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Or The Angel summoner and the BMX Bandit.
Before we go further, let's get specific about what we are talking about here:
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.
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.
Gallant: Limit starting ability scores to a max of 16 and a minimum of 10 after racial adjustments.
Goofus: Expect a low point buy to solve the problem. A low point buy is harder for classes that require several good scores, and benefits classes that operate off of a single score.
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.
Gallant: There are several options, depending on how much you want to alter the game.
- Alter all spells that substantially reduce the targets ability to function (Save-or-Suck) to a casting time of one round.
- 7th, 8th, and 9th level spells take at least a full round action to cast.
- Alter spells that have a duration of days/level to hours/level
- Alter some spells that have a duration of permanent to days/level, or less.
- Limit summoning to a single active spell at a time.
- Limit Planar Binding/Ally spells.
- Remove spells like hold person, dominate person, blindness, and spell like abilities like slumber hex from the game.
- Remove quicken spell metamagic from the game, or limit it to spells with a range of personal only.
- Removing the highest level spells (7th-9th) from the game, and using the slots for metamagiced lower level spells (heighten spell feat free?) is an extreme option.
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.
Gallant: Make the cost of crafting an item equal to the price, not half price. The GM should limit the available magic items to minimize disparities between players, and maximize fun. Higher level spells, especially those that tend to disrupt the game, should be difficult to acquire. It might also be worth adding an expensive material component to the spells that are most often disruptive to a campaign. Also, allow martials to craft magic items, perhaps by having ranks in crafting based skills.
Goofus: Make all magic items rare and difficult to acquire. This punishes martials more then casters, because casters are usually not as reliant on magic items as martials are. You generally don't need the item, if you can cast the spell that is needed to make the item.
Skills vs. Spells
Some martials 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.
Gallant: This is very difficult to cover with a universal fix, primarily because bards and wizards generally have the most access to skill ranks, while fighters have the least. Giving fighters more ranks and class skills is a good start, but only a small step. Increasing the value of having ranks in physical skills later in the game could help a lot, but requires altering each skill individually in order to reduce the problem, not make it worse.
Goofus: Increase the power of skills across the board, or base increase in skill power on total modifier, rather then ranks. Casters often have more was to increase the modifier, without needing the ranks, (invisibility and glibness for example).
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 daily situations.
Gallant: This is by far the most difficult aspect to balance. The easiest solution is to limit the number of options casters have in a given situation. Limited casting choices was largely the balancing factor in AD&D, and while most spells are similar in power to back in the day, they are no longer a highly limited resource. If you follow the suggestions so far, casters will have less bonus spells, less scrolls, wands, and staves, to fall back on, and less chance of their spells succeeding. They may even have fewer options of which spells to memorize. This helps prevent casters from outshining other classes, and prevents the "Schrodinger's Wizard" effect from becoming a reality.
There are a variety of suggestions for martials such as the ability to swap out a feat every day, and ideas about martials having limited spell-like abilities. It is very difficult to bring martials up to the level of versitility of casters without severely altering the flavor of the class, and/or also providing options that casters can benefit from as well.
Goofus: Limit martials by what is "realistic" according to real world physics. These limits DO help game balance in the first few levels, when martials are often stronger then casters, but once casters are flying around invisible, martials should be laughing at physics as well. Also, avoid the temptation to use excessive amounts of wild magic, anti magic zones, and other things that punish all magic. Low level casters, partial casters (rangers and paladins), and spells like cure light wounds are NOT the problem, don't punish all of magic for a few specific problems.
Where to Start
"...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
The most important part of dealing with the Caster Martial disparity, is understanding how it affects YOUR game. Once you see what the effects are, determine which effects are benign, and which are problems. This determination is best done in an honest and open discussion (NOT argument or debate) with the players and GM. Once the problem aspects are defined (for me personally, action-denial magic is the worst culprit), decide as a group what can be altered by the GM, and what needs to be house ruled. If your group can agree to allow the GM control of the character generation method and magic item economy and remove a few spells from the game you have fixed most of the problems.
Finally, there will always be imbalances and issues that need fixing. If players and GM agree to work towards a game that is fun for everyone, and not disrupt the balance, that will do more to promote fun then any rule or house rule. The game can be broken and rules can be abused - so DON'T break the game or abuse the rules.
Here is how I see it.
There are ways to increase martial power without completely rehauling the entire combat system, and also everything else, and could be added as an errata or book (In a similar vein to Unchained). Here is how I see it.
1. Add an action called Quickened Strike. Exactly what it says on the tin, as a Swift Action, a character with this ability can make 1 additional attack, provided that they have access to an additional attack. The modifier for that attack is taken at a negative (-2 or -4).
