"What do you mean I can't move a one-inch thick diagonal slice of stone out of the tower base, causing it to collapse? It's totally within the volume limitations of my stone shape spell!"That wouldn't work, you have to make the removal asymmetrical, otherwise the whole structure just falls an inch and nothing happens.
Do you understand how detrimental just falling an inch can be to the structural integrity of something like a stone tower? You don't need any sort of experience or degree to know how badly that goes.
Do you understand how detrimental just falling an inch can be to the structural integrity of something like a stone tower?
In the real world, it's terrible. In Golarion, where the laws of physics obviously differ, it's impossible, because structures generally can only be destroyed in increments of 5-ft. squares, the destruction of one of which doesn't affect the others.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Right, and just putting a few hundred pounds of TNT in a building should be sufficient to blow it up exactly the way you want, too, right? Doesn't take any sort of experience or degree to know that....Do you understand how detrimental just falling an inch can be to the structural integrity of something like a stone tower? You don't need any sort of experience or degree to know how badly that goes."What do you mean I can't move a one-inch thick diagonal slice of stone out of the tower base, causing it to collapse? It's totally within the volume limitations of my stone shape spell!"That wouldn't work, you have to make the removal asymmetrical, otherwise the whole structure just falls an inch and nothing happens.
I don't think "exactly the way you want" is what's normally desired. I bet the vast majority of PCs would be happy with "Building bits EVERYWHERE" or "the tower collapses into a big pile of rubble". It's not precisely controlled demolitions. You are just wrecking the place.
I don't think "exactly the way you want" is what's normally desired. I bet the vast majority of PCs would be happy with "Building bits EVERYWHERE" or "the tower collapses into a big pile of rubble". It's not precisely controlled demolitions. You are just wrecking the place.Right, and just putting a few hundred pounds of TNT in a building should be sufficient to blow it up exactly the way you want, too, right? Doesn't take any sort of experience or degree to know that....Do you understand how detrimental just falling an inch can be to the structural integrity of something like a stone tower? You don't need any sort of experience or degree to know how badly that goes."What do you mean I can't move a one-inch thick diagonal slice of stone out of the tower base, causing it to collapse? It's totally within the volume limitations of my stone shape spell!"That wouldn't work, you have to make the removal asymmetrical, otherwise the whole structure just falls an inch and nothing happens.
This exactly. I just want the tower to be broken. Doesn't matter how it breaks. Unless one of the random outcomes is "The tower miraculously doesn't topple despite losing a massive chunk of it's base level" then I'm fine with whatever the DM decides.
The 'diagonal line' is so the tower falls an inch after instant removal of the stone...and then starts sliding sideways, since it is no longer anchored to its foundation.
Sliiiiiiiiiide boom. No asymmetry needed.
But yeah, all you have to do is shift the line of the center of gravity a small distance, and a tall structure will overbalance and collapse under its own weight pretty easily.
I personally just rule that you have to assign the change in blocks of one cubic foot, which is how the spell allocates changes, and you can't do the 'super thin' spread.
I don't let them do it with disintegrate spells, either. Equal obliteration from a central point, thank you. Or Rock to mud, for that matter (there's a spell to take down the walls of a whole city if you allow this kind of thing).
1e had an abusable example of this in the fireball. The 1e fireball was a 20' radius blast...it automatically expanded to cover 33500 cubic feet of space.
That's 335' of 10 x 10 corridor, if you care to do the math. 40' diameter is taller then many trees. It's just a freaking huge amount of area.
So a 1e Fireball detonated against the ground is going to form a hemisphere...and be 27' in radius, not 20. 54' across.
If you could somehow compress the blast radius of a fireball to a disk form only 10' high, you get a 32' blast radius, 64' feet across.
Now Widen that.
Yeah, you'd have a 20' high firedisk 128 feet across...wider then a football field. Talk about being able to cover an area!
==Aelryinth
Well the rock to mud spell is only meant to work on unworked stone, so no destroying walls.
You use it under the walls.
All you have to do is go for a 3 foot high strip half the thickness of the wall.
The wall will either crack in half from its own weight and fall over, or drag the entire mass of the wall with it as it does. If you can shape it to a diagonal, it won't even be able to settle...it'll come down on a slope and just topple over.
So, yeah, you don't do the wall, you do the ground UNDER the wall.
Even using it in its original form will do this. Make a 20' deep mud pit under a section of wall. The heavier stone will drop into the pit under its own weight, forcing the mud out as it does, effectively collapsing the whole section of wall.
==Aelryinth
Meanwhile, back on topic....
