. You've seen enough of my stuff to know that, haven't you?
You caught me, I put an enticing thread title to bring in "the cast of regulars."
I know, let's settle this by you creating a character, let's say, a wizard, and I'll create a character, let's say, a fighter. They'll both be seventh level, and then we could make those characters fight in an arena!
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Also you're asking one person to take the notably weaker of the two, which isn't really that enticing an option for a lot of people know they're going into things with the weaker option.Like if this was your plan, you might need to flesh it out a bit before asking people to just go wild. I mean are we talking all martials/mages, or just fighter/wizard here?
Now this is chatter I can get behind! Come on N. Jolly, you know someone out there would take the weaker, just to be the "underdog." :)
Now that you bring up the logistics, maybe we use this thread as the place to bounce those ideas off of each other. So, you tell me, do we go all martials/mages, or should it be constricted to just fighter and wizard?
I'd lean toward only fighter/wizard myself.
Again, you're asking people who are AWARE of the problem to side with what they know to be weaker. There's a difference between going paladin vs. magus (high T4 vs. mid T3) which COULD be an interesting fight due to the relative balance of their abilities and fighter vs. wizard (low to mid T5 vs. top of T1), which is a massive imbalance.
Really if there was a chance of the underdog actually standing a chance past...I'll say level 5 here aside from putting it down to just a single die roll, it'd be interesting, but the differences in ability are just too large. It's putting someone's party of pokemon they used to beat the elite 4 with for the first time against an EV trained IV bred properly researched team of UBER tier pokemon. It's possible for the second team to lose, but not with any awareness of how this team was put together.
Man, you all are some serious buzz-kills.
Can we not step outside of the argument's parameters long enough to imagine how much fun that PbP arena would be? I get it the title and OP are a little deceiving, but that's because I wanted the troop of regulars to enter this arena. ;)
Think, just for a moment, if you would or would not have fun in the scenario I imagined. I think I would have fun just watching a Kirth Gersen 7th level caster versus a Jiggy 7th level martial, or vice versa...
Have fun with it, and work with me people.
The problem is the Kirth Gersen example only works the way it does when you're using Kirth Gersen's rules. The KG caster using Jiggy's rules might well wind up being the Jiggy caster.
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Or The Angel summoner and the BMX Bandit.
The caster/martial disparity is a tendency for higher level magic using characters to outshine their non-magic using counterparts in many aspects of adventuring.
Before we go further, let's get specific about what we are talking about here:
Casters: For purposes of this topic, casters are the classes that have a caster level equal to class level, and generally have access to 9th level magic. Wizards are the most classic example of "caster", while druids, clerics, sorcerers, generally present similar issues. Classes that only have access to 6th level spells are generally considered "casters", although many people have far more problems with summoners then bards. Each class fits into the disparity is slightly different ways, although the end result is usually similar.
Martials: Martials are classes that never have a caster level, and whose class features are usually extraordinary special abilities, not supernatural or spell-like abilities. Fighters are the most representative martial class, with rogues, barbarians, and monks presenting fairly similar issues.
Others: Classes that have access to 4th level spells such as rangers and paladins are generally not considered to be representative of balance problems, and are used more as a reference point for appropriate class power rather then an exception to it. Some people put bards into this category, although summoners are almost always considered representative of casters.
Now that we have defined the caster/martial part, let's move on to "disparity". While many words such as imbalance and inequity get used to describe the issue, it is important to realize this is NOT about identical performance, perfect balance or sameness! No one is asking for the classes to perform the same, or have perfect mathematical equality. Generally, people find the core problem to be a lack of options for out of combat effectiveness for martial characters. Beyond use of skills, martial characters generally have no class features that allow them to influence the narrative. Monks and rogues have adequate and great skills respectively, however both classes infamously struggle to stay relevant in combat. As both classes were recently rewritten in Pathfinder Unchained, I'm not going to bother discussing their previous issues, except to mention that they both required full round actions to contribute well, and almost completely lacked a decent ranged attack option.
At the lowest levels of play, martial characters are often considered to be better off then casters. A strong fighter or skilled rogue can effectively solve most problems that low level adventures face, and magic is usually fairly limited. This is not to say that casters are weak, they are fully effective at facing CR appropriate encounters, and if built for it, can disrupt encounters from level 1.
Most effects of the disparity begin around level 6, although they frequently don't affect gameplay much until level 11 or so. These effects can be broken into several categories.
- Point Buy Economy. Casters generally need only one really good stat, and have numerous class features (magic!), and supernatural and spell-like abilities that benefit from that stat. They also have class features to boost that stat, or compensate for a lack of other stats. Wizards often have more skill ranks then rogues later in the game, and the spellcraft skill is what item crafting is based off of. Bards and sorcerers are well set up to dominate social encounters. Druids and clerics can have great perception and whopping will save modifiers.
- Action Economy. Generally, martial characters need a full attack action to be fully effective, while casters can generally do almost everything as standard actions. Casters are also given numerous class features that allow their player additional actions. From an animal companion or familiar, to summoned creatures, to dominated or bound minions, casters frequently act for several creatures, while martials are often forced to spend actions moving, switching weapons, etc.