This gives a character a chance to no matter what have access to more then 1 attack, and also prevents mages from taking a five foot step and forcing a martial to have to move up, then only get off one attack since they have no means of getting their full attacks. This also gives martial classes something to do with a Swift Action, as many martials do not have swift action options. It also doesn't work so well with casters due to their low BAB and lack of attacks anyway, so while it is possible for spell casters to use it, it obviously isn't massively viable on them.
Also I do not believe giving martials access to all their attacks regardless of full round actions is a good idea. I have seen it in 5 DnD, I have tested it in PF, and frankly it is far too disgusting. Just ask Pounce
2. Move Skill Unlocks as a Core Part of the system rather then as part of Unchained. Mostly this encompasses Climb, Acrobatics, Etc., as their Skill Unlocks are useful for Martials especially.
3. Make certain Combat Maneuvers not provoke attacks of opportunity, giving more options for characters without gutting or reworking the system. Things such as Dirty Trick, which basically act as attacks.
4. Finally if none of that works, release Core 2 and have it specify the changes necessary to help take care of some of the nagging issues. I'm only suggesting the above since they can be instituted with a simple Errata post rather then a book. Have Core 2 not replace the current system, but instead clarify mechanics and gameplay that is intended to help close the gap of disparity. I do think there needs to be disparity, but the closer the gap the easier it is to work with both as a player and as a DM.
Design Manager
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As too the Spheres of Power, both would probably go a long way to offering a more equal gameplay.To me it feels like giving the martials their own way to feel epic really requires some sort of special maneuver system, such as Path of War or Book of Nine Swords.YES! Path of War is a great answer to the aforementioned issue.
I actually dropped Vancian magic from my games in its entirety, completely replacing it with Spheres of Power. We've also been using alternate class and power systems, like psionics and veilweaving, for a couple years now, so we were already grooming out Vancian casting well before SoP came along.
Backtracking a bit here, I actually find martial/caster disparity to be very real and problematic, particularly because I tend to run tables where we have a couple seats that get filled by whomever shows up to play, so there's usually at least a couple characters that weren't built specifically for the group we have. This can mean that if I have two "problem solvers" in the group, and one is a rogue while the other is a summoner with a toolbox eidolon, I may have two people attempting to address the same issues, one with a much more fantastic approach that also is frequently more effective. Hurt feelings or simple frustration become even harder to avoid when (for example) the Summoner is showing up the Rogue in out-of-combat problem solving while also being a more effective force in most other scenarios. I choose the summoner/rogue comparison here both because it's one of the more blatant areas of discrepancy where you can see that overlap, and because it actually came up during one of my campaigns, ironically catalyzed by the fact that the summoner decided to go skill focused so he wouldn't step on the paladin's toes.
The issue lies in the core assumptions of the fantasy world, as Jiggy has so eloquently already pointed out. I was actually looking over the old Swords & Sorcery rulebook for "World of Warcraft: the Roleplaying Game", and I was pleasantly surprised to discover the differences between that system and modern Pathfinder. I think one of the biggest differences is that, right there in the core rules, they expect martial characters to be just as fantastic as magical characters. Mundane is something you nod at during level 1, then never look back at as you progress into higher levels, so you have warriors who basically right out the gate are doing things like demoralizing all enemies within 30 feet who fail a Will save with an intimidating bellow, or hurling a shield at an enemy spellcaster that cracks their noggin and makes it more difficult for them to cast spells for a round. By starting out saying "warriors and non-magic users can do awesome stuff too as a result of their strength and training" the game actually does an excellent job of staving off martial/caster disparity much better and for much longer than modern Pathfinder.
Even before looking back on this example of a system that really started in a good place for avoiding/mitigating martial/caster disparity, I found I was already doing a big part of what it was accomplishing, as I had slowly been grooming the weaker classes out and either bringing them back in with expanded options or finding suitable replacements. It's very rare to see a Fighter at our table any more, as there are now options like the Armorist from Spheres of Power or the Battle Lord from Amora Games that have a more specific niche they can fill in addition to hitting things, with the Armorist being a great "fantastical weaponsmaster" and the Battle Lord being a nonmagical tactician with enough "oomph" to stay relevant in higher magic parties.
