I'd say it starts being apparent around levels 5 or 6, and kicks into full gear at levels 7 or 8, depending on caster progression.
I actually think it's always present, just not seen at low levels because of how attributes are set. As an example, compare a level 1 fighter with a level 1 caster, and what are the differences? Saves are similar, fighter has an extra feat, both probably have the same skills, but the caster has even some rudimentary magic at his disposal that can be used for problem solving (drench, ghost sound, message, detect magic, mage hand, and those are all just level 0 from arcane).
What's the fighter's benefit? A feat and +1 to hit above the caster. That's it. Now the feat can be nice, but will not shore up the disadvantage of not possessing random utility spells. Martials appear better off because they focus on physical stats at the time that attributes matter the most, where as bonuses to your casting stat take longer to come online (unless you're the face & a charisma caster). Even the martial's training in armor is nearly matched by mage armor (though for a limited time), and even beaten when shield gives +4 ac but a heavy steel shield is only +2, since level 1 everyone is rather poor. Differences in weapon aren't too great. Casters can wield 1d6 damage weapons which aren't far behind the martial 1d8 longsword, though two handed weapons gives more strength to martials in the damage department (greatsword).
Fighters, or indeed non-casters in general, are heavily equipment dependent, but casters don't have that limitation.
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More hit points, more damage, more armour, can do things all day long. At 1st level casters are very limited and if you want to burn one of your 3 spells for Mage armour thats your call. The opportunity for C/MD increases as encounter number/length no longer outstrips spell capability.
I do remember an article in dragon magazine that said the best spell for a first level wizard to memorise and cast (back when you only got 1) was Mage armour. You cast it on someone else and asked them to stand between you and the monsters lol.
More hit points, more damage, more armour, can do things all day long. At 1st level casters are very limited and if you want to burn one of your 3 spells for Mage armour thats your call. The opportunity for C/MD increases as encounter number/length no longer outstrips spell capability.
I do remember an article in dragon magazine that said the best spell for a first level wizard to memorise and cast (back when you only got 1) was Mage armour. You cast it on someone else and asked them to stand between you and the monsters lol.
In general, yea, you're probably right. Still, with mage armor lasting hours per level, your AC should be comparable to that of a martial (perhaps down by 2 or so if they have a shield or sprang for scale mail) at least most of the time it matters, though also costs the action at the start of a fight if you've not precast it.
More hitpoints is a solid win for the fighter, but carries a bit of a problem. Everyone at level 1 is 1 - 2 bad rolls from death (though solid 2 for the d10 hd), but the fighter also carries no way to heal. Even at level 3 when you have a wand of CLW, it still falls to the caster to keep the fighter up and running. But I didn't give enough credit to the HD in my initial thinking. Doing things all day long similarly has this problem, where the fighter has to stop when he runs out of hp.
Also disadvantage of casting mage armor on an ally is it doesn't stack with the mundane armor they bought.
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It's worth noting that James Jacobs likes to make sure all PC's get a spotlight. He doesn't believe in m/cd.
BUT, he has twice had to bring players aside and talk to them about how their characters were stealing the spotlight from the other PC's, and in the interests of the group, they should make changes.
Both characters were conjurors.
:)
==Aelryinth
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@ Jiggy
Well done on the opening post, it very clearly states the case for the caster versus martial disparity being a genuine consequence of the rules in their current form.
Whilst I was aware of the disparity, the actual impact has been small at most tables I have played at including my current one. I think the reason some deny it's existence is they have inadvertently solved the issue within their own group. In my current group for example: we have an unwritten policy that we don't try to break the game or ruin other people's fun and that we build characters that cooperate. Classes like the master summoner are generally not played because it isn't fun sitting around waiting for one player to resolve all the actions of their minions. Similarly if player A chooses to be a rogue, player B won't design a wizard that is better at being a rogue than the actual rogue. But player B may make a wizard that buffs the rogue and makes him better at being a rogue. A consequence of our play style is that nobody tends to play characters that hog the spotlight, full 9th level casters are rare, so we have inadvertently minimised the impact of the caster martial disparity. It would be interesting to hear how various groups have resolved the disparity at their own tables.
More hit points, more damage, more armour, can do things all day long. At 1st level casters are very limited and if you want to burn one of your 3 spells for Mage armour thats your call. The opportunity for C/MD increases as encounter number/length no longer outstrips spell capability.
I do remember an article in dragon magazine that said the best spell for a first level wizard to memorise and cast (back when you only got 1) was Mage armour. You cast it on someone else and asked them to stand between you and the monsters lol.