- Economy Economy. Casters are far more adept at creating their own magic items. This can have a drastic effect on individual power as magic items make up a substantial chunk of a characters power, especially as they get to the mid to high levels. Wizards easily have whopping spellcraft, bonus crafting feats, and the ability to access or bypass many crafting requirements. While a caster can craft for other party members, those items are treated as purchased when calculating WBL, while items the caster makes for themselves count as cost to craft. This results in casters often having 125% to 175% of WBL. Since casters often don't need weapons (some of the most expensive items) and get amazing use out of stat boosting items, they are much better served by the game economy.
- Skills vs. Spells - Some martials have can have substantial access to skills, however, even max ranks and a decent ability modifier in a class skill is often a very poor substitute for what a spell can accomplish. Skills are useful if you need to do a fairly easy task for a long time, but in many cases, magic allows automatic success for more time then you need to accomplish the task. For example, rather then make a bunch of climb and acrobatics checks to climb up a 100' wall and cross a narrow ledge, the caster can just fly right up, much quicker, and with no checks required. While skills do have their place, they are severely limited for classes like the fighter, and many other martial classes lack the ranks or class skills to use them effectively. Casters generally also have ways to increase their use of skills, while martials have none. Several casting classes are better able to use skills, and even the "master of skills" - the rogue, is often outdone by bards and even wizards.
- Versatility. Martial characters generally have three basic options for dealing with a combat situation: Melee attack vs. AC, Ranged attack vs. AC, or Attack vs. CMD. In social or adventuring encounters, they can use a skill. Casters on the other hand, can target AC, touch AC, 3 saves, etc. they can use deal damage from 5 different elements, force, positive/negative energy, etc. The can alter the environment, add allies, move friends or foes, buff/debuff, etc. Outside of combat, they can do... well... anything they wish. Prepared casters also have the option of selecting spells based on what they expect to face on a given day. Martials generally have no class options to customize their PC for specific situations.
What the caster martial disparity does NOT say (Or Myths about the caster martial disparity):
- "Casters are better at fighting then martials" - Most people consider fighters and barbarians to excel at combat, however that is generally all they excel at. Due to limited skills and ability scores, and no class skills related to most social encounters, these classes are generally only able to contribute to combat, and even then frequently suffer if situations don't allow effective full attacking. While druids and clerics can be very effective in combat, it generally requires a few rounds, and the caster must sacrifice some casting power in exchange for martial prowess. The problem is that while the caster can play martial, martials can never play casters.
- "Casters can finish any encounter with a single spell." - While this is occasionally true, the reality is that a spell is often enough to decide the encounter, while the martial characters often are just needed for coup de grace, or other shooting fish in a barrel uses.
- "Casters are squishy" - Many people think that sorcerers and wizards are fragile and vulnerable on the battlefield. This has never been less true. Casters generally have good HP and thanks to spells like mirror image, invisibility, displacement and fly, they are often the safest PCs on the battlefield. All casters have good will saves, some have good fortitude saves, and they have numerous options for boosting saves, AC, HP, and other defenses. Casters also have ways to make themselves basically immune to everything from fire, to grappling, to mental effects. 3/4 BAB casters are generally not considered vulnerable on the battlefield.
- "spells are a limited resource" - This was largely the balancing factor back in the AD&D era, however, running out of useful spells can easily be avoided once you get past the lower levels of the game. Most casters start with a few infinite-use 0 level spells, and frequently class abilities that can be used a half dozen times per day. Once you add in scrolls, wands, and other items, casters can frequently participate effectively in encounters without using any of their memorized spells or spell slots. Once you get past 10th level or so, most casters will have several dozen different daily options for effective magic use.
Why the Caster Martial Disparity might not appear in your games.
After leading a sheltered existence surrounded by luxury and game balance in his younger years, Prince Siddhārtha ventured out of his palace for the first time at the age of 29, accompanied by his charioteer Channa.
Prince Siddhārtha - "Why is that Fighter limping and covered in blood?"
Channa responded, "That Fighter has been injured in combat, and has no spells to heal with. Even the Heal skill is not a class skill for him."
As Pathfinder is a highly complex game, and varies widely from table to table, there are almost in infinite number of reasons it might appear or not. Here are some of the most common reasons it might not affect your games:
- Most of your play happens under 10th level.
- Players don't choose to play pure martial, or pure caster characters.
- Caster players don't optimize, and/or martial players optimize heavily.
- There is a spoken or unspoken agreement not to use some options and spells.
- The GM is highly skilled in pacing, presenting a campaign setting, presenting challenges, and giving rewards that even out or minimize the disparity.
- The GM alters dice rolls, and/or encounters so that everyone has fairly equal amounts of success.
- The group views combat and/or other rules heavy parts of the game as something to get resolved as quickly as possible, in order to move on to more roleplay and storytelling elements.
- House rules.
How to Fix the Disparity
"...I don't think its as big a deal as the internet makes it out to be. In my games, casters and non-casters tend to be equally valuable to the party, and equally dangerous in various situations as enemies. ...