So, our solution to martial/caster disparity has really been to carefully tailor the game, removing weaker and less functional elements as well as game/narrative-breaking elements and gradually try to fold everything in towards the middle, bringing the basic ideas like "warrior" and "rogue/thief" up with more "fantastic" classes and options, while trimming the more egregious and powerful spellcasting options off so that spellcasters tend to have slightly higher floors and much lower ceilings. The higher floors for casters, something I think Spheres of Power does quite well, is necessary because not everyone actually knows how to play a caster well; in fact, the number of people who don't really know how to capitalize on a caster's strengths is probably the majority of players, and one of the reasons there are a fair number of anecdotal responses regarding m/cd not being a big deal. I've found that higher floor / lower ceiling spellcasting does a good job of making spellcasters more appealing to a wider base of players, as it can help trim put those moments where your wizard is flicking cantrips or attacking with a sling or crossbow, so "folding" the game towards that middle performance line where Bards and Inquisitors tend to hang out actually not only makes martial classes more appealing to high system mastery players, it also makes spellcasting options more appealing to low system mastery players.
The idea is that CLASS shouldn't be something that does or doesn't fit in a campaign that allows all classes. The fact that a GM allowing all classes and if the party chooses all martial then you're stuck on what story is available.
So? You'd have some limitation on the stories appropriate to a group of all gnomes too. Or all commoners. Or all male. But you still have more themes and adventures to explore than you'll ever have time for.
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Bill Dunn, it's clear that the campaign restrictions and so forth presented by magic-only activities does not present a problem for you and your group. However, it does present a problem for others, and it's those people who want solutions. You now have a few ways you can proceed from here:
• Accept the descriptions of what other people are finding unacceptable for their own tables and try to discuss solutions within that context.
• Accept that you have no responsibility for anyone else's games and just leave them to it.
• Try to convince people that they're wrong about what's causing problems in their games.
One of these options is not okay, but more and more sounds like what you're trying to do.
When I saw the thread I was going to post "3pp" and leave it at that. Typically I have to add or subtract classes and options based on the flavor of the settings and really the top tier and bottom tier classes are just not necessary.
Alternatively the lower tier classes can get pretty buffed by third party material.
If higher tier classes are a problem its difficult to nerf them without spending a lot of effort, especially since problems are mostly due to how spells fundamentally work so its easier to gently put them down and replace them with other casters. But since Spheres of Power came out it is pretty easy to replace casting and if you see my review about it you'll see my argument as to why it is better than spellcasting.
How much of the last few tiers is really just magic with the serial numbers scrubbed off, however, and how much is part of being a martial? Artifacts from gods, blessings and/or being born of same gods, making deals with the devil and so on are part of these tall tales and myths.Eh?
Sorry, I had forgotten about your post in the dozens of these threads. :)
The ideal, then, is for every player character to be able to be "fantastic", to exceed reality. It doesn't matter which kind of setting you're using or what the requirement is for moving from mundane to fantastic; it just matters that each player has equal access to it. If exceeding reality requires a gift from the gods, then every player character should receive that gift. If exceeding reality requires being taught by a fantastic mentor, then every player character should have such a mentor. If exceeding reality requires access to magic, then every player character should have access to magic.
So, working off this, why not give martials a pool not unlike Ki or Grit or whatnot in order to do these fantastical things? I mean, the mechanic is right there in several classes. I imagine that it would be easy enough to limit/remove the more costly/extreme/bothersome ones (for some people) depending on how they like their campaign. Expending X Blah points gives you greater speed or whatnot while X+10 Blah points lets you slice through dimensions to follow a teleport.
Wealth by level at 18 is 530k - 10k is 1/53 of his total. Plus - that's the sort of thing I figured would be spread over the group. For a 5 person group, 2k each isn't that much at levels 18-20. Expendable spending (potions/wands/scrolls etc.) is likely already at least that high.
10k PER DAY of adventuring, say, 5 days to go through a dungeon. That's not much? That's 1/10th of the entire amount of wealth the wizard has accumulated in his entire career at level 18. He might not even get that much cash value out of the dungeon (depending on how big it is).
I said 5 days, so 50k so that's 9.4%, I rounded when I said 1/10th of his wealth.
my point was that it becomes enough of an expense that some groups might say "Hey, we're pissing away an awful lot of profit, can't we just stay here instead of teleporting back and forth every day."
At least, that would be my hope.
You can't fix it. But you can mitigate it, which is still a good thing. The goal should be making martials more fun to play, not making all the classes perfectly balanced.
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I like to look at things in terms of what challenges are appropriate at what levels, and then go back and look and see how PCs can deal with them, and what that says about the PCs. For example:
3rd Level -
5th Level -
9th Level -
17th Level -
Notice how the casters progress with the setting: as the adventures have more fantastic challenges, the casters' abilities get more and more fantastic... they go from hedge-magicians to tricksters to wizards to godlike archimages.
To eliminate the disparity, we have to allow martials to traverse a similar arc: to go from soldiers to warlords to wuxia heroes to demigods. Saying, "They can't be wuxia, and they can't be demigods" is exactly the same thing as saying "they can't really be much above 8th level."
