Pseudostatistical analysis of martial-caster disparity


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

351 to 400 of 555 << first < prev | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | next > last >>

Again the martial / caster disparity argument is being straw-manned into a magic / non magic disparity.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Kryzbyn wrote:
I dunno...swashbucklers can 100% negate an attack that's been rolled and hit, even if it's a confirmed critical, as long as they roll higher, all for the low low cost of an attack of opportunity.

How is it better than mirror image, though? Let's say you have an 80% chance of rolling well enough to negate the attack (maybe a bit generous, honestly). A typical mirror image offers about 4.5 images (we'll round down to 4).

The enemy has a 1 in 5 chance of hitting you with any attack, be it melee or ranged. That means you have a 4 in 5 chance of not getting hit.

The swashbuckler has a 4 in 5 chance of parrying a melee attack.

The levitate spell, incidentally, has a 5 in 5 chance of negating all melee attacks. ;)

Even being generous, spells are demonstrably better than the parry ability. Are you comparing the swashbuckler to other martials?


2 people marked this as a favorite.
The Sword wrote:

Nah, magic was a thing before D&D created spell casting rules.

Magic is different, that's the point.

So it gets to automatically be better?

Quote:

I have no issue with Paladins getting channel, barbarians Enhancing the axes with lightning and brawlers gaining fists of adamantium.

Who says Martials are bound by reality?

Literally the developers.


It isn't better, it's different.

You have literally quoted my three examples where Martials gain abilities not limited by reality. What is your point?


The Sword wrote:
Again the martial / caster disparity argument is being straw-manned into a magic / non magic disparity.

Honestly it really is a magic/non magic issue. People just use martial/caster it makes a simpler...oh what's the word? That thing you do when you shorten words into letters. I say Mundane/Magic is a better term. Mu/MaD has a nice enough look to it too.


All classes can have magic. Not all classes can have spell casting.


The Sword wrote:
All classes can have magic.

Sure, some just get it for free and need to spend the money on equipment like magic weapons.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
The Sword wrote:

Yeah, I've heard the argument of 'driving the narrative' and I don't think it stacks up.

I have a random high level AP module taken off the shelf in front of me.

Encounters

1 x Research session
1 x travel session (no particular time limit)
27 x combat encounters
4-6 roleplay encounters/combat encounters (could be either)
4 puzzle situations where something needs activating (not necessarily through magic)
1 x travel between worlds (method provided)

Reading through text of the AP. I can't see a single encounter that the martial characters can't meaningfully interact with. This AP is recommended for levels 13-15

If there are encounters in your home written adventures that require magic to overcome them, it is because the DM has written it that way. Which is fine if the writer particularly wants to challenge casters but naff if it disenfranchises Martials in the party. This is an adventure design issue not a game design issue.

Indiana Jones wasn't a caster, neither was Conan, Robin Hood, Konrad, Sherlock Holmes, Matt Cauthorn, and a few others. They all managed to drive a pretty sweet narrative.

Who said they could not contribute?

One set of classes is not needed at all, and the other is. Are you saying a set of nonoptimized non-caster can complete an AP?

I am willing to bet a group of nonoptimized caster can complete an AP.

That looks like disparity to me.

Novels and movies have nothing to do with how the game plays out so they are irrelevant since they don't have rules the writer is stuck having to adhere to. Indiana Jones surviving inside that refrigerator or Batman not being dead from the times or how bad guys will have a good outnumbered by vast numbers and attack in such as manner that he has a chance to live. If you see this in a movie and you watch carefully you can sometimes see the other actors just waiting for their turn to attack. It is called plot armor.

I am in an AP where the bad guy used difficult terrain to kite the party. It was particularly annoying.

In another AP when I was the same level I had a cleric with mass fly as a domain spell. I could have simply cast it. The party could have taken down the bad guy in 3 rounds or less, and taken a lot less damage instead of having two people die. Yes my cleric would have done less damage than my melee DPR machine, but since I couldn't get to him my potential DPR was not important.

Another group(different AP) of bad guys has their jaw melt away to avoid speak with dead. Unless team martial has a scroll of charm or dominate person they are out of luck. No, it doesn't bring the adventure to halt, but things are easier if you can get some info out of them.

Of course it is possible that team caster didn't have that spell ready that day, but at least it is an option that is more likely to be on the table.

There are the types of things that casters do.

PS: I think you are looking at this as if we don't like martials. The truth is we do like them and wish they were better at doing certain things than they are.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
The Sword wrote:
Again the martial / caster disparity argument is being straw-manned into a magic / non magic disparity.

Actually it was said earlier that the more castery people had more versatility/power/etc than less castery people.

If you are going to disagree with that then it doesn't matter if you we say martial or nonmagic.

If you agree then I guess the discussion can come to na end.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Johnnycat93 wrote:
It's not about driving the narrative, it's about influencing it. A full caster has the ability, given to them by the game itself, to simply do things without needing the GM to approve. Create dimensions, simularcum, wish. They have the capacity to change the story in ways that they want far outside of what a martial is capable of. The only thing open to debate is the significance of that, and most people consider it to be pretty significant.

While I agree there's some C/MD issues (primarily fighter for me not so much Monk/Barb, and definitely not the L4 casters), its this kind of statement that seems to imply someone with out magic can't do things, that ultimately fuels much of the "there isn't" side. You even italicized it for emphasis.

As Insain Dragoon and I figured out, you're never going to convince someone of something they don't see at their table when its presented in a way that appears to be "can's" and "can nots", because those saying there isn't C/MD are playing the same game, and its not affecting their table because of play style, group dynamics, GM style, story arc, etc. Subjectively you're both right, and in a game that has a significant social and enjoyment facet which people use to based their experience, the objective points of CMD may never show up.

If wish is the standard of significant impact to the narrative, then there are only a handful of classes that can do it as a class ability, those are the extremes, and maybe in your game a player can use wish and simulacrum to do things w/o GM approval, but not in all games - probably in less than 50% of any games. I'm pretty sure there's nothing in any rule book that allows any class to do what ever they want w/o GM approval, regardless of what a player may think. A player can try to pull that, but most people I've gamed with and myself as a GM are going to show them the door. If that's how it works in organized play that's rough. But the survey I posted seems to indicate is less attended by forum responders.

Its the seemingly endless moving of the bar or wordplay "its not driving, now its influencing", and implying players of certain classes are incapable...or at least incapable of significant things that causes the rage typing responses. And they're not wrong...they're not seeing at their table.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

>original data OP provided.