...responsibility to keep things fair and fun for all involved lands on the GM's shoulders. ....
It's a balancing act."
-James Jacobs
- 1) When making characters, no starting ability scores above 16, or below 10 after racial adjustment.
That fixes many of the problems of class power imbalance, without altering any rule.
- 2) Remove hold person and dominate person from the game. (If you want to keep hold/dominate monster, at least they are higher level spells.)
- 3) 7th, 8th, and 9th level spells take at least a full round action to cast. Optionally, all save or suck/die spells take 1 round to cast. Removing the highest level spells from the game, and using the slots for metamagiced lower level spells (heighten spell feat free?) is a more extreme option.
- 4) Spells with a duration of days/level get changed to hours/level. Some permanent spells might have their duration reduced.
- 5) Remove quicken spell from the game, or make it apply only to spells with a range of personal.
- 6) Remove or rewrite known problems like dazing spell meta-magic, witches slumber hex, and other obviously broken stuff.
- 7)Consider crafted items the same as purchased when determining Wealth By Level. I would also make master craftsman into a more useful feat. To take it a step further, you could make crafted items cost market price to craft.
- 8)It should be noted that many aspects of casters are intended to be limited by the GM. Access to new spells, planar binding/ally, divination magic, etc. are not blank checks or guaranteed success.
- 9)Many intelligent foes will ready actions to disrupt spell casting. While it should be done rarely and only by appropriate foes, things like targeting a casters component pouch, wands, familiar and even spell books are not out of the question.
- 10) Communicate with the players and explain that you don't want a lot of action denial techniques used in the game. RPG-Tag is not a fun way to play. This applies on both sides of the screen. I don't want to consistently take a player out of action with save-or-suck and for similar reasons, I don't want players using those tactics on my named NPC/monsters.
Arena combat or any other kind of PvP misses the point. IT ISN'T ABOOT COMBAT! (It's aboot dignity, it's aboot respect!)
If you want to see the effects of the disparity, you need to look beyond numbers to complex adventuring and social situations.
EDIT Also, at 7th level, the disparity is just getting started, and may not be present at all. If you really want to see it in action try at least 10th level, and probably more like 15th.
Again, you're asking people who are AWARE of the problem to side with what they know to be weaker.
Call it an exercise in expanding one's horizons then, or a stretching exercise. Why not try it, you might like it? :P
Arena combat or any other kind of PvP misses the point.
Not if it's the point of my sword in your caster's gullet!
Huzzah!
Okay, so I have this idea. The idea that a lot of the martial vs. caster disparity argument is coming from an analysis of the numbers, and theory-craft, but not necessarily from actual game play experience. It's not a tested thought, but just go with it.
What if we (and by we I mean someone else with way more PbP GMing experience -- I'll eat popcorn and watch) started a PbP campaign that was just simply an arena of combat. On one side we have people who create martial characters, and on the other casters. Then we drop the approved characters (I think there should be some kind of community approval protocol) into the arena, roll for init, and let the sparks fly!
Good idea? I didn't put this in PbP recruitment, because I'm not even sure I, or anyone, would want to, so at this point it's nothing more than an idea, it's not even really an interest check.
Caster enters the arena. They snap their fingers once, twice, three times.
After the first snap a small army of demons, whom the caster has bound to respond on a finger-snap call, teleports into the arena.
After the second snap a literal human army marches into the arena, lead by a general who was ordered by a king of a nearby country to follow the caster's orders. King was, of course, Dominated by the caster a week earlier, and orders to the general came in the form of a letter, so as to not cause any questions.
After the third snap a comfortable leather chair appears under the caster's buttocks, and a glass of Cola(no ice) materialises in their hand. They enjoy their drink while martial is stabbed, slashed, bludgeoned, torn apart, incinerated, disintegrated, burned, decapitated, suffocated, enchanted and generally murdered to death.
I heard the book called Spheres of Power is a good fix.
Does it give magic abilities to fighters?
Arena combat or any other kind of PvP misses the point.Not if it's the point of my sword in your caster's gullet!
Huzzah!
That is a good point! But I brought a fighter also...
PS Did I mention that my fighter has a +20 diplomacy and +19 sense motive at 10th level?
Can I just roll up a Geysermancer? Then I can Project Image from my Palm Beach Demiplane and win the arena competition while sipping a mojito.
Supposing someone wanted to step into the arena, what are the ground rules? How far apart do they start before rolling initiative? How big is the arena? Do they get to chug potions or cast spells beforehand?
There are a lot of details that need to be sorted out. And very few choices will help the fighter.
Edit: How can I forget, what level? ;)
Supposing someone wanted to step into the arena, what are the ground rules? How far apart do they start before rolling initiative? How big is the arena? Do they get to chug potions or cast spells beforehand?
There are a lot of details that need to be sorted out. And very few choices will help the fighter.
Edit: How can I forget, what level? ;)
Yes! One of the reasons I started this thread was the hopes that great minds like yours would help me figure those things out. So you tell me your answers to all those questions. :)