I went for almost 20 years refusing to play casters. In my old d&d days I quickly got tired of full casters wrecking campaigns. And watching the GM get that "dear in the headlights" look when he realizes that the campaign he worked so hard on was about to be derailed by some obscure but useful spell, was only entertaining once or twice.
But recently I've dicovered 3/4th casters and am a full convert. I've made a hunter and a couple maguses, and they are just right for me. They have a bunch spells that increase utility, but they aren't game breakingly powerful.
Design Manager
|
Have to say that I don't really like the simplicity of poll question.
There are pure martials and pure casters, and there are plenty of things that are in between.
Myself, I don't really enjoy playing most of the pure martials or most of the pure casters.
I mostly enjoy classes like Inquisitor and Warpriest who are primarily self-buffing martials with extra utility tacked on.
My assumption was that "martials" meant "characters without spellcasting or a magical equivalent" and "casters" meant "anyone for whom magic is an innate part of their class progression".
So, Paladins, Inquisitors, Warpriests, etc. would all fall under the "caster" heading, by virtue of having magic at their disposal.
I personally would have preferred an option for "partial casters" or "1/2 - 2/3 casters", since I'm in a similar boat where I don't really like either end of the spectrum, but prefer the nougaty center.
I actually absolutely adore the swashbuckler right now, but I can't say I favor martials over casters. I generally favor whatever does the most damage the fastest to the most things, because I love dealing tons of damage.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
An Ode to the Martial
It seemed very odd to me when I first came upon this little realization myself, but I seriously find nonmagical classes more rewarding to play. My favorite casting class, actually, is the druid, and I've only recently realized that I enjoy playing the druid more for the companion/wildshape than the nature-themed magical features. I've always been a person to love medieval fantasy and wizards and fae creatures and spells.
I've always been creative.
I used to think that playing martials would be boring, because they were too mundane and teathered down to reality. They weren't magical. But really, playing highly leveled casters was too much like playing god. I realized something. Being a god and having all of this power over a petty, boring world was not what I wanted in play. Being magical was not what I wanted in play. I didn't want to be magic. I wanted to experience magic.
And THAT was when I realized why I liked playing martials.
Martials are a stable point in a mad, chaotic world. A world where so much is unknown. Where so much is not understood. Martials are smart enough to realize that strange powers in such a dangerous world shouldn't be simply toyed with. We as humans crave understanding, and understanding is something that we do not yet have of magic. What martials understand is themselves. They know who they are, they know their capabilities, and they know their limits. Even if they don't understand the material upon which they stand, martials know that they are standing tall and firm with their feet holding them in place. They expand their understanding from there. They make a conscious choice that 'today, we will embrace the mysterious,' and prepare to experience both wonders and terrors. They adapt, using what they know to survive these fantastical situations that they get themselves into. Martials need to be fluid and innovative. They are a living tool belt of skeleton keys, learning to look for new keyholes, the likes of which they've never seen.
A caster, on the other hand, plays to me like a groundskeeper. He's a bit lost in life, and doesn't know himself, but he knows the grounds that he plods day after day. Nothing surprises him here; he's seen all that the worn landscape has to offer. He prepares his thick key ring full of heavy, complex and ancient keys every morning, ready to be placed in old locks that he's seen every day of his life.
Spells can be used in creative ways, yeah, but there's something inherently more rewarding about swinging Indiana Jones style across a pit of snakes, (why did it have to be snakes?!) grabbing plot hook B, then using your well practiced acrobatic maneuvers to avoid chunks of collapsing ceiling, than using a level zero mage hand spell and skipping the problem solving process almost entirely.
Some people might find the plight of the groundskeeper learning of his own worth in a world that is comparatively normal to him very interesting, and I can see why. My issue is that I already am the groundskeeper. I know what it's like to live in a boring, mundane world. For me, the most rewarding classes to play allow me to face incredible, alien challenges, and still know that a person as mundane as I overcame it with their sheer wit, strength, and strategy alone.
A caster on Golarian is as whimsical as a martial on Earth.
I enjoy unleashing the kraken on an average Joe and watching as the underdog somehow turns the tables and comes out victorious.
I always play characters with supernatural abilities, which usually means spellcasters.
I just can't imagine not making use of the wide diversity of options offered by magical powers in a magic setting.
I voted "Anyone." I suspect that wasn't a voting option, but it fits my preference.