I like to look at things in terms of what challenges are appropriate at what levels, and then go back and look and see how PCs can deal with them, and what that says about the PCs. For example:
3rd Level - ** spoiler omitted **
5th Level - ** spoiler omitted **
9th Level - ** spoiler omitted **
17th Level - ** spoiler omitted **...
Sort of how I look at things. Granted I actually don't think we need Fighters and Rogues and Rangers to suddenly obtain powers of pure craziness but instead have access to feats that border on the impossible, but you could argue could be done. To bring up anime for a moment, a character like Vash the Stampede is superhuman, but really they are that way due to their physical abilities, and not per say because of their spellcasting or access to supernatural abilities.
As an example, a 1st level fighter could hit something hard with Power Attack, but at 5th level could instead have access to Targeted strikes, or have the ability through training and knowledge to pinpoint an enemies weakness after some observation and hit once against their Touch AC. Maybe at 6th level a number of times per day, as long as they know a hit is coming, they can make it a glancing blow, dealing non-lethal damage instead of lethal. The list could go on, but it's not based on wuxia, but rather what you want a badass normal to act like.
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You don't fix it, you accept it.
It's one of the things I like about pathfinder. I can run a game of pure martial, no magic. I have the Cavalier, Fighter, Rogue, Ninja, Samurai, Monk, Slayer, Kineticist and Barbarian to choose from. If I want a little magic I can introduce 4th level casters like the Paladin, Ranger, and Blood Rager. There you go no caster disparity with these mixes.
You could run a game of all casters again no martial disparity. Want to tone magic down a bit say no 9th level casters. Go with on 6th level casters. With no martial classes there is no caster disparity.
I mean those classes exist for people who want to play them. If you want fighter spitting fireball then play a magus. Don't try to fit a square peg through a round hole. That's how I see it.
You had this problem in other games. If you played mortal in Vampire you were out classed by the supernatural vampire and thought of as snack. Thing is you didn't play that mix very often.
Now I can understand how people don't like this but it seem the game is built this way.
I like to look at things in terms of what challenges are appropriate at what levels, and then go back and look and see how PCs can deal with them, and what that says about the PCs. For example:
3rd Level - ** spoiler omitted **
5th Level - ** spoiler omitted **
9th Level - ** spoiler omitted **
17th Level - ** spoiler omitted **...
Wouldn't it be simpler just not play the fighter in those style of games?
I believe the great divide between casters and martials exists in D&D 3+ and PF but it can be fixed or at least lessened.
There's admittedly a lot of work to do but a good starting point is certainly taking a good look at the spell list and start changing things. Changing not erasing.
Here's a few guidelines I think would be useful in doing so:
1. Magic is dangerous. It requires sacrifice. The more powerful the magic the bigger the sacrifice. Reality altering magics should carry huge, REAL risks. This would add a whole new level of depth to spellcasting.
2. All spells should allow for saves. No more things like enervation (ranged touch, no save and an effect that powerful and that is difficult and time consuming to work out in game).
3. Really powerful spells should work as rituals, taking time and resources to accomplish, posibly needing several casters too. A wizard might be powerful but he should not be able to do everything by chanting a few words and snapping his fingers.
4. Tone down spells that make skills redundant. These are all over the place. Things like Endure Elements (no more need for 99% of environmental checks), spider climb even invisibility should help with checks not erase the need for them.
5. Check for nasty unwanted comboes. It's easy to tone down explosive runes so they can't stack, make it clear you can't cast limited wish to get geas as a standard action spell, and so on. Lilt things like simulacra and what they do.
6. Tone down metamagic feats and metamagic rods. And when you think of ballance keep in mind a fighter gets 10 extra combat feats while a wizard gets 5 extra magic feats and they are not generally comparable in power. Double casting a lvl 9 spell due to a metamagic rod, is not a good thing for the game. Casting a fireball and dazing a whole encounter is another example of how metamagic feats can make things already powerful like spells are utterly devastating and encounter breaking, and so on. Again, tone this down.
7. Make plot breaking spells unreliable and dangerous. I mean scrying, teleporting and the like. Why should a teleport spell cast while in combat be so reliable? Why should scry have such a huge chance to work? Instead of forcing everyone to have defeses against this stuff up and active all of the time make them unreliable and risky. And if you are worried teleporting may be needed make use of portals the characters have to find and reach. Again, this will make the gaming experience richer.
Item creation feats I'm leaving out: these should be clearly made optional, along with a good thorough look at the whole magicmart trope.
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Wouldn't it be simpler just not play the fighter in those style of games?
Sure, you can eliminate the fighter and rogue and so on entirely, and the game works fine. Or, as I said, you can keep them, but expect them to eventually become totally fantastic and rewrite them accordingly (as I did). Because "those style of games" are what higher-level (9+) Pathfinder does.