So I checked out your original data and it contains some questionable bits. For example:

Fighter(dead/created) 8.408333333/9.081932773

What does it mean for 9.08 fighters to be created? A wizard's familiar got a class level in fighter for 0.08 of fighter? Same with dead fighters-you'd figure it would be an integer number.

There seem to be 2 dead alchemists, but no created alchemists, which raises worrying questions as to the circumstances of their deaths.

A major problem I have though are sample sizes. 1 example per class in some cases is definitely not enough, because a random death there would cause a 100% increase in death rates for that class. For this to be meaningful you would need way, way more data points.

Paizo Employee Design Manager

2 people marked this as a favorite.
The Sword wrote:

i don't believe that is possible to skip large swathes in the adventure path I have referred to. I mean it may be possible but...

Rise of the Runelords- party skipped what turned out to be an entire dungeon by flying to the top of a tower our druid identified by talking to a crow. Then we steam-rolled all the encounters by taking them from a superior position fortified with all the loot we took from the boss. That wasn't even at all that high a level, like 6, but it was trivialized in a way a martial couldn't possibly emulate.

Jade Regent- There are actually a ton of areas in this game that change drastically when you've got a magic heavy party. I played through it once with a magic heavy group and GM'd for a group whose strongest caster was a Bard, and they were two completely different games.

Mummy's Mask- Both times I've participated in this AP, once as GM, once as player, the party successfully completed it. The difference was that the all Wizard group assembled initially as a joke ended up being the most efficient party I've ever seen, bypassing numerous encounters that killed party members in the other group, consistently achieving the best outcomes in multiple result scenarios, etc,

You may not need to interact with a lot of things in APs, and it's even more rare that you actually need to waste the kind of resources that killing a potentially challenging threat entails.

Quote:


...It relies on knows where you are going

Something casters are usually better equipped to determine than martials.

Quote:
being able to distinguish role playing encounters from combat encounters

Who makes that decision normally? You as the GM? Because I typically have no freaking clue what my party is going to decide is a combat encounter and what they're going to decide is a role playing encounter, with the exception of ambushes and the occasional mindless creature. See, that's a thing magic can do in this game, and what people have been trying to say this whole thread: magic can fundamentally change the nature of the game. Magic can turn combat encounters into role-playing exercises, it can turn dungeon crawls into leisurely strolls, it can allow the group to invent entirely new solutions to time-crunch problems. When you have the right amount and type of magic, you the character, decide what type of encounter 90% of the encounters are going to be.

Quote:


not being constrained by being indoors

Could you elaborate on what you mean here?

Quote:
leaving valuable loot and clues behind etc.

Fundamental misconception. Casters have spells that can provide clues, and they often need far less loot. And this presupposes that they don't do like my Rise of the Runelords group and skip to the end, murder the boss, and then use all the phatty boss loot and superior starting position to steamroll the dungeon in reverse.

Quote:


And more so, it isn't necessary. It is just as viable to fight your way through.

It may be just as viable, but that doesn't mean it's as efficient, or that as many members of the group will survive, or that you'like get as favorable an outcome if time is a factor.

Quote:


Indeed as most APs are populated overwhelmingly by combat encounters i would suggest a fair bit of combat is intended.

See above. Most of my group would wonder why you're so eager to murder all these potentially interesting NPCs by labeling them as combat encounters. "Oh, it's an ogre, obviously a combat encounter!" Speciest much? Maybe that's our new caravan guard and he just doesn't know it yet. "Look, a deadly green slime!" Turns out our wizard has been looking for an efficient waste removal system for the sewers beneath his tower.

For a Fighter or a Rogue, the GM may be able to dictate what is or isn't a combat encounter, but casters have much more influence over the narrative, which is precisely what the bulk of M/CD is.

Quote:


Lastly, obviating large swathes of an AP rather defies the point of playing in an Adventure a path.

For the players, the point of playing an adventure path is to sit down and engage a role playing game experience with their friends. For the GM, the point of an adventure path is to save him the time and effort of having to plan and create an entire campaign while simultaneously having a life. Nothing about the way a party chooses to interact with the challenges presented by the AP defies its point or purpose.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
wraithstrike wrote:


Who said they could not contribute?

To be fair Wraith, there have been posts that essentially say this, and then when several ways of contribution are provided, someone says its not "significant" contribution. So someone who doesn't see it provides several in-game examples, only to have the argument become about the meaning of significant contribution. Once someone points that out, it usually feels like its time to talk about out of combat, or change the terms from driving narrative to influencing. I've even read posts on previous threads along the line of "martials are an unfair drain on the resources of the rest of the group" or "martials aren't even capable of carrying the water flasks of casters". its just inflammatory and often not backed up with any actual game play examples that might help establish what someone saw in their actual table (you did provide some examples earlier, but its rare I see that).

It becomes a big gerbil wheel of subjectivity, and even as a believer in C/MD its frustrating to read a lot of the poorly thought out or just outright illogical statements (from both sides).

Its why I prefer specifics from a game session, but all that proves is there was a problem in that game session. The reason its so hotly debated is it doesn't show up at lots of tables. Until it creates a problem people are going to say the other side is crazy, because its kind of like being told to believe in Santa. (or until you decide you want to home brew some things even when its not a problem, like I did)


1 person marked this as a favorite.
The Sword wrote:
Who says Martials are bound by reality?

The ruleset which doesn't allow them to break the bounds of reality...

that's the problem.

I still want to know how a non-magical party of adventurers would solve a crime committed by a mage who killed a guy via disintegration effect while greater invisible and then teleported away. Or reach an enemies demiplane fortress.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Also, to those who say that fighters can contribute to the adventure as well as casters, I propose a vager. You run an average AP, say Hell's Rebels(or Jade Regent, or some other), as a GM, for a party consisting only of fighters. Then you do it again, but for a party consisting purely of wizards. Then you compare how much you, as the GM, had to jump through hoops in each case to facilitate the experience.

In both cases party consists of competent players who know the system, so optimisation levels will be similar. I volunteer to participate.

I bet that after level 3 wizards would be perfectly fine in any AP, without requiring GM to do anything to help them, and will do quite fine at lower levels too. I furthermore bet that fighters would require a lot of adjustments made by the GM to insure an equally pleasant experience for the players at levels higher than 5, and possibly even 3.

Paizo Employee Design Manager

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Milo v3 wrote:
The Sword wrote:
Who says Martials are bound by reality?

The ruleset which doesn't allow them to break the bounds of reality...

that's the problem.