I have played ranger, monk, alchemist, oracle, barbarian, and bloodrager in Pathfinder, with monk, druid, rogue, cleric, ranger, and bard in Dungeons & Dragons before that. My preferences don't divide along the martial/caster line. My true preference is support classes. I was surprised to take over my daughter's barbarian character and discover that she had optimized for wilderness survival and that made the barbarian play support.
[Casters are] easier to build into actual characters rather than being forced into cookie cutter builds. It often feels like to do anything worthwhile as a martial, you have to be nailed into a variety of very specific feats - typically entire trees of feats - to function at all.
The cookie cutter is the problem. If I tried a maximum-damage build for a martial, I would be bored. If I tried a blaster build or a save-or-fail build for a caster, I would also be bored. The natural versatility of caster classess and talent-based 3/4 BAB classes dodge the cookie cutter, but many martial classes have enough versatility to dodge the cookie cutter, too. The key is to say, "My martial character is already a good combatant. I will use his feats to embrace other challenges instead."
But then you realize that feats do almost nothing.
|
An Ode to the Martial
It seemed very odd to me when I first came upon this little realization myself, but I seriously find nonmagical classes more rewarding to play. My favorite casting class, actually, is the druid, and I've only recently realized that I enjoy playing the druid more for the companion/wildshape than the nature-themed magical features. I've always been a person to love medieval fantasy and wizards and fae creatures and spells.
I've always been creative.
I used to think that playing martials would be boring, because they were too mundane and teathered down to reality. They weren't magical. But really, playing highly leveled casters was too much like playing god. I realized something. Being a god and having all of this power over a petty, boring world was not what I wanted in play. Being magical was not what I wanted in play. I didn't want to be magic. I wanted to experience magic.
And THAT was when I realized why I liked playing martials.
Martials are a stable point in a mad, chaotic world. A world where so much is unknown. Where so much is not understood. Martials are smart enough to realize that strange powers in such a dangerous world shouldn't be simply toyed with. We as humans crave understanding, and understanding is something that we do not yet have of magic. What martials understand is themselves. They know who they are, they know their capabilities, and they know their limits. Even if they don't understand the material upon which they stand, martials know that they are standing tall and firm with their feet holding them in place. They expand their understanding from there. They make a conscious choice that 'today, we will embrace the mysterious,' and prepare to experience both wonders and terrors. They adapt, using what they know to survive these fantastical situations that they get themselves into. Martials need to be fluid and innovative. They are a living tool belt of skeleton keys, learning to look for...
This is what I would like martials to be in play, but in practice without a great deal of system mastery they haven't felt like that to me.
But then you realize that feats do almost nothing.
Fortunately, feats such as Extra Rage Power tap into class abilities that do something. Thus, my barbarian took rage powers Raging Climber, Raging Swimmer, and Night Vision, which made her an excellent scout. The bloodrager in the Iron Gods campaign took Additional Traits so that she could bluff and engineer. Archetypes help, too.
And half of the feats my characters learn aid combat. I had implied that martials don't need to spend feats to improve at combat, but I exaggerated. They usually need to develop options besides swinging a sword for damage, such as Point-Blank Shot and Precise Shot for archery, or Combat Expertise and Improved Trip for knocking opponents off their feet.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I've always been creative.
And modest, too, huh?
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I've always been creative.And modest, too, huh?
And succint!
|
I favor martials myself, for two reasons:
1. Power fantasy. I'm never going to be the kind of guy that can swing a sword around, or be strong, or tough. Ever. So being able to do that in a game is a nice feeling.
2. Spellcasting always felt more bland to me. It's fine if you love it, but I'm more than happy being your armor-plated beatstick.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I favor martials myself, for two reasons:
1. Power fantasy. I'm never going to be the kind of guy that can swing a sword around, or be strong, or tough. Ever. So being able to do that in a game is a nice feeling.
I don't know about you, but my odds of getting buff and learning to effectively use a sword (whatever those odds may be) are way higher than my odds of learning how to cast spells.
Edit: On-topic, I've always played casters ever since playing a Gunslinger in a play-by-post campaign. Coming up with different ways to write "I load, aim, and shoot" got old really fast. Then I realized that it was always like that. I shoot arrows at it. I hit it with my sword. Every round of every fight, because there was no reason to do anything differently.
And succint!I've always been creative.And modest, too, huh?
I'm really sorry, guys, I didn't mean to be arrogant.
Martials but ones with something different to them...
After my first character ever, a fighter 12 barbarian 8, I began to play spellswords. An arcane archer, a magus, a cleric and others. These classes are my favorite. The classes that can kill with a sword and do some cool magic stuff also.