I dunno, the sorcerer in my group has been dominating encounters even in the early levels. He's taken down more bad guys than the rest of the party combined. I don't mind, I'm a pretty good team player. From my perspective though, the only drawback to being a caster in early levels is you're dependent on martials to protect you while you wreak havok. At higher levels, casters can protect themselves and the martials really just get in the way.
Has anyone tried a party completely made up of full casters? I was thinking the most powerful party combination might be made up of a Conjuror, an Enchanter, a Transmuter, and a Cleric. Has the all full caster party worked out for those who tried it?
I see threads about full cleric parties all the time. They tend to ROFLstomp everything...
==Aelryinth
I see threads about full cleric parties all the time. They tend to ROFLstomp everything...
==Aelryinth
I am starting to wonder whether clerics are actually more powerful than wizards, even at high levels.
From my perspective though, the only drawback to being a;)casterwizard in early levels is you're dependent onmartialsmelee clerics to protect you while you wreak havok.
Lol excellent!
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Has the all full caster party worked out for those who tried it?
Absolutely. It was a little rough since we were playing PFS and couldn't respec any of our clerics to melee. So we had to rely on the druid and summons. But three healing clerics made sure no one died!
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I see threads about full cleric parties all the time. They tend to ROFLstomp everything...
==Aelryinth
I am starting to wonder whether clerics are actually more powerful than wizards, even at high levels.
Yes and no.
The wizard spell list is superior in a lot of ways.
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Druids replace martials pretty well, just need to make sure you have an Arcane problem solver and a Divine problem solver. 4th slot is open to any old full caster you want. Maybe a second Druid or a buffing Witch.
In a larger party, multiple Witches would be nice for spell sharing.
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Overall I like the lists and the extras provided in later posts, and hopefully that will help the conversations move forward instead of in a circle. That said, something in Kirth's addendum made me pause:
2. Myth: "Any attempt at balancing classes inexorably leads to 4e!" (See Jiggy's #5)
Response: ...except when it doesn't, like Frank and K's Tomes, or Szatany's Ultimate Classes, or Kirthfinder.6. "I never have this problem because the DM fixes it!" (Alluded to in Jiggy's #2 and #7)
Answer: Then you're playing storytime hour, not Pathfinder. If we fixed the problems, you could still play storytime hour, and we would BOTH win.
With no snark intended, Kirthfinder is your house rules/remake. If another GM/DM fixes things, like with Kirthfinder or their own work, it isn't storytime hour (which is, as an aside, sort of derogatory term) .. that or using Kirthfinder turns the game into storytime hour?
With the exception of that, everything else seems to represent a good deal of the myths/arguments that keep going around.
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I am starting to wonder whether clerics are actually more powerful than wizards, even at high levels.I see threads about full cleric parties all the time. They tend to ROFLstomp everything...
==Aelryinth
Yes and no.
The wizard spell list is superior in a lot of ways.
And then there is Miracle... XD
But yeah... It's hard to beat the Sorc/Wiz spell list.
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Actually, beating it isn't hard.
How well does it heal? Horribly.
Condition removal? Also horrible.
The sorc/wiz list is worse at those two tasks then the cleric list is at ANY magical task.
So the sorc/wiz list tends to be better at purely offensive stuff, general defensive stuff, and lots of utility stuff.
But the cleric list can still DO those things better then the sorc/wiz list can heal and remove conditions. Which is why all-cleric parties tend to rock...because they can stay in the game, and sorc/wiz parties can shoot their wads and then have to run if ANYTHING adverse/unplanned happens.
==Aelryinth
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*wakes up* ssnzrrxxxwha? Oh. Right, right, right, right. There y'are. Welcome to the prestigious Order of the Made A Thread About C/MD. :)
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Actually, beating it isn't hard.
How well does it heal? Horribly.
Condition removal? Also horrible.==Aelryinth
At mid to high levels they can do reasonably well with summoned critturs and magic items.
The Razmirin Priest does quite a reasonable job at level 9+ and a superb job at higher levels.
One arguably broken archetype being able to access a different list just confirms my argument, does it not?
The Razmiran Priest is due for some major nerfage, it very, very closely resembles the Rainbow Servant in 3.5 which could ALSO access the whole cleric list, before it got nerfed.
==Aelryinth
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A good party wants access to high level arcane and high level divine spells. I really want to convince my next group to go full caster next campaign, to see how awesome it can really get.
As much as I am enjoying my mythic fighter in Wrath, there are so many problems we wouldn't be able to pass without a caster. Not to mention how much less gear we'd have if she couldn't also craft.