In all fairness, they do get to break some of reality's bounds, just not nearly as many or to the same degree as magic-users. Martials can still swan dive into the heart of a volcano and towel themselves off afterwards, they just can't generally jump 20 feet up or move 30 feet and swing two swords.


I think its worth mentioning that there should be some caster/martial disparity. It shouldn't be as drastic as it is, but for magic to be truly fantastic it has to be able to cover more than nonmagic. Now, PF has a huge one, where the two ends of the spectrum are "can build towers on the sun only 3/4 through training" and "can hit hard with a stick and move 5ft all in 6 seconds at the pinnacle of my career" but if you remove these you are mostly left with balanced classes. 6/9 and 4/9 casters can do much of what 9/9 casters can in combat, and have plenty (if less) downtime power too.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
GM 1990 wrote:
wraithstrike wrote:


Who said they could not contribute?

To be fair Wraith, there have been posts that essentially say this, and then when several ways of contribution are provided, someone says its not "significant" contribution. So someone who doesn't see it provides several in-game examples, only to have the argument become about the meaning of significant contribution. Once someone points that out, it usually feels like its time to talk about out of combat, or change the terms from driving narrative to influencing. I've even read posts on previous threads along the line of "martials are an unfair drain on the resources of the rest of the group" or "martials aren't even capable of carrying the water flasks of casters". its just inflammatory and often not backed up with any actual game play examples that might help establish what someone saw in their actual table (you did provide some examples earlier, but its rare I see that).

It becomes a big gerbil wheel of subjectivity, and even as a believer in C/MD its frustrating to read a lot of the poorly thought out or just outright illogical statements (from both sides).

Its why I prefer specifics from a game session, but all that proves is there was a problem in that game session. The reason its so hotly debated is it doesn't show up at lots of tables. Until it creates a problem people are going to say the other side is crazy, because its kind of like being told to believe in Santa. (or until you decide you want to home brew some things even when its not a problem, like I did)

I also think part of the problem is that people look at their style of play when answering the question, and they don't realize it may be helping the problem occur or not occur.

As an example I have heard well written stories of how a monk or rogue did an awesome thing, but when I started to ask questions that let me know how it played out mechanically it shows that certain rules were broken.

Now since fun is the goal at the table it is not really a big deal for that table, but for the purpose of a discussion, variants such as house rules do matter.

The best thing to really do is to ask someone what counts as ____.

If they list what you(not any specific person) counts as reasonable then try to meet the terms, and hope they don't move the goalpost.

If they say something you think is illogical stop the discussion with them if you are sure you understand exactly what they meant. Sometimes people are not going to change their minds no matter how much evidence they see.


Klara Meison wrote:

Also, to those who say that fighters can contribute to the adventure as well as casters, I propose a vager. You run an average AP, say Hell's Rebels(or Jade Regent, or some other), as a GM, for a party consisting only of fighters. Then you do it again, but for a party consisting purely of wizards. Then you compare how much you, as the GM, had to jump through hoops in each case to facilitate the experience.

In both cases party consists of competent players who know the system, so optimisation levels in both cases will be similar. I volunteer to participate.

I bet that after level 3 wizards would be perfectly fine in any AP, without requiring GM to do anything to help them, and will do quite fine at lower levels too. I furthermore bet that fighters would require a lot of adjustments made by the GM to insure an equally pleasant experience for the players at levels higher than 5, and possibly even 3.

I think they changed their opinion from "fighters" to nonmagical martials, but having tried one of these experiments I don't think it will end well.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Paradozen wrote:
I think its worth mentioning that there should be some caster/martial disparity. It shouldn't be as drastic as it is, but for magic to be truly fantastic it has to be able to cover more than nonmagic.

I disagree, in a game like Exalted for example (I'm only familiar with 3e Exalted admittedly) non-casters are able to affect the game to a ridiculous degree and can do rather mythic over the top actions, but magic still remains fantastic.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
wraithstrike wrote:
Klara Meison wrote:

Also, to those who say that fighters can contribute to the adventure as well as casters, I propose a vager. You run an average AP, say Hell's Rebels(or Jade Regent, or some other), as a GM, for a party consisting only of fighters. Then you do it again, but for a party consisting purely of wizards. Then you compare how much you, as the GM, had to jump through hoops in each case to facilitate the experience.

In both cases party consists of competent players who know the system, so optimisation levels in both cases will be similar. I volunteer to participate.

I bet that after level 3 wizards would be perfectly fine in any AP, without requiring GM to do anything to help them, and will do quite fine at lower levels too. I furthermore bet that fighters would require a lot of adjustments made by the GM to insure an equally pleasant experience for the players at levels higher than 5, and possibly even 3.

I think they changed their opinion from "fighters" to nonmagical martials, but having tried one of these experiments I don't think it will end well.

Do you have logs online somewhere? It would be amusing to read, if nothing else.

Paizo Employee Design Manager

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Paradozen wrote:
I think its worth mentioning that there should be some caster/martial disparity. It shouldn't be as drastic as it is, but for magic to be truly fantastic it has to be able to cover more than nonmagic. Now, PF has a huge one, where the two ends of the spectrum are "can build towers on the sun only 3/4 through training" and "can hit hard with a stick and move 5ft all in 6 seconds at the pinnacle of my career" but if you remove these you are mostly left with balanced classes. 6/9 and 4/9 casters can do much of what 9/9 casters can in combat, and have plenty (if less) downtime power too.

I think that there are some things that should be the purview of magic, but in a fantasy role playing game, I believe it should be the characters who are fantastic, and whether their preferred method of being fantastic is swinging a sword or controlling the elements, one shouldn't be more fantastic than the other. Fantastic.

I would say that in previous editions of the game, class imbalances were more "acceptable", because there was niche protection and other progression controls. It didn't matter that wizards were more powerful at higher levels or that rogues were generally terrible in combat, because each class needed the others. Pathfinder has stepped beyond that though; you don't need a particular class, or even a particular role, so fundamental design imbalances in classes doesn't make sense, even to the degree it once did.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

In fairness, wizards will probably require more hoopjumping, since they have the power to jump the tracks. Fighters will just have trouble accomplishing anything.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Ssalarn wrote:
Several in game examples (player and GM even) about what he's seen and how its defined his view.

I appreciate these type of posts. It hasn't happened in my game, but its a real synopsis of difference on how things went with casters. No matter what anyone else has seen in there game you can't read a post like this and think 'that guy is obviously not playing the same game as me' or "I wonder if he's ever actually played PF."

Much more beneficial to explaining your position than basically any other method - at least for me.