To play more realistic martials, one could totally go play Iron Heroes or James Bond 007 instead. Or, if for some reason one needed to stick to Pathfinder and don't want it to be too fantastic, stick to lower levels.
High-level Pathfinder is totally fantastic. That's what it does. If you don't want a totally fantastic game, then trying to play high-level Pathfinder is like trying to kill 600 Angry Birds using only a Parcheesi board.
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I think making spells longer cast times is a terrible solution, I rarely see spells with 1 round cast times being used because of how hard they are to cast, and they are generally pretty unfun to use.
There was a time when that's all we had. More or less. Start a spell this round, finish it next round, as long as nobody sneezed on you during the casting. Don't hiccup for a whole minute while you cast (yep, melee rounds were a minute long!).
Nobody complained much about disparity then. Wizards were fragile and easy to kill, and often you could kill them before they finished casting their first successful spell. If you didn't kill them, you almost certainly disrupted their casting.
Then 3rd edition came along and made spellcasters privileged. They get to start and finish almost every spell in the book during their own action with no chance of being disrupted. Oh, sure, Attacks of Opportunity, but those are easy to avoid. Suddenly martials are inferior and they know it.
You say it's unfun. I say it was plenty of fun when that was the system. But there's a difference. Back then, we had ONE system. Nobody EVER cast single-action spells and those weren't taken away. What I'm proposing (and you're calling 'unfun') is actually taking away something people are now used to. I bet if I made that rule that every spell takes a full round and then found someone who's NEVER played D&D or Pathfinder and taught them the rules including my house rule as "hey, that's just how it works", they wouldn't find it 'unfun' because that's just how they see it working. I bet this is true because years ago, it was totally true for everyone.
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Wouldn't it be simpler just not play the fighter in those style of games?
That's much like saying "Wouldn't it be easier to just eliminate Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, and Boromir, and while we're at it, the 4 hobbits, and just let Gandalf play that campaign on his own.
Fighters are quintessential elements of fantasy genre and should not be marginalized or eliminated as an option in any fantasy game.
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Fighters are quintessential elements of fantasy genre and should not be marginalized or eliminated as an option in any fantasy game.
Ars Magica is still a game, and I suspect there's probably a Harry Potter game out there, too -- and I assume that plenty of people would love it. There's a place for a no-martials game. As long as Pathfinder purports to support martial classes, though, I wish it would support them from 1st - 20th level, and not just from 1st - 8th.
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Spheres of Power helps with the arcane side of things, bringing it down a bit closer to the realm the martial deals in. (thanks, Malwing!)
Bringing martials up is the other half, and there are 3pp systems that do that.
Either way, though, you're no longer playing Pathfinder really. It may be better - for your table - but it's just like home-brewing your own solutions. (Kirth's is a great example of professional-level home-brewing imho.)
Define Pathfinder.
I've said it in other, similar threads, and it has been touched on here: it used to be that the game was "balanced" due to inter-dependency between the classes. There were good reasons why you had the iconic 4. You needed a Fighter to deal with most physical threats; you needed a Rogue to deal with locks and traps; you needed a Wizard to deal with arcane obstacles; and you needed a cleric - though, sadly, mostly as a healbot.
Part of that can be addressed thru campaign design, which is why so many people argue this. But most of it is the class design itself - class features that make each one important.
Somehow this fantasy rpg evolved to the point where casters have all the power when they used to be the most dependent on others to survive!
After reading about the 1st edition Bard, in particular how dual-classing used to work, I wonder if some very good initial ideas were thrown out along the way.
Allow Martials to Gestalt with other Martial classes as long as they meet certain requirements, and with a limit on the number of multi-classes, is the first (admittedly bizarre) idea that comes to mind.
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Like, at what point are you no longer playing pathfinder?
Seriously.
In one country you have western gunslingers who built a giant cannon whose only occasion for use came to fire warning shots at a pair of warring sand worms.
In another you are required by law to worship the literal Devil.
In still another the people got so sick and tired of the religious warring in their nations they kicked out all religions. The gods were displeased.
The moon is a crazed god determined to smush Fate and all the dead waiting in line to go to hell or wherever. He's held back by the power of atheism.
Of the mortals that became gods one did it through hard work and perseverance and the other did it while drunk, during a bet, and likely woke up pantless.
Scattered throughout AP's, modules and otherwise you have a witch that has literally visited this Earth. This same witch you must save while running through the trenches of an alternate history world war 1.
And before any of you mutter something along the lines of "that's Golarion" Ima slap you and say that's the setting, that's the base foundation upon which the game is built off of, not Faerun, not Middle Earth, not Generic Medieval Fantasy Setting #34573. Golarion predates the core book by some time.