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*wakes up* ssnzrrxxxwha? Oh. Right, right, right, right. There y'are. Welcome to the prestigious Order of the Made A Thread About C/MD. :)
One of us!
Googlegoo!One of us!
Googlegoo!
I think the designers of the game expect the GM to even out the C/M D, and any other disparities that occur. Doing that in a way that keeps the players (and GM) happy is often a difficult task, especially when it is wrapped up in player personalities, different levels of experience or optimization, house rules, etc. It would be nice if the system did more of that work, but the tools to balance or alter the game are there to play with...
Gooble-gabble, gooble-gabble. What kind of freak says "googlegoo"? Is that the byproduct from search engine factories?
Gooble-gabble, gooble-gabble. What kind of freak says "googlegoo"? Is that the byproduct from search engine factories?
I think we both know the answer to that...
The lucky kind of freak!
Yeah, I guess gooble-gobble is the authentic freak way of spelling it, although wikipedia has gooba-gobble.
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One arguably broken archetype being able to access a different list just confirms my argument, does it not?
The Razmiran Priest is due for some major nerfage, it very, very closely resembles the Rainbow Servant in 3.5 which could ALSO access the whole cleric list, before it got nerfed.
==Aelryinth
Fair enough :-)
Sure, the C/MD is real.
But it's strange, in my group everyone wants to play some flavor of martial. Dunno if it's just because casters seem too "fiddly" to them, but they generally seem to prefer maneuvering and swinging weapons.
<shrug>
The real question, IMHO, is why there aren't steps taken to reduce or eliminate the C/MD. Things like:
- banning traits that reduce metamagic cost
- banning metamagic rods
- altering spellcasting in fundamental ways, like making casting time equal to one full round per spell level, and/or making spellcasting cost hit points equal to the spell level cast.
Some would argue that such steps are badwrongunfun. But the real solution to the C/MD must go down one of two paths: either making martials have innate magic powers, or taking a big gimp hammer to casters.
Or, you just live with it. We know that the C/MD exists, but it doesn't need to crush our souls into paste.
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The real question, IMHO, is why there aren't steps taken to reduce or eliminate the C/MD. Things like:
- altering spellcasting in fundamental ways, like making casting time equal to one full round per spell level, and/or making spellcasting cost hit points equal to the spell level cast.
There is stuff like that, in unchained.
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We actually have heard some great ideas on these forums for non-magical martial powers. You can find a few such threads on the Index. That would be the best case scenario—let martials be martials, but think of creative ways to give them narrative authority closer to what the casters have.
Hell, you could even give them a way to access magic while remaining "innately" mundane. Let the rogue call upon otherworldly connections (perhaps she's charming enough to obtain special fey or genie blessings on occasion). Let the fighter's items develop innate magic over time (the causes of this can be decided on by the player). Maybe the cavalier's convictions give him access to occasional "favors" from outsiders matching his alignment, like inevitables.
That said, tons of options exist beyond "magic powers". Especially if you're willing to step out of Game of Thrones and explore the possibilities of the true fantasy hero.
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I would imagine it grows from a preference for defining "fantasy" as "reality + magic" (which is a popular formula with a long and glorious tradition). If that's the fantasy you like, then it would be weird and jarring to not have a C/MD.Now I accept that C/MD is a real thing, although I also realise I like it that way (which shouldn't have been a factor in me not seeing it, but probably was). :)I do have to admit I do like it to a degree, though I can never place exactly why.
Unless it's a very low magic setting, in which casting even simple spells requires several minutes of ritual.
Whenever someone says that casters should be better because they have magic, I think of the Conan the Barbarian movie in which the Wizard played by Mako spent hours chanting and covering Conan in script in order to cast a healing spell.
In that setting the completely nonmagical barbarian seems to be the one who is much more likely to single-handedly defeat the evil cult leader, than the wizard. (And well that's how it ends up, spoilers!)
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I would imagine it grows from a preference for defining "fantasy" as "reality + magic" (which is a popular formula with a long and glorious tradition). If that's the fantasy you like, then it would be weird and jarring to not have a C/MD.Now I accept that C/MD is a real thing, although I also realise I like it that way (which shouldn't have been a factor in me not seeing it, but probably was). :)I do have to admit I do like it to a degree, though I can never place exactly why.Unless it's a very low magic setting, in which casting even simple spells requires several minutes of ritual.
Whenever someone says that casters should be better because they have magic, I think of the Conan the Barbarian movie in which the Wizard played by Mako spent hours chanting and covering Conan in script in order to cast a healing spell.