Klara Meison wrote:
wraithstrike wrote:
Klara Meison wrote:

Also, to those who say that fighters can contribute to the adventure as well as casters, I propose a vager. You run an average AP, say Hell's Rebels(or Jade Regent, or some other), as a GM, for a party consisting only of fighters. Then you do it again, but for a party consisting purely of wizards. Then you compare how much you, as the GM, had to jump through hoops in each case to facilitate the experience.

In both cases party consists of competent players who know the system, so optimisation levels in both cases will be similar. I volunteer to participate.

I bet that after level 3 wizards would be perfectly fine in any AP, without requiring GM to do anything to help them, and will do quite fine at lower levels too. I furthermore bet that fighters would require a lot of adjustments made by the GM to insure an equally pleasant experience for the players at levels higher than 5, and possibly even 3.

I think they changed their opinion from "fighters" to nonmagical martials, but having tried one of these experiments I don't think it will end well.
Do you have logs online somewhere? It would be amusing to read, if nothing else.

No. It wasn't exactly 4 fighters.

IIRC fighter rogue slayer, and monk(?).
When we just needed hit point damage things were fine. Overcoming difficult terrain and status effects, along with other problems weapons can't solve was not fun.
Lack of out of combat healing and emergency in combat healing bcuz crits also was an issue.
CLW wands only go so far.


Lab_Rat wrote:

In the classic test of the C/M D, the barbarian is probably the best candidate for proving it doesn't exist. I absolutely love the versatility and survivability of the class.

You can build a Barbarian that is
1) 99.75% immune to spells with saves. Massive Saves plus free rerolls on a failed save with a side of free temp hp (Eater of Magic). My Barb has a ring of evasion making him basically immune to reflex saves and all the dazing cheese attached to them. You will not be the guy who get's dominated and kills your party...unless you roll two 1's in a row (that other .25%).
2) Massive DR and HP make them hard to kill physically.
3) Top of the game in melee combat. Not bad at ranged though most combat will take place within pounce distances.
4) Can fly. Not that special since you can buy items to fly as well.
5) Strength Surge. Nice for preventing grapples, busting down doors, shredding jail cells with your bare hands, etc. Not much can withstand a lvl 15 barb with a Strength check bonus of 25.
6) Spell Sunder + Strength Surge....nuff said. No magic in the game can survive the combo.
7) Battle field control. Reach is great with a ridiculous number of AoO's per round from Come and Get Me, surprise attack, and a fortuitous weapon. Surprise attack also makes the Barb the only class that can interrupt spells cast defensively with out spending a readied action. No other class get's close to the number of AoOs.
8) Party Buffing. For Barbs with Cha you can give your entire party the Reckless Abandon bonus as a move action. Who doesn't like a Barb that can hand out a big + Hit bonus that stacks with everything.
9) Ability to gain immunity to a variety of conditions

I'd actually argue spellcasters can out Barbarian the Barbarian though.


The Sword wrote:

Ssalarn

If C/MD is a ceiling problem affecting 20% of gamers then why is it such a massive topic on the boards and why do people insist it needs to be fixed?

This could be explained by the fact that many thread posters of that topic tend to be the same people or group of people.

This could be explained that players who post on boards are more dedicated to the game and as such are more likely to be in the 20% that are affected.

This could be the echo chamber/repetition effect. Namely if you state something enough times with enough certainty of tone then people start to believe it even if it doesn't exist.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
wraithstrike wrote:


As an example I have heard well written stories of how a monk or rogue did an awesome thing, but when I started to ask questions that let me know how it played out mechanically it shows that certain rules were broken.

Now since fun is the goal...

That's pretty much the multi-day running debate Insain Dragoon and I had where once we finally exchanged some specific examples from each others games, asked more questions to get the context, and sought some empathy from each other about our playing styles and that we were both really describing the game in full faith of how we played it and seeing 2 different outcomes.

But I'll be honest...it took like 3 days, of probably 3000 words of posts each, and I was close to losing my cool a few times, I'm sure he was too. The biggest thing I got out of it was I at least understand almost exactly what his idea of CMD was, and once I understood that and discussed specifics, there was no way I could say it wasn't happening (at his table). I think it was the same for him as he understood our play style and how it wasn't happening at ours. Which didn't stop me from digging into fighter deeper (mostly because I have 2 of them in my game), and seeing what other classes had been given. I don't want all classes to be casters, but since magic is such an ingrained part of the game, I think fighters really missed out on class Su's that could help them do things that other classes do either with magic or their own Su's.

As I've seen other posts and such though it does appear that there aren't as many people willing to lay out what they personally mean by CMD, and discuss their game play examples. If they did I think most of them could have a decent one on one and get somewhere explaining their game style. its tough because so many others can jump in and derail it too. Almost something better done via private chat if you really want to understand each others position.


Kobold Cleaver wrote:
In fairness, wizards will probably require more hoopjumping, since they have the power to jump the tracks. Fighters will just have trouble accomplishing anything.

And thus GM would need to jump through hoops to make things happen despite the players being unable to do so themselves.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
wraithstrike wrote:

No. It wasn't exactly 4 fighters.

IIRC fighter rogue slayer, and monk(?).
When we just needed hit point damage things were fine. Overcoming difficult terrain and status effects, along with other problems weapons can't solve was not fun.
Lack of out of combat healing and emergency in combat healing bcuz crits also was an issue.
CLW wands only go so far.

..sounds like a suicide mission.

We're doing RotRL and I'm nervous with our Ranger(archer), Paladin, Ninja, and my Alch1/Wiz+ (Conj) combo. I would have gone cleric, but was advised there are so many cool arcane drops it would be a downer if no-body could use them. However, we're going to be leaning -very- heavy on Paladin, I'm nervous.

I will say, my story on magic doing something a martial couldn't (and we all had fun, so it isn't like I ruined the game). We just cleared the thicket area of Thistletop and were worried about getting ambushed while crossing the rope-bridge, so I used my bonded item slot to cast silent image on the far side....a silent image of our side and the rope-bridge. Basically functioning as a curtain to obscure our movement so myself, Ninja, Paladin could get across the 60' span unseen and launch our attack with the Ranger providing fire-support. Running the gauntlet across that span would have been rough IMO with 4 martials. It just is what it is, magic let me do that (subject to GM approval, but he said he was wondering how long it would take for us to figure something like that out).


1 person marked this as a favorite.
GM 1990 wrote:
wraithstrike wrote:


As an example I have heard well written stories of how a monk or rogue did an awesome thing, but when I started to ask questions that let me know how it played out mechanically it shows that certain rules were broken.