There are not one, but two separate books dedicated to flying through space and shooting robots with lasers. I'm playing in an AP as a mammoth riding robot hunter. That's not 3pp, that's all core published stuff.
What's Pathfinder to me? Whatever the hell you need it to be.
Something to think on.
Personally I've taken Ssalarn's approach and so far it's worked pretty great.
Like, at what point are you no longer playing pathfinder?
Seriously.
In one country you have western gunslingers who built a giant cannon whose only occasion for use came to fire warning shots at a pair of warring sand worms.
In another you are required by law to worship the literal Devil.
And before any of you mutter something along the lines of "that's Golarion" Ima slap you and say that's the setting, that's the base foundation upon which the game is built off of, not Faerun, not Middle Earth, not Generic Medieval Fantasy Setting #34573. The core gods show up in the book Golarion predates the core book by some time.
There are not one, but two separate books dedicated to flying through space and shooting robots with lasers. I'm playing in an AP as a mammoth riding robot hunter. That's not 3pp, that's all core published stuff.
What's Pathfinder to me? Whatever the hell you need it to be.
Something to think on.
Personally I've taken Ssalarn's approach and so far it's worked pretty great.
I guess I feel like this isn't really part of the thread, since this doesn't raise any thoughts on how to help the M/CD, but it's good advice nevertheless.
What are your thoughts on bringing Martials Up, or Casters Down?
Sorry to go off-topic, but what exactly is this "Wuxia" stuff?
Sorry to go off-topic, but what exactly is this "Wuxia" stuff?
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, House of Flying Daggers, the Monk class.
Sorry to go off-topic, but what exactly is this "Wuxia" stuff?Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, House of Flying Daggers, the Monk class.
Xena. Into the Badlands.
Sorry to go off-topic, but what exactly is this "Wuxia" stuff?
Its when you're so good at kung fu your fights can look like this but can also range up to this.
But yeah, after giving Monk, Fighter and Rogue some third party tools and everyone converted to third party casters martial caster disparity stopped existing.
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I guess I feel like this isn't really part of the thread, since this doesn't raise any thoughts on how to help the M/CD, but it's good advice nevertheless.
I think the thought is it challenges the parameter of the first post, ie that you need to still have "pathfinder". If we want to change martials or casters while keeping the game pathfinder, we need to know what is pathfinder and what is not.
As for what I'd change:
1) I agree with all the posts that mundane skills should be more powerful, and non-casters should have a good rounding of skill points (8 for rogue, 6 for fighter as an example) while casters are restricted in this department. I believe it's Aelryinth who consistently points out that casters rely on magic to solve their problems, and so wouldn't be the ones developing mundane skills.
2)Shorten feat chains, more scaling feats OR fewer scaling spells. I wouldn't have any feat chain be longer than 2 (other than unrelated prerequisites if necessary, such as cleave requiring power attack). The first feat should let you do something new. A second feat should make you exceptional at it. Vital strike and two weapon fighting I feel should be scaling feats as examples. On the flip side, make spells not scale with level, but let them be empowered at the expense of higher slots. Make a fireball do 2d6 damage per spell level, and let the wizard prepare it wherever (with some minimum level). So they could prepare a bunch of level 3 fireballs that do 6d6 damage, and a few level 5 fireballs that do 10d6 damage (as example numbers).
3) more impressive class features especially for the fighter. Right now his class features are more or less "+1 to hit and damage and maybe +1 ac if you stack dex, and +1 vs fear." It's nice that it scales, but it's also really bland and only affects a limited part of the game. Having adjuring step as a monk, or the plethora of new uses for ki for the unchained monk are good examples of things to explore for a martial to be capable of (perhaps as an expansion of the stamina system). Of course, making feats more powerful from point 2 could be sufficient in giving a fighter a better rounding.
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Conclusion: Fantastic abilities are a prerequisite for participation. If there's no wizard in the party, you must play a different adventure. Therefore, at 9th level, PCs are expected to be fantastic -- capable of impossible things -- or else the system breaks down and you have to cherry-pick challenges appropriate for lower-level characters.
One might then re-frame part of the issue thusly:
As a caster gains levels, he gains the ability to go on new and different high-level adventures. As a martial gains levels, he's still only able to handle low-level adventures, just with bigger numbers. A caster's high-level adventures can be different in nature than his low-level adventures, while a martial is restricted to basically a single caliber of adventure with his level affecting little more than the math.|
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Spheres of Power helps with the arcane side of things, bringing it down a bit closer to the realm the martial deals in. (thanks, Malwing!)
Bringing martials up is the other half, and there are 3pp systems that do that.