Overall I think my favorite class is Cleric. They have a 2/3 bab, level 9 spells, know all the spells in the divine list and they aren't all that complicated to run effectively. Unlike the Druid, whom I would love to play someday but my ideas for an ideal build is a bit complex.
If I had to choose one over the other, I say casters. Because while I would not have much fun playing a basic wizard/Sorceror or fighter/barbarian anymore, I would choose a wizard/Sorceror between those two given the choice.
Caster definitely, I found martials becomes kind of boring rather quickly after a few sessions, while casters instead have so many options that they never stop being fun to play.
I don't know about you, but my odds of getting buff and learning to effectively use a sword (whatever those odds may be) are way higher than my odds of learning how to cast spells.
In Golarion they aren't.
In Golarion they aren't.
I don't know about you, but my odds of getting buff and learning to effectively use a sword (whatever those odds may be) are way higher than my odds of learning how to cast spells.
Because you're all commoners?
Doing some necro:
Now that the iron caster is a thing (fighter levels to get advanced armor and weapon training, brawler levels for martial versatility lets you get any item mastery feat and by that some casting ability on the fly) I really enjoy playing fighters once more.
The thing fighters lacked for so long, versatility, is now available to them.
My current pc has warriot spirit to enhance his weapon and martial versatility for feats. As warrior spirit allows the trained weapon special ability which in turn gives the wielder a feat I now have two pools to give me either versatility or raw power whenever needed.
Now that's a great PC to play, you can rock fights and if a certain feat is needed you are the one who has it. In AND out of combat versatility. Super Great.
I used warrior spirit to grant my armor spikes +1, ghost touch and anchoring. When the enemy reappeared I attacked it once with my armor spikes, locking it into place, and could now keep on attacking with my usual weapon.
In the past something like that would have been unthinkable for a fighter.
I like gishes, but not really 6 level casters as I always find myself wishing I had more spell levels. I’m a fan of straight fighters though just because sheer volume of feats lets me do a lot of fun technical things, like nutso crazy whip builds that do massive area lockdown with manoeuvres and dazing assault via whirlwind attack. I find fighter does better if you’re the kind of person who likes the sort of chess game of positioning in combat, as it can get the feats to really take advantage of that and build multiple sets of options.
With my own group, I’ve ruled that martials and non-isn’t based 6 level casters bottom out at 4+ int skill points, and specific to my setting, everyone in the world has access to some spell like abilities chosen from 0 level and 1st level spells (3 0 levels at 3/day total for everyone and 1 1st level per 5 character levels again at 3/day total with certain abusable spells restricted to casters) and this has alleviated a lot of issues.
Now that the iron caster is a thing (fighter levels to get advanced armor and weapon training, brawler levels for martial versatility lets you get any item mastery feat and by that some casting ability on the fly) I really enjoy playing fighters once more.
*COUGH* Only if it's Item Mastery Combat *COUGH*
Now that the iron caster is a thing (fighter levels to get advanced armor and weapon training, brawler levels for martial versatility lets you get any item mastery feat and by that some casting ability on the fly) I really enjoy playing fighters once more.*COUGH* Only if it's Item Mastery Combat *COUGH*
The feat Advanced Weapon Training (Combat) can give you this advanced weapon mastery:
Item Mastery
Source Magic Tactics Toolbox pg. 10
Training Link Link
The fighter gains an item mastery feat (see pages 30–31 and pages 26–27 of Weapon Master’s Handbook) as a bonus feat, which functions with any magic weapon he wields, even if the magic weapon does not meet the feat’s normal requirements. He must meet all of the feat’s prerequisites.
Casters. Hands down.
Favorite class is the Cleric. It's versatile and you can build one into anything from a martial machine to a magical world bender.
I do like how Paizo has put out a lot of classes that have a very broad range magically. With classes like Magus, Hunter, Occultist, Investigator, Alchemist etc, you can customize your character to have the level of magic you are comfortable with.
However the poll leaves out the third option which is roguish type characters. Would you call a rogue martial, or a caster? It's neither.
Unfortunately this is one of paizo's biggest weaknesses IMO. The pure rogue is perhaps it's weakest class, being outdone by Ninjas, Slayers, Investigators and bards. If I were in charge of the next version of the rules, I'd look at boosting rogues.
1. Martials with a cleric dip.
2. Pure casters are fun, but I hate the concept of "running out of gas" as well as mechanically-enforced flimsiness (in one capacity or another) for game-balance reasons. Martials, otoh, are "balanced" out-of-box by lacking the ability to cast.