Now since fun is the goal...

That's pretty much the multi-day running debate Insain Dragoon and I had where once we finally exchanged some specific examples from each others games, asked more questions to get the context, and sought some empathy from each other about our playing styles and that we were both really describing the game in full faith of how we played it and seeing 2 different outcomes.

But I'll be honest...it took like 3 days, of probably 3000 words of posts each, and I was close to losing my cool a few times, I'm sure he was too. The biggest thing I got out of it was I at least understand almost exactly what his idea of CMD was, and once I understood that and discussed specifics, there was no way I could say it wasn't happening (at his table). I think it was the same for him as he understood our play style and how it wasn't happening at ours. Which didn't stop me from digging into fighter deeper (mostly because I have 2 of them in my game), and seeing what other classes had been given. I don't want all classes to be casters, but since magic is such an ingrained part of the game, I think fighters really missed out on class Su's that could help them do things that other classes do either with magic or their own Su's.

As I've seen other posts and such though it does appear that there aren't as many people willing to lay out what they personally mean by CMD, and discuss their game play examples. If they did I think most of them could have a decent one on one and get somewhere explaining their game style. its tough because so many others can jump in and derail it too. Almost something better done via private chat if you really want to understand each others position.

This is also a huge point. Depending on the DM and the DM's style the CM/D may never manifest.

I don't generally allow a 15 minute adventuring day. My PCs are usually running against a shot clock. There are many times where the casters tell the Martials, "Ok, were going to sit back to conserve magic." Or have said, "We're out. You guys take it, we'll do what we can."

My plots rarely require magic. There are always ways to do things. I don't run plots where villains appear invisibly, blow off target's heads, then take the head and dimension shift back to their secret lair in a pocket realm.

My enemies know how dangerous casters are and take steps to limit them in combat. Often forcing melee to do something to stop the caster from getting ganged up on.

Depending on the situation enemies may have ways to limit common caster tricks because they are common enough to be known.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Ssalarn wrote:

I think that there are some things that should be the purview of magic, but in a fantasy role playing game, I believe it should be the characters who are fantastic, and whether their preferred method of being fantastic is swinging a sword or controlling the elements, one shouldn't be more fantastic than the other. Fantastic.

I would say that in previous editions of the game, class imbalances were more "acceptable", because there was niche protection and other progression controls. It didn't matter that wizards were more powerful at higher levels or that rogues were generally terrible in combat, because each class needed the others. Pathfinder has stepped beyond that though; you don't need a particular class, or even a particular role, so fundamental design imbalances in classes doesn't make sense, even to the degree it once did.

I think this is pretty close to my view on it as well. Magic does what it does, its an integral part of the game, casters use it in certain ways as class ability, some classes get "magic" via Su. The class I feel is left out is fighter, and it'll show up in some encounters and some play styles/group dynamics more than others.

So difficult to even compare to 1E for sure.
Fighters had best saves in game, only class to get multi-attacks, 18/xx STR and double specialization meant you really were the absolute hardest hitting melee class by large margin.
Wizard only got d4hp, gained levels about 30% slower, had to roll to see if they could learn -every- spell, got a straight 1 spell gain per level, with no bonus spells or bonded item, etc. Any armor=100% spell failure.
Druid - you had to kill another druid just to level-up at some point.
Bard - I never saw one, are you kidding me, who would multi-class that many times??
Clerics using only blunt weapons (but at least got bonus spell per day for high wisdom)
Only Humans could advance past certain levels in each class.
Even when UA, WSG, DSG introduced Non-weapon proficiencies there seemed to be more balance in how each class got them vs current skill setup.

I had house rules to entice someone to try playing a wizard, but even then most guys were like...ummm, maybe I'll multiclass into it at some point. what else does the party need??


Ssalarn wrote:
Milo v3 wrote:
The Sword wrote:
Who says Martials are bound by reality?

The ruleset which doesn't allow them to break the bounds of reality...

that's the problem.
In all fairness, they do get to break some of reality's bounds, just not nearly as many or to the same degree as magic-users. Martials can still swan dive into the heart of a volcano and towel themselves off afterwards, they just can't generally jump 20 feet up or move 30 feet and swing two swords.

It does seem that where even those who don't like C/MD get twisted up is "what to do to change what they don't like".

Some of us want to keep some classes "non-casters", its iconic, and frankly, if everyone is a caster, that to me wouldn't necessarily be fun or lend itself to individual PC's utility in a given session. I don't want fighters to be like Superman and just be able to fly either. but that creates a problem for some encounters where non-flight may make it very difficult for them to participate or use their best attack methods - the one's that PLAYER invested a lot in so they could do their cool thing at the table. Its where options like ability to gain a flying mount as a class ability, or ability to sunder/wing-shot a flying enemy to force them to land would be an option for that particular problem.

But there are so many spells now that do so many different things to solve problems (or make them easier to solve with magic) that I've tossed that towel in looking for "equality". For me its a matter of making our fighter interesting enough, able to do unique things other classes can't (which doesn't necessarily mean magic).


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Klara Meison wrote:
Kobold Cleaver wrote:
In fairness, wizards will probably require more hoopjumping, since they have the power to jump the tracks. Fighters will just have trouble accomplishing anything.
And thus GM would need to jump through hoops to make things happen despite the players being unable to do so themselves.

That's more picking them up and dropping them through hoops.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
HWalsh wrote:

I don't generally allow a 15 minute adventuring day. My PCs are usually running against a shot clock. There are many times where the casters tell the Martials, "Ok, were going to sit back to conserve magic." Or have said, "We're out. You guys take it, we'll do what we can."

My plots rarely require magic. There are always ways to do things. I don't run plots where villains appear invisibly, blow off target's heads, then take the head and dimension shift back to their secret lair in a pocket realm.

I tend to do a lot of the same. As Ssalarn has pointed out, everyone has "HP" as a limiting resource too. So for me the perfect hard-session is one where I gauge it out so the caster's burned through all their spells (or at least their best ones, with just bonded item slot left), the groups down to just a potion or 2, but near max HP, and needs to make one last push to the final room. Its hard to do, but in the group where I'm playing the wizard, so far I've been hesitant to blast away early, I'd rather leave spells on the shelf when we culminate than blow them on first contact. At higher levels it'll probably not be as big of a deal with things like pearls of power, and just raw # of spells per day.


4 people marked this as a favorite.