Either way, though, you're no longer playing Pathfinder really. It may be better - for your table - but it's just like home-brewing your own solutions. (Kirth's is a great example of professional-level home-brewing imho.)
How are you not playing Pathfinder? The only thing you're replacing are classes, often with similarly themed classes, and classes are one of the most mobile pieces of the game. There is nothing particularly iconic about the Fighter other than his name, so if I have a party that consists of a Sorcerer, Barbarian, Investigator, and Oracle, I'm still playing Pathfinder just as much as of the party consisted of a Wizard, Fighter, Rogue, and Cleric. What then, would make a group with a Psion, a Warder, a Guru, and a Vitalist any less "Pathfinder"?
There is no single class that you have to have to be playing Pathfinder. It's still Pathfinder if there's no wizard, just like it's still Pathfinder if there's no Fighter. Really, Paizo alone has so many classes that you could probably play in 20 different games and still have a fair chance of never seeing one of the classic four classes.
More than that though, Pathfinder started as adventure paths. The entire product line took shape as a vehicle to better grow the adventure path line, and even if it's grown beyond that, that was still the root of the whole company. I actually own most of the adventure paths, and I play more in Paizo APs than in any other type of game, and I actually ran into an interesting phenomenon - Paizo's APs, the root of what Pathfinder is, are actually much more playable and smooth when you use 3pp materials instead of having to deal with the unpredictability of wizards or the inadequacy of Fighters. Try it sometime. Run Jade Regent with a party consisting of a Paladin, Inquisitor, Bard, and Spiritualist, then compare it to a plah through with a Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, and Cleric. Not only does the first group tend to have all the players have more opportunities to engage the narrative, it's also more likely that the party will engage the story as presented instead of drilling holes through or skipping over huge swaths of it because the Wizard and Cleric have an array of transportation and divination tools sufficient to negate much of the travel and espionage based chunks of it.
Most 3pp classes or materials that I've seen or used are going to end up doing the same thing to the game that the party consisting of gish type classes did, which is present a balanced and well rounded group whose power floor won't require too much hand-holding and whose power ceilings should be low enough they won't have too easy a time shattering the flow of the narrative. One of the big advantages of the 3pp materials is that you won't quite as much to skim through sifting out broken legacy pieces that continue to get carried forward (particularly certain spells), and often you can find an option that's more accessible and appealing to a larger number of players (Spheres of Power actually got a couple players I know who hadn't played anything other than Fighters and Barbarians in probably decades to try out a magical class).
If the adventure paths represent the core of what Pathfinder is, and I really believe they do, then honestly there's probably a lot of 3pp classes that are more "Pathfinder" than some of the classes right in the CRB, odd as that may sound.
Spheres of Power helps with the arcane side of things, bringing it down a bit closer to the realm the martial deals in. (thanks, Malwing!)
Bringing martials up is the other half, and there are 3pp systems that do that.
Either way, though, you're no longer playing Pathfinder really. It may be better - for your table - but it's just like home-brewing your own solutions. (Kirth's is a great example of professional-level home-brewing imho.)
That comes dangerously close to saying that people aren't playing "right".
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Spheres of Power helps with the arcane side of things, bringing it down a bit closer to the realm the martial deals in. (thanks, Malwing!)
Bringing martials up is the other half, and there are 3pp systems that do that.
Either way, though, you're no longer playing Pathfinder really. It may be better - for your table - but it's just like home-brewing your own solutions. (Kirth's is a great example of professional-level home-brewing imho.)
How are you not playing Pathfinder? The only thing you're replacing are classes, often with similarly themed classes, and classes are one of the most mobile pieces of the game. There is nothing particularly iconic about the Fighter other than his name, so if I have a party that consists of a Sorcerer, Barbarian, Investigator, and Oracle, I'm still playing Pathfinder just as much as of the party consisted of a Wizard, Fighter, Rogue, and Cleric. What then, would make a group with a Psion, a Warder, a Guru, and a Vitalist any less "Pathfinder"?
I'm going to have to back this up. Say we're playing the Legacy of Fire adventure path and thought this was a great time to use all the Akashic classes. Are we suddenly not playing Pathfinder?
The 'not playing Pathfinder anymore' discussion gets really wonky in a game that has two entire first party books full of optional rules and subsystems. Even just staying in the realm of Golarion means that spaceships and space aliens are technically canon in that universe so even the genre isn't even solid.
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To be honest, with the advent of warpriest I could get behind cleric dropping to d6, no armor, and simple weapons + diety's favored with a wizard BAB.
Really thats probably the sane choice for all 9 level casters.