--I've always had a preference for "low fantasy" E6-style gritty-atmosphere roleplaying. (Campaigns tend to break the minute ubiquitous flight shows up.)
However the poll leaves out the third option which is roguish type characters. Would you call a rogue martial, or a caster? It's neither.
Same deal with multiclass characters.
Can a caster do something as impressive against the typical group of enemies?
Yes.
And without taking half a dozenfeats to do it.
In response to Reksew_Trebla: "Impressiveness" is subjective. When you ask "Can a caster do something as impressive against the typical group of enemies?" my response is yes. Especially right off the bat at first level. Spells like color spray and sleep can end an entire encounter instantaneously against "typical enemies," whereas the martial classes have to relegate themselves to a single attack per single enemy every round. I liken it to Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. Indie is facing off against the expert falchion-wielding martial. This particular martial uses Dazzling Display in attempt to debuff Indie who in turn just ends the encounter with a well-placed shot. Although Indie would undoubtedly be a martial himself, it illustrates the point that impressiveness is subjective. What do we find more impressive? The obvious expertise of the falchion-wielding martial? Or, the pragmatic simplicity of Indie's abilities? Sure, a fighter can take his chances with his Cleave feat to hit multiple enemies, but the caster who invested in Improved Initiative got to go first and end the encounter before it even started, therefore saving the entire party's resources, HP, abilites, etc. for future encounters. I find that more impressive.
However, I recognize that this is probably not within the spirit of your assertion. With the Dimensional line of feats you listed there comes a well-built pizazz, if you will. A complex series of maneuvers pulled off by well-selected feats and class features which outshine a single standard action casting of a spell. However, that single standard action spell can teleport you to different planes of existence or even resurrect a fellow adventurer from the dead, which I find much more impressive.
To echo Matthew Downie, though, the caster does not need to suffer the slog of the numerous levels and excessive planning needed to achieve those kind of spectacular combinations (specifically the Dimensional line of feats). That is the curse of the martial. All those feats you listed would take such a long time, such long consideration, such specific choices, and such specific conditions to pull off.
- Dysphoria Blues
@Reksew_Trebla Actually, I'm glad you brought Flickering Step to my attention.
Unless this has changed recently, it's a point of some contention (and subject to significant table variance) as to whether Teleportation Mastery (Item Mastery) fulfills the "ability to cast Dimension Door" requirement of Dimensional Agility.
Flickering Step unambiguously grants DD as a SLA, and is designed to allow this exact combo. The feat is particularly biased towards Fighter, because Dimensional X counts a combat feat. This means a Dimensional Assault fighter build can be fully online by level 12 (though it does delay the Advanced Weapon Training you could normally take at level 10), which is not bad, considering. And the only requirement to set up the build is to put skill ranks in Knowledge: Planes.
Still, the number of uses per day is pretty low (2 at level 10, 3 at level 15), and so you're comparing a very limited use ability to casters. If casters start expending limited abilities at high levels, they can do some pretty insane things too. Tricks like Persistent Dazing spells can decimate encounters, and can be pulled off with minimal class investment. That doesn't mention the boatloads of utility and flexibility that casters tend to have compared with martials.
I've got a soft spot for martials, and I'm happy to play them. I'm glad that Fighter in particular has gotten some love from Paizo over the last few years. But I haven't seen anything, including the Dimensional line of feats + Warrior Spirit, that really indicates that an optimized high level martial will outperform an optimized high level caster.
Of course, the "most powerful and versatile class" metric is generally a poor way to choose what classes to play, as it maps very poorly onto enjoyment of a class for most people.
Martials. They're the best framework to hang any buff spell on. Most of the abusive caster play relies on a pure RAW interpretation of the rules, which i rarely see in actual play.
|
I prefer martials. for the simple memory factor. What's the duration of Spell X? What's the Save of Spell X? did I pass the SR of the monster?
of all my [20] PFS chararcters, i have one dedicated caster. I have a GM Baby support-caster Shaman that i rarely play, and i have in the works a Chronomancer Wizard and a Mute Musician Bard planned, but probably won't play.
I have several characters that have spell casting capabilities, but are mostly self-support oriented: a spiritualist and two warpriests.
No they can’t. Prove me wrong.Can a caster do something as impressive against the typical group of enemies?Yes.
And without taking half a dozenfeats to do it.
Time Stop. Summon. Summon. Time Stop again(Debatable if your GM will let you). Summon. Mass buff or Maximized spell of your choice. Time resumes.
Sure your fighter can do damage but suddenly Wizard has an army and maybe buffed. Or the target is debuffed.