Idk what all this c/m is about. My 6th level caster 3/4th bab martials works great next to 6th level caster 3/4th bab casters

Paizo Employee Design Manager

2 people marked this as a favorite.
GM 1990 wrote:
Ssalarn wrote:
Several in game examples (player and GM even) about what he's seen and how its defined his view.

I appreciate these type of posts. It hasn't happened in my game, but its a real synopsis of difference on how things went with casters. No matter what anyone else has seen in there game you can't read a post like this and think 'that guy is obviously not playing the same game as me' or "I wonder if he's ever actually played PF."

Much more beneficial to explaining your position than basically any other method - at least for me.

In all fairness, I think the people I tend to play with are probably markedly less interested in chopping things up than many other groups (part of why I actually wrote an entire class built around effective nonlethal combat), but that also feeds into my experiences with Martial-Caster Disparity.

Say my group wants to recruit an ogre thug actively engaged in robbing them. Like, they're so impressed by the way he just brained their steward that they decide they'd rather have him on their side. If I have a Rogue in the party, what does he do? Diplomacy takes a full minute (10 rounds in combat) and doesn't work on hostile opponents. If my skill-monkey is a Bard though, he can whammy the ogre with the old charm person and then engage in Diplomacy with a docile and friendly, if brutish, individual, improving his attitude enough that when the spell wears off he might still decide to stick around, or at least leave on friendly terms.

Having the choice to resolve an encounter by alternative methods is often something reserved solely for magic, and I usually find that to be a bummer. Or, there's a way for a non magical class to do this thing, but it involves them dedicating a much, much larger portion of their resources to do it, often permanently.

I've also had issues where a martial character's lack of tools has led to real table conflict. I can recall a player who'd made a Fighter getting really frustrated because he felt like he never got to do anything (before it comes up, this was a human Fighter with a 16 STR, 14 INT, and 14 CHA built on a 25 point buy, so it wasn't an over-optimizing towards combat thing). He was a younger guy in a group with some older intellectuals and a lady whose favorite in-character pastime was making friends and building networks of contacts and people who owed her favors, so combats were often few and far between. This kid was so frustrated at not being able to participate meaningfully in a lot of the encounters they faced, and he'd get doubly frustrated when the others tried to throw him a bone and "let him" kill something, because he knew that he was ultimately playing a fundamentally different game from everyone else, but he didn't want to have to deal with spell lists, and spell slots, and DCs, and everything else. Now, ultimately we found a way to get him set up with a character who could play the same game everyone else wanted to play, but the initial issue was severe enough that he was kind of hyper-sensitive to the issues of being a non-magical character in a magical world.

I also don't "interfere" much as a GM. I present the world, the issues, and the NPCs, but I try to do as little as possible to directly intervene in the development of the story. I don't fudge dice rolls, I don't spare the party from the consequences of their own bad decisions, and I don't deus ex machina and save important people they want to kill or kill people they want to save. When I'm the GM, I'm the arbiter and narrator of the story the party tells, and the voice of the beings they encounter. Sometimes, party members will die, and they know it. Sometimes there will be challenges where they failed to acquire the tools to deal with it, and things will end poorly. Generally my players respect and appreciate that, and prefer it to "GM cheating" (not my words).

Early on in my gaming career I had some GMs who wanted to tell their story with the party as cast members whose actions often didn't really do much to change any of the actual outcomes, and occasionally they'd just fiat something into not working like the rules said, and I never appreciated that. If the players don't have real agency, I'm just not interested.

I also don't like "ambushing" people with rules changes just because myself or an adventure writer didn't account for the capabilities of characters of a given level, so my houserules are few and available prior to character creation.
I view the rules as a social contract- they define the game we all agreed to play. Changes to that contract should be approved by all participants. Rule 0, to me, is sometimes necessary, but the less you have to use it the better a job you're probably doing.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

C/MD in our game tonight was actually the martial doing something w/o needing GM approval that significantly impacted the narrative.

My daughter's at a sleep over which I forgot about, and thus.....we're not playing. darn fighters really really keeping me down.

And the one-shot I was supposed to run for my son and his friends tomorrow cancelled.

I guess I will be unleashing some serious GM stockpiled rage on Sunday....


3 people marked this as a favorite.
Ssalarn wrote:

Say my group wants to recruit an ogre thug actively engaged in robbing them. Like, they're so impressed by the way he just brained their steward that they decide they'd rather have him on their side. If I have a Rogue in the party, what does he do? Diplomacy takes a full minute (10 rounds in combat) and doesn't work on hostile opponents. If my skill-monkey is a Bard though, he can whammy the ogre with the old charm person and then engage in Diplomacy with a docile and friendly, if brutish, individual, improving his attitude enough that when the spell wears off he might still decide to stick around, or at least leave on friendly terms.

Having the choice to resolve an encounter by alternative methods is often something reserved solely for magic, and I usually find that to be a bummer. Or, there's a way for a non magical class to do this thing, but it involves them dedicating a much, much larger portion of their resources to do it, often permanently.

I'm going to use this portion, hopefully, to highlight where the two sides could easily talk right past each other; but how IMO the way you worded it helps explain that it isn't "can vs can't", but as you state more choices.

My thoughts: Even if no one in my group had Charm, and they tried to negotiate, depending how they talked through it or parley'd, I would still probably give them a chance to roll it out, regardless of RAW. It's most likely going to make for a better story anyway. In fact, I'd be more likely to let them succeed just using RP, than if the ogre made his save vs the spell (would really make him angry). However, I can see what you said, and the way you worded it and mechanically, charm person at some tables is going to be the only viable option, or even if negotiations are allowed, is going to have a chance of increasing the effectiveness that only a spell can do. I certainly wouldn't disallow the bard from trying to cast it, and frankly the other PCs probably would be happy to have the assist. Objectively, its another tool, and its a tool that only a caster has even though either method could succeed, albeit once combat started only certain styles of play would afford the group a chance to parley and succeed (unless there are some Su I don't know about that can give you some significant bonus to diplomacy?)

How it can get talked past during some C/MD debates: Sometimes this would get written differently, or perceived to be saying - "only a spell caster could solve this problem". When its written different, or perceived different the response is more likely to be. Ssalarn is crazy...there are rules explicitly saying I can try Diplomacy with my fighter/rogue/barbarian (really anyone w/o charm person I guess). So the debate rages because the person trying to explain their view of CMD didn't demonstrate how it would be done at their table without magic, and then how it would be done additionally (choice, not can/cant) with magic.