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Denying the existence of something that seems to be rampant in a number of gamer's games doesn't seem to help the situation. Not to mention, it's been a problem and/or been mentioned across the history of D&D. So it isn't a myth, it isn't Bigfoot.
Don't be a denier! Accept that people see the issue and either help or sit quietly and let others puzzle out how to fix it. Telling people it doesn't exist and/or disparaging them doesn't really help anyone.
Sorry to go off-topic, but what exactly is this "Wuxia" stuff?
It's term used to describe allowing martials to violate the laws of physics in any meaningful way, inspired by Asian martial arts media. Often used as a pejorative, often synonyms with "Anime".
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Conclusion: Fantastic abilities are a prerequisite for participation. If there's no wizard in the party, you must play a different adventure. Therefore, at 9th level, PCs are expected to be fantastic -- capable of impossible things -- or else the system breaks down and you have to cherry-pick challenges appropriate for lower-level characters.One might then re-frame part of the issue thusly:
As a caster gains levels, he gains the ability to go on new and different high-level adventures. As a martial gains levels, he's still only able to handle low-level adventures, just with bigger numbers. A caster's high-level adventures can be different in nature than his low-level adventures, while a martial is restricted to basically a single caliber of adventure with his level affecting little more than the math.
Of course the Martials can do those adventures. The limit is your imagination of what high level adventures are. You are restricting yourself around tropes.
How useful is a Mage in a high level magical dead zone, where the enemy is prepping the nuclear reactor of a downed space ship to explode and destroy all organic life, leaving it open for techno zombies to take over. That can happen on Golarion.
How useful is your high end magic user in a battle against high SR opponents in a zone where uninterrupted sleep is impossible for casters due to demonic influence. That happens in isle of dread, and some parts of the demon zone in golarion. What's worse, both of those are areas where long range teleport is down right dangerous due to high magical interference and extreme elemental forces.
That's two right there actually used by Paizo.
Gear allows all player to prticipate.
Denying the existence of something that seems to be rampant in a number of gamer's games doesn't seem to help the situation. Not to mention, it's been a problem and/or been mentioned across the history of D&D. So it isn't a myth, it isn't Bigfoot.
Don't be a denier! Accept that people see the issue and either help or sit quietly and let others puzzle out how to fix it. Telling people it doesn't exist and/or disparaging them doesn't really help anyone.
Everyones got a right to lobby. The uniformity involved in making sure martials can do everything or nearly everything a caster can do ruins games for me personally and a lot of folks anecdotally.
So yeah, people have a right to debate the point and express their opinion so that designers who might browse the forums dont get the idea that its a unified opinion.
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Gear allows all player to prticipate.
Let me direct you here. I'm pretty sure that one is addressed.
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Conclusion: Fantastic abilities are a prerequisite for participation. If there's no wizard in the party, you must play a different adventure. Therefore, at 9th level, PCs are expected to be fantastic -- capable of impossible things -- or else the system breaks down and you have to cherry-pick challenges appropriate for lower-level characters.One might then re-frame part of the issue thusly:
As a caster gains levels, he gains the ability to go on new and different high-level adventures. As a martial gains levels, he's still only able to handle low-level adventures, just with bigger numbers. A caster's high-level adventures can be different in nature than his low-level adventures, while a martial is restricted to basically a single caliber of adventure with his level affecting little more than the math.Of course the Martials can do those adventures. The limit is your imagination of what high level adventures are. You are restricting yourself around tropes.
How useful is a Mage in a high level magical dead zone, where the enemy is prepping the nuclear reactor of a downed space ship to explode and destroy all organic life, leaving it open for techno zombies to take over. That can happen on Golarion.
How useful is your high end magic user in a battle against high SR opponents in a zone where uninterrupted sleep is impossible for casters due to demonic influence. That happens in isle of dread, and some parts of the demon zone in golarion. What's worse, both of those are areas where long range teleport is down right dangerous due to high magical interference and extreme elemental forces.
That's two right there actually used by Paizo.
Gear allows all player to prticipate.
See your first example runs into the issue that a caster player might as well not participate. They are unable to effectively contribute to the adventure and should probably just go back to crafting. The party will not be significantly worse off. Or bind a powerful outsider to go handle it for them, taking advantage of the opponents lack of magic and high CR monsters strong innate abilities.
High SR opponents are a joke for full casters. Even Cthulhu's SR has nothing on a high level caster, assuming they don't just straight up cast spells that ignore it. And no one with access to Rope Trick is going to sleep in a place where they can't sleep. So, that's a wash. Teleport interference could be an issue, but there are other fast travel methods available to casters. Or just prepping multiple teleports if the need is so great.
So those scenarios are not sufficient in the current game. Though this does highlight several misconceptions about what casters are capable of and why the disparity is so high.