In that setting the completely nonmagical barbarian seems to be the one who is much more likely to single-handedly defeat the evil cult leader, than the wizard. (And well that's how it ends up, spoilers!)
Yeah, in a lot of fantasy magic gets balanced out by having a long casting time and/or requiring rituals to pull off major spells. Doing much more than very simple tricks is so time-consuming that a swordsman will stab the wizard in the face before he could finish the spell.
This is where Pathfinder has the biggest difference from traditional fantasy, since spells with a long casting time are pretty rare. A Pathfinder wizard barely loses any options when facing an angry fighter in the same room as him, while most other fantasy wizards would only have access to a small fraction of their arsenal.
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Jacking up the casting time fixes zero problems and raises more. Martials are still wholly dependent on magic to solve most problems...except now casters are less capable of solving them as well. This leaves everyone up s@$% creek equally.
All it really accomplishes is making casters less fun to play, which isn't really a solution at all.
I do have to admit I do like it to a degree, though I can never place exactly why.I would imagine it grows from a preference for defining "fantasy" as "reality + magic" (which is a popular formula with a long and glorious tradition). If that's the fantasy you like, then it would be weird and jarring to not have a C/MD.
Since this quote has come up, I do want to say that I do not like "reality + magic", that preference doesn't really... work with Pathfinder in my opinion.
One arguably broken archetype being able to access a different list just confirms my argument, does it not?
The Razmiran Priest is due for some major nerfage, it very, very closely resembles the Rainbow Servant in 3.5 which could ALSO access the whole cleric list, before it got nerfed.
==Aelryinth
*Looks at archetype and is let down*
I fail to see what is so broken about it.
Jacking up the casting time fixes zero problems and raises more. Martials are still wholly dependent on magic to solve most problems...except now casters are less capable of solving them as well.
Maybe you need better problems? When I'm making up adventures for my group, I make sure all obstacles have non-magical solutions. (Or martial-accessible solutions, like drinking the potion of invisibility they were given at the start of the adventure.)
When the group has difficulties due to having no-one with a Remove Condition spell, there are NPC allies back in town they can return to.
I try to make sure narrative agency is available to all, irrespective of character class. Deciding whether to help, trust, trade with, capture or kill - all decisions that can be made just fine without magic.
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Some obstacles simply DO NOT have a mundane solution. Shifting planes, crossing hundreds of miles in under a day to thwart the baddies, surviving in a vacuum or cloud of poisonous gas that goes on for miles...these cannot be done without magic. Or Tech Guide stuff, but those are all just magic items with new fluff anyway.
Providing them with magic items or magic users doesn't stop that reliance on magic. That should be pretty obvious.
Raising the casting time doesn't affect any of those non combat challenges...but makes the combat ones commensurately harder for everyone. No Haste for the martials, or Heal when needed, or Fly to attack flying creatures.
Not unless you quadruple their wealth and assume they always commissioned the right items for the job, anyway.
Implying I'm a s$~%ty DM for not providing solutions to the problem you claim doesn't exist is both comically missing the point of what we're talking about here, and false.
Some obstacles simply DO NOT have a mundane solution. Shifting planes, crossing hundreds of miles in under a day to thwart the baddies, surviving in a vacuum or cloud of poisonous gas that goes on for miles...these cannot be done without magic.
I'm not going to throw those things at a low-magic group.
Providing them with magic items or magic users doesn't stop that reliance on magic. That should be pretty obvious.
But it does address class imbalance within a given campaign. A wizard with Invisibility is more stealthy than a rogue. A rogue with lots of potions of Fly and Invisibility does not have that problem. It's not an instant fix to C/MD, but it helps.
Implying I'm a s++@ty DM for not providing solutions to the problem you claim doesn't exist is both comically missing the point of what we're talking about here, and false.
I'm talking about campaigns in general. How would I know if you're writing adventures or not? I acknowledge that if your vision for a campaign revolves around any of the obstacles you mention, and you don't supply convenient magic items, then my 'solution' isn't going to help.
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Some obstacles simply DO NOT have a mundane solution. Shifting planes, crossing hundreds of miles in under a day to thwart the baddies, surviving in a vacuum or cloud of poisonous gas that goes on for miles...these cannot be done without magic.I'm not going to throw those things at a low-magic group.
...Okay?
How is this relevant to the discussion the rest of us were having?
Providing them with magic items or magic users doesn't stop that reliance on magic. That should be pretty obvious.But it does address class imbalance within a given campaign. A wizard with Invisibility is more stealthy than a rogue. A rogue with lots of potions of Fly and Invisibility does not have that problem. It's not an instant fix to C/MD, but it helps.