Not playing tonight, may as well try to help bridge the gap on explaining.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
GM 1990 wrote:
wraithstrike wrote:

No. It wasn't exactly 4 fighters.

IIRC fighter rogue slayer, and monk(?).
When we just needed hit point damage things were fine. Overcoming difficult terrain and status effects, along with other problems weapons can't solve was not fun.
Lack of out of combat healing and emergency in combat healing bcuz crits also was an issue.
CLW wands only go so far.

..sounds like a suicide mission.

We're doing RotRL and I'm nervous with our Ranger(archer), Paladin, Ninja, and my Alch1/Wiz+ (Conj) combo. I would have gone cleric, but was advised there are so many cool arcane drops it would be a downer if no-body could use them. However, we're going to be leaning -very- heavy on Paladin, I'm nervous.

I will say, my story on magic doing something a martial couldn't (and we all had fun, so it isn't like I ruined the game). We just cleared the thicket area of Thistletop and were worried about getting ambushed while crossing the rope-bridge, so I used my bonded item slot to cast silent image on the far side....a silent image of our side and the rope-bridge. Basically functioning as a curtain to obscure our movement so myself, Ninja, Paladin could get across the 60' span unseen and launch our attack with the Ranger providing fire-support. Running the gauntlet across that span would have been rough IMO with 4 martials. It just is what it is, magic let me do that (subject to GM approval, but he said he was wondering how long it would take for us to figure something like that out).

If is is the normal AP, and you guys optimized decently well you can be ok, assuming you stay with the wizard.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Ssalarn wrote:


I've also had issues where a martial character's lack of tools has led to real table conflict. I can recall a player who'd made a Fighter getting really frustrated because he felt like he never got to do anything (before it comes up, this was a human Fighter with a 16 STR, 14 INT, and 14 CHA built on a 25 point buy, so it wasn't an over-optimizing towards combat thing). He was a younger guy in a group with some older intellectuals and a lady whose favorite in-character pastime was making friends and building networks of contacts and people who owed her favors, so combats were often few and far between. This kid was so frustrated at not being able to participate meaningfully in a lot of the encounters they faced, and he'd get doubly frustrated when the others tried to throw him a bone and "let him" kill something, because he knew that he was ultimately playing a fundamentally different game from everyone else, but he didn't want to have to deal with spell lists, and spell slots, and DCs, and everything else. Now, ultimately we found a way to get him set up with a character who could play the same game everyone else wanted to play, but the initial issue was severe enough that he was kind of hyper-sensitive to the issues of being a non-magical character in a magical world.

I also don't "interfere" much as a GM. I present the world, the issues, and the NPCs, but I try to do as little as possible to directly intervene in the development of the story. I don't fudge dice rolls, I don't spare the party from the consequences of their own bad decisions, and I don't deus ex machina and save important people they want to kill or kill people they want to save. When I'm the GM, I'm the arbiter and narrator of the story the party tells, and the voice of the beings they encounter. Sometimes, party members will die, and they know it. Sometimes there will be challenges where they failed to acquire the tools to deal with it, and things will end poorly. Generally my players respect and appreciate that, and prefer it to "GM cheating" (not my words).

Early on in my gaming career I had some GMs who wanted to tell their story with the party as cast members whose actions often didn't really do much to change any of the actual outcomes, and occasionally they'd just fiat something into not working like the rules said, and I never appreciated that. If the players don't have real agency, I'm just not interested.

I also don't like "ambushing" people with rules changes just because myself or an adventure writer didn't account for the capabilities of characters of a given level, so my houserules are few and available prior to character creation.
I view the rules as a social contract- they define the game we all agreed to play. Changes to that contract should be approved by all participants. Rule 0, to me, is sometimes necessary, but the less you have to use it the better a job you're probably doing.

A lot of this speaks to both table variation, play style, and just general maturity of players and GM as well.

Letting the players try out of the box things is probably one of the hardest things to grow into as a GM. I certainly saw this in action here. I was running my campaign - I'm 46, GM'd several years in college/1E days, and I think when my son started last fall he was thinking it was going to be easy. One of his biggest struggles when he was running a home-brew campaign was how to handle us doing things he hadn't planned for (normally not even magic related, just players wanting to do things he'd not considered). We finally talked it over after a particularly rough night for him (IMO), and as he put it, "I just don't know what to do sometimes with the way you guys approach the situations." That being said, playing for and trying to mentor a 12 yr old "1 game yr" GM has given me better appreciation for what I've kind of took for granted - game experience. He's handling it a lot better now that he's running RotRL for us, (our first AP) but it's also more linear than the sand-box he was trying to run as a first time GM.

Its not easy even for me, my wife asked a few times about how much notes and etc I kept in advance. I told her - almost none. I try to prep the encounters that I figure you'll go towards, but basically every session you guys do something I never saw coming, so its easier to just roll with it. I have the main plot arc in the back-ground, I think about what the antagonist organization is doing in response to your actions/inaction and be ready for the next session in 2 weeks.

Its a weird irony, I feel like the less I write-down, the more likely I am to let the players solve things they way they want. There's a balance, you need to be organized to a degree to GM a good session, but I believe as you said in another post - good luck trying to know what your players are going to do -any session-.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
wraithstrike wrote:


If is is the normal AP, and you guys optimized decently well you can be ok, assuming you stay with the wizard.

Its the Anniversary Edition - is that normal?

I wouldn't say "fully" optimized, but using a 4d6 stats, we're pretty high on bonus already at 4th level. I'll lean heavy on summons and conjuration control spells (took focus and augment so far); and with my ASI my INT is now 20 (Human), so I'm comfortable I'll be able to control with some nice high DC Reflex save spells and help with flank buddy summons.

The wife's Paladin has 18CHA, and high Str and just picked up Hero's Defiance(?) and Greater Mercy so I think we'll be ok with LoH, and my CLW infusions for now. Paladins....tough to kill anyway, I'm not worried about her.

Daughter's Ranger has best stats of all, she rolled just ridiculous, right in front of me too. I think her low stat is 12, and now her dex is 20, and a 16 Str Bow with rapid shot next level(5).

Son's ninja is arguably the weak link....and he's TWF, got Mirror Image and a ki-pool...and I'm willing to help him out with PfE or Shield Wand buff to his AC.

Probably just my 1E nervousness of lacking a full healer class.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
GM 1990 wrote:
wraithstrike wrote:


If is is the normal AP, and you guys optimized decently well you can be ok, assuming you stay with the wizard.

Its the Anniversary Edition - is that normal?

I wouldn't say "fully" optimized, but using a 4d6 stats, we're pretty high on bonus already at 4th level. I'll lean heavy on summons and conjuration control spells (took focus and augment so far); and with my ASI my INT is now 20 (Human), so I'm comfortable I'll be able to control with some nice high DC Reflex save spells and help with flank buddy summons.

The wife's Paladin has 18CHA, and high Str and just picked up Hero's Defiance(?) and Greater Mercy so I think we'll be ok with LoH, and my CLW infusions for now. Paladins....tough to kill anyway, I'm not worried about her.

Daughter's Ranger has best stats of all, she rolled just ridiculous, right in front of me too. I think her low stat is 12, and now her dex is 20, and a 16 Str Bow with rapid shot next level(5).

Son's ninja is arguably the weak link....and he's TWF, got Mirror Image and a ki-pool...and I'm willing to help him out with PfE or Shield Wand buff to his AC.

Probably just my 1E nervousness of lacking a full healer class.

By normal I meant no GM modifications to make it more difficult.

edit: In a later chapter(s) there are some hard hitting bad guys so that might be an issue for the ninja.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
wraithstrike wrote:

By normal I meant no GM modifications to make it more difficult.

edit: In a later chapter(s) there are some hard hitting bad guys so that might be an issue for the ninja.

Ah, ok, its the only AP we have so I didn't know if they'd adjusted some in later releases.

Well, my son mod'd 2 encounters.
Max HP on the opening scene goblins, and an early crit on the Paladin had us in serious risk of TPK. And for some reason...he thought a -dire boar- would be cool for the boar hunt with Aldair. Ninja boy was gored to below 0 in one shot, Ranger near 0 on round 2, some lucky round 3 rolls on our part ended it. (we're using the 5E death saves, not normal PF rule).

I think that's made him nervous about tinkering, but we've pretty well steam-rolled everything since including everything on Thistletop so far, so I'm advising him he could probably get away with max HPs now, that opening combat was just a bad-luck crit, and poor rolls on our part.

Ninja boy is going to suffer like all rogues I fear...stealth and overconfidence are dangerous mix when you're in light armor and d8 HP. Have seen it in his play style already....but I admire it :-).


Ssalarn wrote:
Paradozen wrote:
I think its worth mentioning that there should be some caster/martial disparity. It shouldn't be as drastic as it is, but for magic to be truly fantastic it has to be able to cover more than nonmagic. Now, PF has a huge one, where the two ends of the spectrum are "can build towers on the sun only 3/4 through training" and "can hit hard with a stick and move 5ft all in 6 seconds at the pinnacle of my career" but if you remove these you are mostly left with balanced classes. 6/9 and 4/9 casters can do much of what 9/9 casters can in combat, and have plenty (if less) downtime power too.

I think that there are some things that should be the purview of magic, but in a fantasy role playing game, I believe it should be the characters who are fantastic, and whether their preferred method of being fantastic is swinging a sword or controlling the elements, one shouldn't be more fantastic than the other. Fantastic.

I would say that in previous editions of the game, class imbalances were more "acceptable", because there was niche protection and other progression controls. It didn't matter that wizards were more powerful at higher levels or that rogues were generally terrible in combat, because each class needed the others. Pathfinder has stepped beyond that though; you don't need a particular class, or even a particular role, so fundamental design imbalances in classes doesn't make sense, even to the degree it once did.

Perhaps I should restate (or clarify):

I think some things should be exclusively held for magic. Not much mind you, not nearly as much as there is, but to me magic should be a bit more impactful on a game than its counterparts.

Ideally I would like to see magic implemented in a way that makes it passable in combat and excellent outside of it. Make it so blasts and debuffs aren't inherently stronger than melee attacks and combat maneuvers. This requires nerfing some combat spells (especially CC spells that affect huge areas) and buffing up combat maneuvers. Similarly, most utility spells wouldn't work in combat (longer casting times for things like levitate, dimension door, and various illusions) so that they aren't dominating combats by making wizards untouchable. Mix in some class features for gish classes like magus and bloodrager to be able to cast defensive buffs faster and it would be good to go.

On the other side of things, melee characters should be able to do much more than now. Increase mobility, make combat maneuvers awesome without spending feats and better with them, add in things that let melee characters become AoE's (getting many melee attacks against many foes) and then take skills and make them relevant at high levels. Make it possible to jump incredibly high and run for days, hold your breath for hours and sleep off incredible wounds. Of course, having flight, healing, water breathing, and teleport would have advantages, but the two would be on the same playing field.

The result of the above changes would be a vastly different system I realize, but magic would be more versatile while melee is more powerful. Melee characters would take over with crowd control while magic users would add a bit of damage and then step in and bypass problems with terrain or skills.

What I meant by fantastic wasn't "good" but "the stuff of fantasy/fables". I didn't do a good job of showing that though, so hopefully this clears things up.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Make sure you realize the monster that hits for 1d4 +10 wisfom drain no save is supposed to be 1d4 + 1.
That was an exciting instant kill for our barbarian.
I know its not a real kill but functionally its the same in combat.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
CWheezy wrote:

Make sure you realize the monster that hits for 1d4 +10 wisfom drain no save is supposed to be 1d4 + 1.

That was an exciting instant kill for our barbarian.
I know its not a real kill but functionally its the same in combat.

Is that a typo somewhere in RotRL? if so I'll have him check it out tomorrow and fix it before I forget.

1d4+10 That Rabbit is dynamite!


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Yeah in hook mountain massacre near the end.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Wraithstrike wrote:
As an example I have heard well written stories of how a monk or rogue did an awesome thing, but when I started to ask questions that let me know how it played out mechanically it shows that certain rules were broken.

For the record it was established in the other post that diving into water was part of the prd rule set and not 3pp on the pfsrd.

...

Rise of the Runelords is one adventure I've never played or read but would love to, yet at least two people in each the groups I play with have. Grrr.


The Sword wrote:
Wraithstrike wrote:
As an example I have heard well written stories of how a monk or rogue did an awesome thing, but when I started to ask questions that let me know how it played out mechanically it shows that certain rules were broken.

For the record it was established in the other post that diving into water was part of the prd rule set and not 3pp on the pfsrd.

...

Rise of the Runelords is one adventure I've never played or read but would love to, yet at least two people in each the groups I play with have. Grrr.

Did you quote the wrong post or something? What Wraith posted and what you posted barely relate at all.

351 to 400 of 555 << first < prev | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | next > last >>
Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / General Discussion / Pseudostatistical analysis of martial-caster disparity All Messageboards