But...it doesn't. It's right there.
The Rogue needs Potions.
Brewed by a caster.
Because the Rogue is physically incapable of doing those things otherwise.
I'm talking about campaigns in general. How would I know if you're writing adventures or not? I acknowledge that if your vision for a campaign revolves around any of the obstacles you mention, and you don't supply convenient magic items, then my 'solution' isn't going to help.
Which is part of the disparity. There are a lot of plots that are simply cut off to you without magic. There's a "You must have this much magic to ride" sign on a lot of things in this game.
Though again, how does this have anything to do with "Nerfing casters at this point will harm martials more than it helps"?
Yes, you can give them cool magic swag for free, but that's adding another houserule to only half-patch the hole the previous one made.
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Sure, the C/MD is real.
But it's strange, in my group everyone wants to play some flavor of martial. Dunno if it's just because casters seem too "fiddly" to them, but they generally seem to prefer maneuvering and swinging weapons.
<shrug>
To speak personally, my mental image of my character is always a big deal to me. I have a liking for that mental image being some kind of sword-wielder, so I very rarely play characters that are "pure casters" who don't use weapons at all. But then since I also want to be able to do things besides just deplete monster HP, I feel constrained (in Pathfinder) to not play a pure martial either. As a result, the vast majority of my Pathfinder characters have been some kind of 3/4 BAB martial/caster hybrid type build (melee cleric, bloodrager, bard, magus, etc). It often feels like the only way to merge the "cool action hero" image with "able to do things besides stab", and so I keep doing it over and over and over.
The real question, IMHO, is why there aren't steps taken to reduce or eliminate the C/MD. Things like:
- banning traits that reduce metamagic cost
- banning metamagic rods
Dunno about you, but I see metamagic used almost exclusively with combat spells, which means these ideas only address maybe 20% of the C/MD. Remember Myth #1.
- altering spellcasting in fundamental ways, like making casting time equal to one full round per spell level, and/or making spellcasting cost hit points equal to the spell level cast.
Increasing the resource cost is not "altering spellcasting in fundamental ways". It's just more expensive. It's still doing fundamentally the same things, and that's where the problem is. Again, Myth #1. Casting times measured in rounds only matter when you're in initiative, so again it doesn't address the 80% of the C/MD that has nothing to do with casting in combat.
Some would argue that such steps are badwrongunfun.
While others would argue that such steps would be great if the issue were different than it is. ;)
But the real solution to the C/MD must go down one of two paths: either making martials have innate magic powers, or taking a big gimp hammer to casters.
Something like that, yeah. :)
Or, you just live with it. We know that the C/MD exists, but it doesn't need to crush our souls into paste.
There's that too. :)
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Some obstacles simply DO NOT have a mundane solution. Shifting planes, crossing hundreds of miles in under a day to thwart the baddies, surviving in a vacuum or cloud of poisonous gas that goes on for miles...these cannot be done without magic.
I'm not going to throw those things at a low-magic group.
Given how one of my favorite setting was Planescape, I very much disagree.
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I acknowledge that if your vision for a campaign revolves around any of the obstacles you mention, and you don't supply convenient magic items, then my 'solution' isn't going to help.
I can't speak for Rynjin (or anyone else), but if my ability to overcome obstacles in your game requires that I find "convenient magic items", then the problem isn't solved, it's just re-named. Instead of being so narratively impotent that I have to rely on casters in my party, I'm so narratively impotent that I have to rely on fate dropping specific items in my lap?
Great, so maybe now it's not called "caster-martial disparity" anymore, but there's still the core issue of "the class I'm playing is so narratively impotent that I need outside intervention to advance the plot".
How is that a solution?
Furthermore (and again, speaking just for myself), needing conveniently-placed treasure in order to move forward defeats the entire purpose of even playing an RPG in the first place. I get enough "success by contrived circumstance" in TV/movies/literature, and I play RPGs specifically to get away from that and instead have my decisions make real impacts. Your solution subverts that, failing to grant any actual narrative agency.
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TL:DR
Point x is a Myth!! I say so!
No is not!!! You haven't proven it!!!
Yes it is!! I've proven it by saying it is!!
No is not!! I've never see it!!
Then is a myth, i've proven it by saing point x is a myth!!!!ecc. ecc. ecc.
All I see in this thread is some awesome display of circular logic.
Can you be more specific? Perhaps by quoting one or more specific passages and laying out your critiques?